Hope to be visiting this weekend and was wondering what species are special to Bristol and what I should look out for.
First things first, make sure you enter the Twilight Realm - best time to visit this area is as soon as the zoo opens, as the lights will still be switched on for roughly a half-hour giving the best opportunity to see the taxa within. Among quite a few damn nice taxa, the must-see are:
Kowari (only ones in the UK)
Eastern Quoll (only ones in the UK)
Aye-Aye (only ones on-display in the UK)
New Guinea Ground Cuscus
Other must-see taxa at Bristol include:
Agile Gibbon
Sclater's Lemur
Drill
Canadian Otter
Crowned Lemur
European Souslik (only ones in the UK)
Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby (only ones in the UK)
I also
strongly suggest you visit the reptile house and invert house, as both are extremely good - the former is probably the joint-best in the UK with the one at ZSL London, and is certainly more speciose. The latter is *better* than the one at ZSL London and is undoubtedly the best in the UK. I have always got one or two lifeticks within these houses each time I visit Bristol.
(on that point why don't we have a map gallery so people can upload maps new and old)
Copyright reasons, basically - although every so often someone does upload an image of a zoo map, so it's more of a "we can't have it happening constantly in case the site gets in trouble" issue rather than a hard and fast rule.