Subspecies held in the USA, for ZTL

Speaking of Brown Bear (Ursus arctos), there are several US entries for subspecies like European, Kodiak, Syrian and Hokkaido... as with Eurasian Lynx, I'm skeptical about these being valid IDs?
This brings up a question of the degree to which we should implicitly trust subspecies IDs on zoo signage in the US. For some taxa and facilities - tigers in AZA zoos for example - they can generally be trusted, but for a lot of unmanaged species or a lot of unaccredited zoos signage can be notoriously inaccurate.

My own inclination is that these should probably be listed at species-level with notes about how they are signed, rather than under a separate subspecies page... but I'd like to hear what other people think on that.
 
I can't speak for the other Brown Bear subspecies, but the Kodiak Bear holdings at Wildwood Zoo and Toledo are legit, as these animals came from Kodiak Island in 2015 (see here: Meet Munsey and Boda, the Wildwood Zoo bears). The additional listings for Kodiak at Space Farms and Big Cat Habitat/Gulf Coast Sanctuary are probably more questionable.

Not sure about other subspecies. I've seen animals around signed as Grizzly, Alaskan, Syrian and European around. The European bears look notably different than all of the others to my eye, though whether this means they are pure or not is another question. I know Syrian has been imported in recent years.
 
For the record though, the Ussuri Brown Bear at Space Farms apparently looks like this:

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Looks legit to me!

Their Kodiak Bear, meanwhile, looks like this:
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That doesn't really look like a Kodiak Bear at all.

(photos by @ThylacineAlive)
 
I'm not sure to what extent visual ID can be trusted for unmanaged populations like zoo-bred Brown Bears. An animal could have the right phenotype for Ussuri, but it could still be a hybrid... and vice versa, something could be a legit Kodiak but just be unusually small.

I also feel like it's difficult to know if a listing is incorrect based on photographs because zoos often have multiple bears, and they might not all share the same origin.
 
Coelacanth18 said:
I'm not sure to what extent visual ID can be trusted for unmanaged populations like zoo-bred Brown Bears. An animal could have the right phenotype for Ussuri, but it could still be a hybrid... and vice versa, something could be a legit Kodiak but just be unusually small.

I also feel like it's difficult to know if a listing is incorrect based on photographs because zoos often have multiple bears, and they might not all share the same origin.
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Agreed on all points, generally. But Kodiak Bears have a pretty distinctive head shape and color - I feel like we really can rule out Space Farms having a Kodiak Bear (or, at least, the one in that photo being a Kodiak). Here's one of Wildwood's, for comparison:

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(photo by @Milwaukee Man)
 
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I do remember being told by the owners of Animal Gardens Petting Zoo that they participate in a breeding program for Eurasian Lynx. So that species at least might have some sort of management outside the AZA. It might be similar for Brown Bears.
 
Coelacanth18 said:
I'm not sure to what extent visual ID can be trusted for unmanaged populations like zoo-bred Brown Bears. An animal could have the right phenotype for Ussuri, but it could still be a hybrid... and vice versa, something could be a legit Kodiak but just be unusually small.

I also feel like it's difficult to know if a listing is incorrect based on photographs because zoos often have multiple bears, and they might not all share the same origin.
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The other difficulty where Brown Bear are concerned (in my experience, anyhow) is that a lot of places which receive wild-caught rescue animals either don't know the original locality of capture, or don't bother paying enough attention to it in order to correctly ID their animals - so even when an animal is pure, they might well be officially identified as non-subspecific.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
The other difficulty where Brown Bear are concerned (in my experience, anyhow) is that a lot of places which receive wild-caught rescue animals either don't know the original locality of capture, or don't bother paying enough attention to it in order to correctly ID their animals - so even when an animal is pure, they might well be officially identified as non-subspecific.
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In many cases this also applies to American black bear, coyote, North American river otter, North American porcupine, and others animals that have multiple subspecies ranging across the continent. More than once I’ve had to call the zoo, get a curator’s email address, and ask if they know the specific location the animal came from and compare it to subspecies range maps.
 
Since there's been no further discussion in the past few days, let's move on to some birds. Again, my goal here is to see if 1) anyone has sources or evidence regarding these, and 2) if there is a consensus on potentially requesting changes to these species' ZTL entries to improve accuracy and minimize confusion and unnecessary splitting/duplicating.

As with last time, I've left out native species - there's a lot going on with those so they will probably need a separate re-assessment later.

Black and Gray Crowned Cranes – mix of species-level and subspecies, one for each. I have heard people claim that both birds should be entirely or mostly one subspecies - based on various information like visual ID, old database listings, import locations, etc - but I also think I remember there being some dispute about it. A consensus would be ideal, as the current splitting seems more out of confusion/disagreement than proven fact.

