Mammals Species Counts at Major Zoos in the USA

Brayden Delashmutt

Brayden Delashmutt

Well-Known Member
Over the past few days I have been compiling the amount of mammal species present at several major zoos as a guide for mammal enthusiasts across the states. Please reply with what I should do next!

Bronx (14 Groups Represented)

Artiodactyla (36)
Carnivora (16)
Chiroptera (2)
Diprotodontia (2)
Hyracoidea (1)
Lagamorpha (1)
Macroscelidea (1)
Perrisodactyla (5)
Primates (20)
Proboscidea (1)
Scandentia (1)
Rodentia (23)
Tubilidentata (1)
Xenarthra (2)
Mammals Total (112)

Megafaunal Mammals (40)

Brookfield (12 Groups Represented)

Afrosoricida (1)
Artiodactyla (16)
Carnivora (24)
Chiroptera (1)
Cetacea (1)
Diprotodontia (4)
Monotremata (1)
Perrisodactyla (4)
Pholidota (1)
Primates (12)
Rodentia (5)
Xenarthra (2)
Mammals Total (71)

Megafaunal Mammals (35)

Cincinnati (11 Groups Represented)

Artiodactyla (11)
Carnivora (22)
Chiroptera (2)
Diprotodontia (2)
Perrisodactyla (2)
Primates (17)
Proboscidea (1)
Rodentia (2)
Sirenia (1)
Tubilidentata (1)
Xenarthra (3)
Mammals Total (65)

Megafaunal Mammals (27)

Columbus (11 Groups Represented)

Artiodactyla (16)
Carnivora (20)
Chiroptera (2)
Dasyuromorphia (1)
Diprotodontia (5)
Perrisodactyla (1)
Primates (7)
Proboscidea (1)
Sirenia (1)
Tubilidentata (1)
Xenarthra (1)
Mammals Total (46)

Megafaunal Mammals (31)

Memphis (10 Groups Represented)

Artiodactyla (14)
Carnivora (18)
Chiroptera (4)
Diprotodontia (3)
Perrisodactyla (4)
Primates (16)
Proboscidea (1)
Rodentia (7)
Tubilidentata (1)
Xenarthra (4)
Mammals Total (69)

Megafaunal Mammals (34)

Miami (8 Groups Represented)

Artiodactyla (31)
Carnivora (16)
Chiroptera (3)
Perissodactyla (4)
Primates (9)
Proboscidea (2)
Rodentia (2)
Xenarthra (2)
Mammals Total (67)

Megafaunal Mammals (42)

Omaha (14 Groups Represented)

Afrosoricida (1)
Artiodactyla (15)
Carnivora (18)
Chiroptera (8)
Diprotodontia (1)
Hyracoidea (2)
Macroscelidea (1)
Monotremata (1)
Perrisodactyla (4)
Primates (23)
Proboscidea (1)
Rodentia (10)
Tubulidentata (1)
Xenarthra (4)
Mammals Total (91)

Megafaunal Mammals (27)

Saint Louis (9 Groups Represented)

Artiodactyla (16)
Carnivora (15)
Diprotodontia (1)
Perrisodactyla (3)
Proboscidea (1)
Primates (14)
Rodentia (1)
Xenarthra (2)
Mammals Total (53)

Megafaunal Mammals (29)

San Diego (10 Groups Represented)

Artiodactyla (24)
Carnivora (30)
Dasyuromorpha (1)
Diprotodontia (4)
Hyracoidea (1)
Perrisodactyla (3)
Primates (31)
Proboscidea (2)
Rodentia (5)
Xenarthra (3)
Mammals Total (104)

Megafaunal Mammals (34)

Woodland Park (6 Groups Represented)

Carnivora (13)
Artiodactyla (12)
Diprotodontia (2)
Perrisodactyla (3)
Primates (11)
Rodentia (1)
Mammals Total (42)

Megafaunal Mammals (23)

Following this will be several other posts further analyzing the data I have collected. Stay tuned, and feel free to correct me if I have incorrect information
 
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Groups Represented

Bronx (14)
Omaha (14)
Brookfield (12)
Cincinnati (11)
Columbus (11)
Memphis (10)
San Diego (10)
Saint Louis (9)
Miami (8)
Woodland Park (6)

Omaha, Brookfield, and The Bronx have relatively large obscure mammal collections, featuring species such as elephant shrews, tenrecs, tree shrews, and echidnas. While San Diego has a huge ungulate and carnivore collection, it lacks a most of these smaller mammal orders
The majority of groups represented only have one or two species present (Macroscelidea, Soricida, Afrosoricida, Cetacea)

Artiodactyla

Bronx (36)
San Diego (24)
Brookfield (16)
Columbus (16)
Miami (16)
Omaha (15)
Saint Louis (15)
Memphis (14)
Woodland Park (12)
Cincinnati (11)

With its Wild Asia Monorail, it's no surprise the Bronx is on top. The Wild Asia monorail is one of the best ungulate collections in the states, but is not open year round. If you’re looking to see a more broad ungulate collection, I’d advise San Diego or Brookfield.

