Funniest Zoo Sign

birdsandbats

birdsandbats

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
What is the funniest zoo sign you have seen? Not one meant to be funny, but one that made a stupid mistake? Here are two of my favorites:

  • Marmoset (With a picture of Africa on it!)
  • A sign with the common name listed simply as Porcupine, the scientific name reading Erethizon dorsatum, and the picture showing a Brazilian Prehensile-Tailed Porcupine. The cage had a Southern African Crested Porcupine in it.
 
Crocodiles of the World has excellent intentionally funny signs. The one that is not meant to be funny that comes to mind is at Dudley Zoo (though I appear to be the only person who finds it funny, which probably tells you everything you need to know about my sense of humour). There is a large and impressive sign pointing in one direction which says "Lions and lemur walkthrough". Maybe it's just me...
 
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BeakerUK said:
The one that is not meant to be funny that comes to mind is at Dudley Zoo (though I appear to be the only person who finds it funny, which probably tells you everything you need to know about my sense of humour). There is a large and impressive sign pointing in one direction which says "Lions and lemur walkthrough". Maybe it's just me...
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I always love this!
 
Bristol Zoo had a sign comparing the weight of a Mata mata turtle to Cheryl Cole, I think they both weighed the same... :p

And Chester used to have an "Exit & Pass Out" sign, very appropriate after a summer's day walking around there! :p
 
This one amuses me on a more cerebral level:

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To clarify matters, it would have to be South Lakes that would have a sign indicating the way towards the exit which actually points *away* from the exit and back into the bulk of the collection :p
 
It's been many years since I was at the Edinburgh Zoo but I remember a sign, and of course this was long before iPods and such:

"Thoughtful visitors will not play their radios in the park. Other visitors must not."
 
I was watching some old footage of the deplorable mess that was Waccatee Zoo to try and un-fuzzy some of my memories of the place and came across this gem:

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I personally remember a sign at that same zoo that was just a printed and laminated lazy sheet of basic facts about the brown bear, complete with a picture of a brown bear. I guess maybe they used to have a brown bear, but at the time of my visit there was a black bear in that particular concrete prison. Instead of changing the sign, they just Sharpie'd through the word "brown", leaving this just as the "bear", complete with trivia about and a picture of a completely different species.

And while I like Brights Zoo quite a bit more, I do wish I had taken a picture of their sign labeled and containing facts about the golden lion tamarin, complete with a picture of their golden-headed lion tamarin. They also go to great lengths in their signage for their Bactrian camels to explain how these specific camels are critically endangered... should someone tell him?

I'm aware of another zoo, Yellow River Wildlife Sanctuary, that has signs for hystrix cristata and hystrix africaeaustralis side-by-side even though they only have a single porcupine. I'm not sure whether I commend them for covering their bases or if I think they should've just picked one perhaps at random and stuck with it like everyone else seems content to do.

Just recently noticed that there's a sign at Greenville Zoo showing wild lions attacking a cape buffalo, captioned saying that they're attacking a wildebeest. It's been there forever so I have no idea how I only just noticed it.

No shade to any of these zoos (besides Waccatee) btw, I just wanted to share that initial sign somewhere and then thought about the others.
 

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