Tuatara Released

[Kifaru Bwana]

I tend to find that a lot of people can't even see a tuatara when it is sitting in plain view out in the open. It's really bizarre.

Must admit that most people pass over their exhibits over here after a few secs with scanning and mumbling something "..... asleep ..." or something!

That experience is however down to the very few collections (in Europe to this day it is just Berlin Zoo and Chester unfortunately) outside their home nation Aotearoa where the species is more or less kept at most conventional zoos (just to give the visiting public the notion how unique these lizards are in the world and not just New Zealand!

 

[DavidBrown]

Only amongst zoonerds like us! To the general population it's just another lizard. One that people don't want to spend time searching an exhibit for.

And Chlidonias: koalas also move when being fed (if they're awake).



Hix

Tuataras need better marketing.

Instead of just putting them in a standard lizard exhibit and saying "it's an endangered lizardish thing" zoos should promote them as "three eyed wonders of nature that cavorted with the dinosaurs".

If they got into a fight who would win, a tuatara or a koala? Is it possible that a tuatara might eat or at least seriously nibble a koala? Could an angry koala dismember a tuatara?

 

[zooboy28]

Tuataras need better marketing.

Instead of just putting them in a standard lizard exhibit and saying "it's an endangered lizardish thing" zoos should promote them as "three eyed wonders of nature that cavorted with the dinosaurs"

Notify SEA LIFE's "Centre for Ridiculous Theming", I'm sure they can come up with an "Ancient Wonders: The Last Dinosaur" exhibit, which is essentially a golden brick-walled, golden sand-floored enclosure for a tuatara, set among pyramids, statues of Egyptian deities, and a Sphenodont version of the Sphinx.

 

[DavidBrown]

Notify SEA LIFE's "Centre for Ridiculous Theming", I'm sure they can come up with an "Ancient Wonders: The Last Dinosaur" exhibit, which is essentially a golden brick-walled, golden sand-floored enclosure for a tuatara, set among pyramids, statues of Egyptian deities, and a Sphenodont version of the Sphinx.

I like it. Especially the bit about the "Sphenx" (Spehnodont meets Sphinx).

 

[Kifaru Bwana]

Tuataras need better marketing.

Instead of just putting them in a standard lizard exhibit and saying "it's an endangered lizardish thing" zoos should promote them as "three eyed wonders of nature that cavorted with the dinosaurs".

That is exactly the kind of theming being used at Chester Zoo!