Tricky species in captivity

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There are many species, especially in rainforests, which are surprisingly difficult to maintain or breed in captivity, even though many of their close relatives are widely seen.
Among these are:
- Gum-feeding and folivorous lemurs
- 3-toed sloths
- Many of the smaller parrots such as Psitacella (Tiger Parrots) from New Guinea or Touit Parrotlets from South America
- Corytophanes iguanas
- I am sure many other species and groups

Has anyone here seen captive examples of these or can comment on why they seem so hard to keep? I presume specialized diets or breeding sites account for most, but today there is such a large array of artificial diets available that I would have thought most of these problems could be resolved by now. I raise the question because it occurs to me that the zoo-going public may be getting a slightly skewed impression of the actual diversity of life in many parts of the world, as even on tv programmes these species are seldom featured.
 
Mostly specialized food.
I think lepilemurs, indris, awahis and three-toed sloths could be kept in captivity (outside their home tropics) if somebody carefully researched their food. Three-toed sloths for example eat ficus leaves in addition to Cecropia leaves.

I could throw some more species: red, olive and black colobuses, some more parrots like yellow-eared or pygmy, Bulwer's pheasants etc.
 
Corytophanes are tricky? I was unaware. I've seen one for sale at an specialized pet shop, and some european zoos have them too.

Ficus is closely related with Cercopia (both are in the nettle-clade of the rose order), and many, many species are very widely available in tempreate climates all over the world, as they are maybe the most popular of all "indoor" plants. So feed a three-toed with Ficus should be easy for temperate zoos.

Saola is another example with close relatives easily kept (oryx). And dugong (while manatees are relatively easy). I don't know which pheasant, I think blood pheasant, need a very fruity diet and fails if they're given the "normal" pheasant food based on grains.
 
Kakapo said:
Saola is another example with close relatives easily kept (oryx).
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How is saola closely related to oryx? It is a species of the Bovini clade sister to Bison & Bos cattle. Saola is probably not too difficult a species to keep alive with all close relatives being well established...
 
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Oryx are closest relative to saola. And this thread is precisely for tricky species whose close relatives are well stabilished ;-)
 
Kakapo said:
Oryx are closest relative to saola.
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That their scientific name is Pseudoryx does not mean that Oryx are it's closest relatives. See the MTdna data from Hassanin's study here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.e...=Pattern_and_timing_of_diversification_of.pdf

Additionally both HMW and Castello's Bovid field guide list it within Bovini, so this cannot really be a point of discussuin.

Kakapo said:
And this thread is precisely for tricky species whose close relatives are well stabilished ;-)
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How can you know a species is tricky when it has never been kept in captivity?
 
lintworm said:
That their scientific name is Pseudoryx does not mean that Oryx are it's closest relatives. See the MTdna data from Hassanin's study here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/31800584/1-s2.0-S1631069111002800-main.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1508328542&Signature=3P8jfXeNf96cbPuywat+fYjLZ0M=&response-content-disposition=inline; filename=Pattern_and_timing_of_diversification_of.pdf

Additionally both HMW and Castello's Bovid field guide list it within Bovini, so this cannot really be a point of discussuin.



How can you know a species is tricky when it has never been kept in captivity?
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I thought there had been at least two short-lived captive Saola?
 
FBBird said:
I thought there had been at least two short-lived captive Saola?
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You are correct, but you can hardly call this any real attempt to keep them in captivity, 2 individuals lived less than 5 months in Vietnam and a pregnant female 18 days in Laos, the latter might have died because of an inappropriate diet, but exact cause of dead was unknown.

I should have stated it differently, but I think that Saola are not overly complicated to keep alive in captivity, but it has to be done by experts, which wasn't really the case in the earlier attempts. In that sense they are incomparable to for example the 3 toed sloths, which have been kept multiple times by western zoos, without too much success..
 
The name Pseudoryx is not the cause of being closely related with Oryx, but the consequence, and that relationship is just what I learned from the text regarding the species the same year of his rediscovery (in a nature magazine, not in scientific papers). And the fact that all the specimens tried to kept captive died soon, that is what make the purpose of this thread, was also mentioned here and/or in some posterior texts.

If an animal fail to keep alive for long time in captivity unless this is done by experts, then is a tricky species. (I understand you mean "experts in this species", as experts in f. e. hoofed mammals in general, would not have success).

Regarding numbers of attempts, woudl be interesting to know if the other animals mentioned before was "kept multiple times in western zoos": tiger parrots, Avahi lemurs, Indri, Bulwer's pheasant, red colobus... I really don't have idea of how many specimens were imported, but for sure not many. And the saola have a reason for the low number of attempts: the recent date of rediscovery!
 