Carnivora

San Diego (30)
Brookfield (24)
Cincinnati (22)
Columbus (20)
Memphis (18)
Omaha (18)
Bronx (16)
Miami (16)
Saint Louis (15)
Woodland Park (13)

With the exception of San Diego, it is mainly dominated by zoos with nocturnal houses. This is most useful for small carnivore enthusiasts, but once large carnivores are taken into account the list shifts almost completely (Saint Louis/San Diego dominate with their huge cat/bear collections, as well as several canids and spotted hyenas)

Primates

San Diego (31)
Omaha (23)
Bronx (20)
Cincinnati (17)
Memphis (16)
Saint Louis (14)
Brookfield (12)
Woodland Park (11)
Miami (9)
Columbus (7)

Having high amounts of primates is far less common than expected. The Lost Forest and Lied Jungle are extremely speciose and must-sees for primate enthusiasts.

Mammals Total

Bronx (112)
San Diego (104)
Omaha (91)
Brookfield (71)
Memphis (69)
Miami (67)
Cincinnati (65)
Saint Louis (53)
Columbus (46)
Woodland Park (42)

The Bronx gets carried heavily by WAM and the Mouse House. Both the Bronx and Omaha have excellent small mammal collections.

Megafaunal Mammals

Miami (42)
Bronx (40)
Brookfield (35)
Memphis (34)
San Diego (34)
Columbus (31)
Saint Louis (29)
Cincinnati (27)
Omaha (27)
Woodland Park (23)

Miami and The Bronx both sport huge collections of ungulates, with Miami’s extra carnivores and large primates pulling it ever so slightly ahead. Despite their superficially huge amount, ungulates not included the Bronx has relatively few large carnivores or primates
Omaha and Cincinnati are both surprisingly low. Both facilities have large small carnivore collections, but have small collections of large carnivorans (7 at Omaha, 7 at Cincinnati). While not included in megafaunal total, I'd allow carnivores over 50 lbs to be considered "large" (changing Cincinatti to 9) The Bronx only has 8 large carnivores, but makes up for it with its Wild Asia monorail. Saint Louis and San Diego have unsurprisingly great large carnivore collections of 13 and 16 respectively

Coming up in the next post…where do the National Zoo, Cheyenne Mountain, and others fit in?
 
Interesting data. Before you keep going, I have some questions:

- What are your source(s) for these numbers? Curious because some of the numbers seem off; Memphis, for example, definitely has more than 18 carnivore species - my count is 24 species on-show, plus a couple off-show.

- Are domestics included?

- Will any distinction be made between on-show and off-show? If part of your goal is to suggest where people should go to see stuff, this seems like important information to include.

- How many zoos are you looking at? You started with only 10 but it sounds like future posts will include more... did you start with the 10 that had the most, or is the order random?

- What all is included in the "megafauna" total?
 
Coelacanth18 said:
Interesting data. Before you keep going, I have some questions:

- What are your source(s) for these numbers? Curious because some of the numbers seem off; Memphis, for example, definitely has more than 18 carnivore species - my count is 24 species on-show, plus a couple off-show.

- Are domestics included?

- Will any distinction be made between on-show and off-show? If part of your goal is to suggest where people should go to see stuff, this seems like important information to include.

- How many zoos are you looking at? You started with only 10 but it sounds like future posts will include more... did you start with the 10 that had the most, or is the order random?

- What all is included in the "megafauna" total?
Click to expand...

As I said, feel free to correct me on this since I'm only aware of what's posted online. I used the Memphis Zoo's website, though there may have been a miscalculation there. After reinvestigating it, I got 23 atm. Most are probably not exact, since zoochat threads and zoo websites won't count everything. This was simply an approximation based on what info is easily available. Which others seem off to you? I'll try and check those as well.

Domestics are included. Megafauna is over 100 lbs. I picked some of the top zoos in the nation and those with some of the most readily available info, but its by no means done.
 
Brayden Delashmutt said:
As I said, feel free to correct me on this since I'm only aware of what's posted online. I used the Memphis Zoo's website, though there may have been a miscalculation there. Most are probably not exact, since zoochat threads and zoo websites won't count everything. This was simply an approximation based on what info is easily available.
Click to expand...

If you're open to suggestions, mine would be to utilize multiple sources (zoo websites, USDA inspection reports and species lists on the forum I've found to be a good trio) and do your best to get a complete and accurate picture before posting your results. Being one or two species off is often unavoidable, but taking Memphis as an example - 18 vs 26 carnivores is a pretty big difference, a narrative-changing one potentially since it would put it 2nd out of 10 behind San Diego. When dealing with totals of 20-30, even being 3 or 4 off is a 10-20% difference and that's not nothing.

