The most reliably active crowd pleasing animals

Daktari JG

Daktari JG

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
Now I'm not talking about species that will attract crowds WHEN they are active
like bears lions elephants gorillas etc, I mean animals that there is a pretty good chance that the animals WILL be active regardless of time of day or even often weather.
I think my two strongest candidates would be either a troop of baboons (almost any species)
or
a family group of otters (again almost any species)

Penguins a pretty good bet as well.
 
Meerkats are definitely up there. I rarely see them lazing about too much. Even Atlanta's otters (we've had both Asian small-clawed and giant over the years) get really sluggish in the summer heat, although the small-clawed and sea otters over at the GA Aquarium move around a bit more consistently. Agreed on penguins and callitrichids as well.

Probably not as crowd-pleasing (walkthrough aviaries being an exception maybe), but small parrots like budgies and cockatiels could apply.

I haven't seen them as often but chimps strike me as being a bit more regularly active than orangs or gorillas. That's just relatively speaking though.
 
I would agree on meerkats and penguins. Might have to say flamingos too, can't say I've ever seen the entire flock at rest at once.

Personally have had mixed luck with the river otters being active, but sea otters always seem to be on the go, and are certainly a favorite of the public.
 
Never seen a seal or sea lion be inactive to be honest.
Maybe dwarf mongooses will also work, mainly because of their size and being active allot.
 
Daktari JG said:
I mean animals that there is a pretty good chance that the animals WILL be active regardless of time of day or even often weather.
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I hope you understand there's no "perfect zoo animal" that is aways active regardless of time, temperature, weather condition, time of year etc.

What you are looking for is animal that is highly adaptible to climate conditions, lives in a group, is diurnal and is highly mobile. Easy enrichment also helps a lot. Classic examples are coatis, barbary macaques, small-clawed otters or meerkats. More obscure examples are tayras (when kept in a family group) and pecaris. In the bird kingdom we find hardy colony birds like certain penguins and parakeets to be good candidates.

Of course, one can influence several of these factors. By keeping animals indoors or having their indoor enclosures viewable solves problems regarding climate of weather (for example for tamarins). Nocturnal houses help to display active nocturnal creatures, which works fine for night monkeys and bats.
 
Most of the time I’ve seen larger New World monkeys such as capuchins and spider monkeys they’ve been active, so I’d say those. Smaller ones like tamarins, marmosets and squirrel monkeys as well, but the larger ones are more likely to draw a crowd.
 
Great Argus said:
I would agree on meerkats and penguins. Might have to say flamingos too, can't say I've ever seen the entire flock at rest at once.

Personally have had mixed luck with the river otters being active, but sea otters always seem to be on the go, and are certainly a favorite of the public.
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I was thinking meerkats and penguins too, with otters as runners up. Lorikeets are pretty active. Then of course most fish are usually in motion.
 
Small primates, like lemurs and marmosets and tamarins, tend to be quite active. Pinnipeds and otters as well.
 
Canihelpyou? said:
Never seen a seal or sea lion be inactive to be honest.
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Really? You must have very good luck with them! About 75% of the time I see sea lions, they're resting and sunbathing, not doing a whole lot. Though when they're active, a large crowd gathers pretty fast.
Harbor seals tend to be more active from what I've seen.

FBBird said:
I was thinking meerkats and penguins too, with otters as runners up. Lorikeets are pretty active. Then of course most fish are usually in motion.
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Hadn't thought about lorikeets at the time, but certainly! Particularly the walk-in aviaries that allow you to feed them.
Larger fish are typically a good draw too.
 
Red Pandas are definitely NOT a candidate here. The ones I knew well, usually were doing a discarded fur hat impression high in the trees. And very nice too.
 
Great Argus said:
Really? You must have very good luck with them! About 75% of the time I see sea lions, they're resting and sunbathing, not doing a whole lot. Though when they're active, a large crowd gathers pretty fast.
Harbor seals tend to be more active from what I've seen.
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Pinnipeds are always swimming around a lot in my experience, maybe it's just luck.
 
I don't agree entirely with otters - when they are visible, they are usually very active, but they will hide a lot of the time (I've mentioned a couple of times before that I have excruciatingly bad luck with seeing otters, especially small-clawed otters - I've probably seen more giant otters in my life than small-clawed otters - but since I'm not the only one visiting a zoo on a given day, there will be others to whom the otters are hiding).

How about the popular fish, i.e. colorful reef fish and big sharks? You can always count on a yellow tang or a sand tiger shark to be swimming around.

Other species of mongooses (at least banded, dwarf and yellow) are almost as reliably active as meerkats in my experience.

Ratites are quite likely to be active. They're at least always visible. You sometimes see rheas and emus nap, but I found that ostriches are practically always awake and walking around.

Prairie dogs are also always doing something. How about other species of ground squirrels? I've only seen them once, but I get the impression that Cape ground squirrels are usually out and about.
 
What about Dolphins and Seals/Sea Lions? There is a very big chance that you will see Dolphins or Seals/Sea Lions if you look in an enclosure for them
 
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