Surprised you didn't even see alpine chough!
I'm assuming you did suffer significant delays then, as the journey should have only taken about 5 hours total by my reckoning?
Zootrip report 2024; southern German and Austria
- Thread starter ralph
- Start date
Surprised you didn't even see alpine chough!
I'm assuming you did suffer significant delays then, as the journey should have only taken about 5 hours total by my reckoning?
@TeaLovingDave No I did not see any choughs or other birds. It might have been because the weather was turning bad. Not long after my visit, the rains started.
I used the Deutschlandticket which can only be used on local trains, not the intercity trains. So it takes quite a while this way. And yes, there were delays on top of that as well (as pretty much every day except the Munchen-Innsbruck journey)
DAY 8. 21-04-2024.
ZOO KARLSRUHE
PART 2
Nearby the giraffe house is another enclosure that fits in the savannah theme, holding a couple of plains zebras. This enclosure looked relatively new, but I was not impressed; it is neither very large nor very natural. It’s a sandy paddock with some logs and rocks and one of those awful looking fake baobabs.
The enclosures in this part of the zoo are all very concentrated. The giraffe house, Australia section and the ‘Lebensraum Wasser’ (the marine animal section) are all within metres of each other and all of them can be seen when you make a 360 when standing next to the meerkat enclosure. As a matter of fact, I had at this point already passed by and looked at one of the enclosures that is part of the latter section; the enclosure for Magellanic penguins. I remembered this enclosure (and the rest of this section) from my visit in 2007. But despite it being an older enclosure, it is a among my favorites of the zoo. It has an fantastic multi-leveled land area with grass, trees and a lot of rocks. There are many burrows for the penguins on all the levels. The water section is equally impressive, being both large and deep. There is a really good underwater viewing as well. Besides penguins, this enclosure is also home to smews, eider ducks and Siberian sturgeons. It was enjoyable to watch the smews dive all the way to the bottom while the sturgeons and penguins swim by. Fantastic enclosure, but unfortunately the rest of this section is less impressive.
The zoo also holds a second type of penguin; the Humboldt penguin. Their enclosure is somewhat squeezed between the Magellenic penguin enclosure and the polar enclosure. It’s not a terrible enclosure, but it’s not great either. Both the land area and water area are a lot smaller compared to the other penguin enclosure. There is a decent looking rock backdrop and a little bit of foliage, adding some natural elements to it. The enclosure is viewed into through large glass panels, with some of them having been lowered so people can look over them, allowing for unobstructed looks at the penguins. There is no underwater viewing for this enclosure.
Across from the penguins is the Australian section. The walk-through wallaby enclosure is simple, but spacious. The wallabies have access to a viewable indoor building, as well as an additional dome-shape shelter for extra privacy. It is inhabitated by two species; a group of parma wallabies including a youngster, and a couple of red-necked wallabies including an albino. Within the wallaby enclosure is an aviary for superb parrots, galahs, Major Mitchells cockatoos, red-tailed black cockatoos and masked lapwings. I liked this aviary as it is quite large and nicely landscaped. From inside the Australia section you also can view into a very minimalistic enclosure for demoiselle cranes.
After exiting the wallaby enclosure, I could have followed the path towards the monkey house, but I opted to go the other way first, and visit the polar bears.
The next marine animals in the water section are the polar bears. At first glance, it seems like a terrible enclosure, dominated by concrete and mock rock. The enclosure is multi-leveled, consisting of different stacks of concrete blocks which go higher with each block. Between those, a stream of water flows, originating from an waterfall on top, ending in a pool at the lower part of the enclosure. There is also a second pool at the right side of the enclosure, bordering glass windows, allowing for some underwater viewing. Additional underwater viewing is located in a small room accessible by stairs where two porthole-like windows look into the lower pool. When you see the enclosure from below, this seems to be all there is to the enclosure. However, when you walk along the other side of the enclosure, you can see the enclosure goes around a corner behind the waterfall, where this is some additional space for the polar bears. Luckily, this part has some natural substrate, mostly grass. (This part of the enclosure can also be seen from the top, from between the snow leopards and snowy owls.) Despite the extra patch of grass on top of the enclosure, the polar bear enclosure still is mediocre at best. I did not enjoy watching the two bears pace around the enclosure. Time to move on to the otters. (I forgot to visit the sea lion enclosure)
Situated close to the entrance, behind the enclosures for the coatis and gazelles, is the ‘Lautersberg’, a small mountain. There is a path going from the polar bears to the top of the mountain, with the paths going in a spiral shape. At the base of this path, just after the bears, is an enclosure for small-clawed otters. I really liked this one! It is really spacious, especially the land area which has different levels and has great landscaping. A small portion of the enclosure can be seperated from the rest when necessary, but during my visit the otters could use both parts.
I decided not to walk the entire way to the top of the Lauterberg but instead just walk the outer path, which passes some animal enclosures. Firstly, I had a good view of the grassy part of the polar bear enclosure. It’s curious to see the polar bears spend much of their time on the concrete blocks when they have natural substrate available to them (I did not see them use this part of the enclosure at all). After a short while, the path led me to a row of aviaries for owls. The first two were quite average and held spectacled owls and ural owl. The third one was about double the size of the others, and held European eagle owl.
Next to the owls is the lynx enclosure, which I had already seen from a distance when I walked by the coatis and gazelles. The lynx enclosure is quite good; it’s reasonably large, hilly and very lush. The barriers of this enclosure are mostly mesh fencing, and the first observation area is just 2 small windows looking into the enclosure at a somewhat unpractical angle. I was very lucky here though, because a lynx decided to sit exactly in front of these windows, giving me excellent views. Around the corner are some additional viewing windows into the enclosure at ground level, as well as lots of excellent education. There are also stairs leading to a raised platform, from which you can see oversee the top part of the enclosure. I had seen 4 lynx enclosures during this zoo trip, and all of them were good. Lynxes are usually luckier in that regard compared to other felines.
I used the Deutschlandticket which can only be used on local trains, not the intercity trains. So it takes quite a while this way. And yes, there were delays on top of that as well (as pretty much every day except the Munchen-Innsbruck journey)
DAY 8. 21-04-2024.
ZOO KARLSRUHE
PART 2
Nearby the giraffe house is another enclosure that fits in the savannah theme, holding a couple of plains zebras. This enclosure looked relatively new, but I was not impressed; it is neither very large nor very natural. It’s a sandy paddock with some logs and rocks and one of those awful looking fake baobabs.
The enclosures in this part of the zoo are all very concentrated. The giraffe house, Australia section and the ‘Lebensraum Wasser’ (the marine animal section) are all within metres of each other and all of them can be seen when you make a 360 when standing next to the meerkat enclosure. As a matter of fact, I had at this point already passed by and looked at one of the enclosures that is part of the latter section; the enclosure for Magellanic penguins. I remembered this enclosure (and the rest of this section) from my visit in 2007. But despite it being an older enclosure, it is a among my favorites of the zoo. It has an fantastic multi-leveled land area with grass, trees and a lot of rocks. There are many burrows for the penguins on all the levels. The water section is equally impressive, being both large and deep. There is a really good underwater viewing as well. Besides penguins, this enclosure is also home to smews, eider ducks and Siberian sturgeons. It was enjoyable to watch the smews dive all the way to the bottom while the sturgeons and penguins swim by. Fantastic enclosure, but unfortunately the rest of this section is less impressive.
The zoo also holds a second type of penguin; the Humboldt penguin. Their enclosure is somewhat squeezed between the Magellenic penguin enclosure and the polar enclosure. It’s not a terrible enclosure, but it’s not great either. Both the land area and water area are a lot smaller compared to the other penguin enclosure. There is a decent looking rock backdrop and a little bit of foliage, adding some natural elements to it. The enclosure is viewed into through large glass panels, with some of them having been lowered so people can look over them, allowing for unobstructed looks at the penguins. There is no underwater viewing for this enclosure.
Across from the penguins is the Australian section. The walk-through wallaby enclosure is simple, but spacious. The wallabies have access to a viewable indoor building, as well as an additional dome-shape shelter for extra privacy. It is inhabitated by two species; a group of parma wallabies including a youngster, and a couple of red-necked wallabies including an albino. Within the wallaby enclosure is an aviary for superb parrots, galahs, Major Mitchells cockatoos, red-tailed black cockatoos and masked lapwings. I liked this aviary as it is quite large and nicely landscaped. From inside the Australia section you also can view into a very minimalistic enclosure for demoiselle cranes.
After exiting the wallaby enclosure, I could have followed the path towards the monkey house, but I opted to go the other way first, and visit the polar bears.
