General Zoo Misconceptions

Holy crap, I hear these every time I put my docent uniform on. Here are mine
Blue Tongue Skink = Crocodile, Monitor, Iguana, Snake
Amur Leopard = Tiger (WOW)
Ocelot = Lion
Diamondback Rattlesnake = Giant Worm (this was a 10 year old kid!!)
15 foot Burmese Python = Ball Python
Dyeing Poison Dart Frog = **Reading label to kids** "Dyeing Poison Dart Frog... aww, look Tommy, it's dying!"
Everyone also asks me if the baby Carpet Pythons are fake.
 
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What I've heard recently:

Gemsbok = Okapi
Snow Leopard = Snow Lion
Mandrill = Serval (not reading the signs properly)
Tamandua = Sloth
Rhinoceros = Rhinosauras
 
I hear these constantly at the National Aquarium
puffin = penguin
stingray = manta ray
scarlet ibis = flamingo
crocodile = aligator
camin = aligator
tawny frogmouth = owl
sandtiger shark = great white shark
bonnet head shark = baby hammerhead shark

I was even asked what type of shark dolphins are. Really people!?
 
I spent 4 weeks studying raccoons at a zoo and they got called: walabies, lemurs, badgers, possums and wombats plus a few other names that I can't remember!
 
When my daughter was about 5 I took her to Dudley and we were watching the tiger. This mum turns up with a gaggle of kids and starts going "roar at the lion", and all the kids start roaring and generally being loud. My daughter turns round and says "It's a tiger, tigers have stripes, lions don't" I had to stifle a giggle as she went red faced and herded the kids away.
That day I bought her a stuffed tiger that she comically named "Liony". We still have it too.
 
Today at Paignton, a woman with a group of small children was standing next to the rhinos (and their sign) and getting the children to say " hip-po-pot-amus".
 
I've wondered about something: As we all should know, the best way to know what's in/what's going on in a zoo exhibit is usually to read the signs.
And most of the misconceptions happen when people do not read the signs.

So do these more unaware zoo-goers actually not KNOW that there are signs for them to read if they want some info, or do they consciously ignore the signs?

I can't quite find out myself.
 
Sun Wukong said:
Definitively. A lot of people do not come to the zoo to read (and learn), but for the sake of simple entertainment.
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You got a point there. However, I guess I thought more in the lines of, when children ask their parents what animal is in the exhibit, and the parents come up with a completely wrong answer, is it then because they think they know more than the exhibit sign, or just that they actually don't know the sign hangs there and take a wild guess instead?
 
Sun Wukong said:
Option c) They are too lazy to look for the sign and/or to read it.
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And seeing as the child is usually too young to know what animal it is or read the sign for themselves the parents feel they can get away with the lazy option and make it up.
 
I always think it's sad when a curious child asks "What's this?" and the parent just says "I dunno" although maybe we should have some sympathy, in the kiwi house at Auckland I heard a lady say to her friend "One day I'm going to come without them [assorted children] so I can have a good look and read these signs."

Bearing in mind meerkats are a big attraction due to an advert which mentions their name more than once I was quite surprised to hear someone carefully read the sign and tell their child they were merrakeets.
 
Sometimes it's not their fault and there just isn't a sign as well. The first exhibit you see when you get to the orang-utan exhibit at Melbourne Zoo is netted and doesn't have signs saying what the animals living inside are until you enter the building next to this. It's not so much of an issue when the orang-utans are on exhibit because everyone knows what they are but when the siamangs are on exhibit in there I've heard such things as black orang-utans, chimpanzees and "maybe they're the babies".
 
I have herd many but I think the funniest and weirdest were:

Malayan Tapir - Anteater

Fossa - Lemur Cat

and the funniest is Golden Lion Tamarin - Orangutan
 
Being a frequent visitor of the Cincinnati Zoo, the most notable misconception I have heard was that from a group of people calling the zoo's pair of the West Indian Manatees, dolphins. Truthfully, I have heard this more than once. Quite sad seeing as the whole exhibit complex is called "Manatee Springs" and that there are are signs, statues, and posters literally EVERYWHERE.
 
