Gomphothere's Zoo Design Thread

Gomphothere said:
As of right now, am working on Madagascar, the Comoros, the Seychelles (including Aldabra) and the Mascarenes (including Mauritius, Reunion and Rodrigues) all together. The list of recently extinct and critically endangered animals is shocking. It's like a Holocaust underway.
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That is so sad :( It always makes me very upset when I hear about bad things happening to nature
 
Are you going to be doing insects? I was wondering because you missed Arctic woolly bear moths. Also, what sources do you use for species?
 
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My background is in vertebrate zoology (although not fish) so am uncomfortable with too much detail for fish or invertebrates. Plus, the underlying concept is zoogeographical and I haven't found any good listing of marine fish or invertebrates by ecoregion. For the species lists, I start with worldspecies.org's listing for each ecoregion for the four higher classes of vertebrates. I supplement that with wikipedia (for example, "Mammals of _____ [nation or state or province]). Also, Birdsoftheworld, reptile-database, amphibiaweb and fishbase all provide the ability to search by country (and for birds and reptiles even down to state or province), so I use those, too, using range and habitat information to sort them by ecoregion. The fishbase search can be used for freshwater fish but there's no way to search for marine fish by ecoregion or geographic area. For mammals, governments sometimes provide lists, such as the State of Alaska and both Argentina and Chile, and I can use those along with range and habitat information to decide on ecoregion assignment.

I have done sea birds in all the exhibit areas so far and other aquatic wildlife in several of the areas so far, including the Holarctic Arctic (belugas and seals), Antarctica (penguins, seals, dolphins and porpoises), Galapagos (dolphins, seals, sea lions and marine iguanas), Temperate South America (seals, sea lions, dolphins, marine otters and a lot of waterfowl), and Alaska Coast and Islands (sea otters and seals) with minimal detail as to fish or invertebrates, however. I was able to find pretty good information about the fish and bigger invertebrates in the marine ecoregions around Alaska, and the Palearctic Tundra exhibit was the first time I tired tackling fresh water fish to any great extent.

The master plan, if you go back and look at that, includes a long list of aquaria. The concept is that the aquaria would include not only fish and aquatic invertebrates but also sea birds and pinnipeds (as you can see with the Temperate South America Aquarium). That's why the Nearctic and Palearctic Tundra don't have any pinnipeds because they would be displayed either in the Holarctic Arctic (two species of seal) or at the North Pacific or North Atlantic Aquaria.
 
Cool, what about fresh water species? Also, if you find some significant invertebrates you could put them in. Also, you could just say “a group of terrariums with assorted insects”
 
Bengal Tiger said:
Cool, what about fresh water species? Also, if you find some significant invertebrates you could put them in. Also, you could just say “a group of terrariums with assorted insects”
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That's basically what I do now--just set aside a small area that would hold a bunch of terrariums and label it: "Invertebrates of __".
 
At this point, I'm still working on the definitive list of species to exhibit. Mammals aren't hard to decide. Except for some of the bats, everything is endemic, so if it's found there it's going to be displayed. Lemurs, by the way, have to be as a group the cutest dang family from any of the orders of mammals. Birds are much harder to decide--I've already discarded those that merely winter or occasionally visit there, but there are a bunch of species that breed in Madagascar and/or the surrounding islands but have the bulk of their range/distribution elsewhere, so I have to decide whether to leave them out as insignificant to Madagascar's zoogeography and better belonging elsewhere or to include them since they are nonetheless a significant part of the Madagascar fauna. Reptiles are much like mammals--almost all endemic except a few turtles and some introduced species of snakes and lizards, but I want to be completely current since new species are described almost monthly. Amphibians present that same issue, although all are endemic. I've also begun sorting some of the species by ecoregion and habitat to get some idea of how to arrange displaying them.

All this is going to take some time-- there are over 1300 species from these four classes to consider. Also, this section is going to have a list of recently (since humans arrived on the islands) extinct species that may reach 100, and the list of critically endangered, never mind endangered, vulnerable or near threatened, is staggering (and depressing). In many genera, all or almost all the species have one of these IUCN designations. It's tragic.
 
Gomphothere said:
At this point, I'm still working on the definitive list of species to exhibit. Mammals aren't hard to decide. Except for some of the bats, everything is endemic, so if it's found there it's going to be displayed. Lemurs, by the way, have to be as a group the cutest dang family from any of the orders of mammals. Birds are much harder to decide--I've already discarded those that merely winter or occasionally visit there, but there are a bunch of species that breed in Madagascar and/or the surrounding islands but have the bulk of their range/distribution elsewhere, so I have to decide whether to leave them out as insignificant to Madagascar's zoogeography and better belonging elsewhere or to include them since they are nonetheless a significant part of the Madagascar fauna. Reptiles are much like mammals--almost all endemic except a few turtles and some introduced species of snakes and lizards, but I want to be completely current since new species are described almost monthly. Amphibians present that same issue, although all are endemic. I've also begun sorting some of the species by ecoregion and habitat to get some idea of how to arrange displaying them.

All this is going to take some time-- there are over 1300 species from these four classes to consider. Also, this section is going to have a list of recently (since humans arrived on the islands) extinct species that may reach 100, and the list of critically endangered, never mind endangered, vulnerable or near threatened, is staggering (and depressing). In many genera, all or almost all the species have one of these IUCN designations. It's tragic.
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Wow :eek: that is a whole lotta work!!! Sad to see the other plight of all of these species :( :mad: Also, this thread is 6 years old (there was a four year hiatus, but still)
 
Apologies if I am making a pest of myself, but is was wondering about a couple of things. Firstly, what sections of the zoo would have animals from the Sierra Nevada, Great Plains, and Norwegian Fjords? Also, where will species such as desert crocodiles, Morelet’s crocodiles, Kamchatka bears, East Siberian brown bears, Lake Titicaca frogs, Lake Titicaca grebes, Andean flickers, and Andean condors be exhibited? Also, wheee would cave-dwelling and subterranean species be housed?
 
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