Misidentified Animals

During a visit to Ngā Manu last year, a visitor was watching the kākāriki and I heard that visitor thinking aloud to their friends; "Are those the same kind of parrots as we have in London?". There weren't any staff around at the time, so I don't know whether that visitor got an answer.

As for zoo visitor talk of the opposite nature, last year when I was at Brooklands Zoo I overheard a parent explaining to their kid that a sheltopusik is, "A lizard that looks like a snake that looks like a lizard". :D
 
I was at a zoo the other day watching a red panda ambling around its enclosure, when a family came along. The father looked at the panda and said 'Hey, it's a slow monkey.' and they walked off.
 
when ever i sit at my local zoo and sketch the lions i hear atleast one adult telling the kids 'look at the tigers!'
 
Cassidy Casuar said:
During a visit to Ngā Manu last year, a visitor was watching the kākāriki and I heard that visitor thinking aloud to their friends; "Are those the same kind of parrots as we have in London?". There weren't any staff around at the time, so I don't know whether that visitor got an answer
Click to expand...
Not sure if you're aware, but London has a very large feral parakeet population. Obviously not the same thing, but to the general member of the public it's too too hard to confuse the two
 
From my visit to Akron a few weeks ago -

[For context, their Jaguar and Patagonian Mara exhibit are next to each other and you can see into both from each other, since the exhibit is supposed to give a predator/prey dynamic]

Little girl - "Look mom, it's a Kangaroo!"

Mom - "Oh no, honey, it's a ... (reads sign which has a photo of the Mara)...Patagonian Mara"

Girl - "Oh, what's that?"

Mom - (Points at Jaguar, which is visible) "I think that's it sleeping up there"
 
Once had a visitor ask why we had a brown bear in the polar bear exhibit - spoiler alert, it was not a brown bear. It was a polar bear who had just finished rolling around in the mud and dirt
 
Kitt said:
Once had a visitor ask why we had a brown bear in the polar bear exhibit - spoiler alert, it was not a brown bear. It was a polar bear who had just finished rolling around in the mud and dirt
Click to expand...
On a technicality, some brown bears are more closely related to polar bears than they are to other forms of brown bear
 
Dassie rat said:
On a technicality, some brown bears are more closely related to polar bears than they are to other forms of brown bear
Click to expand...
Osedax said:
Really? Which ones?
Click to expand...
See the link below

ABC Islands bear - Wikipedia

which includes the following:

This brown bear retains all of the physical attributes and behavior associated with the brown bear, however, they do carry mitochondrial DNA that shows a match closer to polar bears than brown bears
 
Yes, it's fascinating stuff! Polar bears have actually been recently documented breeding with grizzly bears. They previously tended not to interact much in the wild because their habitat ranges were separate, but grizzlies have been pushing north and thus they are interacting. Breeding between the species is still rare, but it has resulted in some documented hybrids.

The resulting hybrids are called Pizzly bears/Grolar bears!
Golar-Bear.jpg
 
While at the museum of science (Boston), I heard a lot of incorrect information
  • A caecilian being called a dead snake
  • A tortoise being called a tamarin because the signage wasn’t “obvious”
  • Brazilian porcupines being called large hedgehogs
  • Indonesian blue-tongued skunks and sheltopusik being called snakes with legs
The thing is, I saw many people reading the signage yet saying that it’s incorrect
 
On my most recent visit to Toledo, I heard visitors call a takin both “bison” and “wildebeest” and a cinereous vulture an eagle. While all of the above are cringe-worthy, at least bison and wildebeest are all things considered close relatives of takin, as cinereous vultures are to eagles.

The same doesn’t apply, though, to a red-breasted goose that I heard a dad tell his kid was a puffin…
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top