Also yes, there was a miscalculation regardless ;) as even Memphis Zoo's website has 22 carnivores on it, not 18.
 
Coelacanth18 said:
If you're open to suggestions, mine would be to utilize multiple sources (zoo websites, USDA inspection reports and species lists on the forum I've found to be a good trio) and do your best to get a complete and accurate picture before posting your results. Being one or two species off is often unavoidable, but taking Memphis as an example - 18 vs 26 carnivores is a pretty big difference, a narrative-changing one potentially since it would put it 2nd out of 10 behind San Diego. When dealing with totals of 20-30, even being 3 or 4 off is a 10-20% difference and that's not nothing.

Also yes, there was a miscalculation regardless ;) as even Memphis Zoo's website has 22 carnivores on it, not 18.
Click to expand...

Memphis Zoo was a different case then the majority in that I created a list and then for some reason like half of it didn't copy over right. I'll go through and double check, but I think almost every one on here is about accurate, and I spent painstaking amounts of time on it. My apologies
 
Washington DC (12 Groups Represented)

Afroscelida (1)
Artiodactyla (7)
Carnivora (23)
Didelphimorphia (1)
Diprotodontia (2)
Hyracoidea (1)
Perrisodactyla (3)
Primates (16)
Proboscidea (1)
Rodentia (13)
Soricera (1)
Xenarthra (3)
Mammals Total (79)

Megafaunal Mammals (25)

Colorado Springs (10 Groups Represented)

Afrosoricida (1)
Artiodactyla (6)
Carnivora (13)
Diprotodontia (2)
Eulipotyphla (1)
Perrisodactyla (3)
Proboscidea (1)
Primates (8)
Rodentia (10)
Xenarthra (1)
Mammals Total (46)

Megafaunal Mammals (21)

Cleveland (10 Groups Represented)

Artiodactyla (9)
Carnivora (21)
Chiroptera (2)
Diprotodontia (7)
Perrisodactyla (5)
Primates (25)
Proboscidea (1)
Rodentia (6)
Scandentia (1)
Xenarthra (3)
Mammals Total (80)

Megafaunal Mammals (24)
 
I second @Coelacanth18 in taking a second look around - a number of totals seemed off to me and I checked recent USDA for San Diego, Memphis, Miami, Cleveland, and Cheyenne Mountain. Results being none match your stated total number of species, all of them off by a decent bit. Cleveland tallies at 8 lower than you claim with San Diego being nearly 20 species higher than you're claiming. It's definitely hard to get precise numbers for things like this, but a lot of them were off nearly by double digits.
 
Brayden Delashmutt said:
As I said, feel free to correct me on this since I'm only aware of what's posted online. I used the Memphis Zoo's website, though there may have been a miscalculation there. After reinvestigating it, I got 23 atm. Most are probably not exact, since zoochat threads and zoo websites won't count everything. This was simply an approximation based on what info is easily available. Which others seem off to you? I'll try and check those as well.
Click to expand...
Zoo's own websites are not usually a good source for complete information.

While I generally will caution against using ZooTierListe as a complete source (e.g. the kind of posts which say something like "only x number of zoos in the world have x species because that's what ZTL says"), for the major USA zoos as you have here it is probably much more reliable than most other sources.
 
Brayden Delashmutt said:
Bronx (14 Groups Represented)

Artiodactyla (36)
Carnivora (16)
Chiroptera (2)
Diprotodontia (2)
Hyracoidea (1)
Lagamorpha (1)
Macroscelidea (1)
Perrisodactyla (5)
Primates (20)
Proboscidea (1)
Scandentia (1)
Rodentia (23)
Tubilidentata (1)
Xenarthra (2)
Mammals Total (112)
Click to expand...

Where did you source your numbers for Bronx from? Per my June 2024 species list, this is what I observed.

Astrotom3000 said:
Even-toed Ungulates and Cetaceans (Order Artiodactyla) - 33
Primates (Order Primates) - 19
Rodents (Order Rodentia) - 18
Carnivorans (Order Carnivora) - 17
Odd-toed Ungulates (Order Perissodactyla) - 5
Kangaroos, Possums, Wombats, and Allies (Order Diprotodontia) - 2
Sloths and Anteaters (Order Pilosa) - 2
Aardvarks (Order Tubulidentata) - 1
Bats (Order Chiroptera) - 1
Hyraxes (Order Hyracoidea) - 1
Lagomorphs (Order Lagomorpha) - 1
Proboscideans (Order Proboscidea) - 1
Sengis (Order Macroscelidea) - 1
Treeshrews (Order Scandentia) - 1
Click to expand...

