![\"The\u00a0"Under](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781122844074.jpeg\")
The\u00a0“Under the Canopy” exhibit will be on display at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History through this fall. Photo by Cristina Janney\/Hays Post<\/p>\nThe\u00a0“Under the Canopy” exhibit will be on display at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History through this fall. Photo by Cristina Janney\/Hays Post<\/p>\n
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post<\/p>\n
The Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays is featuring “Under the Canopy” this summer and fall.<\/p>\n
The traveling exhibit from Little Ray\u2019s Reptile Zoo features live animals from the world\u2019s rainforests. The zoo is a wildlife rescue for exotic animals. Those animals have been used to form multiple traveling educational exhibits.<\/p>\n
Reese Barrick, Sternberg Museum director, said a full-wall mural gives the impression of being immersed in the rain forest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nice thing is that you can almost take a bench and feel you are in an actual rain forest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Most of the museum interpretive displays are in English and Spanish.<\/p>\n
The animals on display include the dumpy tree frogs (That\u2019s not an insult. That\u2019s what they are really called.), crested geckos, a southern banded armadillo, a red-tailed green rat snake and a tarantula.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781123297171.jpeg\")
The red-tailed green rat snake is one of the animals on display at the “Under the Canopy” exhibit at the Sternberg Museum this summer. The snakes are native to Southeast Asia. Their diet is primarily birds, bird eggs, lizards and bats. Photo by Cristina Janney\/Hays Post<\/p>\n
Many creatures in rainforests are threatened or endangered. However, none of the species on display in the exhibit are.<\/p>\n
Barrick said a great deal of habitat destruction has occurred in recent decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things we are starting to see is less destruction and some more replanting and reinvigorating growth in rainforests because of the amount of education that has gone on,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd people understanding how important the rainforest is to the amount of oxygen that is in the air and diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rainforests contain a diversity of animal and plant life found nowhere else in the world, Barrick said. Some substances from these animals and plants are used in medicine and medical research, he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Murals](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781123577633.jpeg\")
Murals on the walls surrounding the exhibit give you the feeling of being immersed in the rainforest, Sternberg Museum Executive Director Reese Barrick said. Photo by Cristina Janney\/Hays Post<\/p>\n
Rainforests are highly interconnected.<\/p>\n
As you go further north, animal species tend to be more generalist, Barrick said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see a fox that can eat this, this and this,\u201d he said. \u201cPlants, they can grow in California. They can grow in Kansas. They can grow in North Carolina.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the rainforest, things become so specific. You have one species of insect that only eats one species of plant, and one type of bird that only eats one species of insect that eats only one type of plant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barrick said, \u201cIf you wipe out a few species, nothing is going to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781123859558.jpeg\")
The destruction of the rainforest has put many species of animals found only in rainforests at risk of extinction, said Sternberg Museum Executive Director Reese Barrick. This giant frog on the wall of the Sternberg is a symbol of that delicate balance. Photo by Cristina Janney\/Hays Post<\/p>\n
Removal of rainforests for cash crops, such as palms for palm oil, leaves small pockets of habitat for animals, such as monkeys.<\/p>\n
Those pockets are not large enough to sustain the animals. They need larger areas or corridors of habitat, Barrick said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are going to go extinct because they can\u2019t expand the population,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cThere is the importance [of rainforests] for the animals and the plants themselves, and then there is the importance for the whole planet.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said rainforests are important for all of humanity to survive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a hugely important biome. Even though we are not living in one, it\u2019s important for us,\u201d Barrick said.<\/p>\n
Some of the species on exhibit come from the South American rainforest, but Washington state also has temperate rainforests, and southeast Asia and Thailand have tropical rainforests.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are all suffering from the same thing. If you go to Southeast Asia, the rainforests are being chopped down, so we have orangutans ready to become extinct, because we are putting up palm trees for palm oil, \u201d Barrick said.<\/p>\n
How to help rainforests<\/p>\n
Barrick said you can help the rainforest by purchasing sustainable products\u2014wood flooring that is sustainably harvested, eco-friendly chocolate, and beauty and food products that do not contain palm oil.<\/p>\n
![\"Sculpture](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781124496255.jpeg\")
Sculpture and accompanying display from Rylie Hazleton, an FHSU student, are on display now at the Sternberg Museum.\u00a0Photo by Cristina Janney\/Hays Post![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781124669303.jpeg\")
A sculpture of an owl by Rylie Hazleton, an FHSU student, is on display now at the Sternberg Museum.\u00a0Photo by Cristina Janney\/Hays Post<\/p>\n![\"Sternberg](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781124887299.jpeg\")
Sternberg Museum’s new virtual reality experience includes three adventures:\u00a0dolphins on the reef, the dinosaur experience or the African migration. Photo by Cristina Janney\/Hays Post<\/p>\n