Botanical gardens with animals

Jurek7 said:
Basel botanical garden used to have a greenhouse with several bird species (good ones, like malachite sunbirds and fairy bluebirds), two frog sp. (one was self-introduced small one) and basilisk lizard (probably only one animal). And it was free to entry. The greenhouse is being rebuilt until 2021.

@O.C. - unfortunately I don't know answers to your questions.
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Thanks for your comment @Jurek7

That is interesting to learn and I think that the fairy bluebird in particular must be a beautiful addition in these gardens.

I also hope that the Basel botanical garden continue to keep live animal species within their greenhouse as I'm sure they are brilliant for the visitors to see and learn about.
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Those are some really strikingly colourful bird species indeed.

I bet it is wonderful to see them amongst all of the lush vegetation of the glasshouses. I think it would really give a bit of a rough idea to visitors of what the Atlantic rainforest here in Brazil or the Australian outback looks like.
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Well not quite, they're in aviaries, aviaries within a row of really amazing greenhouses.
The exhibits are nice, the Tanager one heavily planted, but it's not quite the same as a walk through.
 
Rayane said:
Well not quite, they're in aviaries, aviaries within a row of really amazing greenhouses.
The exhibits are nice, the Tanager one heavily planted, but it's not quite the same as a walk through.
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Still I'm sure they make all the difference to visitors as tropical plants (as beautiful and interesting as they might be) are not the same as beautifully coloured tropical birds.
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Still I'm sure they make all the difference to visitors as tropical plants (as beautiful and interesting as they might be) are not the same as beautifully coloured tropical birds.
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I spent probably half an hour trying to get a good picture of the Bay-headed tanagers, you'd be surprised how little people cared about them. A glance, maybe a 20 second pause and then they would leave.
The exhibit doesn't make it easy to see the birds (the Australian aviary is way better for that) but you are true in the fact it gives life to the nearby plants in a way.
 
Gondwana said:
The Atlanta Botanical Garden has an amphibian collection that includes some rarely exhibited species, and housed the last specimen of Rabb's Fringe-limbed Treefrog before its extinction.
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I wanted to talk about the Atlanta Botanical Garden in a separate comment from the last one I replied to you. I think this is a perfect example of a live animal display at a botanical garden that is both educational for visitors and serves a conservation ex-situ and research purpose.

This is an incredible facility in my opinion and really at the forefront of amphibian conservation with their collections of frogs and I would really like to visit this place one day.

Incidentally, a couple of years ago I was passing through the Atlanta airport for a connecting flight to Central America and really wanted to just go and see this collection at the botanical garden (unfortunately I couldn't though as I simply did not have enough time).

Really beautiful and interesting range of species kept here like Panamanian golden frogs, golden poison frog, lemur leaf frog, fringed leaf frogs, dyeing poison frogs, crowned tree frog etc.

Also RIP "Toughie"
 
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Rayane said:
I spent probably half an hour trying to get a good picture of the Bay-headed tanagers, you'd be surprised how little people cared about them. A glance, maybe a 20 second pause and then they would leave.
The exhibit doesn't make it easy to see the birds (the Australian aviary is way better for that) but you are true in the fact it gives life to the nearby plants in a way.
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I would probably spend half an hour trying to observe them, I love tanagers !

Well, the average visitor to either zoos or botanical gardens is not exactly known for their interest in biodiversity sadly.

I definitely think that these birds are important additions to this botanical garden and add colour and character to their glasshouses.
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Thank you for your reply @MRJ and sorry about my late one

Some of the birds at Adelaide garden are spectacularly beautiful and especially the rainbow and roselia lorikeets. It must be incredible to see these birds in the wild.

Regarding the Launceston Botanic Gardens, that is an interesting choice of animal to have in captivity so were these Japanese macaques held within a Japanese garden of the wider botanical gardens or do you know what their story was ?
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No not in a Japanese garden, it is just a case that they have always been there so part of what the local community expect. From memory they have a fairly modern, large exhibit.
 
MRJ said:
No not in a Japanese garden, it is just a case that they have always been there so part of what the local community expect. From memory they have a fairly modern, large exhibit.
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Just checked this out and found out the origin story of these monkeys, it is actually quite an interesting one.

Apparently in 1965 the city of Launceston became a sister city of the Japanese city of Ikeda.

The first macaques and their original enclosure were given as a token of friendship by the government of Ikeda city to the botanical garden.
 