For reference: Black Crowned Cranes are split almost 50-50 and there are 2 duplicate listings; the majority of Gray Crowned Crane listings are for the Eastern gibbericeps (a roughly 3-to-1 split) and there are 3 duplicate listings

Gentoo and Rockhopper Penguins – both are being variously entered at species and subspecies level. For Gentoo I believe two subspecies are present, but it's unclear how they are being entered. For Rockhoppers I've heard that all should be Southern nominate (Eudyptes chrysocome chrysocome) but it would be good to have some confirmation of that. There are also two Canadian facilities listed for Northern (Eudyptes moseleyi) and I thought I remembered that species having a very small presence in the US also?

Lappet-faced Vultures – mix of African subspecies (5) and species level (3). There are no sources given for subspecies ID and the European entries for Lappet-faced are not identified to subspecies.

Andean Cock-of-the-Rock – mix of 3 IDs, species-level and 2 subspecies. No explanations are given for any of the subspecies IDs. This one has been discussed a bit already, so I'd like to know how those entries are being determined before suggesting they all be moved to species-level.

Magnificent Bird-of-Paradise – listed in duplicate at 2 zoos as both species-level and D. m. hunsteini, with no explanation for the subspecies IDs; a third zoo listed for just hunsteini has no sources at all.

Paradise Tanager – listings for species-level and two subspecies, with no explanations for subspecies IDs.

Masked Lapwing – mix of species-level and Northern (nominate) subspecies. This is one case where the two subspecies seem clearly different visually; all of ours that I've seen match Northern, but not 100% sure if that’s accurate or comprehensive.

Red-billed Hornbill (Tockus erythrorhynchus) – listings under Northern, Southern and species level. This is one that I think got complicated by recent splitting; I’m not sure that any should be considered more specific than sensu lato without good evidence. For now there’s only a couple Northern listings, and a single Southern listing with no sources and the zoo’s website doesn’t back up the ssp ID.

Crested Guineafowl – majority of listings are for Kenyan subspecies and three zoos listed at species level have photos in our gallery labeling them as “Kenyan”. It is a managed program in the AZA, can it be assumed that either all US captive animals (or just all AZA captive animals) are Kenyan by default?

Great Argus – listings for both species level and Malaysian (nominate); many are duplicates, created at species level by someone citing a 2021 studbook. Little or no explanation for subspecies IDs, although I know at least San Diego Zoo signs theirs to subspecies (whether accurately, I don't know).
 
Well, not much discussion for the birds. Let's move on to some reptiles and amphibians:

Madagascar Tree Boa (Sanzinia madagascariensis): mix of species level and Eastern ssp entries. There are two taxa of Madagascar Tree Boa, one from either side of the island; not sure how some people decided zoos got their animals from a particular side?

Rattlesnakes: there are a few native species (Mojave, Prairie, Red Diamond, and Black-tailed to name some) where a single subspecies accounts for all or nearly all of the species' range, either in total or within the US. Based on this, my thought would be that most or all of the species-level entries could be safely moved to the proper subspecies? As has been done with a few other animals already.

On sort of an opposite note, some entries for Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) are listed under subspecies rather than species-level. My understanding is that it's disputed whether C. horridus even has subspecies, and I'm not convinced that these entries have been made correctly anyway (ex. one of the ssp is listed under the common name "Cane-brake", which is sometimes used to refer to the entire species). I'm leaning towards thinking these should all be moved to one page, with notes about signed ssp where appropriate.

Mexican Beaded Lizard (Heloderma horridum): mix of species-level and nominate ssp. Since all of the subspecies besides nominate are now full species and H. horridum is monotypic, it’s not clear to me if any entries need to be under “Mexican beaded lizard (no subspecies)”.

Crocodile Lizard (Shinisaurus crocodilurus): currently entered under species-level and Chinese subspecies. This has been asked about multiple times with no answers thus far. At this point I think we should reclassify all these at species level; they are frequently listed on signage as “Chinese Crocodile Lizard” but that is a common name for the entire species and I'm unsure if they are ever signed to subspecies.

African Crocodiles: several entries for Dwarf and Nile Crocs were entered under subspecies by someone using a forum thread as a source. There are no sources I can find for most of these subspecies IDs. On the flip side, there is a research paper indicating that all of our Slender-snouted Crocodiles should be the Western subspecies, despite all being listed under species-level currently.

Galapagos Tortoise: microphyes and vicina got lumped with each other on ZTL, even though I believe they are generally treated as two different taxa? I've noticed that many entries specifically note one or the other, but I'm thinking they should just be separate pages.

Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleghaniensis): lots of entries are at species level but noted as Eastern. Most of these I believe were made before Eastern was an option; in addition to these needing to be moved, are there any known holders of bishopi (Ozark) other than St. Louis and Detroit?

Yellow-spotted Tree Toads (Rentapia sp): currently there are entries under both flavomaculata and hosii. This was a recent split and I'm not sure what the ID should be for American animals; I'm skeptical that most (if any) of the current entries are verified, and therefore splitting them up doesn't make a lot of sense.
 
Coelacanth18 said:
Red-billed Hornbill (Tockus erythrorhynchus) – listings under Northern, Southern and species level. This is one that I think got complicated by recent splitting; I’m not sure that any should be considered more specific than sensu lato without good evidence. For now there’s only a couple Northern listings, and a single Southern listing with no sources and the zoo’s website doesn’t back up the ssp ID.
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These can be visually IDed - I used the plates from Birds of the World to work out a few. We have at least northern (mostly) and western (a few) but I would imagine there are some hybrids around, so tread with caution.
Coelacanth18 said:
Galapagos Tortoise: microphyes and vicina got lumped with each other on ZTL, even though I believe they are generally treated as two different taxa? I've noticed that many entries specifically note one or the other, but I'm thinking they should just be separate pages.
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Most sources should treat these as separate taxa, but whether they are fully separate species or not is up for debate to my understanding. Separate pages are ideal but I think that noting them per entry is good in the meantime.
Coelacanth18 said:
Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleghaniensis): lots of entries are at species level but noted as Eastern. Most of these I believe were made before Eastern was an option; in addition to these needing to be moved, are there any known holders of bishopi (Ozark) other than St. Louis and Detroit?
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STL is the only holder of Ozark to my knowledge. Are we sure that Detroit has them as well? Either way the vast majority of the population is eastern.
 
jayjds2 said:
STL is the only holder of Ozark to my knowledge. Are we sure that Detroit has them as well? Either way the vast majority of the population is eastern
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Detroit and Toledo (apparently) both had Ozark Hellbender back in 2018/2019, which is further back than I'd thought earlier today. Can't find any more recent references for them, so maybe STL is the only holder now.
 
One procedural question about our reclassifications/deletions:

When these get moved/changed, (from species to subspecies, or vice versa), how do we make sure that all of the text in the three boxes gets transferred to the new (corrected) entry? Should the person requesting make sure that all the text has been carried over, or do the admins or auto transfer handle this?

Just wanting to make sure that data isn't lost (even if it's only a website or visit date that was entered under the wrong subspecies).
 
Does anyone know anything about the origin of the rock hyrax and honey badger populations? I've seen signage for them both with "Cape" preceding the species' common name, but I don't know if that is accurate.
 
With American ZTL now having been open for 10 months, I think it's time to revisit this as several subspecies questions still have not been resolved.

American Bison: nearly all entries are still split between species level and Plains subspecies, with several duplicated holdings. I know most of these bison are not "pure", but to the extent they are Bison they should all be Plains right?

Lion: these entries are still split between the AZA breeding subspecies P. l. krugeri and species level. There are several duplicate holdings and the logic for what is listed under what seems very inconsistent; some AZA zoos that are breeding lions (and therefore should have krugeri) are listed at species level, while other zoos are listed under krugeri because they are AZA even though they might have non-breeding generic individuals. Is it as simple as "any breeding lions or lions born in AZA zoos after X date are krugeri"? How many non-krugeri lions are there in AZA at this point?

Crowned Cranes: Both species split between species level and one subspecies (Eastern for Gray Crowned, Western for Black Crowned) with multiple duplicate listings. I have heard conflicting assertions about whether ours are all one subspecies or not; Europe has the same situation for Black Crowned and for Gray Crowned there are two different subspecies present apparently.

Masked Lapwing: Visually - and based on what is held elsewhere outside Australia - it seems to me that all of the US holdings are Northern Masked Lapwing, but currently they are still split between that and species level.

Crocodile Lizards: still 7 holdings under the Chinese subspecies with no sources given for why they aren't species level. At this point I'm inclined to think people just misunderstood because the common name "Chinese" is often used on signage here, and that they should all be species level.
 
Coelacanth18 said:
American Bison: nearly all entries are still split between species level and Plains subspecies, with several duplicated holdings. I know most of these bison are not "pure", but to the extent they are Bison they should all be Plains right?
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As all living American Bison contain varying amounts of cattle DNA, that technically makes them hybrids, yes.

As far as subspecies go, if it's not specifically signed as a Wood Bison, then it's a Plains.

It's not even a certain thing that the Wood/Plains split is genuine. On a genetic level, it appears that individual populations are more genetically distinct than Wood vs. Plains are.
 
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