Rarest animal(s) at your local zoo

TeaLovingDave said:
Highly unlikely, as the subspecies is believed extinct - although naturally it would be very good if one has popped up unnoticed!

I suspect either a mislabelled nominate animal, or a mislabelled Sunda Leopard Cat - there was, in fact, a case of an individual of the latter taxon being mislabelled as Javan Fishing Cat a few years ago at a private collection visited by Joel Sartore, so this may well be the source of the animal in question.
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This was the "Javan" fishing cat named Vivi that I able to photograph in Gembira Loka. Even if it was not the local subspecies, this is still the species by the look of it.
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This is another picture of Vivi from the zoo's website. (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...r4kDegQIEhAA&usg=AOvVaw2F2Sc5Nf72c5hztlmdbGyK)
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The zoo atleast has this one individual for a while now since 2010's. I have yet to find any story from Vivi atleast in the internet, sadly. A lot of zoo's collection here in Indonesia, especially natives, are acquired through confiscation by authority, donation from private collectors, or were rescued (I.e conflict with villagers, caught in a trap, etc.). This is a case that happened with the zoo's Sumatran clouded leopard, which was donated by its previous keeper after fear of arrest by authority.

This might still be the case with Vivi if there are still any fishing cat left in Java. In a similar case, an suspected chitala lopis was donated to Dunia Air Tawar in Jakarta after being caught in a river in West Java. The discovery lead to interests by the aquarium. While further research are said to still be underway, the fact that it was wild-caught in a Javanese river is promosing (Even then that doesn't considering if there's no non-native chitala hypeselonotus being released in that river).
 

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Yeah, that's definitely a fishing cat - but given the fact the last wild sighting of the subspecies was in the 1980s, and the last wild record of any sort (despite repeated searches and camera trap surveys) was the discovery of footprints over 30 years ago, I strongly suspect that this animal will have been obtained from the mainland at some point.
 
Fota Wildlife Park has agile gibbons, François' langurs, roloways, drills and grey-cheeked mangabeys.
 
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At the St. Louis Zoo, the rarest species on on exhibit, it the Guatemalan jumping viper. The Saint Louis Zoo is the only zoo in the United States to have this species. Up until recently, the St. Louis Zoo had another species that they were the only US zoo to hold (or at least exhibit to the general public) in the horned guan. However, we now know that they are no longer at the facility.
 
San Antonio Zoo: American Mink, Fishing Cat, Yellow-Footed Rock Wallaby, Northern Tree Shrew, Bush Dog, Greater Vasa Parrot, Black-Headed Bushmaster, Laotian Warty Newt, Andean Tinamou, Blue Collared Kingfisher, Racket-Tailed Roller, Micronesian Kingfisher, Green Oropendola, Great Curassow, Red Bird-of-Paradise, Black-Spotted Barbet, Guianan Toucanet, Panamanian White-Throated Capuchin, Wolf's Guenon, Psychedelic Rock Gecko, Indian Flapshell Turtle, Southern Alligator Lizard, Slender Glass Lizard, Mexican Knob-Scaled Lizard, Solomon Island Spiny Monitor, Black-Tailed Ratsnake, Caucasian Viper, Dinnik's Viper, Ethiopian Mountain Adder, Habu, Karaganda Pit-Viper...

and a whole host of other rare birds and herps that this list would honestly start to get unreasonably long...
 
Brandywine Zoo: crowned lemur, I'd say caracal in terms of AZA facilities/places in proximity.
Philadelphia Zoo: Travancore tortoise (off display for indeterminate amount of time), I'd venture to say some of the spiders in Spiders Alive, and black and rufous elephant shrew. Maybe Coquerel's sifaka?
 
For Marwell off the top of my head I would day.

Rare in the wild - Addax, African Wild Ass, Scimitar Horned Oryx and Przewalkski's Horse.

Rare in zoos - The are the only UK zoo currently holding Arabian Oryx, Beissa Oryx, Lesser Kudu, Dorcas Gazelle and Crocodile Monitors.
 
No idea what the rarest wild species at Colchester Zoo is - probably most likely the butterfly splitfin, although I guess some of the critically endangered species they keep could be rarer in terms of absolute wild population (the Amur leopard, buffy-headed capuchin or radiated tortoise all spring to mind as possibilities).