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Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Wüstenhaus Wien - Looks absolutely beautiful with the historic / heritage building in that Art Noveau style (so very Viennese considering that Art Noveau began there) and seems like an excellent range of species (mole rats, rattlesnakes, gila monster, agama, elephant shrew, Luristan newt). Desert / arid houses are actually always my favourite glasshouses to see within botanical gardens as I have a huge interest in cacti.

Palmenhaus Wien - Beautiful looking glasshouse, again stunning looking Art Noveau historic architecture and engineering and looks like they have a great selection of Neotropical and South-East Asian butterflies.

Berlin botanical garden - Great looking botanical garden, looks like it has a marine aquarium with similar species to Kew Gardens in the UK but perhaps more presentable / less shabby and with more species.

Munich botanical garden - Great looking botanical garden (s*** website though that looks like it was designed circa 2001), looks like a lot of the grounds provide brilliant habitats for local biodiversity and it seems from google images like they have quite a nice if modest reptile collection. Thumbs up for me for them having a rhinoceros iguana which is my favourite species of the Iguanidae.
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Batto says: Wüstenhaus Wien / Desert House Vienna
Palmenhaus Wien - Schönbrunn / Palm House Vienna
I have been in February in Schonbrunn:
1: Palmenhaus Wien - Schönbrunn / Palm House Vienna has no butterflies. The butterflies are in another Palmenhaus: Palmenhaus Burggarten (the butterflies "come" from Schmetterlinghaus Sonnenuhrhaus).
2: Wüstenhaus Wien / Desert House Vienna is a greenhouse with desert animals. It was opened as such in 2004, but between 1990 and 1998 it was Schmetterlinghaus Sonnenuhrhaus (1990-1998).
 
MJB said:
Batto says: Wüstenhaus Wien / Desert House Vienna
Palmenhaus Wien - Schönbrunn / Palm House Vienna
I have been in February in Schonbrunn:
1: Palmenhaus Wien - Schönbrunn / Palm House Vienna has no butterflies. The butterflies are in another Palmenhaus: Palmenhaus Burggarten (the butterflies "come" from Schmetterlinghaus Sonnenuhrhaus).
2: Wüstenhaus Wien / Desert House Vienna is a greenhouse with desert animals. It was opened as such in 2004, but between 1990 and 1998 it was Schmetterlinghaus Sonnenuhrhaus (1990-1998).
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Thank you for your comment @MJB !

Regarding Wüstenhaus Wien what desert animals did you see during your visit ?
 
Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
Thank you for your reply @Gondwana and sorry about my late one

I have just had a look at the Dunedin botanical garden website and it is great to see that the birds they keep within their aviaries like the South Island Kaka are being bred for conservation purposes like reintroduction. Also it seems that Dunedin's exotic parrot collection is formed mainly by Australian species and kept within an Australian themed garden that is part of the wider botanical gardens which is quite a nice detail.

Cleveland Botanical gardens seems to have quite an interesting variety of tropical species kept (I assume within biome / biogeographic themed domes) like panther chameleon, red footed tortoise, toco toucan and various doves, honey creepers and tanagers.

It is quite hard to find what animals the Meijer Gardens on the other hand via google images as most pictures show some weird and wonderful animal sculptures but they do seem to have many tropical butterfly species and also tanagers (seems like a lot of botanical gardens opt for these birds and it doesn't suprise me given how beautifully coloured they are).
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Onychorhynchus coronatus said:
I wanted to talk about the Atlanta Botanical Garden in a separate comment from the last one I replied to you. I think this is a perfect example of a live animal display at a botanical garden that is both educational for visitors and serves a conservation ex-situ and research purpose.

This is an incredible facility in my opinion and really at the forefront of amphibian conservation with their collections of frogs and I would really like to visit this place one day.

Incidentally, a couple of years ago I was passing through the Atlanta airport for a connecting flight to Central America and really wanted to just go and see this collection at the botanical garden (unfortunately I couldn't though as I simply did not have enough time).

Really beautiful and interesting range of species kept here like Panamanian golden frogs, golden poison frog, lemur leaf frog, fringed leaf frogs, dyeing poison frogs, crowned tree frog etc.

Also RIP "Toughie"
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Yes, the birds at Meijer Gardens are tanagers. I don't recall the exact species kept except that they are all relatively common ones such as blue-gray.

I did enjoy the aviaries at Dunedin, especially their keeping of native species. When I visited New Zealand I was fortunate enough to see Kea and Kaka in the wild but didn't see any wild Kakariki so the aviaries really came through there. I think this sort of aviary is a bit of a holdover from the era when animals were used as landscape features in parks. There's a similar block of aviaries in one of the main city parks in Cape Town, South Africa, and park waterfowl collections play a similar role in many places.