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Kakapo said:
The name Pseudoryx is not the cause of being closely related with Oryx, but the consequence, and that relationship is just what I learned from the text regarding the species the same year of his rediscovery (in a nature magazine, not in scientific papers).
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The generic name refers to the horns resembling those of oryx, not to any actual relationship between the animals. I think whatever article you read had a confused author.
 
Another species impossible in captivity is leatherback turtle. It dies from hitting walls of the tank. Apparently the only successful attempt was in a lab to keep a hatching for a year in a harness so it swam nowhere. Other sea turtle species are easy to keep.

BTW, did any zoo bred sea turtles in an aquarium tank? I know that several times females laid eggs in the bottom of the tank, but did any aquarium even try to provide a nesting site, female used it and young hatched? I do not mean any of turtle farms.
 
I forgot (recently mentioned somewhere here in Zoochat) that narwhals are difficult to keep, despite belugas being common in captivity. I'm not sure if this is also because of the low number of attempts, or just because zoos don't want males damaging the horn against the tank walls.

Jurek7 said:
BTW, did any zoo bred sea turtles in an aquarium tank? I know that several times females laid eggs in the bottom of the tank, but did any aquarium even try to provide a nesting site, female used it and young hatched? I do not mean any of turtle farms.
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SeaWorld San Diego is the only facility that I know/visited that have a (very small) part of dry sand beach in the sea turtle tank, where turtles can be seen often sunbathing. I wonder if they lay eggs too in this mini-beach, or if it's too small for that.
 
Kakapo said:
SeaWorld San Diego is the only facility that I know/visited that have a (very small) part of dry sand beach in the sea turtle tank, where turtles can be seen often sunbathing. I wonder if they lay eggs too in this mini-beach, or if it's too small for that.
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Marineland Antibes has bred loggerhead turtles in captivity.
 
Sea Turtles are generally very easy to breed in captivity. Just off the top of my head, Sea Life Park Hawaii, Seaworld San Diego, and a large turtle farm in the Cayman islands have all bred or still breed green turtles, and a facility in Japan has bred hawksbill turtles.
 
Kakapo said:
The name Pseudoryx is not the cause of being closely related with Oryx, but the consequence, and that relationship is just what I learned from the text regarding the species the same year of his rediscovery (in a nature magazine, not in scientific papers). And the fact that all the specimens tried to kept captive died soon, that is what make the purpose of this thread, was also mentioned here and/or in some posterior texts.

If an animal fail to keep alive for long time in captivity unless this is done by experts, then is a tricky species. (I understand you mean "experts in this species", as experts in f. e. hoofed mammals in general, would not have success).

Regarding numbers of attempts, woudl be interesting to know if the other animals mentioned before was "kept multiple times in western zoos": tiger parrots, Avahi lemurs, Indri, Bulwer's pheasant, red colobus... I really don't have idea of how many specimens were imported, but for sure not many. And the saola have a reason for the low number of attempts: the recent date of rediscovery!
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Bulwer's Pheasant has been bred in a private collection at least once.
 
FBBird said:
Bulwer's Pheasant has been bred in a private collection at least once.
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Also at Walsrode Bulwer's were bred. 1984 1 chick was raised succesfully and I took care for it's parents during my time at Walsrode. It was not more easy or difficult to take care for as other fire-back pheasants.
 
Some of the species that are supposed to be tricky in captivity, are in the end not so tricky. Often lack of knowledge or too few founders that got imported (where a few losses already impact the chances of a sustainable population) can get a species labeled as difficult. Like yellow-eared are not that difficult to maintain, just very few ever ended up in captivity. For the touit the trick seems to be to not to feed them dry seeds, which has been the staple diet for parrots in captivity.

And the expectations are with Saola that it will not be a difficult species to establish in captivity. The main challenge will be getting sufficient founders and capture them responsibly.
 
vogelcommando said:
Also at Walsrode Bulwer's were bred. 1984 1 chick was raised succesfully and I took care for it's parents during my time at Walsrode. It was not more easy or difficult to take care for as other fire-back pheasants.
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You lucky, lucky, lucky bustard :D
Well, I wonder why, if Bulwer's need the same treatment than any other Lophura, why is so extremely rare in captivity (the only current holder being Ueno zoo in Japan, after birds of Walsrode and San Diego deceased), being the most spectacular species of the genus? Most other Lophura are common, even very common (silver pheasant) in captivity, and the rarer species can be avoided by zoos just by similarity with other more easily available species and less spectacular appareance (e. g. Lophura inornata)... but this is not the case of Bulwer.
 
When Bulwer's pheasants once are used to captive circumstances, they are - as I said - not more difficult or easy to keep as other pheasants BUT the problem is that very low numbers have been imported sofar and that breeding them seem to be ( for some unknown reason ) not so easy. Furter they produce only small clutches ( around 3 eggs a clutch ).
 
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