The next marine animals in the water section are the polar bears. At first glance, it seems like a terrible enclosure, dominated by concrete and mock rock. The enclosure is multi-leveled, consisting of different stacks of concrete blocks which go higher with each block. Between those, a stream of water flows, originating from an waterfall on top, ending in a pool at the lower part of the enclosure. There is also a second pool at the right side of the enclosure, bordering glass windows, allowing for some underwater viewing. Additional underwater viewing is located in a small room accessible by stairs where two porthole-like windows look into the lower pool. When you see the enclosure from below, this seems to be all there is to the enclosure. However, when you walk along the other side of the enclosure, you can see the enclosure goes around a corner behind the waterfall, where this is some additional space for the polar bears. Luckily, this part has some natural substrate, mostly grass. (This part of the enclosure can also be seen from the top, from between the snow leopards and snowy owls.) Despite the extra patch of grass on top of the enclosure, the polar bear enclosure still is mediocre at best. I did not enjoy watching the two bears pace around the enclosure. Time to move on to the otters. (I forgot to visit the sea lion enclosure)
Situated close to the entrance, behind the enclosures for the coatis and gazelles, is the ‘Lautersberg’, a small mountain. There is a path going from the polar bears to the top of the mountain, with the paths going in a spiral shape. At the base of this path, just after the bears, is an enclosure for small-clawed otters. I really liked this one! It is really spacious, especially the land area which has different levels and has great landscaping. A small portion of the enclosure can be seperated from the rest when necessary, but during my visit the otters could use both parts.
I decided not to walk the entire way to the top of the Lauterberg but instead just walk the outer path, which passes some animal enclosures. Firstly, I had a good view of the grassy part of the polar bear enclosure. It’s curious to see the polar bears spend much of their time on the concrete blocks when they have natural substrate available to them (I did not see them use this part of the enclosure at all). After a short while, the path led me to a row of aviaries for owls. The first two were quite average and held spectacled owls and ural owl. The third one was about double the size of the others, and held European eagle owl.
Next to the owls is the lynx enclosure, which I had already seen from a distance when I walked by the coatis and gazelles. The lynx enclosure is quite good; it’s reasonably large, hilly and very lush. The barriers of this enclosure are mostly mesh fencing, and the first observation area is just 2 small windows looking into the enclosure at a somewhat unpractical angle. I was very lucky here though, because a lynx decided to sit exactly in front of these windows, giving me excellent views. Around the corner are some additional viewing windows into the enclosure at ground level, as well as lots of excellent education. There are also stairs leading to a raised platform, from which you can see oversee the top part of the enclosure. I had seen 4 lynx enclosures during this zoo trip, and all of them were good. Lynxes are usually luckier in that regard compared to other felines.
DAY 8. 21-04-2024.
ZOO KARLSRUHE
PART 3
I had now arrived back at the entrance plaza, and decided to take a gondoletta to the other side of the park to visit the Exotenhaus. The gondoletta takes you from the ‘Schwanensee’ to the ‘Stadtgartensee’ which is the zoos second and larger lake. During the ride, I saw some waterfowl; red-breasted geese, emperor geese and Hawaiian geese. You’re also supposed to be able to see pelicans, but I did not; it might have been too cold for them yet. Unfortunately, the gondoletta ride doesn’t really offer much in terms of viewing enclosures; the only one you will pass is the elephant enclosures but the views of those animals are not great from the boats. Honestly, the ride is quite underwhelming and I would not recommend buying a retour ticket, but a one-way ride to get to the other side of the zoo while being able to rest your feet might be worth the ticket price (3,50 for a one-way ticket, 5,50 for a retour ticket).
Having arrived at the other side of the park, I decided to skip the petting zoo and go straight for the Exotenhaus. Doing so, I passed a simple enclosure for alpaca and greater rhea. The Exotenhaus openend in 2015, but do not expect to see a modern state-of-the-art looking rainforest building; the building itself is not newly constructed but rather a former swimming pool repurposed as a rainforest house. Therefor, the facade of the building does not impress. But, it’s really the inside that counts!
The Exotenhaus has both a main hall with free roaming monkeys and birds, as well as a bunch of seperate enclosures. When you enter the building, you will find yourself on the middle level of the main hall. From here you can either go left, or take a stairs or elevator up to the upper level. I decided to go up first so I would be able to get good views of the main hall and its inhabitants first. I have to say that I think Zoo Karlsruhe did a pretty good job of creating a convincing rainforest. Sure, there a lot more visible man-made structures compared to rainforest halls like Arnhem, Zurich or Vienna, but that is to be expected considering the building was not specifically designed for this purpose and it did not really bother me at all. The hall is lush, the mock rock and mock trees looked good and they multiple level viewing gives you a chance to explore the hall from a different perspective each time you pass it. Not bad at all! The Exotenhaus is not dedicated to a specific continent, but rather on rainforests in general.
As to what lives here, I had very little trouble finding a bunch of different species within just a few minutes. Both species of monkey, the white-faced saki and the cotton-top tamarin, were very active and came very close to the people; I could have touched a saki with easy if I wanted to. As for birds, I saw Bernier’s teal (unsigned), crested partridge, Stella’s lorikeet, red-flanked lorikeet (unsigned), grey-headed lovebird, socorro dove, Malagasy turtle-dove, pied imperial-pigeon, nicobar pigeon, Mindanoa bleeding-heart, red-crested turaco, common hoopoe, blue-naped mousebird, red-whiskered bulbul, white-crowed robin chat, amethyst starling, Brazilian tanager, tricolored parrotfish, Java sparrow (unsigned), Cuban grassquit and Madagascar fody. Signed species that I did not see are emerald dove, Victoria crowned pigeon, golden-breasted starling and white-rumped shama. Overall, a really solid collection of birds.
While exploring the main hall, I had also already come across two avaries. Opposite of the upper level of the elevator is a very basic cage for rainbow and ornate lorikeets that I didn’t care much for. Much larger is the aviary for wrinkled hornbills and hill mynas which is dominated by a fake tree in the middle. This aviary can be viewed into from both the upper and lower floor, and that makes it somewhat lacking in privacy. Perhaps that explains why I did not see any hornbills during multiple attemps (they had access to their indoor quarters).
When I was done viewing the monkeys and birds from the upper level, I backtracked to the buildings entrance and took the path towards the left part of the building. I passed the aviary for sloths and golden parakeets, seen from the backside and left the main hall, entering a second, much smaller and much darker part of the building. The pathway makes an U-shape here, before returning to the main hall. Alongside the outer bend of the path are five enclosures, and there is a fifth one on the inside bend. The biggest of these is the indoor enclosure for Aldabra giant tortoises. The enclosure itself is nothing special; a sandy/rocky floor with some foliage in places the tortoises cannot reach. I found the enclosure visually lacking, as the building’s structure is much more obvious here and not much has been done to hide the unnatural elements except for some planting in the back. Interestingly, the enclosure also keeps a few bird species. A couple of macaws (without a doubt flightless) were perched on some branches in the front and middle of the enclosure. On the ground and especially around the small pond, a few wading birds were walking around; a small group of black-necked stilts, a blacksmith plover and a couple of Egyptian plovers. Since this enclosure only has a low barrier to keep the guest and tortoises seperated, the birds could technically enter the much darker guest area, but not unlike Antwerp Zoo’s former ‘dark corridor’ in the Bird House, the birds are most likely staying put. There is an outdoor enclosure for the giant tortoises, but I’m not sure what happens to the birds when the gates to the outdoor enclosure are opened for the tortoises
.
The second enclosure in this hallway is an aqua-terrarium for dwarf crocodile with an underwater viewing. It’s quite the average enclosure for this species, but since there are two parts that were currently connected, quite spacious. Unsurprisingly, the water is inhabited by small fishes; a good variety of cichlid species (Dimidichrom compressiseps, Chindongo demasoni (not seen), Chrysiptera hemicyanea, Aulonocara spec. f. „Dragon Blood“ , Labidochromis caeruleus, Chromis cyanea), malawi squeaker and bushymouth catfish. Next to the croc is a paludarium for McCords snake-necked turtles.
Next up are some birds in a glass-fronted bird enclosure. The enclosure isn’t very large, but luckily neither are the species kept here; the blue-crowned hanging parrot and the red-and-white crake, the latter being quite rare in zoos! The enclosure was well planted and offers the animals plenty of cover, proven by the fact I wasn’t able to find the parrots during both of my attemps (the window also doesn’t reach the top of the enclosure, so there is a ‘blind spot’ as well). Finally, there is a terrarium for Fiji banded iguana here.
