British Isles Cup Redux - League B - ZSL (London/Whipsnade) vs Colchester

[TeaLovingDave]

This, I think, may well shape up to be a pretty interesting one - both collections still have much to prove and much to lose, with wins and losses for each, and the category is one which I suspect is ripe for a fair amount of debate and discussion - MISCELLANEOUS MAMMALS.

Make your choice, argue your position and vote how you will!

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

I voted ZSL because between Whipsnade and London zoo they have a greater range and diversity of mammals.

If we look in terms of what has been kept historically at the London Zoo then there really is no contest (true, it is a bit unfair as Colchester apparently was founded in the 60's whereas ZSL has been around since the end of the Napoleonic wars). It has had almost every kind of mammal both large and small, common and rare, extinct and extant at one point or another.

In terms of conservation output ZSL also has the excellent EDGE species program which I greatly admire that works in-situ with all kinds of micellaneous and typically conservation neglected mammals globally. Species such as the Panamanian pygmy sloth, the Hispaniolan solenodon, the Sunda pangolin, the New Zealand short tailed bat, Gilbert's potoroo of Australia and the Volcano rabbit of Mexico all benefit from the EDGE program.

My favourite micellaneous mammal species kept at ZSL would have to be their Malagasy giant jumping rats.

 

[TeaLovingDave]

I voted ZSL because between Whipsnade and London zoo they have a greater range and diversity of mammals from across taxonomic orders : Primates, Euplerids, Edentata / Xenartha, Ursids, Suids, Bovids, Felids, Canids, Pinnipeds, Marsupials, etc.

That isn't a relevant or valid consideration as far as this category goes - of the groups you cite only Xenarthra and Marsupialia fall into this category.

Species such as the Panamanian pygmy sloth, the Hispaniolan solenodon, the Indri of Madagascar, the Sunda pangolin, the New Zealand short tailed bat and the Volcano rabbit of Mexico all benefit from the EDGE program.

Barring the Indri, these species *are* valid considerations however.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

That isn't a relevant or valid consideration as far as this category goes - of the groups you cite only Xenarthra and Marsupialia fall into this category.



Barring the Indri, these species *are* valid considerations however.

So what comes under the category of micellaneous mammals ?

 

[TeaLovingDave]

So what comes under the category of micellaneous mammals ?

Anything not covered by one of the other mammal categories - so in other words, any mammal which isn't Carnivore, Primate or Hoofstock.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

Anything not covered by one of the other mammal categories - so in other words, any mammal which isn't Carnivore, Primate or Hoofstock.

Got it, well, even so I would still vote ZSL.

Chiroptera: Rodrigues fruitbat, Seba's short tailed bat. (Colchester apparently keeps 0 bats)

Rodentia: Malagasy giant jumping rat, Australian water rat, brown rat, beaver rat, naked mole rat, cape porcupine, Patagonian mara, guinea pig. (Colchester apparently keeps 0 rodents)

Marsupialia: Goodfellow's tree kangaroo, red necked wallaby. (Colchester has only 1 species)

Procaviidae: Rock hyrax. (0 hyrax kept at Colchester)

Sciuridae: Swinhoe's striped squirrel, prarie dog. (Colchester apparently has 0 squirrels)

Orycteropodidae: Aardvark.

Xenartha: Giant anteater, Southern tamandua, Linne's two toed sloth, large hairy armadillo. (Colchester lacks an armadillo to complete the Xenartha)

Macroscelides: Short eared elephant shrew. (0 elephant shrews at Colchester)

Tenrecidae: Lesser hedgehog tenrec. (0 tenrecs kept at Colchester)


All of these plus the EDGE species program / conservation output that I mentioned above put ZSL miles ahead of Colchester IMO.

 

[pipaluk]

Got it, well, even so I would still vote ZSL.

Chiroptera: Rodrigues fruitbat, Seba's short tailed bat. (Colchester apparently keeps 0 bats)

Rodentia: Malagasy giant jumping rat, Australian water rat, brown rat, beaver rat, naked mole rat, cape porcupine, Patagonian mara, guinea pig. (Colchester apparently keeps 0 rodents)

Marsupialia: Goodfellow's tree kangaroo, red necked wallaby. (Colchester has only 1 species)

Procaviidae: Rock hyrax. (0 hyrax kept at Colchester)

Sciuridae: Swinhoe's striped squirrel, prarie dog. (Colchester apparently has 0 squirrels)

Orycteropodidae: Aardvark.

Xenartha: Giant anteater, Southern tamandua, Linne's two toed sloth, large hairy armadillo. (Colchester lacks an armadillo to complete the Xenartha)

Macroscelides: Short eared elephant shrew. (0 elephant shrews at Colchester)

Tenrecidae: Lesser hedgehog tenrec. (0 tenrecs kept at Colchester)


All of these plus the EDGE species program / conservation output that I mentioned above put ZSL miles ahead of Colchester IMO.

Several of these are wrong for both ZSL and Colchester.
For a start Colchester has a lot of hyrax in 3 different locations, whilst ZSL I believe still hold them in the now closed Casson Elephant pavilion.
ZSL no longer hold Aardvark or Giant Anteater as far as I know whilst Colchester hold both and an Armadillo recently arrived. I would not personally count the tree kangaroo either since it is a loan individual held for around 5 years which only went on show for a week!More of a reason to mark ZSL down than give credit for holding it.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

Several of these are wrong for both ZSL and Colchester.
For a start Colchester has a lot of hyrax in 3 different locations, whilst ZSL I believe still hold them in the now closed Casson Elephant pavilion.
ZSL no longer hold Aardvark or Giant Anteater as far as I know whilst Colchester hold both and an Armadillo recently arrived. I would not personally count the tree kangaroo either since it is a loan individual held for around 5 years which only went on show for a week!More of a reason to mark ZSL down than give credit for holding it.

I thought that we were still permitted to include former holdings and as the giant anteater and aardvark were fairly recent holdings I would personally still include them (the fire with the poor aardvark admittedly is quite ugly though).

Even so if we are looking at "micellaneous mammals" we might consider that rodents and bats comprise among the largest groups of mammals with the former being the largest group and the latter being the second largest group.

ZSL hold both rodents and bats and some species of conservation concern to boot ( Rodrigues fruit bat - Endangered, Malagasy giant jumping rat- Endangered).