Chester Zoo Chester Zoo Small Mammal House

bongorob

bongorob

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
In a comment about one of my photographs WrithedHornbill wanted to know which animals had been kept in the Small Mammal House at Chester Zoo. Here are lists I compiled on the Society's 50th anniversary and 60th anniversary.

13 June 1984
Rodrigues Fruit Bat
Binturong
Senegal Bushbaby
Douroucouli
Australian Echidna
Forest Genet
Kinkajou
Common Marmoset
Banded Mogoose
Sierra Leone Fire-footed Squirrel
Malayan Giant Squirrel
Peruvian Mountain Viscacha

13 June 1994
Rodrigues Fruit Bat
Seba's Short-tailed Bat
Senegal Bushbaby
Black-footed Cat
Australian Echidna
Kinkajou
Slow Loris
Pygmy Marmoset
Meerkat
Peters' Dwarf Mongoose
White-lipped Tamarin
Chilean Mountain Viscacha

I also remember many other species which were housed here.

Carnivores
Asian Palm Civet
African Civet
Asian Small-clawed Otter
Greater Grison
American Marten
American Badger
Marsh Mongoose
Indian Grey Mongoose
Banded Mongoose
Dwarf Mongoose
Common Cusimanse
Arctic Fox
Fennec Fox
British Red Fox
Bat-eared Fox
Zorilla
Forest Genet
Blotched Genet
Small-spotted Genet
European Polecat

Rodents
Siamese Black Squirrel
Indian Giant Squirrel
Malayan Giant Squirrel
Grey Squirrel
British Red Squirrel
Red Acouchy
Woodchuck
Plains Viscacha
Long-tailed Chinchilla
African Crested Porcupine

Primates
Ring-tailed Lemur
Squirrel Monkey (possibly, I'm not sure)

Others
New Guinea Fruit Bat (species unknown)
Lesser Malayan Chevrotain
Long-nosed Potoroo
Common Tree Shrew
 
oh gosh, what an interesting list of creatures. such a shame that animals like Echidnas, Bushbabies and Binturongs are no more at Chester
 
Is it my imagination, or did they have free-flying hummingbirds inside when it first opened? There was a narrow central strip of soil, in which climbers were planted and they grew up wires to form a thin screen between the two public paths. This would have been in the mid-'60s I suppose, soon after the first elephant house on the current site was built.

Alan

PS I have just checked Bongorob's photo in the gallery. It shows the central bed and the planting nicely. I seem to be a few years out in my dating (which doesn't really surprise me).
 
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gentle lemur said:
Is it my imagination, or did they have free-flying hummingbirds inside when it first opened? There was a narrow central strip of soil, in which climbers were planted and they grew up wires to form a thin screen between the two public paths. This would have been in the mid-'60s I suppose, soon after the first elephant house on the current site was built.

Alan
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Yes, I've read various things about hummingbirds in there...

good list as well Rob. It is a shame some of these species are no longer kept...
 
I have no recollection of hummingbirds in the house, it does seem probable though. Then again I was 3 years old when it opened. My first memories of the zoo are the old elephant house in Jubilee square and the old cat house nearby, I can still remeber seeing a caracal carrying her kitten. It would be around 1962 or 63.
 
This kind of display seems very old-fashioned now, but I kind of like it. I guess it kind've has an air of a 'living museum' type approach about it.
 
bongorob said:
I have no recollection of hummingbirds in the house, it does seem probable though. Then again I was 3 years old when it opened. My first memories of the zoo are the old elephant house in Jubilee square and the old cat house nearby, I can still remeber seeing a caracal carrying her kitten. It would be around 1962 or 63.
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I go back a little further. My first visit was in about '58 or '59. I remember the old monkey house where the monorail station is now in Jubilee Square. There was a room in the middle where the baby chimps were kept. I also remember the old Indian elephant house next door, but I don't remember the Cat House. At that time the zoo had not extended over Flag Lane, so the round beaver pond and the giraffe paddock were at the edge of the Zoo, although the giraffes only had part of the area they have now - there were American bison in the half beside the canal.

Alan
 
my first Chester visit

gentle lemur said:
I go back a little further. My first visit was in about '58 or '59.
Alan
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I don't know Chester as well as some of you guys, though I've visited a number of times over the years. My first visit was in the early/mid 1960's, a long trip (in those days) from the South, especially to see the 'Mountain' gorillas. I remember how excited I was to finally see them- they were subadult and wrestling together on the island- jet black and quite 'ugly' looking in contrast to the other gorillas I'd seen previously.. I though Chester was wonderful that first visit, all the colourful flowerbeds, so many animal species to see, apes on islands with watermoats and their indoor quarters in the steamy tropical house(very clever), the 'postage stamp' collection in the Monkey house, ungulates in abundance etc etc.