That leaves the enclosure on the inside bend of the visitor path, and it is my least favorite enclosure of the entire building. I don’t dislike the enclosure itself per se; it is a decent multiple species enclosure for three-banded armadillos (not seen), pygmy marmosets, crimson-bellied parakeets and grey-breasted parakeets. There is natural substrate for the armadillos and lots of branches for the parakeets and marmosets. My problem with this enclosure is that is not only entirely indoors, but situated in a dark corner, surrounded by guest path. Therefor, the animals are not able to enjoy any sunlight or a fresh breeze of air.
Back in the main rainforest hall, I passed the same enclosure as before, but this time from the front side. Here there are large viewing panels, while the rest of the enclosure is netted. The enclosure is dominated by a large tree in the middle. Inside, there are four different species; two-toed sloth, Goeldis marmoset, Azaras agouti and golden parakeet. I did like the enclosure; it offers plenty of space and the climbing and perching opportunties are plentyful. The combination of these 4 very different species is an interesting one and I saw all 4 active. Across from the sloths and parakeets is an even larger netted enclosure. I was surprised to find just 2 species in here; three-banded armadillo and toco toucan. For these species, the enclosure is huge! Unfortunately, I only got a very short glimpse of a toucan, which seemed to prefer staying ‘inside’.
Bats also live inside of the main rainforest hall. When they are not flying around, you are most likely to find them in an artificial cave. A small viewing window grants you a peek inside. The angle is weird and it is (obviously) very dark inside, but I did manage to find a group of bats hanging from the ceiling. During my re-walk, they had gone outside and were flying around! The signage tells us they are lesser long-nosed bats, the only ones in an European zoo! However, according to zootierliste, they could also be Pallas' long-tongued bat. I decide to trust on the zoo signage, especially since the long-nosed bats are a new species (2023) so the signage has to be recent.
From here, the paths slopes down and takes you through the lower center of the main hall, this time offering ground-level view of the place. I spotted some crested partrigde chicks here, very cute! From this path, you will also get another view into the hornbill/myna enclosure. At the end, there is an aquarium for red piranhas, neon tetras and black tetras.
ZOO KARLSRUHE
PART 3
I had now arrived back at the entrance plaza, and decided to take a gondoletta to the other side of the park to visit the Exotenhaus. The gondoletta takes you from the ‘Schwanensee’ to the ‘Stadtgartensee’ which is the zoos second and larger lake. During the ride, I saw some waterfowl; red-breasted geese, emperor geese and Hawaiian geese. You’re also supposed to be able to see pelicans, but I did not; it might have been too cold for them yet. Unfortunately, the gondoletta ride doesn’t really offer much in terms of viewing enclosures; the only one you will pass is the elephant enclosures but the views of those animals are not great from the boats. Honestly, the ride is quite underwhelming and I would not recommend buying a retour ticket, but a one-way ride to get to the other side of the zoo while being able to rest your feet might be worth the ticket price (3,50 for a one-way ticket, 5,50 for a retour ticket).
Having arrived at the other side of the park, I decided to skip the petting zoo and go straight for the Exotenhaus. Doing so, I passed a simple enclosure for alpaca and greater rhea. The Exotenhaus openend in 2015, but do not expect to see a modern state-of-the-art looking rainforest building; the building itself is not newly constructed but rather a former swimming pool repurposed as a rainforest house. Therefor, the facade of the building does not impress. But, it’s really the inside that counts!
The Exotenhaus has both a main hall with free roaming monkeys and birds, as well as a bunch of seperate enclosures. When you enter the building, you will find yourself on the middle level of the main hall. From here you can either go left, or take a stairs or elevator up to the upper level. I decided to go up first so I would be able to get good views of the main hall and its inhabitants first. I have to say that I think Zoo Karlsruhe did a pretty good job of creating a convincing rainforest. Sure, there a lot more visible man-made structures compared to rainforest halls like Arnhem, Zurich or Vienna, but that is to be expected considering the building was not specifically designed for this purpose and it did not really bother me at all. The hall is lush, the mock rock and mock trees looked good and they multiple level viewing gives you a chance to explore the hall from a different perspective each time you pass it. Not bad at all! The Exotenhaus is not dedicated to a specific continent, but rather on rainforests in general.
As to what lives here, I had very little trouble finding a bunch of different species within just a few minutes. Both species of monkey, the white-faced saki and the cotton-top tamarin, were very active and came very close to the people; I could have touched a saki with easy if I wanted to. As for birds, I saw Bernier’s teal (unsigned), crested partridge, Stella’s lorikeet, red-flanked lorikeet (unsigned), grey-headed lovebird, socorro dove, Malagasy turtle-dove, pied imperial-pigeon, nicobar pigeon, Mindanoa bleeding-heart, red-crested turaco, common hoopoe, blue-naped mousebird, red-whiskered bulbul, white-crowed robin chat, amethyst starling, Brazilian tanager, tricolored parrotfish, Java sparrow (unsigned), Cuban grassquit and Madagascar fody. Signed species that I did not see are emerald dove, Victoria crowned pigeon, golden-breasted starling and white-rumped shama. Overall, a really solid collection of birds.
While exploring the main hall, I had also already come across two avaries. Opposite of the upper level of the elevator is a very basic cage for rainbow and ornate lorikeets that I didn’t care much for. Much larger is the aviary for wrinkled hornbills and hill mynas which is dominated by a fake tree in the middle. This aviary can be viewed into from both the upper and lower floor, and that makes it somewhat lacking in privacy. Perhaps that explains why I did not see any hornbills during multiple attemps (they had access to their indoor quarters).
When I was done viewing the monkeys and birds from the upper level, I backtracked to the buildings entrance and took the path towards the left part of the building. I passed the aviary for sloths and golden parakeets, seen from the backside and left the main hall, entering a second, much smaller and much darker part of the building. The pathway makes an U-shape here, before returning to the main hall. Alongside the outer bend of the path are five enclosures, and there is a fifth one on the inside bend. The biggest of these is the indoor enclosure for Aldabra giant tortoises. The enclosure itself is nothing special; a sandy/rocky floor with some foliage in places the tortoises cannot reach. I found the enclosure visually lacking, as the building’s structure is much more obvious here and not much has been done to hide the unnatural elements except for some planting in the back. Interestingly, the enclosure also keeps a few bird species. A couple of macaws (without a doubt flightless) were perched on some branches in the front and middle of the enclosure. On the ground and especially around the small pond, a few wading birds were walking around; a small group of black-necked stilts, a blacksmith plover and a couple of Egyptian plovers. Since this enclosure only has a low barrier to keep the guest and tortoises seperated, the birds could technically enter the much darker guest area, but not unlike Antwerp Zoo’s former ‘dark corridor’ in the Bird House, the birds are most likely staying put. There is an outdoor enclosure for the giant tortoises, but I’m not sure what happens to the birds when the gates to the outdoor enclosure are opened for the tortoises
The second enclosure in this hallway is an aqua-terrarium for dwarf crocodile with an underwater viewing. It’s quite the average enclosure for this species, but since there are two parts that were currently connected, quite spacious. Unsurprisingly, the water is inhabited by small fishes; a good variety of cichlid species (Dimidichrom compressiseps, Chindongo demasoni (not seen), Chrysiptera hemicyanea, Aulonocara spec. f. „Dragon Blood“ , Labidochromis caeruleus, Chromis cyanea), malawi squeaker and bushymouth catfish. Next to the croc is a paludarium for McCords snake-necked turtles.
Next up are some birds in a glass-fronted bird enclosure. The enclosure isn’t very large, but luckily neither are the species kept here; the blue-crowned hanging parrot and the red-and-white crake, the latter being quite rare in zoos! The enclosure was well planted and offers the animals plenty of cover, proven by the fact I wasn’t able to find the parrots during both of my attemps (the window also doesn’t reach the top of the enclosure, so there is a ‘blind spot’ as well). Finally, there is a terrarium for Fiji banded iguana here.
That leaves the enclosure on the inside bend of the visitor path, and it is my least favorite enclosure of the entire building. I don’t dislike the enclosure itself per se; it is a decent multiple species enclosure for three-banded armadillos (not seen), pygmy marmosets, crimson-bellied parakeets and grey-breasted parakeets. There is natural substrate for the armadillos and lots of branches for the parakeets and marmosets. My problem with this enclosure is that is not only entirely indoors, but situated in a dark corner, surrounded by guest path. Therefor, the animals are not able to enjoy any sunlight or a fresh breeze of air.
Back in the main rainforest hall, I passed the same enclosure as before, but this time from the front side. Here there are large viewing panels, while the rest of the enclosure is netted. The enclosure is dominated by a large tree in the middle. Inside, there are four different species; two-toed sloth, Goeldis marmoset, Azaras agouti and golden parakeet. I did like the enclosure; it offers plenty of space and the climbing and perching opportunties are plentyful. The combination of these 4 very different species is an interesting one and I saw all 4 active. Across from the sloths and parakeets is an even larger netted enclosure. I was surprised to find just 2 species in here; three-banded armadillo and toco toucan. For these species, the enclosure is huge! Unfortunately, I only got a very short glimpse of a toucan, which seemed to prefer staying ‘inside’.
