What's the coolest species you've seen in 2023 so far?

TeaLovingDave said:
If you actually mean African Striped Weasel rather than (as I suspect) Saharan Striped Weasel, I may have to enact some form of unusual and inventive retribution ;) :p
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Whatever species the Welsh Owl Garden has... Either way it looked superficially like a Zorilla... :p
 
Lesser octopus at Newquay Blue Reef Aquarium, I was amazed to see 3 individuals sharing the same tank - but I think it may not have been a good idea, as I couldn't see anything in the tank when I visited again 3 months later (although cephalopods often have short lifespans).
Lesser octopus on rock wall

Lesser octopus on rock wall

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First tank in main marine section, 17th April 2023
 
Brum said:
Whatever species the Welsh Owl Garden has... Either way it looked superficially like a Zorilla... :p
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Saharan Striped :) though strangely enough, although a related species Zorilla don't usually look as similar to them as the most recent crop of Zorilla in captive collections do.... something a bit odd is going on there.
 
This year my highlights have been:
Bush Dog (San Antonio Zoo)
Secretarybird (San Antonio Zoo)
Black-backed Jackal (Brandon’s Wild World)
Matschie’s Tree Kangaroo (Kansas City Zoo)
Javan Gibbon (Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo)
Kagu (Lincoln Park Zoo)
 
Pacific Walrus at Tierpark Hagenbeck.

With a very honourable mention to Mongolian Wolves at Zurich (admittedly they are a subspecies, so sort of cheating), which I saw just a few days before they moved to Tierpark Bözingerberg in Biel, a collection that I am not likely to ever visit. The only other European collections to hold them are specialist wolf parks, so chances are that I will never see this taxa again and I managed it by a matter of days!
 
I saw A LOT of really cool animals I've never seen before this year. That made it difficult to choose the top few, however:

  • My local zoo, Roger Williams Park Zoo, got two new mammals on exhibit this summer: Kirk's Dik-Dik and Bat-Eared Fox, both of which were really great to see and charismatic, engaging exhibit animals.
  • Also at Roger Williams Park Zoo, a summer bird show featured an Aplomado Falcon and a Livingstone's Turaco.
  • I visited the Bronx Zoo for the first time this year, and while there were many species I could easily mention here, ones that stand out are the Ring-Tailed Vontsira, Dhole, Gelada, Australian Magpie, Maleo, and some large herds of ungulates (Nyala, Pere David's Deer, Hog Deer, Gaur, Sambar Deer)
  • Also at the Bronx Zoo was an active Gray Mouse Lemur, which was super cool to see!
  • At Prospect Park Zoo, Hamadryas Baboons.
  • At Central Park Zoo, Long-tailed Glossy Starlings, Harlequin Ducks, and Pink-Eared Ducks.
  • At Bergen County Zoo, Red Brocket Deer.
  • At Buffalo Zoo, which I visit quite frequently, one exciting new addition this year was a pair of Yellow-Crowned Night Herons.
  • At both Staten Island and Bronx Zoos, a lot of really cool venomous snake species, especially rattlesnakes and pit vipers, that I've never seen before.
  • At Staten Island Zoo, both Klipspringer and Green Oropendolas.
 
I have seen 90 % of mammal species in Europe, but I managed to add few cool ones:

Common Spotted Cuscus
Quokka
White-tailed Anstangy
North Atlantic Harbour porpoise
Black-checked red-tail monkey

Also:
Hellbender
Red-headed vulture
King bird of paradise - male
St Vincent Amazon
 
My list is:

In the wild:
Mandarin Duck
Japanese Martin
Japanese Green Pheasant
Japanese Crested Ibis

In Captivity:
Striped Hyena
Amami Jay
Baikal Seal
 
Oh, I've had many highlights this year:
- African bush elephant (my favorite animal ever);
- Western lowland gorilla (I saw the only troop held in South America);
- Gemsbok (my favorite antelope species);
- Wild crab-eating foxes;
- Various species of tanagers and other small passerine birds.
 
Does it count if it's a cool genetic group within an otherwise (to me) unremarkable species?

I had the opportunity earlier this semester to visit one of my university's Holstein herds. It's a specific research herd bred to maintain a very specific genetic profile: That of a cow from the 1960's. The differences between them and modern Holsteins are remarkable- major differences in size and yield!

Other than that, my local zoo (Minnesota Zoo) housed some bottlenose dolphins for a brief period while their tank was getting remodeled at the Brookfield Zoo. I hadn't seen dolphins since I was a kid (also at the MN zoo), and while I'm not very comfy with keeping cetaceans in captivity, it was just magical to see them again.
 
then again I've also seen a Madagascan three eyed iguana at drayton manor zoo in the UK

csm_three-eyed-madagascan-iguana-1920x720_cca01c044e.jpg
 
Some stand-outs for me are:
- Jewel wasps, Ugandan flower beetles, Malaysian leaf insects, red-billed blue magpies, Rio Maranon poison dart frogs and Goodfellow's tree kangaroos at Chester Zoo
- a Gambian pouched rat, Northern tree shrews, a sand-sifting starfish, a Japan surgeonfish and a Mandarin dragonet at the Lakeland Wildlife Oasis
- a Springer's damselfish, a Halloween hermit crab, a Taiwan beauty snake, pied imperial pigeons and a Southern ground hornbill at Edinburgh Zoo
- Papuan eclectus, Kea, Luzon bleeding heart doves and blue-crowned laughingthrushes at Blackpool Zoo.
 
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