Mixed species exhibit ideas

Van Beal said:
I just thought of this one. Would a mix of either Tomistoma or Chinese Alligator with various Asian turtles work?
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Define work, cause that can mean one or several things. The turtles won’t be eaten if you choose the right species and large-enough specimens, but it’s not entirely clear to me if most species truly thrive in mixes with crocodilians or simply survive.

So far I know of the following mixes in which the turtles successfully produced offspring, in my opinion a reasonable proxy for their ability to cope with the crocodilians presence without further information:
  • Branderhorst snapping turtle with spectacled cayman
  • Pig-nosed turtle with Australian crocodile
  • Hilaire’s side-necked turtle with dwarf cayman
  • Spotted pond turtle with dwarf crocodile
Ofcourse, sunda gharials are quite a bit larger. And I thought Chinese alligators were a bit more aggressive than most cayman, but not sure about that. In any case, Chinese alligators need to go in winter-rest so it would be best to keep turtle species from similar latitudes with them.
 
Mr Gharial said:
How about Gambian pouched rat, Yellow-spotted rock hyrax and Springhare
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I can’t find any signs of behavioral incompatibility with a quick search, except for the hyraxes possibly being a bit too dominating and overwhelming for the springhares when their group grows.
 
Jarne said:
Define work, cause that can mean one or several things. The turtles won’t be eaten if you choose the right species and large-enough specimens, but it’s not entirely clear to me if most species truly thrive in mixes with crocodilians or simply survive.

So far I know of the following mixes in which the turtles successfully produced offspring, in my opinion a reasonable proxy for their ability to cope with the crocodilians presence without further information:
  • Branderhorst snapping turtle with spectacled cayman
  • Pig-nosed turtle with Australian crocodile
  • Hilaire’s side-necked turtle with dwarf cayman
  • Spotted pond turtle with dwarf crocodile
Ofcourse, sunda gharials are quite a bit larger. And I thought Chinese alligators were a bit more aggressive than most cayman, but not sure about that. In any case, Chinese alligators need to go in winter-rest so it would be best to keep turtle species from similar latitudes with them.
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I was thinking Malaysian Painted River Terrapin and Spiny Turtle for the mix in an indoor habitat.
 
Mr Gharial said:
I do believe both of these are mixed with Tomistoma in Beauval, but I'd need Haliaeetus to confirm
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There are Carettochelys insculpta, Batagur affinis and Orlitia borneensis in the Malayan False Gharial pools in Beauval (plus many fish species).
Heosemys spinosa is present, but only in the backstage for now (for a while they could be seen in a small terrarium in the Dôme, not in the croc pools). I haven't got any information about the past or current presence of Batagur bornoensis in the zoo (probably never displayed nor maintained).
I give purposely the latin names, as the english common names may be confusing.
 
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Van Beal said:
I was thinking Malaysian Painted River Terrapin and Spiny Turtle for the mix in an indoor habitat.
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Malaysian painted river terrapin was kept with tomistoma in Artis for a while, but is now kept separated. Wether this is just to fill in the other exhibit, which was empty before, or because the terrapins weren’t doing optimally is unknown to me. Chester also kept the terrapins with their tomistoma, but failed to breed and it seems they no longer have the turtles.
 
Chester do still have Batagur borneoensis, and they are still housed with their Tomistoma.

H. spinosa is really a shallow stream dwelling/semi-terrestrial species, generally associated with much shallower habitats than Batagurs. I can't visualise how such a mix would work.
 
Swampy said:
Chester do still have Batagur borneoensis, and they are still housed with their Tomistoma.

H. spinosa is really a shallow stream dwelling/semi-terrestrial species, generally associated with much shallower habitats than Batagurs. I can't visualise how such a mix would work.
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Mixes of water depth so that each turtle could be more comfortable, perhaps? Like deeper sections for the Batagurs and shallower for the H. spinosa
 
RandomZooVisitorYT said:
So what non-pinniped animals would be a good mix with sea lions or seals
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I think it depends on what type of pinniped it is.It's a pretty big diffrence between for example between harbour seals and california sea lions.To my knowledge,penguins and gannets have been mixed with sea lions but sooner or later a bird will get killed.I know that Longleat keeps california sea lions with common hippos.This mix might sound disastrous,with the curious neture of the sea lions and the aggressive nature of hippos, one might easily imagine how things can escalate,but the enclosure is actually a giant lake so they have enough room to avoid conflicts.
 
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The main issue with the mix at Longleat is more so that the sea lions are restricted to freshwater... Personally I don't think they should be kept in the lake for that reason but in terms of actual conflict that seems to be non existent as the sea lions sometimes sit on the backs of the hippos!
 
RandomZooVisitorYT said:
What about:

Siamangs, Peacock, Small Clawed Otters,
Sea Lions, Moose, (or any pinneped/hoofstock mix
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RandomZooVisitorYT said:
Odd, I know for a fact that Indianapolis mixed Gibbons, Otters, and a green peafowl
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1) same as always, mixing otters with anything safe for maybe orang-utans is taking a significant risk without any real benefit for the animals involved. That it has gone without deaths in Indianapolis so far doesn’t mean it’s a great mix. It’s like you technically can mix serval and porcupines, it actually works sometimes but why take the risk and cause the animals the stress? I’m not sure about the siamang-peacock interactions, maybe they would mostly adopt a live-and-let-live relationship but not sure.

2: Why? I can imagine it working if the exhibit is suitable for both species, but mostly because a in a well designed exhibit fit for both neither of them has the need to come into the parts designed for the other species. Moose need a shallow freshwater pool with gentle banks whilst sea lions like a deep saltwater pool with steeper banks. And the needed land area would likely never be entered by the sea-lions who would just hug the waterside. All in all I think it’s possible, but I fail to see how it would be beneficial for both the animals and from a practical perspective. You could just as well have two separate exhibits for the same money on the same space, and they would be no worse than the shared exhibit.
 
It could be interesting to mix land mammals with sea lions, on their land part.

For example red or arctic foxes with northern species, rock hyrax with African fur seals, or mara with Patagonian sea lions or South American fur seals.

Strangely, in the zoo fashion of mixing everything with everything, this mix never happened. Also, despite the zoo fashion of visually merging multiple exhibits, pinniped pools never had land animals as a background, except one combo of polar bears behind seals. And there could be many other possiblities - from musk ox and reindeer for Arctic species, through brown bears for temperate species, guanaco for South American species and many others.
 
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