Bats also live inside of the main rainforest hall. When they are not flying around, you are most likely to find them in an artificial cave. A small viewing window grants you a peek inside. The angle is weird and it is (obviously) very dark inside, but I did manage to find a group of bats hanging from the ceiling. During my re-walk, they had gone outside and were flying around! The signage tells us they are lesser long-nosed bats, the only ones in an European zoo! However, according to zootierliste, they could also be Pallas' long-tongued bat. I decide to trust on the zoo signage, especially since the long-nosed bats are a new species (2023) so the signage has to be recent.
From here, the paths slopes down and takes you through the lower center of the main hall, this time offering ground-level view of the place. I spotted some crested partrigde chicks here, very cute! From this path, you will also get another view into the hornbill/myna enclosure. At the end, there is an aquarium for red piranhas, neon tetras and black tetras.
DAY 8. 21-04-2024.
ZOO KARLSRUHE
PART 4
The path goes down even more here, and enters a dark corridor. This is the nocturnal area of the Exotenhaus, with a walk-in enclosure for bats at the very beginning of the hallway. I did really like the bat enclosure; the zoo did a nice job of recreating a cave, and it’s always fun to have some bats flying around your head. The species here is the Seba's short-tailed bat. The bat enclosure is optional and can be skipped by those who are not a fan of bats walkthroughs. The other two enclosures in the noctural section are situated on one side of the path each. One of them holds slow loris, the other one holds… slow loris. Yet both enclosure keep a different species as the smaller of the two is home to pygmy slow loris (which I did not see) and the larger to a single female Bengal slow loris. I especially liked the larger enclosure; spacious, nicely planted and some subtle lighting in the right places. I was really happy to see the loris active here, as this species in very rare in Europe and was a no-show in Augsburg. I do find it a somewhat odd choice to display two very similar species in the limited nocturnal section; however as a big fan slow loris, I do not mind at all!
After the nocturnal section, you turn a corner and enter the last part of the Exotenhaus; a hallway with a row of aquaria on the right side of the path, ending in a corner with some frog terraria. The first aquarium is South-America themed, and holds Endlers guppy, bleeding-heart tetra, lemon tetra (unsigned), freshwater angelfish, emerald cichlid, polka-dot lyretail catfish, royal panaque and palito.
The next tank is African and has a bunch of Tanganyikan cichlids. This tank was decorated with mostly rocks, making it stand out between the other, more tropical, densely planted tanks. Species: Simochromis diagramma, Cyprichromis leptosoma, Cyprichromis microlepidotus, Cyphotilapia frontosa, Neolamprologus leleupi, Julidochromis marlieri, Julidochromis transcriptus, Gnathochromis permaxillaris (not seen), Tropheus moorii and the catfish Synodontis multipunctatus.
Tank number three focusus on Southeast Asia. Inhabitants are the Boeseman’s rainbowfish, tricolor sharkminnow, rainbow sharkminnow, gold barb and sind danio, with the latter apperantly kept in no other zoos worldwide. Glass catfish was signed, but I did not see it.
Asia gets a second representation with tank number four, this time featuring moonlight gourami, tricolor sharkminnow (again), Grey flying fox, Silver flying fox, Indian algae-eater (unsigned), red-tail botia (not seen) and Asian bumblebee catfish (not seen).
We return to South America’s, with a smaller tank for discus fish, golden-striped headstander and green swordtail, and a larger one for black ghost knifefish, bushymouth catfish, Adolfs corydoras (not seen), silver prochilodus, red hook silver dollar, green swordtail (again) and darter characin.
The largest of all tanks is South American as well, and holds tucan fish, spotted sailfin suckermouth catfish, royal panaque, green terror (unsigned) and the zoos only cartilaginous fish, the smooth-back river stingay.
There is nothing special or unique about a row of freshwater tanks, but I enjoyed the aquarium section nonetheless. The tanks were designed quite well, and all of them had a big enough selection of species to keep it interesting.
The row of tanks ends with not an aquarium, but a beautiful and spacious terrarium for another Fiji banded iguana, meanig this species is displayed twice in the Exotenhaus.
End the end of this hallway a corner with 4 frog enclosures, which hold a few common species as well as a few that are very rare in captivity! I had the potential to see four new species here! The two terraria in the middle are medium-sized, and keep commonly kept species; one of them has golden poison frogs, the other has Golfodulcean and yellow-banded posion frogs. The two other terraria are much bigger, I would even say huge considering the species within. One of those is home to the Rio Pescado stubfoot toad, an unique and gorgeous looking frog that is critically endangered in the wild. It was not found in European zoos until Zoo Karlsruhe imported a bunch from Ecuador. I did not take long for these frogs to breed, and the offspring has been spreading around European zoos lately, slowly making the species become more common, although most zoos keep them off display. This is a really cool new conservation story, and it made me excited to see the species for myself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any, despite a lot of time spend at the enclosure. I tried to get some help from staff, but they were not of much use. A real bummer.
Another large frog terrarium has no less than four species combined. The most conspicious of those is the blue poison frog which were very easy to find. The other 3 would all be new species to me; the blessed poison frog (which I had missed in Heidelberg due to time constraints), the Brazil-nut poison frog (of which Karlsruhe is the only public holder worldwide!) and the Lehmann’s poison frog (of which Karlsruhe is the only public holder in Europe, and which I am familiar with because of Planet Zoo!). I was happy to find multiple blessed poison frogs rather quickly, which made up for not having time to look fort hem in Heidelberg. But I again was not able to find the others, which really frustrated me. Only 1 of 4 target species seen is not something to be satisfied with, but I had accept my losses and continue.
After the frogs, the route goes upwards again and leads to the upper level of the main hall of the Exotenhaus, which I had already visited at the beginning. Adjacent to the Exotenhaus is a restaurant, which is seperated by large glass panels; from a selected seats in the restaurant, you are able to look into the Exotenhaus while enjoying a lunch or coffee.
Overall, I really enjoyed the Exotenhaus and it was defenitely my highlight of the zoo so far (and spoiler alert: that wouldn’t change). I loved the layout of the building, covering multiple levels and somewhat representing a full journey from treetops to under the water. The animal selection is varied with mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs and fishes, and also includes a few rarities. The enclosures are mostly good, especially the huge toucan aviary and walk-in bat cave. The main hall itself is also nicely done, and is well stocked with plenty of species. The biggest flaw of the Exotenhaus is the enclosure for pygmy marmosets and parakeets, which is too dark and depressing for me. I spent exactly two hours in the Exotenhaus (including a quick lunch break), which ment it was already 13.15 when I exited. It was time to go on; I still had to visit the Pachyderm house, carnivore house and monkey house, and needed to leave the zoo somewhat on time as I planned to visit the city’s natural museum afterwards.
Underneath the restaurant, accessible from outside, are some toilets. Close to this is a somewhat randomly located, basis cage for three bird species; Goffin’s cockatoo, purple-naped lorikeet and crowned lapwing.
After this I passed some none-zoo stuff like a giant chess board, a children’s car ride and a pergola garden, I walked under the bridge that devides the zoo in two, and arrived at the house for hippos and elephants. Before visting the actual building, I walked the path directly under the bridge that leads into a dead end from which you get a view into part of the elephant enclosure. I found the viewing opportunity kindof lacking, and I’m sure the view would be better from the bridge (which I guess can be accessed for free from outside the zoo). I had a hard time assessing how large this part of the enclosure really is, but it doesn’t look all too big. From outside the building, there is also viewing into the indoor enclosure through large windows. Again, the viewing here was limited, this time mostly due to sun glare, but it did not seem very large either. But, at least the floor seemed to be 100% sand.
Before entering the elephant/hippo house, I took a look at the open-topped outdoor enclosure for lesser flamingo’s, which is decently sized and very green and lush. However, the birds were not out. Another enclosure you will encounter before entering the building is a pond for European pond turtles.
The main building consits of three indoor enclosures and two small side enclosures. Firstly, the indoor enclosure for lesser flamingo’s. The birds are not behind glass or netting; instead, the barrier is just a low fence and the views of the flamingos are excellent. The enclosure consists of mud, rocks, plants and shallow pools, a perfect mix for this species. The one thing that worries me somewhat is that these birds might suffer from the loud noises if the building is crowded.
