whats lurking in the back corner of your zoo?

P

patrick

Well-Known Member
anyone know of a weird of rare animal held in their local zoo? a while back out of sheer curiosity i compiled a list of all the species, their numbers, and sex in australasian zoos. i can tell you that collectively, we have an amazing diversity of species. among the list are some very obscure one-off's that i didn't expect to see. some represent attempted breeding programs, like the echidnas at taronga, others, i'm not so sure about. but here's some of my favorites that we don't often hear about as much as we do sumatran tigers....

long-beaked echidna - taronga zoo
slow loris - melbourne zoo
clouded leopard - melbourne zoo
white-fronted lemur - western plains zoo
hoffman's two-toed sloth - adelaide zoo
spotted hyeana - perth zoo

and theres a whole bunch more.

likewise there are alot of species, such as sde brazza guenon, that appear as if they may be in the process of being phased-out. if anyone has any goss on a particular species in australian zoos i'de love to know...
 
We watched some Slow Loris at Singapore Night Safari - quite fascinating creatures really. I didn't know they had some at Melbourne Zoo - I'll have to track them down next time we're there.
 
loris' off-display

no can do.

unfortunately melbournes slow loris family is only visable through in the educational classrooms, which are pretty much just for schoolchildren. i'm sure if you called them up and explained that you were especially keen on seeing them that they would organise a viewing though.
 
Ahh - hence your thread about the "back corner" of the zoo. I'll have to have a chat to someone next time I'm down there and see what we can do to get a look at the Slow Loris family !

Thanks for the info.
 
unusual exhibits - in equally unusual enclosures

have you ever seen a living dinosaur ?
NZ is the only country left that has a dinosaur . They look like lizrds , but are more close related to dinosaur than lizards .
They grow up to about a foot in length , and look as if they have heavy plate armour on them , but in reality they are quite soft and sort of squishy . I had the opportunity a few years back to handle one .

Apart from that , there is a display of Mexican tarantulas at Auckland zoo -- in the old giraffe house , of all places ! The ironic thing is that the zoo got permission to display these spiders , but are unable to display NZs only venomous spider -- which I have never seen in real life !!

PS The old elephant enclosure is even smaller than the old giraffe house , which was one reason why Auckland zoo has almost completely rebuilt the whole zoo in the last 25 years
 
tarantulas

i saw that auckland zoo had tarantulas on their website. i thought that was a little odd as i know not even zoos in NZ are allowed to keep snakes, but that they could keep tarantulas and not a native spider is rediculous!!

speaking of which, melbourne zoo upgraded their fanatastic butterfly house a couple of years ago to include an ajoining courtyard for displaying australian invertebrates. among the "world of bugs and butterflies" collection is a very impressive (and venomous) australian bird-eating spider and off-dispay are the only pair (now breeding) of the critically endangered lord howe island stick insect.

bugs make facinating displays, especially when you have the diversity of australia's bugs accessable for display. we have our fair share of giants. (though unfortunately not those awesome wetas of NZ!)

if you want to see a fantastic insect display and some very scary exotic tarantulas head to the melbourne museum. they have a semi-permant "bugs alive" exhibit that is really wonderful and innovative. the coolest thing is an ant colony, that must dodge a through a thorny devil exhibit to get food.

and the tarantuas (they hold a huge collection of live confiscated tarantulas at the museum) are well worth it.
 
spiders etc

yeah , Government policy is often really surprising , but I reckon this one is just darn stupid !
You are welcome to have all the wetas you want ! They are one animal that really give me the creeps . Although I havent seen the real big ones ( that weigh about the same as a rat ) I am not sure how I will respond with one of them. We also have carnivorous snails ( big black ones ) that are native to NZ
and a species of frog that doesnt like water ....

Bo Derek asked for permission to bring in one solitary python , to assist with making of a film in NZ . It was turned down flat by officials .
Any sea snake that is in our waters is a native animal to NZ , but if it gets washed up on the shore line it is taken away for disposal .
 
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