Do you keep 'species seen' lists?

Fresco3

Fresco3

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
I'm curious, do you guys keep species seen lists from the animals you have seen in zoos, aquariums or in the wild?

If so, how many species do you have on your list (If it is low enough to count!) and what species are you most proud to have seen?
How many collections does your list come from?

I only started mine recently and so it only has species from the Isle of Wight Zoo, Amazon World, Birdworld and Sealife: Brighton. I'm currently in the process of adding the Sealife and Birsworld species and I've yet to add Longleat or Chessington World of Adventures species. Soon, I'm heading back to the Isle of Wight and hope to visit the owl and monkey sanctuary there!


So far I'm at 105, but that doesn't include all of my birdworld, chessington, longleat or sea life species yet.
 
there are a couple of other threads about this. I'll see if I can link them later for interest's sake.

For myself, I don't keep lists of what I see in captivity except for Zoochat (as in, when I go to zoos I will often note down everything there and post it on here with a review, because most of the zoos I visit are ones that few other Zoochatters will visit).

I do keep life lists (and country lists and year lists) for wild animals though.
 
Chlidonias said:
there are a couple of other threads about this. I'll see if I can link them later for interest's sake.

For myself, I don't keep lists of what I see in captivity except for Zoochat (as in, when I go to zoos I will often note down everything there and post it on here with a review, because most of the zoos I visit are ones that few other Zoochatters will visit).

I do keep life lists (and country lists and year lists) for wild animals though.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I did hesitate to post this as I thought it might be a duplicate thread :)

I'll have to read these reviews as they sound like they could be quite interesting! I would also do a wild animal count but I fear I would fail to identify half the species I saw... I admire you for that ;)
 
Sort of - I keep a folder with all zoo animal species I've photographed, sorted taxonomically in subfolders. The reason I do this is partly that - to me - it seems more authentical this way (when you perpetuate a rare species on a photo, you can make sure later on that it's indeed the rare species and not just a case of mistaken identity), and partly because it's easier to compare exhibits when you have a series of e.g. lion exhibits in the same folder.
 
I keep a list of all the animals (excluding coral and anemonies) that I see in zoos and aquariums. Iv’e been doing it for almost a year but I added animals I’ve seen in zoos before I started my list based on memory. So far i have 776 animals from 25 zoos and aquariums including:

San Diego Zoo
San Diego Zoo Safari Park
Monterey Zoo
San Francisco Zoo
Chehaw Park
Orange County Zoo
Happy Hollow Park & Zoo
Zoomars Petting Zoo
Aquarium of The Pacific
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Maui Ocean Center
Zoo Atlanta
SEA LIFE Kansas City Aquarium
Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park
Flint Riverquarium
Georgia Aquarium
Taronga Zoo
Honolulu Zoo
Minnesota Zoo
Sealife Park Hawaii
WILD LIFE Sydney Zoo
Wild Animal Safari
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Waikiki Aquarium
SeaWorld Orlando

Since I’ve been to quite a bit of zoos and aquariums, Iv’e seen a lot of rare animals you don’t see a lot in zoos and aquariums.

The rarest mammal I’ve seen is the Gelada at the San Diego Zoo. These monkeys are no where near to being endangered, but only two zoos in the U.S. have them. (The other being the Bronx Zoo)

The rarest bird I’ve seen is the Guam Kingfisher also at the San Diego Zoo. These birds are extinct in the wild and not many zoos have them.

The rarest reptile I’ve seen is an albino American Alligator at the Flint RiverQuarium. It is estimated there are only 100 albino alligators in the world.


The rarest amphibian I’ve seen in the Panamanian Golden Frog at the San Diego Zoo. They’re critically endangered and even at the zoo, I only saw a single individual.

The rarest fish I’ve seen is the Whale Shark at the Georgia Aquarium. Outside of Asia, the Georgia Aquarium is the only place in the U.S to view these rare fish.

I also have a list of animals I’ve seen in the wild and it has about 250 animals on it. Nothing on it is super rare but some cool animals on that list is American Black Bear, Humpback Whale, Hawaiian Spinner Dolphin, Coyote, Bald Eagle, Sandhill Crane, Pileated Woodpecker, Green Sea Turtle, and Blackfin Barracuda.
 
For species seen in the wild , yes, but I don't keep an actual list for ticking off those I see in captivity (though I do have a mental bucket list for these).
 