When I visited Karlsruhe in 2007, the elephant indoor enclosure was a concrete disaster, extremely tiny and despressing. Concrete flooring, tiled walls and barely enough space for the elephants to turn around. In 2012 (I think) the zoo made an upgrade, and now the different boxes for the elephants have been combined, made larger and given sand flooring. It is still not a great indoor enclosure, but it’s not as terrible as it used to be. The elephants are still viewed through heavy steel fences and there is still lots of concrete, making it also one of the uglier indoor elephant enclosures around. It seemed the elephants (I think they have 3) had freedom of choice between being indoor or outdoor, but I did see just one outside and two were indoors.
The other pachyderm in Karlsruhe is the hippopotamus, which also have their indoor enclosures here. And unfortunately, it’s not great. The land areas are barely enough for a hippo to turn around. The water areas are slighty larger, but still small and taking an actual swim is not an option for the hippos. They can submerge, but that is it. But enclosures are seperated by a visitor bridge with glass on the sides; at least the views of the hippo’s are really good as you can get quite close to them.
Besides the flamingos and pachyderms, the building also has 2 smaller enclosures; one of them is a small but nice aquarium for Mangarahara cichlids, the other is an enclosure (or actually 2) for Etruscian shrews! I loved seeing this species 2 times in 3 days, and I liked that Karlsruhe also keeps them right next to their biggest inhabitants, just like Innsbruck did with the wisents. The shrew enclosures are designed as an underground tunnel system, with one of the tunnels leading to an ‘above ground’ portion the shrews are able to acces. I did see a small group of shrews cuddled up together.
ZOO KARLSRUHE
PART 4
The path goes down even more here, and enters a dark corridor. This is the nocturnal area of the Exotenhaus, with a walk-in enclosure for bats at the very beginning of the hallway. I did really like the bat enclosure; the zoo did a nice job of recreating a cave, and it’s always fun to have some bats flying around your head. The species here is the Seba's short-tailed bat. The bat enclosure is optional and can be skipped by those who are not a fan of bats walkthroughs. The other two enclosures in the noctural section are situated on one side of the path each. One of them holds slow loris, the other one holds… slow loris. Yet both enclosure keep a different species as the smaller of the two is home to pygmy slow loris (which I did not see) and the larger to a single female Bengal slow loris. I especially liked the larger enclosure; spacious, nicely planted and some subtle lighting in the right places. I was really happy to see the loris active here, as this species in very rare in Europe and was a no-show in Augsburg. I do find it a somewhat odd choice to display two very similar species in the limited nocturnal section; however as a big fan slow loris, I do not mind at all!
After the nocturnal section, you turn a corner and enter the last part of the Exotenhaus; a hallway with a row of aquaria on the right side of the path, ending in a corner with some frog terraria. The first aquarium is South-America themed, and holds Endlers guppy, bleeding-heart tetra, lemon tetra (unsigned), freshwater angelfish, emerald cichlid, polka-dot lyretail catfish, royal panaque and palito.
The next tank is African and has a bunch of Tanganyikan cichlids. This tank was decorated with mostly rocks, making it stand out between the other, more tropical, densely planted tanks. Species: Simochromis diagramma, Cyprichromis leptosoma, Cyprichromis microlepidotus, Cyphotilapia frontosa, Neolamprologus leleupi, Julidochromis marlieri, Julidochromis transcriptus, Gnathochromis permaxillaris (not seen), Tropheus moorii and the catfish Synodontis multipunctatus.
Tank number three focusus on Southeast Asia. Inhabitants are the Boeseman’s rainbowfish, tricolor sharkminnow, rainbow sharkminnow, gold barb and sind danio, with the latter apperantly kept in no other zoos worldwide. Glass catfish was signed, but I did not see it.
Asia gets a second representation with tank number four, this time featuring moonlight gourami, tricolor sharkminnow (again), Grey flying fox, Silver flying fox, Indian algae-eater (unsigned), red-tail botia (not seen) and Asian bumblebee catfish (not seen).
We return to South America’s, with a smaller tank for discus fish, golden-striped headstander and green swordtail, and a larger one for black ghost knifefish, bushymouth catfish, Adolfs corydoras (not seen), silver prochilodus, red hook silver dollar, green swordtail (again) and darter characin.
The largest of all tanks is South American as well, and holds tucan fish, spotted sailfin suckermouth catfish, royal panaque, green terror (unsigned) and the zoos only cartilaginous fish, the smooth-back river stingay.
There is nothing special or unique about a row of freshwater tanks, but I enjoyed the aquarium section nonetheless. The tanks were designed quite well, and all of them had a big enough selection of species to keep it interesting.
The row of tanks ends with not an aquarium, but a beautiful and spacious terrarium for another Fiji banded iguana, meanig this species is displayed twice in the Exotenhaus.
End the end of this hallway a corner with 4 frog enclosures, which hold a few common species as well as a few that are very rare in captivity! I had the potential to see four new species here! The two terraria in the middle are medium-sized, and keep commonly kept species; one of them has golden poison frogs, the other has Golfodulcean and yellow-banded posion frogs. The two other terraria are much bigger, I would even say huge considering the species within. One of those is home to the Rio Pescado stubfoot toad, an unique and gorgeous looking frog that is critically endangered in the wild. It was not found in European zoos until Zoo Karlsruhe imported a bunch from Ecuador. I did not take long for these frogs to breed, and the offspring has been spreading around European zoos lately, slowly making the species become more common, although most zoos keep them off display. This is a really cool new conservation story, and it made me excited to see the species for myself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any, despite a lot of time spend at the enclosure. I tried to get some help from staff, but they were not of much use. A real bummer.
Another large frog terrarium has no less than four species combined. The most conspicious of those is the blue poison frog which were very easy to find. The other 3 would all be new species to me; the blessed poison frog (which I had missed in Heidelberg due to time constraints), the Brazil-nut poison frog (of which Karlsruhe is the only public holder worldwide!) and the Lehmann’s poison frog (of which Karlsruhe is the only public holder in Europe, and which I am familiar with because of Planet Zoo!). I was happy to find multiple blessed poison frogs rather quickly, which made up for not having time to look fort hem in Heidelberg. But I again was not able to find the others, which really frustrated me. Only 1 of 4 target species seen is not something to be satisfied with, but I had accept my losses and continue.
After the frogs, the route goes upwards again and leads to the upper level of the main hall of the Exotenhaus, which I had already visited at the beginning. Adjacent to the Exotenhaus is a restaurant, which is seperated by large glass panels; from a selected seats in the restaurant, you are able to look into the Exotenhaus while enjoying a lunch or coffee.
Overall, I really enjoyed the Exotenhaus and it was defenitely my highlight of the zoo so far (and spoiler alert: that wouldn’t change). I loved the layout of the building, covering multiple levels and somewhat representing a full journey from treetops to under the water. The animal selection is varied with mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs and fishes, and also includes a few rarities. The enclosures are mostly good, especially the huge toucan aviary and walk-in bat cave. The main hall itself is also nicely done, and is well stocked with plenty of species. The biggest flaw of the Exotenhaus is the enclosure for pygmy marmosets and parakeets, which is too dark and depressing for me. I spent exactly two hours in the Exotenhaus (including a quick lunch break), which ment it was already 13.15 when I exited. It was time to go on; I still had to visit the Pachyderm house, carnivore house and monkey house, and needed to leave the zoo somewhat on time as I planned to visit the city’s natural museum afterwards.
Underneath the restaurant, accessible from outside, are some toilets. Close to this is a somewhat randomly located, basis cage for three bird species; Goffin’s cockatoo, purple-naped lorikeet and crowned lapwing.
After this I passed some none-zoo stuff like a giant chess board, a children’s car ride and a pergola garden, I walked under the bridge that devides the zoo in two, and arrived at the house for hippos and elephants. Before visting the actual building, I walked the path directly under the bridge that leads into a dead end from which you get a view into part of the elephant enclosure. I found the viewing opportunity kindof lacking, and I’m sure the view would be better from the bridge (which I guess can be accessed for free from outside the zoo). I had a hard time assessing how large this part of the enclosure really is, but it doesn’t look all too big. From outside the building, there is also viewing into the indoor enclosure through large windows. Again, the viewing here was limited, this time mostly due to sun glare, but it did not seem very large either. But, at least the floor seemed to be 100% sand.
Before entering the elephant/hippo house, I took a look at the open-topped outdoor enclosure for lesser flamingo’s, which is decently sized and very green and lush. However, the birds were not out. Another enclosure you will encounter before entering the building is a pond for European pond turtles.
The main building consits of three indoor enclosures and two small side enclosures. Firstly, the indoor enclosure for lesser flamingo’s. The birds are not behind glass or netting; instead, the barrier is just a low fence and the views of the flamingos are excellent. The enclosure consists of mud, rocks, plants and shallow pools, a perfect mix for this species. The one thing that worries me somewhat is that these birds might suffer from the loud noises if the building is crowded.
