Species of animals exclusively kept in Japan?

BerdNerd

BerdNerd

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
My dad is in the military, and we get orders to move and get stationed to a military base somewhere else every 1-3 years. This year, we could potentially be stationed to Okinawa for 3 years. I started to research what kind of zoos and aquariums are over there, and it got me thinking: are there any species of animals that are kept in captivity exclusively in Japan?
 
I kind of touched on it in this thread : Ex-situ Zoo conservation of Japanese native species

Some species that come to mind are :

Tshushima cat
Amami rabbit
Ryuku spiny rat
Ryuku flying fox
Bonin flying fox
Amami jay

If you are going to be stationed on Okinawa then you have a good chance of viewing a lot of their endemic species and particularly the Ryuku flying fox.

The zoochatter @RatioTile is very knowledgeable about Japanese zoos and where you can see these kinds of species so I'm sure he will be able to give you much better advice then I can.
 
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birdsandbats said:
In the original season of the Pokemon anime, there was a short rap section that would name a bunch of Pokemon in rhyme. If you watched for the whole week it would name what was at the time all 150 Pokemon (now there are 898, which is probably too many to fit into a rhyming rap).
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Ok...o_O I suppose I kind of was right then.
 
I’ve traveled to Okinawa three times in the last 5 years as my sister and brother-in-law was stationed there as well and on one of those occasions I was able to see the native flying fox in the wild. Can find them in the jungle areas, I spotted mine on the southern tip near the War Peace Memorial in the coastal forest. It scared the daylights out of my sister who is terrified of bats.

You have probably already researched the Churaumi Aquarium which is a fantastic facility and well worth the drive (since military will probably live toward the southern or central part of the island). There is a small zoo but I wasn’t able to visit, however my sister did so I can’t really speak of what they have in their collection.

One place that I would recommend is Okinawa World that is a “theme park” by loose standards. They have a reptile house that has local species of sea snakes and the infamous Habu that is found on Okinawa. Not sure how many holders have this deadly snake outside of Japan. Also around the grounds they have exhibits of local fauna as well including a couple exhibits of flying fox. They do have reptiles that are exotic as well so not all native species.
 

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If you're going to be in Okinawa you'll have to go to Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium. Considered to be the best aquarium in Japan and has rare species aplenty, some of which are kept only there. They have some seriously impressive coral reef exhibits (all love coral!), plenty of deep-water and deep-sea species, not to mention their famous Kuroshio Sea exhibit with plenty of open-ocean species including Reef Manta, Whale Shark and Yellowfin Tuna. Just be aware that Okinawa Churaumi keeps several cetaceans.

Tokyo Sea Life Park (also called Kasai Rinkai Aquarium) and Osaka Aquarium (also called Kaiyukan) are a fair distance away from Okinawa but are worth a visit if you can make the trip. Tokyo Sea Life Park has excellent displays and plenty of rare species like Bluefin Tuna, Striped Boarfish, Leaping Blenny, Little Penguin, Sea Toad, Nurseryfish, Houndfish, Scalloped Hammerhead, Striped Bonito, Antarctic Giant Isopod and a nice collection of deep sea and polar species. Osaka Aquarium of course has Whale Sharks, their other exhibits are good as well and have some rare species like Japanese Devil Ray, Sharpnose Stingray, Sunrise Perch, Japanese Giant Salamander, Arapaima, Scalloped Hammerhead, Great Barracuda, Green Jobfish, Japanese Spider Crab, Ebinania brephocephala and Ringed Seal. Unfortunately it also has Pacific White-Sided Dolphin and several exhibits are depressingly small for their inhabitants
 
Damn autocorrect on my last post. Where I said " all love coral" I meant "all live coral".
 
@DaLilFishie OCA also holds a bunch species that I like, including Phromina amphipods, Ascidians, Sea pens, Sea Lilies, Tube dwelling anemones, Balmain bugs, Deep-sea Sea stars, and other rare beauties.
Not sure how interesting some of those other animals will be to some people, but hey, cool nonetheless.
 
marmoset23 said:
The japan monkey center has many rare/early seen primates
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However, several species are represented by a single geriatric individual, and recent laws have made it harder to import monkeys into Japan to replenish them. Therefore you should go to JMC ASAP (which is impossible now due to covid), although nothing is so rare that you can't find it captive in another country.
 
marmoset23 said:
The japan monkey center has many rare/early seen primates
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RatioTile said:
However, several species are represented by a single geriatric individual, and recent laws have made it harder to import monkeys into Japan to replenish them. Therefore you should go to JMC ASAP (which is impossible now due to covid), although nothing is so rare that you can't find it captive in another country.
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Also the primates live in quite some bad cages (except chimps which has a quite nice exhibit, and siamang which has a roller coaster)
 
CheeseChameleon2007 said:
@DaLilFishie OCA also holds a bunch species that I like, including Phromina amphipods, Ascidians, Sea pens, Sea Lilies, Tube dwelling anemones, Balmain bugs, Deep-sea Sea stars, and other rare beauties.
Not sure how interesting some of those other animals will be to some people, but hey, cool nonetheless.
Click to expand...
Yeah, OCA has too many rarities to list in a single post haha. Sadly many have been taken off display, including the Phronima.
 
In addition to the species listed by @Onychorhynchus coronatus , I can add :

- Japanese serow ; now that the one in Usti died I believe the only ones remaining are in Japan
- Emperor penguin : appart from the one in San Diego, from what I know the only other ones in captivity are in Japan
- Somali galago ; at Ueno Zoo, not sure anyone has seen it yet but they said to have acquired one in 2019

Ueno also had or has Japanese grass voles, tarsiers, a great slaty woodpecker I've seen in the gallery before and probably many nice japanese birds (Varied tits, Lidth's jay and probably others)
 
Rayane said:
In addition to the species listed by @Onychorhynchus coronatus , I can add :

- Japanese serow ; now that the one in Usti died I believe the only ones remaining are in Japan
- Emperor penguin : appart from the one in San Diego, from what I know the only other ones in captivity are in Japan
- Somali galago ; at Ueno Zoo, not sure anyone has seen it yet but they said to have acquired one in 2019

Ueno also had or has Japanese grass voles, tarsiers, a great slaty woodpecker I've seen in the gallery before and probably many nice japanese birds (Varied tits, Lidth's jay and probably others)
Click to expand...

The somali galago is a strange one , how did it end up at Ueno zoo ?
 
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