Best Taxonomic Displays

[JVM]

Many historic zoos once focused on taxonomic display - while the Reptile House remains a fairly common and ubiquitous building, and birds and primates are still often displayed together, other examples like nocturnal, aquatic bird, big cat and small mammal houses (and others) have become less common as zoos have come to focus more and more often on biogeographic exhibits and complexes instead. There is plenty of discourse on zoochat about the pluses and minuses of this change, such as the recent thread The Phylogenetics of Zoo Exhibits: The Reptile House Problem.

My question for this thread though is... what are some of the best taxonomic displays you have seen? Just because these kinds of buildings and complexes are no longer standard does not mean there are not some shining examples out there. I am especially curious about small mammal houses.

For my money, Denver Zoo's Primate Panorama is an incredible complex. While it has lost some rarities in recent years, it still has a large variety of primates along with a few guest animals, with the great apes and aye-aye being the biggest stars. The complex includes two separate buildings as well as several outdoor-only habitats, allowing the animals much more space, guests more viewing opportunities and overall a lot more ground covered, than any single building Primate House. It surprised me mammals grouped by taxa could still make for such a dynamic and immersive experience.

 

[Dassie rat]

I think the best taxonomic display I've seen was when I visited Cologne's Sakai and Uakari House in 1982.

I saw white, red and Neblina uakaris and white-nosed and monk sakis, as well as Uta Hick's bearded or red-backed sakis (I only remember seeing one type of bearded saki). According to, ZTL, Cologne has also kept equatorial, Mittermeier's and black-bearded sakis and black-headed uakaris. It currently has white-faced sakis.

 

[15399]

This comment is a bit of a hot take, and this exhibit does transcend one, strict taxonomic group, but gorilla exhibit aside I actually really liked the Primate, Cat, and Aquatics Building at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. The Primate collection they have is really nice, with a lot of species not commonly found in US Zoos, and many of the species now have access to multiple of the habitats in there- so by keeping less species in there (and smaller species), it ends up holding up fairly well. Sure, not the most naturalistic exhibits, but at least for Primates and the few Carnivores left they're very functional with nice enrichment opportunities. I'm not knowledgeable enough to judge aquatic displays, but they also seemed decent enough.

 

[Jurek7]

Loro Parque - a splendid collection of parrots, mostly in standard one-species aviaries. They even had graphics pointing plumage differences of a particular subspecies. It is likely still a zoo with the biggest number of parrot forms. I saw about 50 parrot forms for the first time. The zoo has killer whales, dolphins, gorillas etc., but it is still much about parrots.

Wroclaw Zoo reptile house - huge, historic building with probably about 200 reptile terraria on two floors. Since many decades, the reptile house continues to be a very popular exhibit. Wroclaw Zoo used to have an additional building dedicated to crocodiles, but it is closed now.

Frankfurt Zoo - its Grzimek House aimed to show a representation of small mammal groups, in fascinating contrasting habitat exhibits. A guidebook from the 1990s openly written that the zoo does not aim to show many species (obvious in a small city zoo) but a representative cross-section of taxonomic groups. Its collection diminishes slightly now, but is still very good.

All the above displays have outstanding breeding results. Taxonomic displays have a plus - they allow to have a specialized staff, equimpent and skills (soft knowledge).

Berlin Zoo used to be like that until the 2000s. In 2003 it was still possible to see e.g. all 8 species of bear across two instiutions, 4 zebra forms etc.

 

[Brayden Delashmutt]

Many historic zoos once focused on taxonomic display - while the Reptile House remains a fairly common and ubiquitous building, and birds and primates are still often displayed together, other examples like nocturnal, aquatic bird, big cat and small mammal houses (and others) have become less common as zoos have come to focus more and more often on biogeographic exhibits and complexes instead. There is plenty of discourse on zoochat about the pluses and minuses of this change, such as the recent thread The Phylogenetics of Zoo Exhibits: The Reptile House Problem.

My question for this thread though is... what are some of the best taxonomic displays you have seen? Just because these kinds of buildings and complexes are no longer standard does not mean there are not some shining examples out there. I am especially curious about small mammal houses.

For my money, Denver Zoo's Primate Panorama is an incredible complex. While it has lost some rarities in recent years, it still has a large variety of primates along with a few guest animals, with the great apes and aye-aye being the biggest stars. The complex includes two separate buildings as well as several outdoor-only habitats, allowing the animals much more space, guests more viewing opportunities and overall a lot more ground covered, than any single building Primate House. It surprised me mammals grouped by taxa could still make for such a dynamic and immersive experience.

Even though I've never been, it seems like Bronx Zoo would be an obvious choice for best taxonomic displays.