When I visited Karlsruhe in 2007, the elephant indoor enclosure was a concrete disaster, extremely tiny and despressing. Concrete flooring, tiled walls and barely enough space for the elephants to turn around. In 2012 (I think) the zoo made an upgrade, and now the different boxes for the elephants have been combined, made larger and given sand flooring. It is still not a great indoor enclosure, but it’s not as terrible as it used to be. The elephants are still viewed through heavy steel fences and there is still lots of concrete, making it also one of the uglier indoor elephant enclosures around. It seemed the elephants (I think they have 3) had freedom of choice between being indoor or outdoor, but I did see just one outside and two were indoors.
The other pachyderm in Karlsruhe is the hippopotamus, which also have their indoor enclosures here. And unfortunately, it’s not great. The land areas are barely enough for a hippo to turn around. The water areas are slighty larger, but still small and taking an actual swim is not an option for the hippos. They can submerge, but that is it. But enclosures are seperated by a visitor bridge with glass on the sides; at least the views of the hippo’s are really good as you can get quite close to them.
Besides the flamingos and pachyderms, the building also has 2 smaller enclosures; one of them is a small but nice aquarium for Mangarahara cichlids, the other is an enclosure (or actually 2) for Etruscian shrews! I loved seeing this species 2 times in 3 days, and I liked that Karlsruhe also keeps them right next to their biggest inhabitants, just like Innsbruck did with the wisents. The shrew enclosures are designed as an underground tunnel system, with one of the tunnels leading to an ‘above ground’ portion the shrews are able to acces. I did see a small group of shrews cuddled up together.
DAY 8. 21-04-2024.
ZOO KARLSRUHE
PART 5
After the pachyderm house, I made my way to the carnivore house. My memories from 2007 have faded somewhat, but I think I remember seeing both leopards and snow leopards in small cages back in those days. When I got to the building, I realised that either my memories were off, or things have changed since then. My assumption is the latter; since the snow leopards have received a new enclosure since my visit in 2007, my assumption is they were previously kept in the carnivore house next to the leopards. This would mean their enclosures might have been merged; the leopards are still kept in an old-fashioned cage, but it was quite spacious and lush and therefor it exceeded the expectations I had based on my memories. I saw two leopards (North Chinese subspecies) outside, sharing the enclosure.
I went inside the carnivore house. The indoor enclosure for the leopards is pretty average and obviously designed to be mostly practical; concrete floor, tiled walls, mesh fence. Some logs and wood chips have been added. Size wise, I have seen smaller indoor enclosures for leopards.
Across the leopards is an enclosure that looks like it was not part of the original building. The facade is made up of (quite ugly) mockrock with glass viewing windows. The enclosure itself is spacious and has lots of natural substrate for digging, branches for climbing and some fiolage and rocks. It’s not a bad enclosure for its inhabitants; lowland paca and squirrel monkey. The only downside to it is the lack of an outdoor enclosure.
The next ‘section’ of the carnivore house only has a terrarium for ball pythons and a mixed species paludarium, which kept another three species of frog that I had never seen before; lemur leaf frog (missed this one before in Liberec), hourglass tree frog and Carvalho's surinam toad, along with Dominican anole and butterfly splitfin. Unfortunately, over a half of the window was fogged up, which did not help in trying to spot all the species. The splitfins were impossible to miss, but besides them I only managed to find the hourglass treefrog.
The next large section of the Carnivore House consisted of three enclosures, two of which were obviously former big cat (lion) indoor enclosures. One of those was still empty, but the other one had been repurposed as an enclosure for southern tamandua. I found this enclosure to be on the small side, as well as too bareboned. It has natural substrate and logs and rocks for climbing, but totally lacks greenery. Still, I was pleasantly surprised to see not 1 but 2 active tamanduas, a species I’ll never get bored of seeing.
On the opposite side of the room is the last enclosure of the carnivore house, consisting of both an indoor and and outdoor part for Geoffroys cat. The indoor enclosure is very decent; not huge, but neither is it small. It has natural substrate, some alright looking mockrock, some foliage and quite a few branches the cat(s?) can use to get to the higher part of the enclosure. What really stands out though is the outdoor enclosure. For such a small species, it is very large. It’s very likely this used to house a larger species in the past. Surely, this one of the best enclosures of Zoo Karlsruhe! I did see just one cat, which decided to be indoors (it had the option to go outside).
Outside of the carnivore house I found myself at the enclosure for upland geese; this enclosure formerly held lions. I was pretty shocked by the size; while perfect for geese, it is absolutely way too small for lions… the moat around it is bigger than the actual enclosure. I did not remember this from my visit in 2007, but apparently this kept lions until 2022! I’m happy the zoo decided to eventually phase-out this species from its collection, but that should have happened much earlier
Overall, I think the carnivore house as it exists today is decent. Some of it is good (Geoffroy cat, the terraria and the squirrel monkeys), some of it is ok (leopards, tamanduas). The zoo might have to rename this building though, as only 2 species of carnivore remain!
Across from the lions is the first outdoor enclosure that is part of the ‘Affenhaus’/Monkey house; a very old-fashioned cage for chimpanzees. This enclosure is mostly steel, with some glass windows for viewing and is honestly quite ugly. This hasn’t been a good zootrip for chimpanzees; the enclosures in Heidelberg and Augsburg were not much better, and only München had a decent chimpanzee complex. The Karlsruhe enclosure is about equal in ground size as Augsburg, but offers less height and climbing opportunities. I did see the chimpansees, but not outside. There are windows looking into the chimpanzee indoor enclosure, and the chimps were lying right in front of those windows.
On the outside of the monkey house are a bunch of aviaries for parrots. The largest of those is actually quite nice and spacious and holds sun conures and Tucaman amazons. The other aviares are a lot smaller. Adequate for the smaller species like the black-capped caique, but the larger macaws don’t have a lot of room to spread their wings. It was obvious at least some of these aviaries previously kept monkeys, and one of them still does; golden-headed lion tamarins.
I made my inside of the Monkey House, were I got better views of the chimpanzee indoor enclosure. A small room with concrete (but not flat) floor, low ceiling and tiled walls. A small portion in the back of the enclosure (best seen from outside the building) has some natural substate and a bit more enrichment, but overall this is still a pretty uninspiring and below average enclosure.
Even worse is the indoor enclosure for mangabeys; an extremely old-fashioned, small, low-roofed, dark, depressing concrete/tiled abomination. It would be bad for a small species of monkey, but it’s unexcusable for large one such as mangebeys.
The indoor enclosure for ring-tailed lemurs is slightly larger and higher, has more climbing structures and gets natural sunlight. It is still quite poor though, and completely lacks any natural substrate.
The golden-headed lion tamarins can also be viewed indoors. Due to their small size, their enclosure is sufficient in size. Unlike the others, it has natural substrate on the ground. The tamarins share their enclosure with greater guinea pigs.
Finally, the monkey house also has two enclosures for non-primates: European harvest mouse and corn snake. Their enclosures are actually quite good.
I did not enjoy the Monkey House at all and kinda wished it wasn’t the last thing of this zoo I visited, but still needed to check out the outdoor section of the mangabey enclosure, hoping that it would be an improvement over the indoor section. Unfortunately, it wasn’t; a set of 3 cages makes up all of it, and each of these cages is extremely tiny, which only room for a few logs in each so the monkey can get of the ground. Honestly, the conditions is which these monkey are kept are quite shocking! Zoo Heidelbergs monkey house was bad, but this is even worse! Zoo Karlsruhe should ashamed. I understand this building has a protected status, but if can’t be upgraded or improved, it should not be used to house monkeys, especially not large monkeys.
There is one more monkey enclosure; Goeldi monkeys inhabit a basic indoor enclosure, but also have access to an island enclosure in the middle of small lake. It is not partically large, but is is by far the best monkey enclosure of the zoo. The water surrounding this monkey island also functions as part of an enclosure for a nice variety of waterfowl; no less than 23 species are signed, although I did see ‘only’ 17: wood duck, blue-winged teal, red-billed pochard, red shoveler, white-cheeked pintail, ringed teal, coscoroba swan, chiloe wigeon, radjah shellduck, tufted duck, common pochard, ferruginous duck, yellow-billed duck, Indian spot-billed duck, European goldeneye, and 2 unsigned species; black-bellied whistling duck and lake duck. I did not see mandarin duck, chestnut teal, cinnamon teal, puna teal, falcated duck, marbled duck, greater scaup or bufflehead.
Across from the duck pond is a very basic enclosure for sarus cranes. I also saw a few additional species of waterfowl (common shellduck, musk duck, black-necked swan) at the ‘Ludigwigsee’ which is located between the polar bears, elephants, carnivore house and monkey house.