There’s a very nice app called iDatabase that I use to keep track of my species, I’ve only entered mammals so far as I’ve only just started but I have 491 so far:)
 
I have combined wild and captive lifelists for the following groups:

Mammals (840 taxa as of the last complete update in Oct 2019)
Birds (1823 taxa as of the last complete update in Oct 2019)
Reptiles (855 taxa as of the last complete update in Oct 2019)
Amphibians (237 taxa as of the last complete update in Oct 2019)
Cartilaginous Fish (91 taxa as of the last complete update in Oct 2019)
 
EternalPigeon said:
I keep a list of all the animals (excluding coral and anemonies) that I see in zoos and aquariums. Iv’e been doing it for almost a year but I added animals I’ve seen in zoos before I started my list based on memory. So far i have 776 animals from 25 zoos and aquariums including:

San Diego Zoo
San Diego Zoo Safari Park
Monterey Zoo
San Francisco Zoo
Chehaw Park
Orange County Zoo
Happy Hollow Park & Zoo
Zoomars Petting Zoo
Aquarium of The Pacific
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Maui Ocean Center
Zoo Atlanta
SEA LIFE Kansas City Aquarium
Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park
Flint Riverquarium
Georgia Aquarium
Taronga Zoo
Honolulu Zoo
Minnesota Zoo
Sealife Park Hawaii
WILD LIFE Sydney Zoo
Wild Animal Safari
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Waikiki Aquarium
SeaWorld Orlando

Since I’ve been to quite a bit of zoos and aquariums, Iv’e seen a lot of rare animals you don’t see a lot in zoos and aquariums.

The rarest mammal I’ve seen is the Gelada at the San Diego Zoo. These monkeys are no where near to being endangered, but only two zoos in the U.S. have them. (The other being the Bronx Zoo)

The rarest bird I’ve seen is the Guam Kingfisher also at the San Diego Zoo. These birds are extinct in the wild and not many zoos have them.

The rarest reptile I’ve seen is an albino American Alligator at the Flint RiverQuarium. It is estimated there are only 100 albino alligators in the world.


The rarest amphibian I’ve seen in the Panamanian Golden Frog at the San Diego Zoo. They’re critically endangered and even at the zoo, I only saw a single individual.

The rarest fish I’ve seen is the Whale Shark at the Georgia Aquarium. Outside of Asia, the Georgia Aquarium is the only place in the U.S to view these rare fish.

I also have a list of animals I’ve seen in the wild and it has about 250 animals on it. Nothing on it is super rare but some cool animals on that list is American Black Bear, Humpback Whale, Hawaiian Spinner Dolphin, Coyote, Bald Eagle, Sandhill Crane, Pileated Woodpecker, Green Sea Turtle, and Blackfin Barracuda.
Click to expand...
@EternalPigeon Out of curiosity, may we see you lists?
 
I keep one, but it's pretty short, because I have gone to a lot of other zoos before I started keeping track.
 
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What I do is I keep down the zoos, areas, and animals that didn't show up. This way I can go back home and build a list there or whenever I need it
 
As of 02/09/2020, I have 927 captive species from 25 collections. My list lists vertebrates only, though some zoos would be far high if invertebrates. As for wild animals, I do keep track of birds on Ebird and the rest on a combined list that several ZC members and I have
 
Mammals: 655 species, 74 of those in the wild
Birds: 1604 species, 544 of those in the wild
Reptiles: 582 species, 45 of those in the wild
Amphibians; 156 species, 19 of those in the wild
Fishes: at least 1119 species, 280 of those in the wild
Total: at least 4116 species of vertebrates seen.

Fishes list is definitely incomplete, some of the others may be as well.
Number of species could differ slightly when using a different taxonomy.
 
I definitely have a life list. I keep track of all animals (both wild and captive) but I've only started keeping track of non-mammals relatively recently so their numbers are far lower than what I've actually seen. I'm currently at:
  • 273 mammal species
  • 230 bird species
  • 153 reptile species
  • 35 amphibian species
  • 136 fish species
  • 83 invertebrate species
  • (a mere 68 of these are from the wild)
  • 910 animals species total.
*I've linked it elsewhere on Zoochat but if anyone wants to see what I've seen I can link the list here too.
 
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My lists are slightly out of date, especially as far as fishes are concerned. However:
  • 867 mammal taxa
  • 1723 bird taxa
  • 999 reptile taxa
  • 228 amphibian taxa
  • 1421 fish taxa
  • 632 invertebrate taxa
Now the real number of species for most of these groups will be a bit lower than the given numbers, since my lifelist has separate entries for different subspecies of the same species. Additionally, I will occasionally keep track of generic animals I've seen even when I've seen a known subspecific animal simply in order to keep track of what I've seen where in case any information comes to me which could mean I've seen a pure species/subspecies mixed within all those generics. Happens more often than you'd think honestly.

As far as fish go I probably have easily another hundred species in my pile of unidentified animals...

~Thylo
 
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