Atlanta is great for including some rare species. I definitely wish more botanical gardens would incorporate this type of exhibit, especially if they could choose animals that demonstrate important relationships with plants.
 
Gondwana said:
Yes, the birds at Meijer Gardens are tanagers. I don't recall the exact species kept except that they are all relatively common ones such as blue-gray.

I did enjoy the aviaries at Dunedin, especially their keeping of native species. When I visited New Zealand I was fortunate enough to see Kea and Kaka in the wild but didn't see any wild Kakariki so the aviaries really came through there. I think this sort of aviary is a bit of a holdover from the era when animals were used as landscape features in parks. There's a similar block of aviaries in one of the main city parks in Cape Town, South Africa, and park waterfowl collections play a similar role in many places.

Atlanta is great for including some rare species. I definitely wish more botanical gardens would incorporate this type of exhibit, especially if they could choose animals that demonstrate important relationships with plants.
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They sound to me like they might have been Sacaya tanagers which is great to for me hear as these are a very common species to see over here in this area of brazil in gardens and in urban areas (maybe the equivalent of a chaffinch or a goldfinch).

I really think it is a brilliant feature of Dunedin and I like that they have have this conservation output in terms of native parakeet species.

I also think that more botanical gardens (natural history museums too) would incorporate enclosures for amphibians and other small threatened taxa like small birds,fish, invertebrates and perhaps even small mammals too.

One species that I think would be interesting to keep at a botanical garden glasshouse would be tree shrews (although I know they are not endangered). This to showcase the interesting and somewhat humourous relationship between this small mammal and pitcher plants.
 
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A couple more botanical gardens around the world that have live animal species that I've been able to find via google.

National botanical gardens, Seychelles - Keeps the Aldabra giant tortoise (some of which are apparently over 150 years old)

Leiden botanical garden, Germany - Keeps / kept leucistic axolotls and several freshwater fish species in one of their tropical glass houses.

Geneva botanical garden, Switzerland - Keeps / kept greater flamingos and several species of duck / waterfowl in an outdoor enclosure.

Serres d'Auteuill botanical garden, France - This Parisian botanical garden has a small aviary in one of their tropical glasshouses with some pretty standard ABC species like cockatiels and budgies.

Tucson botanical garden, USA - Keeps / kept several species of poison dart frog (blue poison dart frog, Sira poison dart frog ) in one of their butterfly exhibit located in one of their tropical glasshouses.

Saint Vincent botanical gardens, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - Has an aviary where the Saint Vincent amazon parrot (a national symbol and once a critically endangered species) is kept.

Queen Elizabeth II botanical garden, Grand Cayman - The endangered blue iguana is apparently kept in enclosed areas of this botanical garden.

Lancetilla Botanical Garden & Research Institute, Honduras - Contains several frog and amphibian enclosures to rescue species threatened by chytridiomycosis.

Probably the most curious example of a live species kept in a botanical garden was at Roppongi hills botanical garden in Tokyo, Japan. Here in a small pond dating from the 18th century are a fish species called the "medeka" / Japanese rice fish (Oryzias latipes) which are the descendents of fish that were in 1994 sent up into space aboard the Columbia space shuttle and apparently are still studied by scientists (link below).

Roppongi Hills Garden Pond
 
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Tim May said:
To the best of my knowledge, there are still Chinese water dragons and poison arrow frogs in the Princess of Wales Conservatory. However, it's a couple of years since I last visited Kew Gardens so I am not completely sure; hopefully somebody who has visited more recently will be able to confirm.
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These were still there in February this year.

Looking at how successful the refurbishment of the Temperate House has been, I would guess a similar refurbishment of the Palm House is probably on the cards. The last time the marine aquarium in the Palm House basement was open was 2016/2017.
 
Crowthorne said:
These were still there in February this year.

Looking at how successful the refurbishment of the Temperate House has been, I would guess a similar refurbishment of the Palm House is probably on the cards. The last time the marine aquarium in the Palm House basement was open was 2016/2017.
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Thank you for your reply @Crowthorne !

Do you think the possibilities of the aquarium re-opening at some later date are good ?
 
I forgot in my list above to include another interesting botanical garden with some animals kept on site so will write it in this comment.

Leonardslee botanical gardens, England - This is a stunning looking garden and also has a rather famous colony of Bennett's wallabies (including albino specimens) that have been kept here since 1889 when they were introduced by the then owner Edmund Loder who was a naturalist.

Apparently, there is also a deer park on site where herds of sika, fallow and chital deer are kept.
 
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