Colchester Zoo "Tree Kangaroos"

dillotest0

dillotest0

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
I was recently browsing the galleries, and came across this bizarre picture from Colchester Zoo from 2006 -
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On an exhibit for Cuban Hutias.
I was rather confused as to what could be the cause of this mistake - are Cuban hutias arboreal to any sufficient degree ? Even so, I'm not sure what would lead them to be referred to by anyone as 'kangaroos' - which they look nothing like ...
Perhaps it was that before the hutias arrived, something else was living in this enclosure, and this sticker was merely a left-over from whatever that previous species was. Perhaps someone here would have something more of a clue as to why the sign would be like this ?
 
Cuban Hutia are semi-arboreal, and do regularly climb and use thick branches and shelves. However I wouldn't say they are very agile about it haha!

I remember this exhibit and sign and thinking it seemed nonsense, I assumed it was because they had something else in the exhibit previously, but even if they did what animal is only 'sometimes' called a Tree Kangaroo! Surely a tree kangaroo is a tree kangaroo. I cannot think of anything, also according to ZTL Colchester have never held tree kangaroos.

Maybe there was a confusion with the marketing and signage team, if such a team exists, maybe the keepers jokingly referred to them as 'tree kangaroos' as a pet name for them and this got miscommunicated?
 
ZooAtHome said:
Cuban Hutia are semi-arboreal, and do regularly climb and use thick branches and shelves. However I wouldn't say they are very agile about it haha!

I remember this exhibit and sign and thinking it seemed nonsense, I assumed it was because they had something else in the exhibit previously, but even if they did what animal is only 'sometimes' called a Tree Kangaroo! Surely a tree kangaroo is a tree kangaroo. I cannot think of anything, also according to ZTL Colchester have never held tree kangaroos.

Maybe there was a confusion with the marketing and signage team, if such a team exists, maybe the keepers jokingly referred to them as 'tree kangaroos' as a pet name for them and this got miscommunicated?
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Out of curiosity, where were they in the zoo?
I have looked at some early 2000s Colchester maps, but seemingly they are not labelled there.
 
dillotest0 said:
Out of curiosity, where were they in the zoo?
I have looked at some early 2000s Colchester maps, but seemingly they are not labelled there.
Click to expand...

The enclosure in the picture was along the back of the chimp house, on the side facing the leopards. It had guenons and I think hyraxes in it at various times as well.
 
The enclosure they lived in (as Maguari said, just along from the chimps - now the site of a small garden and a single-exhibit reptile house) has always been a sort of dumping-ground for animals waiting for a new enclosure - I can definitely remember cherry-crowned mangabeys, L'Hoest's monkeys and Victoria crowned pigeons being kept there at varying times. There definitely haven't been tree kangaroos there (or anywhere else at the zoo) since I first started visiting.
 
ZooAtHome said:
I remember this exhibit and sign and thinking it seemed nonsense, I assumed it was because they had something else in the exhibit previously, but even if they did what animal is only 'sometimes' called a Tree Kangaroo! Surely a tree kangaroo is a tree kangaroo. I cannot think of anything, also according to ZTL Colchester have never held tree kangaroos.
Click to expand...
Even if there was a tree kangaroo - which there was not, but for the sake of hypothesis we will say so - at one point - it'd imply that they would've been calling it something else .... though I have never heard the animal referred to in English as anything other than 'tree kangaroo'... Neither have I heard any animal other than Dendrolagus being referred to as such a thing !
 
Quite seperately from whether it's correct my bigger issue is they stuck it across the enclosure stopping you from properly seeing the lovely animal. I haven't seen that done in recent exhibits, thank goodness!
 
Had a slightly more than cursory look online and can't find any reference to Hutias as Tree Kangaroos, even in native patois.
Either someone genuinely picked up the wrong reference online or someone was pulling their leg....
 
I remember the Cuban hutia enclosure at Colchester Zoo. The hutia was promoted as the 'largest Cuban mammal'. I don't remember any reference to it being described as a tree kangaroo
 
dillotest0 said:
Even if there was a tree kangaroo - which there was not, but for the sake of hypothesis we will say so - at one point - it'd imply that they would've been calling it something else .... though I have never heard the animal referred to in English as anything other than 'tree kangaroo'... Neither have I heard any animal other than Dendrolagus being referred to as such a thing !
Click to expand...

Exactly what I said! So weird!
 
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