Gomphothere's Zoo Design Thread

Gomphothere said:
The Ungava Seals would be in the Nearctic Boreal area, which is for the future. The Greater Magellan Goose you'll find in the Falklands/Malvinas Sea and Shore Birds exhibit, #67 in the Temperate South America exhibit, between the Juan Fernandez Fur Seals and the Marine Otters.
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Thanks
Cat-Man said:
I’ve often found that part of the fun of this thread is waiting to see what species are included.
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fair enough, I guess I’ll have to wait to see if the Comoros hero’s are included

I will say that the suspense is absolutely killing me LOL
 
I thought of a couple of exhibit ideas that I had a feeling you might find interesting:

1. You could display ring tailed lemurs in multiple areas to show how they live in various habitats

2. You could create a predator-prey exhibit with rice tenrecs and/or streaked tenrecs and earthworms

3. Once again, I will say that I hope you honor Cecil S. Webb in some way or another
 
1. It's a possibility, but if you look at their current range (IUCN Red List of Threatened Species) it's largely in the Spiny Thicket ecoregion, and there are so many other species of lemurs to display in the other regions which include just a bit of the Ring-tailed range. The Spiny Thicket ecoregion would seem to be the most appropriate place to display them. Signage would of course indicate that their range is broader than that, although it's been shrinking, sadly. The one area that might merit a second Ring-tailed group would be the Ericoid Thicket ecoregion, which has a very limited number of species, and the Ring-tails might make it more interesting.
2. Now that's intriguing--displaying the prey invertebrate species interspersed among the tenrecs. Some specialize, such as in termites, others are broader in their diet range. (For most, as far as I can figure out, there's actually very little diet information.) The tenrecs will probably have to be displayed pretty much on their own, given their mostly nocturnal nature (I am considering a combined bat-tenrec exhibit, but am not sure it would work too well) so having the invertebrates alongside them would help avoid a long row of tenrec enclosures by themselves. If I decide to go with the bat-tenrec idea, interspersing invertebrate exhibits would still work very well since the majority of the bat species are insectivorous.
3. I'm a bit reluctant to start honoring individuals since to be fair I'd have to do a lot of research into all the different naturalists who've been involved in Madagascar--a long list--and the surrounding islands and figure out which ones deserve to be honored. Webb has both a Tufted-tail Rat and a frog named after him, so he'll show up along with several others such as Grandidier.
 
Gomphothere said:
1. It's a possibility, but if you look at their current range (IUCN Red List of Threatened Species) it's largely in the Spiny Thicket ecoregion, and there are so many other species of lemurs to display in the other regions which include just a bit of the Ring-tailed range. The Spiny Thicket ecoregion would seem to be the most appropriate place to display them. Signage would of course indicate that their range is broader than that, although it's been shrinking, sadly. The one area that might merit a second Ring-tailed group would be the Ericoid Thicket ecoregion, which has a very limited number of species, and the Ring-tails might make it more interesting.
2. Now that's intriguing--displaying the prey invertebrate species interspersed among the tenrecs. Some specialize, such as in termites, others are broader in their diet range. (For most, as far as I can figure out, there's actually very little diet information.) The tenrecs will probably have to be displayed pretty much on their own, given their mostly nocturnal nature (I am considering a combined bat-tenrec exhibit, but am not sure it would work too well) so having the invertebrates alongside them would help avoid a long row of tenrec enclosures by themselves. If I decide to go with the bat-tenrec idea, interspersing invertebrate exhibits would still work very well since the majority of the bat species are insectivorous.
3. I'm a bit reluctant to start honoring individuals since to be fair I'd have to do a lot of research into all the different naturalists who've been involved in Madagascar--a long list--and the surrounding islands and figure out which ones deserve to be honored. Webb has both a Tufted-tail Rat and a frog named after him, so he'll show up along with several others such as Grandidier.
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I never thought about how people would be represented by animals named after them, but you certainly do have a good point. I actually had no idea that he had animals named after him, but I do think he deserves it. What frog was named after Webb? Also, ring tailed lemurs can be found some of the more lush areas, so I would certainly think that showing them in that sort of exhibit would be quite a treat.
 
By my previous post, I meant that you could exhibit them as part of a predator-prey exhibit. Also, do you consider Madagascar pochards too rare, or will you include them due to the fact that they are in a captive breeding program, that meaning that there are individuals in human care. Hopefully you’ve considered these species
Bengal Tiger said:
Also, are Seychelles tiger chameleons, the Seychelles caecilian species(Praslin's, frigate island, and four Grandisonia sp.), and Seychellum allauadi going to be included
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Really excited to see what this exhibit turns out to be like, and really hoping that you go for the whole butterfly walkthrough idea.

One more thing, in the future you’re probably going to need larger tanks for the aquatic life, as well as more small ones, just as a heads up, because while you’ve given enough space for the fish so far, there are only more to come.
 
The butterfly idea has its attractions--per Wikipedia, there are 303 species found there, 210 of which are endemic.

