What's something you heard at a zoo or aquarium from another guest that irritated you?
- Thread starter Davdhole
- Start date
Once I was at Lincoln Park Zoo, in front of the Puerto Rican Parrots, the only ones outside the Caribbean. A dad and his daughter walked up to the enclosure.
Dad: "Wow, look at those colorful birds!"
Daughter: "
Dad, they're just parrots. Every zoo has parrots."
Dad: "Wow, look at those colorful birds!"
Daughter: "
Dad, they're just parrots. Every zoo has parrots."
I once heard a woman call a tiger a LION
And the funny thing is, usually by a tiger /lion exhibit there is lots of signs and displays about the animals...
Well in german they are also called hyena dogs. You should not forget that hyenas themself look very dog like. And seeing a dog that has a "similar" colour can confouse somebody on the first view.
I know of a story in the NaturZoo Rheine, were a couple complained about the tigers being "
malnourished" ....... They were sumatran tigers, the smallest sub species. Because they only saw amur tigers. The biggest sub species in the neigbour zoo in Münster
malnourished" ....... They were sumatran tigers, the smallest sub species. Because they only saw amur tigers. The biggest sub species in the neigbour zoo in Münster
Well, I started my love for animals, when I was a smal kid, asking my parrents about every single animal info. And I did not allow them to say some made up stories. They still tell the story how anoying I was
I never knew about their alias. But to be honest, and at least to me, the only similar coloration hyenas and wild dogs really share is the tan. Other than that, I just can't see how people confuse them. Hyenas have "neat" dots almost like a cheetah, and wild dogs have splashes of color. You'd think with how many people have seen The Lion King, both the original and remake, they could definitely identify a hyena. Then again, many people hate hyenas because of the movie, so I guess if you can form an opinion about an animal from an animated film where a lion is raised by a warthog and meerkat, you can be dense enough to confuse the two different species. No offense btw, I'm just quite agitated by the amount of hyena haters I've seen in YouTube comments, from people if the topic of animals comes up and hyenas are mentioned, or people I inform when I had shifts at the lion exhibit at my zoo.
Quite a few lot of people dont know what wild dogs are...
A lot of people know what hyenas are and generally what they look like. Now something I just thought about, maybe they possibly think that wild dogs are a different species of hyena, but I also don't think it'd be crazy to assume most people think they're a spotted hyena somehow.
Maybe the tresspassers read the signs but didn’t care. Was there a fence to keep them out that they climbed over?
SOME people know what spotted hyenas are, thanks to The Lion King. As for Brown, Striped Hyenas or Aardwolf - not so many.
There was a silver fox and someone thought she was a skunk (which is at least a little bit understandable), but i also heard someone think she was a gorilla.
There were also people that i overheard say "I want to see the penguins and rhinos before we leave." and there are no penguins nor rhinos at that zoo.
There were also people that i overheard say "I want to see the penguins and rhinos before we leave." and there are no penguins nor rhinos at that zoo.
I heard another classic one yesterday: calling Siamangs monkeys.
Maybe all of you frustrated by your fellow Americans / British / Irish / Australians / New Zealanders / Canadians etc. not being able to distinguish between different primate categories should move to a country whose native tongue does not require its zoologically less interested population to differentiate. Like German: Max and Erika Mustermann, the German equivalents to John and Jane Doe, can call any primate an "Affe" (or an "Äffchen", if it's a smaller version) . Even fellow Homo sapiens (although that is considered an insult). Of course, the more sophisticated Austrian, German or Swiss primate fan can differentiate between Halbaffen (=lemurs, bush babies and loris) and Affen, Tieraffen and Menschenaffen(=great apes), etc., but for the rest of the German speaking world, any non-human primate is an "Affe". So if the next ignorant zoo visitor misidentifies a primate, just imagine him or her speaking German. 
But there is a word for all primates in English too, it's called "Primate". If visitor are saying "primates" they're not wrong, but saying apes as "monkeys" are.Maybe all of you frustrated by your fellow Americans / British / Irish / Australians / New Zealanders / Canadians etc. not being able to distinguish between different primate categories should move to a country whose native tongue does not require its zoologically less interested population to differentiate. Like German: Max and Erika Mustermann, the German equivalents to John and Jane Doe, can call any primate an "Affe" (or an "Äffchen", if it's a smaller version) . Even fellow Homo sapiens (although that is considered an insult). Of course, the more sophisticated Austrian, German or Swiss primate fan can differentiate between Halbaffen (=lemurs, bush babies and loris) and Affen, Tieraffen and Menschenaffen(=great apes), etc., but for the rest of the German speaking world, any non-human primate is an "Affe". So if the next ignorant zoo visitor misidentifies a primate, just imagine him or her speaking German.
Same in German: Primat.
Yet do you really, honestly think that non-academics will use that term instead of "monkey"? Or Affe?