A bloke at Chester yesterday insisted that the Visayan Warty Pigs were tapirs. Last week someone called the Duiker a Bambi, which I find the most frustrating of terms...
 
haz_cat said:
A bloke at Chester yesterday insisted that the Visayan Warty Pigs were tapirs. Last week someone called the Duiker a Bambi, which I find the most frustrating of terms...
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Whenever I'm at Chester a lot of people call the warty pigs either warthogs or water pigs.

At Blackbrook yesterday a boy was convinced that the lorikeets were kiwis.
 
Normally I don't bump threads, but I haven't been here in a while, and naturally, volunteering at a zoo in New Yoyk, I have a ton of stories.

Reticulated Python = Ball Python
Amur Leopard = Tiger (every day)
Harlequin Tuskfish = Clownfish
Black Ribbon Eel = Sea Snake
Whitespotted Bamboo Shark = Snakefish (Still trying to wrap my head around that one)
Bamboo Shark = Tiger Shark
I heard someone call something a Goldfish yesterday, but I couldn't see which tank they were looking at, but it was either a Firefish, a Green Chromis, or a Yellowtail Damsel. Wow.
Blue Tongue Skink = Snake, Iguana, Monitor, Gila Monster, "Blue Tongue Skank"
Wallaby = Kangaroo
I also had someone try to get me to sell them the Blue Tongue Skink. Really people?
Then you have the kid who tried to poke the Leopard with a Peacock feather.

Then, there are the good zoo visitors... the guy who comes in with his wife wearing a Staten Island Zoo shirt, a Conservation Society hat, with his wife and kids, sees me working with the Skink, and goes "Wow, he's so beautiful. Nature is amazing, isn't it? I can't see how people can be afraid of such a beautiful creature... Honey, kids, come look at this beauty." His wife and kids, clearly animal enthusiasts, came over and eagerly petted the Skink (education animal) and took several pictures. The 11 year old kid whos parents skeeve Reptiles, but follows me and the Skink around for a half hour, asking questions, touching it several times in the correct two-fingers-down-the-back manner. If every zoo visitor was like that, the world would be perfect ;)
 
The wallaby/kangaroo one can maybe be justified in that in some languages (among these my own native language Danish), the word "kangaroo" (in Danish "kænguru") covers both wallabies, kangaroos and wallaroos. Actually I'm not even sure what the difference between a kangaroo and a wallaby is, except that kangaroos tend to be bigger. And what's the distinguishing about a wallaroo? In Danish it's just called "bjergkænguru" (mountain kangaroo).
Other misconceptions might be due to language differences. In Danish, a dove and a pigeon is the same bird called a "due", and our native lizards are called "firben" (four-leg) while "lizard" covering the suborder Lacertilia is called "øgle" in Danish etc.

By the way, you're right in that we should also focuse on the good visitors: For example, I visited Planckendael today. I was at the South American aviary, trying to find the tinamou (never saw it, suppose it's normal that they hide away), when a bunch of school kids passed by. One of the teachers didn't bother to read the signs and enthusiastically told the kids to look at the "red flamingo babies". All the kids shouted out "wow, flamingo babies!!" but then a boy looked at the signs, got a rather defused expression and exclaimed "that's not a flamingo baby - look at the sign, it says it's a scarlet ibis". When I ran into the kids later, he still was talking about how happy he was to see birds he'd never seen before like scarlet ibises, boat-billed herons, lapwings etc., and how important it is to read the signs when you're going to the zoo and looking at new animals.
I have a feeling he might become just as annoying a Zoochatter as all of us when he grows up. :D
 
Not all average zoo goers are idiots though. Whilst at Chester I visited the Duiker quickly, and whilst in there there was a women wth a child, she did not seem very keen to take a photo of the Duiker, it was out. So I started telling her abouts its rarity, how this is the only Red Natal on show in the country and 1 of two in the country, the other being in quarantine etc.

She was very interested and started asking questions! Then as I was leaving, she started telling other people coming in about its rarity and how Chester is the only zoo in the Uk with the Red Natal Duiker.

This really put a smile on my face that other people can share the same excitment for animals, once they are educated. And she was surely willing to be educated!
 
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