As for rarest in zoos, Colchester is the only UK zoo to house any of its three hornbill species (wreathed and both Northern and Southern rufous), the Central African rock python and blue duiker. According to Zootierliste, Colchester is the only public holder in Europe of the Ugandan village weaverbird, Ploceus cucullatus bohndorffi, and the only public holder in the world of the Taiwan bitterling, Paratanakia himantegus.
 
cloudedleopard611 said:
At the St. Louis Zoo, the rarest species on on exhibit, it the Guatemalan jumping viper. The Saint Louis Zoo is the only zoo in the United States to have this species. Up until recently, the St. Louis Zoo had another species that they were the only US zoo to hold (or at least exhibit to the general public) in the horned guan. However, we now know that they are no longer at the facility.
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DWA keeps Horned Guan off-exhibit.

StoppableSan said:
Philadelphia Zoo: Travancore tortoise (off display for indeterminate amount of time), I'd venture to say some of the spiders in Spiders Alive, and black and rufous elephant shrew. Maybe Coquerel's sifaka?
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The Travancore Tortoise has been gone for a while now, sent out on breeding loan to somewhere unknown.

~Thylo
 
StoppableSan said:
Brandywine Zoo: crowned lemur, I'd say caracal in terms of AZA facilities/places in proximity.
Philadelphia Zoo: Travancore tortoise (off display for indeterminate amount of time), I'd venture to say some of the spiders in Spiders Alive, and black and rufous elephant shrew. Maybe Coquerel's sifaka?
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Are crowned lemurs rare? I have seen them at at least 3 zoos.
 
Totally forgot I made this thread, probably because I've suppressed every post I made in 2016/2017 from my memory. :p I personally define "rarity" as being a species that's found in five or less holders in the country. Here are some species held at the Chicago collections that meet that criteria:

Brookfield Zoo Chicago

Black and Rufous Sengi (one of four holders in the US)

Crested Capuchin (one of three holders outside of the South America)

Small-spotted Genet (no more than a handful of other AZA holders)

Southern Hairy-nosed Wombat (One of five holders in the US)

White-bellied Pangolin (one of only two holders worldwide, only public exhibitor).

Greater Prairie-Chicken (only public exhibitor in the country, only known holder of the pinnatus subspecies)

Lincoln Park Zoo

Bourke's Parrot (One of five holders in the US)

Green Broadbill (one of three holders worldwide)

Kagu (one of five holders in the US)

Puerto Rican Parrot (only holder outside of Puerto Rico)
 
While these aren't exactly "rare" animals because lots of other zoos on lots of other countries have them, a couple of examples for my nearest zoos are:

Lake District Wildlife Park: one of only three zoos in the UK that keep black wildebeest
South Lakes Safari Zoo: one of only two zoos in the UK that keep honey badgers, and one of only three that keep Canadian lynx. (I definitely wouldn't recommend going here though).
Lakeland Wildlife Oasis: one of only two zoos in the UK that keep Australian lungfish, and one of only three that keep gundi.

(Granted, this info is from Zootierliste and may not be 100% accurate).
 
When the Mountain View Conservation and Breeding Center here in B.C. was still open and operating, it was definitely a hub for seeing rare (both in the wild and in captivity) animals. If memory serves, they specialised in small wild cats and hoofstock, several of which were/are rare within captive collections:
As I wasn't able to track down an exhaustive, publicly available list of species kept by Mountain View, what I've provided here is based on what I could find online and personal recollections from my three visits to the facility. Some other species, like blue crane, fossa, vicuña and white-faced saki are not uncommon in captivity but were/are rare to find in facilities within North America.

Now to jump one town over :)

The diversity of the Greater Vancouver Zoo's collection has, for better or worse, definitely dwindled from what it once was, and so this list will be sort of a mish-mash (and likely far from full). For species rare in captivity as a whole:
And species only rare within North American collections:
(* notes species no longer kept by the zoo)

Also of note, the zoo once had the claim to fame of being the only facility in the world to house a true albino American black bear!
 
ZSL London Zoo:
- Scarlet-chested Sunbird (only ones in captivity)
- Splendid Sunbird (only ones in Europe)
- Lake Oku Clawed Frog (only ones in Europe)
- Small Indian Mongoose (only ones in Europe)
- nominate Southern Tamandua (only ones known to be subspecies-pure in Europe)

Horniman Museum:
- Spotted Headstander (one of just three in Europe)
- Twolined Monocle Bream (one of just five in Europe)

For all the above barring the Scarlet-chested Sunbirds and mongooses, there may be some in private hands. Particularly for the two fish, I am all but certain which there *are* some at private collections. Also for the fish, I had to get information from ZTL about the total number of European holders, although as a regular I can of course confirm that the two species are indeed present.
 
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