Favorite animals to see in zoo's

Might sound a little cliche, but I always get excited when I'm nearing a tiger exhibit. I guess its something that has just stuck with me since childhood, seeing as it was my favorite animal growing up. Great apes are always a pleasure to see. I also enjoy aviaries as well.
 
This probably doesn't fit in totally well here... but thought I'd put it here anyways

I recall when I was younger it was my 'life's goal' for the time to have seen at least one animal for each letter of the alphabet. I think it was an organisational thing. And so regardless of how common quails, yaks and newts were in relation to alligators, bears and camels, their relative monopoly over their respective letters got them some sort of special priority.
Only when I got older did the idea fall apart somewhat... in that the English language is only one way of referring to the different creatures of this Earth. And many animals will 'begin' differently in other languages....and some animals are called different things... if I see Puma concolor, then is that a 'P' animal for Puma or a 'C' animal for Cougar? Do I have to download the latest mammalology document to see which common name is preferred? And sure, Xenarthra works well as an entry for 'X' in absence of almost everything else... but then does that make every elephant and hyrax in the zoo an 'A' for Afrotheria? Does the taxonomy trick only work for lesser-used letters? Is a Burmese Python a 'B' animal or a 'P' animal? If an old text renders ‘zebu’ as ‘xebu’ then does that count? Or does the name of choice have to be listed in the dictionary?.....
 
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I'm especially a sucker for small animals, so usually top of my list of things to see at a zoo are aviaries, nocturnal/small mammal houses, and reptiles/amphibians. Of course, anything I haven't seen before gets me excited too.

As for aquaria, there are too many things I love to see to pick a favourite, but the small species bias still stands. I do like to see displays of species local to the area the facility is located. On the other hand, my least favourite animals in aquaria are marine mammals, be it cetaceans, pinnipeds, otters, whatever. I'll still go and look at them if I have time, but I rarely spend much time with them and will happily skip over their exhibits if time is tight. I'm just not especially interested in them and would rather spend my time with fishes and invertebrates. The sole exception to this is Pig the Dugong, of course :p
 
dillotest0 said:
This probably doesn't fit in totally well here... but thought I'd put it here anyways

I recall when I was younger it was my 'life's goal' for the time to have seen at least one animal for each letter of the alphabet. I think it was an organisational thing. And so regardless of how common quails, yaks and newts were in relation to alligators, bears and camels, their relative monopoly over their respective letters got them some sort of special priority.
Only when I got older did the idea fall apart somewhat... in that the English language is only one way of referring to the different creatures of this Earth. And many animals will 'begin' differently in other languages....and some animals are called different things... if I see Puma concolor, then is that a 'P' animal for Puma or a 'C' animal for Cougar? Do I have to download the latest mammalology document to see which common name is preferred? And sure, Xenarthra works well as an entry for 'X' in absence of almost everything else... but then does that make every elephant and hyrax in the zoo an 'A' for Afrotheria? Does the taxonomy trick only work for lesser-used letters? Is a Burmese Python a 'B' animal or a 'P' animal? If an old text renders ‘zebu’ as ‘xebu’ then does that count? Or does the name of choice have to be listed in the dictionary?.....
Click to expand...
For X, you can't go wrong with X-ray Tetra :D or, use the genus name to get an X animal.
 
DaLilFishie said:
For X, you can't go wrong with X-ray Tetra :D or, use the genus name to get an X animal.
Click to expand...
I recall I was in Chessington World of Adventures years ago... they have a Sea Life aquarium there or at least they had one when I went.
I don't remember much of what I saw in the aquarium.... but still remember vividly being delighted to see a Xenia in a tank. Simply because of alphabetical reason
 
Primates of any sort, but particularly great apes- especially bonobos and orangutans.

I also find myself very partial to giraffes... I'm always so amazed that we're so similar to them in so many ways. So similar and yet so different. They look like animals straight out of a fantasy novel- a long-legged beast with a neck as long as a fully-grown man, horns, covered in splotches, with a long black tongue, and a heart that beats twice or thrice as fast as ours? Such strange creatures.

I also really like hornbills.
 
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