I’d continued the path from the duck enclosure and found myself back at the giraffe house, Australian section and polar section. Since I had now visited pretty much the entire 'zoo-part' zoo, I decided to head for the exit. I left the zoo a little before 15.30, which was later than I had originally anticipated. I still had to make my way to the Natural Museum after all…
In conclusion, I consider Zoo Karlsruhe to be quite an underwhelming zoo. Of all the city zoos I have visited, it ranks at the bottom of my list. The Exotenhaus is by far the best thing about the zoo, and there are a few other pretty good enclosures in the zoo as well, however not many really stand out. A lot of the zoo is average or below average, with some enclosures being simply bad or terrible. The Zoo has plans and is collection funds for a new (walkthrough) ring-tailed lemur enclosure; this is much needed, but wouldn’t solve all the problems this building has. I do hope the zoo decides to get rid of their mangabeys at some point as they’re doesn’t seem to be any improvements planned for them.
Even though this concludes my visit to the Karlsruhe Zoo, there will be a short epilogue of Zoo Karlsruhe later.
Next up though; Karlsruhe's Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde
ZOO KARLSRUHE
PART 5
After the pachyderm house, I made my way to the carnivore house. My memories from 2007 have faded somewhat, but I think I remember seeing both leopards and snow leopards in small cages back in those days. When I got to the building, I realised that either my memories were off, or things have changed since then. My assumption is the latter; since the snow leopards have received a new enclosure since my visit in 2007, my assumption is they were previously kept in the carnivore house next to the leopards. This would mean their enclosures might have been merged; the leopards are still kept in an old-fashioned cage, but it was quite spacious and lush and therefor it exceeded the expectations I had based on my memories. I saw two leopards (North Chinese subspecies) outside, sharing the enclosure.
I went inside the carnivore house. The indoor enclosure for the leopards is pretty average and obviously designed to be mostly practical; concrete floor, tiled walls, mesh fence. Some logs and wood chips have been added. Size wise, I have seen smaller indoor enclosures for leopards.
Across the leopards is an enclosure that looks like it was not part of the original building. The facade is made up of (quite ugly) mockrock with glass viewing windows. The enclosure itself is spacious and has lots of natural substrate for digging, branches for climbing and some fiolage and rocks. It’s not a bad enclosure for its inhabitants; lowland paca and squirrel monkey. The only downside to it is the lack of an outdoor enclosure.
The next ‘section’ of the carnivore house only has a terrarium for ball pythons and a mixed species paludarium, which kept another three species of frog that I had never seen before; lemur leaf frog (missed this one before in Liberec), hourglass tree frog and Carvalho's surinam toad, along with Dominican anole and butterfly splitfin. Unfortunately, over a half of the window was fogged up, which did not help in trying to spot all the species. The splitfins were impossible to miss, but besides them I only managed to find the hourglass treefrog.
The next large section of the Carnivore House consisted of three enclosures, two of which were obviously former big cat (lion) indoor enclosures. One of those was still empty, but the other one had been repurposed as an enclosure for southern tamandua. I found this enclosure to be on the small side, as well as too bareboned. It has natural substrate and logs and rocks for climbing, but totally lacks greenery. Still, I was pleasantly surprised to see not 1 but 2 active tamanduas, a species I’ll never get bored of seeing.
On the opposite side of the room is the last enclosure of the carnivore house, consisting of both an indoor and and outdoor part for Geoffroys cat. The indoor enclosure is very decent; not huge, but neither is it small. It has natural substrate, some alright looking mockrock, some foliage and quite a few branches the cat(s?) can use to get to the higher part of the enclosure. What really stands out though is the outdoor enclosure. For such a small species, it is very large. It’s very likely this used to house a larger species in the past. Surely, this one of the best enclosures of Zoo Karlsruhe! I did see just one cat, which decided to be indoors (it had the option to go outside).
Outside of the carnivore house I found myself at the enclosure for upland geese; this enclosure formerly held lions. I was pretty shocked by the size; while perfect for geese, it is absolutely way too small for lions… the moat around it is bigger than the actual enclosure. I did not remember this from my visit in 2007, but apparently this kept lions until 2022! I’m happy the zoo decided to eventually phase-out this species from its collection, but that should have happened much earlier
Overall, I think the carnivore house as it exists today is decent. Some of it is good (Geoffroy cat, the terraria and the squirrel monkeys), some of it is ok (leopards, tamanduas). The zoo might have to rename this building though, as only 2 species of carnivore remain!
Across from the lions is the first outdoor enclosure that is part of the ‘Affenhaus’/Monkey house; a very old-fashioned cage for chimpanzees. This enclosure is mostly steel, with some glass windows for viewing and is honestly quite ugly. This hasn’t been a good zootrip for chimpanzees; the enclosures in Heidelberg and Augsburg were not much better, and only München had a decent chimpanzee complex. The Karlsruhe enclosure is about equal in ground size as Augsburg, but offers less height and climbing opportunities. I did see the chimpansees, but not outside. There are windows looking into the chimpanzee indoor enclosure, and the chimps were lying right in front of those windows.
On the outside of the monkey house are a bunch of aviaries for parrots. The largest of those is actually quite nice and spacious and holds sun conures and Tucaman amazons. The other aviares are a lot smaller. Adequate for the smaller species like the black-capped caique, but the larger macaws don’t have a lot of room to spread their wings. It was obvious at least some of these aviaries previously kept monkeys, and one of them still does; golden-headed lion tamarins.
I made my inside of the Monkey House, were I got better views of the chimpanzee indoor enclosure. A small room with concrete (but not flat) floor, low ceiling and tiled walls. A small portion in the back of the enclosure (best seen from outside the building) has some natural substate and a bit more enrichment, but overall this is still a pretty uninspiring and below average enclosure.
Even worse is the indoor enclosure for mangabeys; an extremely old-fashioned, small, low-roofed, dark, depressing concrete/tiled abomination. It would be bad for a small species of monkey, but it’s unexcusable for large one such as mangebeys.
The indoor enclosure for ring-tailed lemurs is slightly larger and higher, has more climbing structures and gets natural sunlight. It is still quite poor though, and completely lacks any natural substrate.
The golden-headed lion tamarins can also be viewed indoors. Due to their small size, their enclosure is sufficient in size. Unlike the others, it has natural substrate on the ground. The tamarins share their enclosure with greater guinea pigs.
Finally, the monkey house also has two enclosures for non-primates: European harvest mouse and corn snake. Their enclosures are actually quite good.
I did not enjoy the Monkey House at all and kinda wished it wasn’t the last thing of this zoo I visited, but still needed to check out the outdoor section of the mangabey enclosure, hoping that it would be an improvement over the indoor section. Unfortunately, it wasn’t; a set of 3 cages makes up all of it, and each of these cages is extremely tiny, which only room for a few logs in each so the monkey can get of the ground. Honestly, the conditions is which these monkey are kept are quite shocking! Zoo Heidelbergs monkey house was bad, but this is even worse! Zoo Karlsruhe should ashamed. I understand this building has a protected status, but if can’t be upgraded or improved, it should not be used to house monkeys, especially not large monkeys.
There is one more monkey enclosure; Goeldi monkeys inhabit a basic indoor enclosure, but also have access to an island enclosure in the middle of small lake. It is not partically large, but is is by far the best monkey enclosure of the zoo. The water surrounding this monkey island also functions as part of an enclosure for a nice variety of waterfowl; no less than 23 species are signed, although I did see ‘only’ 17: wood duck, blue-winged teal, red-billed pochard, red shoveler, white-cheeked pintail, ringed teal, coscoroba swan, chiloe wigeon, radjah shellduck, tufted duck, common pochard, ferruginous duck, yellow-billed duck, Indian spot-billed duck, European goldeneye, and 2 unsigned species; black-bellied whistling duck and lake duck. I did not see mandarin duck, chestnut teal, cinnamon teal, puna teal, falcated duck, marbled duck, greater scaup or bufflehead.
Across from the duck pond is a very basic enclosure for sarus cranes. I also saw a few additional species of waterfowl (common shellduck, musk duck, black-necked swan) at the ‘Ludigwigsee’ which is located between the polar bears, elephants, carnivore house and monkey house.
