@ThylacineAlive Of course absolutely nothing of the Groves splits are acceptable for me, I already have the Kirk's dik-dik and the gemsbock. Of course also any new species is wished and welcome for me, but I already have photos of taxidermy specimens of Kob and Slender-horned gazelle, and tough not the same than alive specimens, for me is enough for cover the gap and made the species factsheet. Grant's gazelle would be the only new species for me of the ones you mentioned in that post, and I like it but it's just one more Gazella species and I already have various species of the genus. It's just a question of personal taste: Giant eland is the only very wished here, followed by steenbock and after springbok, the remaining one can be good for photograph when they're true new species for me, but not enough for make a trip from a distant location if transport is not easy.
@Kakapo@ThylacineAlive , There are Beisa oryx in Europe which are generally treated as a different subspecies than Fringe-eared oryx (and as discussed earlier a clearly separate species from the Gemsbok). Cavendish' dikdik is however a good species, as hybrids with Kirk's dikdik are non fertile as chromosome numbers differ...
That said Giant eland is one of the top-5 zoo animals that I would want to see as well...
@lintworm I've seen my namesake obviously. As well as platypus, long-beaked echidna and Sumatran Rhino.
Panay cloud rat is a nemesis for me too!! My first chance to see them was in London in 2009, but the part of the nocturnal house with their exhibit was under construction.Then I tried everything to see them in Los Angeles in 2011, even meeting with the PR director who was also a big zoo nerd. But unfortunately the nocturnal species was kept in a diurnal exhibit and would only come out of their nest box overnight (the zoo wasn't too keen on me returning at midnight haha). Plzen, Prague, and Jihlava all have them now, but I visited in 2010 before they did (I think Plzen got them that same year!) And while Avilon zoo had many a treat, including 2 other species of cloud rat, alas no Panays.
I think LA has moved on from them, anyone know if they're in any other American zoos currently?
@Kakapo Grant's Gazelle is not a Gazella species, it's Nanger. And as I said the split I mentioned were outside of Groves. While @lintworm's thread is showing that most of Groves' split are often more or loss baseless, there are still some I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss all of them..
@lintworm, I'm surprised you haven't seen the cloud rat or rhino! I was lucky enough to see the last two Sumatran Rhinoceros at Cincinnati and obviously the eland. As for the cloud rat, I missed them on my visit to London on the very first day of my UK trip. I was able to pop back in for a revisit on my last day three weeks later, only to find they'd gone off-exhibit during that time. However, I was lucky enough to have bothered the right keeper about seeing them and I was taken back to get a peek into their nest box- that being the photo that was my last avatar for a while. I bet my American accent and the fact that I had all my luggage on me helped my case
@Giant Eland, LA sent all their rats to Jihlava and I was never able to see them there either.
@ThylacineAlive I have never been to the US, nor to Asia, so Sumatran rhino have been out of the question... Panay cloud rats seem to be off-show every time I visit a zoo with them, be it Plzen, Prague or London....