I realized I counted the Tiger twice, so Carnivorans seem correct. But I appear to be missing 3 species of Artiodactyla, 5 species of rodents, 1 species of primate, and 1 species of bat. I didn't see any changes in the news threads that would have affected this, and I sweeped that zoo multiple times during my visit. Could these be BTS/ambassador animals?
 
Astrotom3000 said:
Where did you source your numbers for Bronx from? Per my June 2024 species list, this is what I observed.



I realized I counted the Tiger twice, so Carnivorans seem correct. But I appear to be missing 3 species of Artiodactyla, 5 species of rodents, 1 species of primate, and 1 species of bat. I didn't see any changes in the news threads that would have affected this, and I sweeped that zoo multiple times during my visit. Could these be BTS/ambassador animals?
Click to expand...

I'm simply going off of one of the zoochat species lists. Maybe things have changed since it was posted, but I'll check for mistakes. Did you post your species list?
 
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Brayden Delashmutt said:
I'm simply going off of one of the zoochat species lists. Maybe things have changed since it was posted, but I'll check for mistakes. Did you post your species list?
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I posted a species list from my June 2024 visit here (with taxonomic breakdown) -> Bronx Zoo Review and Species List - June 2024 [Bronx Zoo]. The counts do include domestic animals, and tigers were counted twice due to them having two subspecies; I only counted brown bears once).

The only things I noted from the news and update threads were a change or two in the Mouse House (which might affect the rodent counts), but other than that, I don't think the mammal collection changed much at all since then. Also, the zoo mistakenly has their Northern Treeshrews signed as Tupaia glis, but I see you correctly have them listed as only have one species of Treeshrew.
 
Will you be looking at Wildlife World, Arizona? I'm curious how high it ranks when compared to the major AZA zoos.
 
Chlidonias said:
While I generally will caution against using ZooTierListe as a complete source (e.g. the kind of posts which say something like "only x number of zoos in the world have x species because that's what ZTL says"), for the major USA zoos as you have here it is probably much more reliable than most other sources.
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Yeah it's usually reasonably close - for San Diego I count 112 on ZTL to 118 on USDA from just over a month ago. Still have to be cautious though, a number of mammals listed on ZTL aren't on the recent USDA and appear out of date.
 
Chlidonias said:
While I generally will caution against using ZooTierListe as a complete source (e.g. the kind of posts which say something like "only x number of zoos in the world have x species because that's what ZTL says"), for the major USA zoos as you have here it is probably much more reliable than most other sources.
Click to expand...

Yep, I forgot about this one - mainly because it wasn't an option for me most of the times I did threads like these :p

Brayden Delashmutt said:
I used the Memphis Zoo's website
Click to expand...
Brayden Delashmutt said:
I'm simply going off of one of the zoochat species lists.
Click to expand...

This is why I asked about the sources you were using, and why I think using multiple sources is ideal; that way you can compare them and figure out what the most accurate number might be.

To be clear, I meant it when I said that this is an interesting thread; there's a lot of good discussion that could come from this. But given that multiple numbers appear to be off, I think maybe it needs more work before it's ready for that; it's hard to discuss differences between zoos in good faith when there's questions about the accuracy of the numbers. More painstaking work awakes, good luck! :D
 
Coelacanth18 said:
Yep, I forgot about this one - mainly because it wasn't an option for me most of the times I did threads like these :p




This is why I asked about the sources you were using, and why I think using multiple sources is ideal; that way you can compare them and figure out what the most accurate number might be.

To be clear, I meant it when I said that this is an interesting thread; there's a lot of good discussion that could come from this. But given that multiple numbers appear to be off, I think maybe it needs more work before it's ready for that; it's hard to discuss differences between zoos in good faith when there's questions about the accuracy of the numbers. More painstaking work awakes, good luck! :D
Click to expand...

Thanks! I’m currently working on getting the most up to date ones possible, and when I make it to Fort Worth and DWA this spring I’ll try and jot down every mammal I see.
 
Brayden Delashmutt said:
Probably pretty high as far as megafauna goes, but not too high otherwise
Click to expand...

If you're not sure then better to wait til you check, just saying... Last I was aware mammal tally for Wildlife World was higher than either Bronx or San Diego, and WWZ can very much hold its own with the smaller mammals. They do flux species in and out a decent deal, but hold quite on par with the two AZA giants in terms of species.
 
Great Argus said:
If you're not sure then better to wait til you check, just saying... Last I was aware mammal tally for Wildlife World was higher than either Bronx or San Diego, and WWZ can very much hold its own with the smaller mammals. They do flux species in and out a decent deal, but hold quite on par with the two AZA giants in terms of species.
Click to expand...

That's actually insane, I'm going to check it out when I have the chance. The more I read about it the more I want to go
 
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