Lota lota
Well-Known Member
Why did they even do this?
Worst Mixed-Species Combinations?
- Thread starter Emanuel Theodorus
- Start date
Well, that's a very long story
I recommend you do a search for "David Gill" and "South Lakes" on this forum (the founder and former director of SLWAP) and read as many of the resulting threads as possible!Incidentally, I forgot a species - the exhibit also contained Black-capped Capuchin.
That’s one hell of a lot of sharp teeth and claws together, I bet it didn’t end well!!!
Numerous missing animals, and deep scars in the side of the tapirs which looked for all the world like clawmarks - no matter how often Gill insisted they were merely the result of excessive self-scratching on fenceposts and trees!
The mix (with decreasing numbers of species) continued until he was forced out in 2016-ish; by all accounts SLWAP is infinitely improved these days!
What is shown in this unused (at least in the original American version) Uncle Traveling Matt segment from Fraggle Rock (my other love) that I just found isn't bad, but a little left-field. So we have an aviary full of rainbow and leaf lorikeets to feed, a sulphur-crested cockatoo that may or may not be a not-from-this-exhibit ambassador animal... and a single white domestic muscovy wandering around the floor? Was it normal in the 80s for lorikeet feeding areas to have single white domestic muscovies waddling around?
Last edited:
It isn't unusual all for ground birds such as waterfowl to be in parrot feeding areas... why would that be a "worst mixed-species combination"?
I said it wasn't bad, and I didn't know that a muscovy would be a normal sight at a lorikeet feed so I put it here thinking it was unusual. I apologize.
Maybe not a muscovy specifically, but ducks in general.
AndyJ08
Well-Known Member
At my local small zoo, Zooworld, there are several odd-mixed species habitats. One of the strangest houses the very odd mix of Pied Crows, Brazilian Porcupines, Green Iguanas, and a lone Squirrel Monkey. It was originally even stranger, with the bottom half housing guinea pigs!
The only one I'd be concerned about are the crows pecking at the other species.
It's unusual to keep herps and mammals together due to possible cross contamination through waste, but with herbivores not so bad as meat eaters, I would suppose.
Is it an indoor exhibit or do you live somewhere warm? Wouldn't work in the UK!
It's unusual to keep herps and mammals together due to possible cross contamination through waste, but with herbivores not so bad as meat eaters, I would suppose.
Is it an indoor exhibit or do you live somewhere warm? Wouldn't work in the UK!
Ducks probably do a good job of cleaning up any spillage.
I used to use quail in my outside aviary with various parakeet species and Chinese Painted Quail in my shed aviary with the finches to do so.
While it's not the most common mix in the world, I wouldn't call it unusual to mix herps and mammals. There are countless examples of mixed species exhibits that include chelonians as well as primates, sloths, and other arboreal mammals. I'd say the main reasons that other herp/mammal mixes aren't common is less this cross contamination issue you mention, and more often the vast differences in care requirements- such as the fact most herps require different sorts of lighting and supplemental heating that mammals do not. There are also quite significant differences in terms of containment requirements, and it's also worth considering the dietary reasons that these mixes would be difficult- a lot of herps either eat small mammals or act as prey to some mammals.
AndyJ08
Well-Known Member
Sorry that I’m late, but yeah, it is an outdoor exhibit and the zoo in question is in Florida.
On a related note, the same zoo once exhibited Barid’s Tapir with Domestic Goats and macaws!
Haliaeetus
Well-Known Member
In Southern France, the (small and decaying) Zoo de Fréjus used to house one single Nile Hippo with a herd of American Buffaloes.
I can't believe that I forgot about this for so long, but many years ago (probably in the mid-2000s) there was a feature on a live-action kids' tv program that was about an aquarium which was in either Australia or New Zealand. The aquarium was featured on the show because the aquarium staff had created a tank that was supposed to hold many of the fish species that were featured in Finding Nemo. I remember that the staff member who was being interviewed about the tank said that the interspecies mix in the tank wasn't working that well because the porcupinefish or pufferfish that was in the tank would frequently eat the other fish species.
What a dumb excuse for such extreme negligence.
What a dumb excuse for such extreme negligence.
Yeah, making a movie themed enclosure is an eeeeexcellent idea... just wait until someone makes a "Jungle Book" exhibit with wolves, melanistic leopards and sloth bears. What could possibly go wrong?!
Lota lota
Well-Known Member
I assume it wasn't a bull hippo?
Movie themed enclosures... imagine mixing African Elephants and Gorillas together to get a Tantor-Terk combo in Tarzan. It would work really well.
Some bad mixes I can think of:
- Zoo Braunschweig mixes Opossums with Spotted Skunks and North American Porcupines. When I visited last weekend a keeper told me he had to pull spikes out of an opossums nose.
(on a side note he d told us that he wasn't aware of the fact that the spikes of the NAP were different to their indian relatives and catched one with his bare hands when it fell of a tree)
- Zoo Osnabrück kept Polar, Brown and Asiatic Black Bears together with resulted in the Hybrids Tips and Taps... (also the Black Bear always stayed in his cave)
- I heard that Zoo Nürnberg kept Red Pandas and Muntjacs together, but the Pandas ate a Muntjac young which resulted in the Muntjacs killing at least one Panda
- Zoo Braunschweig mixes Opossums with Spotted Skunks and North American Porcupines. When I visited last weekend a keeper told me he had to pull spikes out of an opossums nose.
(on a side note he d told us that he wasn't aware of the fact that the spikes of the NAP were different to their indian relatives and catched one with his bare hands when it fell of a tree)
- Zoo Osnabrück kept Polar, Brown and Asiatic Black Bears together with resulted in the Hybrids Tips and Taps... (also the Black Bear always stayed in his cave)
- I heard that Zoo Nürnberg kept Red Pandas and Muntjacs together, but the Pandas ate a Muntjac young which resulted in the Muntjacs killing at least one Panda
Interesting to hear, as Omaha has this mix currently.