I had always assumed that the West Midlands animal, being a bit of an anomaly, was the hand-reared animal born at Bristol the previous year (Kintana). Can anyone confirm this? I think all the UK animals originate from Jersey apart from the pair at Edinburgh which are on loan from Paris zoo, and either originate from duke university stock or from the same expedition that durrel caught his founder stock on. All the Jersey animals and their various offspring in other zoos are owned by the Malagasy government.
The outside roundhouse cage was derelict until the early 00's when a pair of red ruffed lemurs were held here. They were very inactive and looked pretty solemn, as this species can do, and for that reason I guess ZSL brought ring-tailed lemurs back to the collection after a fairly long absence, knowing they would make a more active and therefore far better exhibit in what is a very unforgiving structure to try and display animals in. New or surplus males were held in the current mangabey cage on the sobell last year, alternating with the two female diana monkeys at the time, but this was a temporary measure and they do not form a part of the gorilla kingdom exhibit normally.
