Which Zoos have the best Madagascar Exhibits?

Although it is heavily criticised for being all-indoors...

Other than Masoala, which is of course head and shoulders above the rest, there is of course Chester's area, Plzen's Madagascar House and SDZ's exhibit.
 
My Malagasy exhibit visits can be counted with one hand honestly, but the bioparc ones were ok for their size, and kept an ok list of wildlife. Faunia had a smaller inventory but was larger. Honestly aside from that I’m drawing a blank, as I don’t have the best of memory thinking back to Madagascar wildlife facilities.
 
amur leopard said:
Plzen's Madagascar House
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Best... Maybe it comes close for species numbers, but in many ways it is not much more than a cramped attic with stereotypic lemurs... Wroclaw's Madagascar house is much nicer.

But it is Masoala and then nothing for a long long time....
 
amur leopard said:
Although it is heavily criticised for being all-indoors...

Other than Masoala, which is of course head and shoulders above the rest, there is of course Chester's area, Plzen's Madagascar House and SDZ's exhibit.
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It's not all-indoors, just mostly.
 
lintworm said:
Best... Maybe it comes close for species numbers, but in many ways it is not much more than a cramped attic with stereotypic lemurs... Wroclaw's Madagascar house is much nicer.

But it is Masoala and then nothing for a long long time....
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I put it in for some variety, as I'm not sure exactly what kind of 'best' we are talking about. In terms of exhibitry of course it isn't anywhere near the others mentioned though (other than Omaha).
 
I found the house at Omaha to be very underwhelming and honestly it's probably the worst part of the zoo based strictly on exhibit quality. Great collection, but most of the enclosures are glass boxes overloaded with mock rock. The vasa parrot display is one I found to be particularly bad. Otherwise the rest of the building is woefully underwhelming, with the one exception being the aye-aye/bat exhibit which is fantastic. I suppose the outdoor exhibits are fine although they are hardly anything special and that fake baobab tree on the lemur island is still horrendous.

One that has not yet been mentioned is the Madagascar gardens at Cotswold which looks really great. The walkthrough portion has crowned lemur, ring-tailed lemur, and red-bellied lemur, plus sacred ibis, gallinule, Bernier's teal and radiated tortoises. There are also adjacent enclosures for crowned sifaka (or are these still part of the walkthrough?) and greater bamboo lemur. It's appears to be visually stunning and extremely well planted.
 
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Oh how could I forget - Vincennes - probably the best outside of Masoala in Europe. At least of the ones I've heard of. Half of a large greenhouse, with fish tanks, plenty of herp exhibits, free-flying birds and a multitude of excellent outdoor exhibits for a variety of lemur species (as well as fossa, radiated and spider tortoises etc.). Easily up there with the best in the world for the island.
 
amur leopard said:
Oh how could I forget - Vincennes - probably the best outside of Masoala in Europe. At least of the ones I've heard of. Half of a large greenhouse, with fish tanks, plenty of herp exhibits, free-flying birds and a multitude of excellent outdoor exhibits for a variety of lemur species (as well as fossa, radiated and spider tortoises etc.). Easily up there with the best in the world for the island.
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Just to expand on this:
Here is the species list:

Black and white ruffed lemur
Black lemur
Crowned lemur
Crowned sifaka
Fossa
Greater bamboo lemur
Mongoose lemur
Northern bamboo lemur
Red-bellied lemur
Ring-tailed lemur
White-belted black and white ruffed lemur
Lesser vasa parrot
Madagascar crested ibis
Madagascar teal
Red fody
Common spider tortoise
Madagascar day gecko
Madagascar girdled lizard
Malagasy spider tortoise
Malagasy tree boa
Panther chameleon
Radiated tortoise
Baron's mantella
Betsileo Madagascar frog
Golden mantella
Sambava tomato frog
+ a whole load of fish species.

And the exhibits:

Crowned sifaka exhibit

Crowned sifaka exhibit


Ring tailed and Crowed lemur islands

Ring tailed and Crowed lemur islands


Northern bamboo lemur exhibit

Northern bamboo lemur exhibit


Fossa exhibit

Fossa exhibit

  • Media owner amur leopard
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Chameleon exhibit

Chameleon exhibit


Likely the second or third best in the world in this area, which one would almost expect given the city's history of keeping incredibly rare Malagasy species (sportive lemurs, indris etc.).
 
Mulhouse Zoo has an area with quite a few lemurs.

The most varied collection of lemurs I have seen was my first visit to Vincennes. There were representatives of sportive lemurs, sifakas, true lemurs, aye-ayes and dwarf lemurs (including a fork-marked dwarf lemur).
 
Gomphothere said:
What does Vincennes do with the Madagascar animals during the winter?
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Good question, I don't actually know, I'd have to try and find out but pretty sure there were visible indoor quarters for some of the lemurs. The herps and birds are all either in the greenhouse or have on-show indoor areas, so not a problem for them. The lemurs are a different story though...
 
Gomphothere said:
How do they give the bats enough room without making the exhibit so large you can't find the aye-aye?
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It's also fairly narrow, so the aye-ayes are always somewhat close to the glass. There are lots of places for hiding but I saw the aye-ayes active on all four visits throughout multiple times in the day.
 
Cool, thanks. How many ayes-ayes do they have in the exhibit, and what sex ratio if you know?
 
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