As for the Pochard, I had decided to put them in the too rare to exhibit category because of the IUCN assessment, but it said nothing about the captive breeding program. There is one that had gotten its population up to about 90, from which 21 were reintroduced in December 2018. Here's the most recent information, which I'm not sure is good enough to support the idea of taking even a pair for a zoo: The great Madagascar pochard comeback | One Earth
 
I guess you do bring up a good point, also, you’re gonna need a big area for ants and for dragonflies, there are a lot. The butterfly walkthrough could also house things like beetles, flies, etc.
 
Just curious, what have your main inspirations been for your exhibits? I’m especially curious about the Galapagos, TSA, and tundra areas. Also, what are your main inspirations for the Madagascar area?

You might want to consider giving the lemurs outdoor islands just for some fresh air and a change of scenery, it would also let you mix them potentially.
 
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Each of the exhibit areas evolved differently.

For the Galapagos, its flora and fauna are distributed among several fairly well-defined climate zones (see attachment). I wanted to try to recreate the sensation of visiting the islands and physically moving from zone to zone, which is how I came up with the basic design for the ramp that takes the visitor up while passing through the various zones just as if you were climbing the hill or mountain on one of the islands themselves. It's actually my favorite of all the designs with which I've come up so far.

For the TSA, I knew that the overall area was going to have sort of a crescent shape to fit up against the concourses that define the northwest side of the Antarctic bioregion, so that began to dictate how to arrange the various parts. I actually designed each of the parts separately, then played around with various arrangements of them until I got a good fit for all of them. The exhibits for the large mammals and birds of prey ended up being the last designed so they would fit into the spot where you see them. I put the flamingos at one of the main entrances to the area because they make such a dramatic exhibit--I wanted to use them to send a message--come see Temperate South America! This is an area not well known to those who don't live there, and I wanted to make it attractive to pique people's interest in seeing the rest of it. It was something of a challenge including all the various species of tuco-tucos and lizards since there are so many which don't vary much from each other, so I tried to provide arrangements based on microhabitats to provide some learning experience, hence also the division into lowlands and highlands to try to help you see the variety of landscapes in the dryer areas of the Southern Cone. My favorite parts of TSA are the aquarium, centered on penguins of course, with a fantastic array of birds, and the Austral Forests, which I found fascinating to learn about and, if you start with the Austral Forests and then go to to the Matorral exhibits, the idea is to take you on a trip as if you were walking from the southern tip of Chile north until you reach the southern edge of the Atacama Desert.

The tundra areas both began with the yards for the various subspecies of caribou/reindeer (and Snow Sheep for the Palearctic Tundra), which need the most area, and everything else was fit in around them including an effort to show predator-prey relationships with wolves and wolverines. There's only one subspecies of wolf to work with in each area, so I designed the wolf exhibits each to be visible from several of the ruminant exhibits, which has the added benefit of giving the wolves that much more room to roam. I knew I wanted a real "mountain" for the Snow Sheep, and that led to the idea of using the space underneath for interior exhibits and other facilities.

As you can see from several of the exhibit areas, I like to use a big (usually multi-species) bird exhibit at a main entrance because birds are usually diurnal, active, often noisy and usually brightly colored, so they make for a great invitation to come into the area to see more.

As for Madagascar, I'm still waiting for inspiration to strike me, hehe. There will probably be at least some exhibits to show the unique fauna combinations of a number of the national parks and reserves, modeled to some extent on the Masoala exhibit at the Zuerich Zoo.

I do have one idea for a large "Madagascar at Night" exhibit to show the many species of native bats (with both caves and forest areas, since some are cave roosters and others are tree roosters), probably combined with a few of the nocturnal lemur species, through which the visitors would walk in tunnels with bats flying in front of you and over you (sort of a nocturnal mammal version of the aquarium exhibits in which you walk through a tunnel with fish swimming next to and over you), with smaller exhibits in the same building for tenrecs.
 

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Gomphothere said:
Each of the exhibit areas evolved differently.

For the Galapagos, its flora and fauna are distributed among several fairly well-defined climate zones (see attachment). I wanted to try to recreate the sensation of visiting the islands and physically moving from zone to zone, which is how I came up with the basic design for the ramp that takes the visitor up while passing through the various zones just as if you were climbing the hill or mountain on one of the islands themselves. It's actually my favorite of all the designs with which I've come up so far.

For the TSA, I knew that the overall area was going to have sort of a crescent shape to fit up against the concourses that define the northwest side of the Antarctic bioregion, so that began to dictate how to arrange the various parts. I actually designed each of the parts separately, then played around with various arrangements of them until I got a good fit for all of them. The exhibits for the large mammals and birds of prey ended up being the last designed so they would fit into the spot where you see them. I put the flamingos at one of the main entrances to the area because they make such a dramatic exhibit--I wanted to use them to send a message--come see Temperate South America! This is an area not well known to those who don't live there, and I wanted to make it attractive to pique people's interest in seeing the rest of it. It was something of a challenge including all the various species of tuco-tucos and lizards since there are so many which don't vary much from each other, so I tried to provide arrangements based on microhabitats to provide some learning experience, hence also the division into lowlands and highlands to try to help you see the variety of landscapes in the dryer areas of the Southern Cone. My favorite parts of TSA are the aquarium, centered on penguins of course, with a fantastic array of birds, and the Austral Forests, which I found fascinating to learn about and, if you start with the Austral Forests and then go to to the Matorral exhibits, the idea is to take you on a trip as if you were walking from the southern tip of Chile north until you reach the southern edge of the Atacama Desert.