Chester has never looked back really....:)
 
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how big were the cages in the small mammal house? And did they have much in the way of furnishings, or were they mostly bare?
 
ZOMG I remember the Zorilla now, and there being British Red Squirrels! As posted in the memories thread, I was obsessed with the Bush baby as a child in the 90's

I wish i could have seen the zoo in the 60's... but I suppose I can be here in a few decades time talking about how the zoo used to be tiny and that the animals were only from Earth... lol

I don't want to wait for Superzoo... or be 30 when it is finished.

Does anyone have a TARDIS?
 
The last American beaver also lived out its days in the small mammal house when the beaver pond was converted to coatis
 
ZooMania said:
Yes, do you want to borrow it??
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If it works, with the whole time travel and perhaps even cloaking mechanism in tact, yes I would not mind lol.

I would say i'll have it a while but I can always appear to appear back with it after only having a minute.

Bugger the 1960's, i'm off the the late cretaceous where I will prove velociraptors did not look like Orville.
 
Chlidonias said:
how big were the cages in the small mammal house? And did they have much in the way of furnishings, or were they mostly bare?
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The inside cages were 8 feet by 8 feet by 8 feet high, the outside dens were usually 16 feet long by 8 feet wide by 8 feet high. A keepers passage ran between the inside and outside enclosures which were linked by tunnels. I cna't remember how many inside enclosures there were, I would guess eight on each side.

There were five outdoor enclosures on each side, and also the two concrete pits by the entrance housing otters and porcupines among other things. These were converted into marmoset enclosures around 1983-84.

One enclosure on the east side of the house was 16x16x8 feet in dimension, and opposite it on the west side was an even larger one measuring 24x16x8 feet. At te rear of the house between these two enclosures was the keepers' yard and kitchen.

I remember the enclosures as being planted, but I don't know if that was the case when the house was built.

In the winter of 1982-83 the northern end of the house was converted into a nocturnal section with a large Rodrigues Fruit Bat aviary along the entire northern side, and about 6 dens housing species such as genets, echidna, chevrotain and slow loris. On the eastern side of the house two of these were made into one enclosure when the Seba's bats arrived.
 
Sorry to bring up such an old thread, although I thought it would be pointless to start a second thread on the subject. Does anyone have any photos of the building itselft, or of the interior of the House?
 
Paix said:
Does anyone have any photos of the building itselft, or of the interior of the House?
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I have a bunch, if I can find them, and there are also images in some of the old guides. In the meantime:



This is one of mine, and it's a view across the elephant paddock from the pathway that used to lead between it and the bridge (from the hippos). It would be approximately below where the raised viewing for the elephants is now. The small mammal house - the building in the distance - was located approximately where the guest services pavilion is now, and that large stand of trees you can see on the left is currently the elephant reed bed (it was originally a large pond and contained coypu at one point).

The next two are Bongorob's:



That's a closer view of the southern end where the entrance/exit was (you walked down one side, around the bottom and back up the other. If you walked directly across the elephant paddock from where my photograph was taken, this is where you'd be. The building in the background is still standing, it's the rhino house (currently off-show) and at about the time this image was taken, house both black and white.



That's the inside in 1978. I think this was probably taken approximately halfway along the corridor, and obviously before the rear (north) side became a nocturnal exhibit. The planting went through various phases and there was a revamp in about 1977, which is why it looks rather sparse in this photo. The division between the walkways was usually a lot thicker, with various species of bougainvillea, jasmine and other scented climbers, the building was also a lot lighter than it looks in this picture.
 
I miss this house - it was where I saw my first Rodrigues Fruits Bats, Seba's Bats, Small-spotted Genet, Short-beaked Echidna, Kinkajou, White-lipped Tamarin, Silvery Marmoset, Black-tailed Marmoset, Common Slow Loris, Dwarf Mongoose, Lesser Malay Chevrotain, and probably more, as well as what is still my only Southern Mountain Viscacha (Lagidium viscaccia), and it never seemed to be the same on any two of my roughly twice-annual visits in the early-mid nineties.

Never did manage to see Zorilla or Black-footed Cat there though.
 
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