I thought Moscou would challenge but they only have 37. I think Plzen is by far the first holder of rodents. I remember the off-show room full of mice, gerbils and others, in this room only they might have more species than 99% of zoos
Zoo's with the most species of one genera/animal family ?
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I thought Moscou would challenge but they only have 37. I think Plzen is by far the first holder of rodents. I remember the off-show room full of mice, gerbils and others, in this room only they might have more species than 99% of zoos
imaginarius
Well-Known Member
Are there any zoos that hold all eight species of bear? Several US zoos have four or five, but I cannot think of any that holds all of them. Obviously, said zoo must keep pandas, which is the rarest of the eight in zoos, although Asiatic black bears are also hard to find, at least in the West.
San Diego most likely had the best with 5 species
imaginarius
Well-Known Member
I believe they only have grizzlies, sun bears, and polar bears now.
Not long time ago (2016) Berlin city had all the species of Bears.
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Did all the exhibits except for the Polar bear’s one take place where they made the new Sloth bear exhibit?
The Asiatic Black Bear and the Brown Bear were next to the Indian Sloth Bears in the Zoo . American Black Bear, Spectacled Bear and Sun Bear were in the Tierpark.
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Oh ok I thought you meant only Berlin Zoo.
No, they also have spectacle bear and last year they had pandas
The precise year is most probably 2012, because between 2012 and 2017 there were no Giant Pandas in the Zoo.
I don’t know any zoos that currently hold all eight species of bear.
However, on my first few visits to Berlin Zoo and Vincennes Zoo (Paris) both zoos had every species of bear.
I think London Zoo had all eight species of bear back in the 1960s.
How good was the Vincennes Zoo collection back at the time you visited it?
Pairi Daiza have 5
Thats a good point. While San Diego might have the best bear representation in America I doubt they could beat the larger European zoos.
My first two visits were in 1981 and 1984.
The collection was mostly mammals and included the Asiatic elephant "Siam" (definitely the most impressive elephant I've ever seen) and an African forest elephant. It is also the only zoo where I've seen the Siamese sub-species of Eld's deer.
By the time of my visits in 1987 and 1988 there was an amazing lemur collection: it was the first place I saw aye-aye, sifaka and nothern giant mouse lemur. It is still the only zoo where I have seen fork-marked lemur (Phaner furcifer) and sportive lemur (Lepilemur).
Researching a bit, it appears Moscow and Madrid also have 5, Rhenen, Sofia 4 and several have 3
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There's only one or two zoos in the entire world with Sunda, none outside of southeast Asia, so I didn't feel the need to specify.
In the USA, Cleveland has the most with 5 - Black, Brown, Sloth, Spectacled, Sun. They also held Polar within the last couple of years. Memphis has 4 - Black, Brown, Giant Panda, Polar. St. Louis also has 4 - Brown, Polar, Spectacled, Sun. 10 zoos have 3.
(counting all brown bears as one species)
What subspecies of Brown Bear would you say is the most commonly held in American zoos? And it’s fair to count all subspecies of brown bears as one species, since there’s so many variations and it’s very valuable to address them as one.
imaginarius
Well-Known Member
Grizzlies are the most common in the US, by far. I don’t know about elsewhere. I don’t think any American zoos have the rarest subspecies (Himalayan, Gobi, Marsican). All of those are critically endangered.