The tundra areas both began with the yards for the various subspecies of caribou/reindeer (and Snow Sheep for the Palearctic Tundra), which need the most area, and everything else was fit in around them including an effort to show predator-prey relationships with wolves and wolverines. There's only one subspecies of wolf to work with in each area, so I designed the wolf exhibits each to be visible from several of the ruminant exhibits, which has the added benefit of giving the wolves that much more room to roam. I knew I wanted a real "mountain" for the Snow Sheep, and that led to the idea of using the space underneath for interior exhibits and other facilities.

As you can see from several of the exhibit areas, I like to use a big (usually multi-species) bird exhibit at a main entrance because birds are usually diurnal, active, often noisy and usually brightly colored, so they make for a great invitation to come into the area to see more.

As for Madagascar, I'm still waiting for inspiration to strike me, hehe. There will probably be at least some exhibits to show the unique fauna combinations of a number of the national parks and reserves, modeled to some extent on the Masoala exhibit at the Zuerich Zoo.

I do have one idea for a large "Madagascar at Night" exhibit to show the many species of native bats (with both caves and forest areas, since some are cave roosters and others are tree roosters), probably combined with a few of the nocturnal lemur species, through which the visitors would walk in tunnels with bats flying in front of you and over you (sort of a nocturnal mammal version of the aquarium exhibits in which you walk through a tunnel with fish swimming next to and over you), with smaller exhibits in the same building for tenrecs.
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I meant what exhibits inspired the previous areas, either way though, it’s very interesting to see your thought process, thanks for sharing.
 
Bengal Tiger said:
I meant what exhibits inspired the previous areas, either way though, it’s very interesting to see your thought process, thanks for sharing.
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If there were specific exhibits that were inspirations, I usually put them in the Concept document for each ecoregion. For example, for TSA, I stated:

- Inspirations include the Bronx Zoo’s World of Birds and Mouse House, the Fort Worth Zoo’s Museum of Living Art, and the Philadelphia Zoo’s Big Cat Crossing.

As for the Galapagos and the Tundra Exhibits, I didn't list any, and I don't remember having any particularly in mind when I designed them.

As for Madagascar, obviously, the Bronx Zoo's Madgascar! exhibit will be an inspiration, as will Zuerich's Masoala, but I haven't seen any others, so if anyone's familiar with any other Madagascar exhibits, let me know!
 
What are your thoughts on antsangys and fat tailed dwarf lemurs as far as exhibition goes? Also, do you consider crested ibises too rare to show? By the way, on a note about purple herons, it would be a good idea to keep them away from fledgling birds. A turtle species to put on your radar is the Madagascar side necked turtle.
On a side note about @Austin the Sengi’s zoo, I highly suggest looking at it, as it has a large amount of interesting reptiles and amphibians. Also, I thought you might just like to read it :)
 
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I thought of something for you, it has info on endemic animals of places all over the world, I thought you would like it for the fish, here it is:
Animals and Plants Unique to the Seychelles
Animals and Plants Unique to the Comoros
Animals and Plants Unique to Mauritius
Animals and Plants Unique to Reunion
Animals and Plants Unique to Mayotte

Eol has some good pages by the way.

Also, do you plan on organizing the invertebrates by island? If so, you could display some of the butterflies/moths with some peaceful birds. Yo could also put the endemic marine exhibits at the beginning or end of each island to make them feel like they have reached the ocean, just for the sake of interesting layout.
 
Wow, that's a great website--they also have pages for Madagascar. Will be a useful double-check. Their sources for birds, reptiles and amphibians are among those I used, too.

I'm presuming that the inverts will be organized by (a) ecoregion within Madagascar, and (b) by the island groupings, but maybe also by major islands within the various archipelagos. I haven't gotten that far, yet.

Am still debating in my mind whether to have marine exhibits as part of Madagascar or to leave them to the planned Indian Ocean Aquarium. At most I'll include the sea/shore birds. sea turtles and sea snakes. I'll definitely be leaving the marine fish and invertebrates to the Aquarium.
 
I mm gonna have to give a link for you, it had Malagasy ants!!! I also have some more recently discovered bird species for you. I’ll probably have it by tomorrow.
 
Alright, I found this amazing website: Madagascar - AntWiki

Also, I found a couple of lesser known birds in this book I checked out from the library (if you like I can PM you the title): Tsingy wood rail, karthala scops owl, moheli scops owl, mayotte scops owl, anjouan scops owl, aldabra bush warbler, cryptic warbler, and appert's tetraka.

Also, apparently pictus, ibity, stumpff's, nosy be, and pygmy panther geckos are available to private collectors!!!
 
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