Greenville Zoo Greenville Zoo Species List - Nov 2021

[Coelacanth18]

Each line indicates one enclosure, unless preceded by a colon (in which case separate enclosures are indicated by / ). Species that were off-exhibit are in italics. Unsigned species are preceded by an (unsigned).

Visited November 2021
Link for Review: Slender Lorises, Duct Tape, and Whataburger: A Fish on Dry Land

South American Pampas
Greater Rhea, Giant Anteater

Primate Enclosures
Colombian Black Spider Monkey
Schmidt’s Red-tailed Monkey
Angolan Colobus
Black-and-white Ruffed Lemur

South American Cages
Harris’s Hawk
Ocelot
South American Aviary (5 species): Northern Helmeted Curassow, Venezuelan Troupial, Sun Conure, Plush-crested Jay, White-faced Whistling Duck

Wetlands
Chilean Flamingo, Southern Screamer, Black Swan, (unsigned) Hooded Merganser (listed on website as well as seen)
American Alligator, Alligator Snapping Turtle

Farm Area
Barred Owl
Domestic goats, ducks, pigs and chickens

Asia
Eurasian Eagle-owl
Red Panda (temporarily holding Ocelot)
Amur Leopard
Siamang
Sumatran Orangutan (signed as Bornean)

Africa
Masai Giraffe
Lion
Aldabra Giant Tortoise
Ruppell’s Griffon Vulture, Bat-eared Fox

Ektopia (building) (22 species)
Madagascar Giant Day Gecko, Spider Tortoise
Green Tree Python
Yellow-spotted Amazon River Turtle
Spotted Turtle
Chilean Rosehair Tarantula
Black-breasted Leaf Turtle, Chinese Crocodile Lizard
Ball Python
Rough Green Snake
Golfodulcean Poison Dart Frog
Madagascar Hissing Cockroach
Redclaw Scorpion (Pandinus cavimanus)
Common Blue-tongued Skink
Eastern Box Turtle
Eastern Kingsnake
Prehensile-tailed Skink
Copperhead (Northern ssp), Timber Rattlesnake, Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake
Rhinoceros Iguana
Burmese Python (including albino morph)

Mammals: 13 (1 temporarily off-exhibit)
Birds: 14
Reptiles: 21
Amphibians: 1
Invertebrates: 3

Total Species on Exhibit: 52

 

[snowleopard]

On the zoo's online map, it states this: "over 90 species of animals are a part of the zoo's collection", yet on exhibit there is close to 50% of that total. That was a concern when I was coauthoring my zoo book, as we received the bulk of our information from the zoological facilities, but those totals include off-show animals. Whenever a zoo nerd visits and reviews a zoo or aquarium, quite often the on-show collection is significantly less than what is behind the scenes. Or perhaps some zoos like to exaggerate.

I've never visited Greenville Zoo, which is a facility that managed to hang onto its AZA-accredited status by getting out of the elephant business in 2014. It's a very small zoo, but the Ektopia building looks interesting and the exhibits (while not huge) all appear to be neat and tidy from photos. I like the South American Pampas enclosure.

 

[IndianRhino]

Wow, I had no idea Greenville only had roughly 50 species on exhibit?! I dont know if I'm just used to SDZ and SDZSP but that seems really low... The interesting thing is they do seem to have a good number of the larger and well known (by the general public) animals.

How long did it take you to get through the entire zoo? I'm guessing it wouldn't take over 2 maybe 3 hours.

Sumatran Orangutan (signed as Bornean)

That is kinda lazy of the keepers... the zoo used to have Borneans but switched to Sumatrans a number of years back.

 

[CGSwans]

On the zoo's online map, it states this: "over 90 species of animals are a part of the zoo's collection", yet on exhibit there is close to 50% of that total. That was a concern when I was coauthoring my zoo book, as we received the bulk of our information from the zoological facilities, but those totals include off-show animals. Whenever a zoo nerd visits and reviews a zoo or aquarium, quite often the on-show collection is significantly less than what is behind the scenes. Or perhaps some zoos like to exaggerate.

What terms were the species lists provided on? Were you specifically barred from publishing them?

 

[Coelacanth18]

Wow, I had no idea Greenville only had roughly 50 species on exhibit?! I dont know if I'm just used to SDZ and SDZSP but that seems really low...

Well, if your starting metric is the San Diegos than I'm not surprised you'd find 52 species to be shockingly low it is a small number of species, but not much out of line with a lot of other zoos in the 5-15 acre range. The zoo I'm planning to review and post a list for tomorrow has even less than Greenville, and several of the small places I've visited (mostly in the Midwest and in California) had similar or smaller numbers as well.

How long did it take you to get through the entire zoo? I'm guessing it wouldn't take over 2 maybe 3 hours.

Definitely not I spent maybe 90 minutes or so there, and a lot of that was spent taking numerous photographs for the media gallery and looping back for unseen species. You can see the whole place easily, at a leisurely pace, in about an hour.

Not sure if you've been reading or keeping up with it at all, but I linked my review for Greenville at the top of this thread; it answers a lot of questions about the zoo better than this list does.

 

[snowleopard]

What terms were the species lists provided on? Were you specifically barred from publishing them?

Almost all zoos and aquariums will gladly respond to email requests and getting figures relating to species lists isn't a problem whatsoever. When it came to the book, zoos were happy to reply, especially when I told them that any potential profit was going to be put back into two different conservation projects (Amphibian Ark and Saola Working Group). Publishing species lists is a non-issue as some facilities list the number of species right on their websites.

What I find interesting, is that when I see someone like @Coelacanth18 visit a whole bunch of zoos on a big trip, and take detailed lists of species, then in every case the number that he sees during his day out is usually 50% less then the number quoted by the zoo. In the back of my book is a page with all 100 zoos and aquariums and their number of species, but I bet that in every single instance the actual number of species on-show is much lower. Fascinating.