I’d continued the path from the duck enclosure and found myself back at the giraffe house, Australian section and polar section. Since I had now visited pretty much the entire 'zoo-part' zoo, I decided to head for the exit. I left the zoo a little before 15.30, which was later than I had originally anticipated. I still had to make my way to the Natural Museum after all…
In conclusion, I consider Zoo Karlsruhe to be quite an underwhelming zoo. Of all the city zoos I have visited, it ranks at the bottom of my list. The Exotenhaus is by far the best thing about the zoo, and there are a few other pretty good enclosures in the zoo as well, however not many really stand out. A lot of the zoo is average or below average, with some enclosures being simply bad or terrible. The Zoo has plans and is collection funds for a new (walkthrough) ring-tailed lemur enclosure; this is much needed, but wouldn’t solve all the problems this building has. I do hope the zoo decides to get rid of their mangabeys at some point as they’re doesn’t seem to be any improvements planned for them.
Even though this concludes my visit to the Karlsruhe Zoo, there will be a short epilogue of Zoo Karlsruhe later.
Next up though; Karlsruhe's Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde
I was in Nicaragua for the past three weeks, but I'm back to finish up this thread. Just two smaller parks to go!
DAY 8. 21-04-2024.
MUSEUM FUR NATURKUNDE, KARLSRUHE
NOTE: Something worth mentioning right now is the signage in this museum; it seems to be almost completely up to date regarding reptile, amphibian and fish species that are kept in the various tanks and enclosures. Even despite some large species-rich mixed aquaria I was only able to find two species that were not signed in the entire building! There were a few species signed that I did not see, but they could have simply been hiding from sight. Since I took a lot of photo’s of the signage this time, this report can be expected to be at least 95% accurate when it comes to the vertabrate animal collection! (Most of the crustaceans, starfishes and other invertebrates were signed as well. The exception here are some of the lower invertabrates like corals, which were not always signed)
When a species name is followed by * , it means the species was signed, but I did not see it.
After a very short tram ride (just 2 stops from the zoo) and a short walk, I arrived at the Museum for Naturkunde a little before 4, allowing me two hours for a visit.
The museum is located in a classical building and is a stand-alone attraction. The entrance fee is just 5 euro’s, which is only a third of what my local natural museum in the Netherlands charges, which doesn’t even have any living animals. A bargain!
After the entrance, my attention was drawn to a small hallway with some diorama’s, very similar to those in the museum of Salzburg. Here too are some European species on ‘display’, from moose and wild boar to wildcat and golden eagle.
But I did come here to see live animals, so I took a right turn after the entrance and immediately found the first two terraria; one for a pair of Jackson’s chameleons and semi-aquatic one for Chinese crocodile lizards and white cloud mountain minnows. I did really like both of these enclosures. (and of course seeing a non-panther, non-veiled chameleon species is always a treat!)
Between both these terraria is the entrance to the gallery, where I left some of my stuff I wasn’t going to need. Across from that is one of many stairs to the second floor. However, I didn’t go upstairs as the next room on the ground floor was were I needed to go as there were more enclosures here.
The large room I was in now had a tanks in all four of its corners, all with a certain geographical theme. The first corner consists of two slightly L-shaped palludaria for South-American lizards and fishes. The first one of these is home to caiman lizard, brown basilisk, emperor tetra, Blue-red Columbian tetra, Sterba’s corydoras and blue-spotted corydoras. The other has plumed basilisk, silver arowana, Ocellate river stingray, White-blotched river stingray, duckbill catfish, spotted sailfin suckermouth catfish, royal panaque, Colombian blue-eyed panaque, pearl cichlid and common severum. I liked both of these terraria and enjoyed the varied line-up of species in them.
The second corner is themed around coral reefs, with an octagon-shaped tank in between two medium-sized squared tanks who together make an L-shape. All three tanks were were decorated nicely and well-lit, and had a lot of different species in them. Species in the octagon tank are Banggai cardinalfish, pyjama cardinalfish, purple queen anthias, vermiculate wrasse, yellowtail tang, elegant unicornfish, magnificent foxface, blue-green damsel, copperband butterflyfish, flame angelfish, blackfin dartfish, Picturesque dragonet, yellow devilfish*, pink-spotted watchman goby, gilded triggerfish and blood shrimp*. One of the other tanks has seven species; long-spine porcupinefish, radial firefish, broadbarred firefish, azure demoiselle, razorfish, red-knob starfish and cleaner shrimp. The final coral reef tank again has a large collection of fishes; zebra moray, stocky anthias, sunrise dottyback*, longsnout hawkfish, twospined angelfish, bluegirdled angelfish, regal angelfish, queen angelfish, clown anemonefish, foxface, powderblue tang, prickly leatherjacket, bristle-tail filefish*, Valentini sharpnose puffer and longhorn boxfish. Overall, a great set of tanks with some really nice species in them.
The third corner has an Atlantic theme, and again consists of two tanks that make an L-shape, with a hexagon-shaped tank in between them. It basically mirrors the coral reef corner in lay-out. The hexagon tank has violet sea urchins and red starfishes, as well as 9 fish species; small red scorpionfish, brown comber, striped red mullet, ornate wrasse, blacktail wrasse, tompot blenny* blotched picarel, goldline and wide-eyed flounder.
The first of the two square tanks consisted of just a sandy floor with a few small rocks in it, which makes sense as some of its inhabitants are spotted ray and flying gurnard. This tank is also home to red comb star, boarfish and longspine snipefish. This tank is darker than most others, which again makes sense considering the latter two species. The final tank in the Atlantic corner is home to a single, yet fascinating species; the common cuttlefish.
The final corner of this room is themed around the Australian desert, and consists of two terraria. One of them is a mixed enclosure for bearded dragons and frilled lizards (and Kimberly Rock monitors, although those were currently off display) and the other to a black-headed python.
Overall I really loved this part of the museum. I really like how different each corner was (tropical South-America, coral reefs, the Atlantic and the outback) and most tanks were really well done. I felt like this was already worth the entrance fee, but there is still lots more to see in the following room.
This room (which I believe was at some point added as an expansion) is large, and dominated by white walls, flooring and ceiling, and has multiple displays, tanks and terraria that really stand out because of how minimalistic the room itself is. The first thing I came across here was a large jellyfish tank (with spotted jellyfishes).
The next tank I looked at was the one with golden coral shrimps and shame-faced crabs (my first time seeing this species as I was unable to find one in the museum in Salzburg).
I continued walking around and encountered a lot more aquaria and terraria of different shapes and sizes, which I will list here;
- A dark tropical reef tank for laced moray, which also houses yellow boxfish, clown triggerfish (surprisingly unsigned) lyretail anthias, blue chromis, orange-tipped bristletooth, japan surgeonfish, copperband butterflyfish, midas blenny, royal gramma and blackcap basslet*.
- A small tank for red neon blue-eye, celebes rainbow, golden otocinclus, tylomelania snails, Amano shrimp and bamboo shrimp.
- A terrarium for banded-legged golden orb-web spiders (Nephila senegalensis).
- A desert terrarium for a giant girdled lizard.
- A tropical terrarium for eye-lash vipers
- A mixed species terrarium for Hispanolian green anole, splashback poison frog, three-striped poison frog*, terrible poison frog and Maranon poison frog.
- An African-themed aquarium for armoured bichir, ornate bichir, jewel cichlid and angel squeaker.
- A terrarium for William’s electric blue geckos (which is huge considering the size of those animals)
- A terrarium for giant leaf frogs
- A mixed terrarium for greater Madagascar day gecko and panther chameleon
- A South-American themed tank with freshwater angelfish, cardinal tetra, black tetra, diamond tetra, cockatoo cichlid, darter characin*, red lizard catfish and panda corydoras
- A small tank with very blue lighting for a bunch of small species; Blue-striped cave goby, red-spotted dwarfgoby*, Orange-striped shrimpgoby, sailfin blenny, mandarinfish, elegant firefish, red-spot cardinalfish*, banded coral shrimp and Lysmata seticaudata shrimp*. Also this was were I saw the second of only two unsigned fish species; bluestripe pipefish.
- A southeast Asian paludarium for blue-spotted tree monitor, burmese archerfish, Lake Kutubu rainbowfish, almorha loach* and panda garra.
- A gorgeous terrarium for a species of snake I had never seen before: banded rock rattlesnake.
- A paludarium with a geographically random selection of species (which is rare for this mueum); Green tree python and pearl gourami from Asia, gold laser corydoras from South America and elephant fish and freshwater butterflyfish from Africa.
- A dark tank for axolotls
- Another aquarium with very blue lighting is home to leaf scorpionfish, comet, peacock mantis shrimp, frogfish*, Xenia umbellata (soft coral) and Cerianthus (tube anenome)
- An Asian-themed paludarium with 2 snake and 3 fish species; rhinoceros rat snake, red-tailed rat snake, Indian sailfin barb, orangefin coppery barb, and the (obviously non-Asian) African knifefish.
- A Mediterranean -themed tank for a common octopus, as well as saddled seabream, cardinalfish, long-snouted wrasse and Mediterranean red seastar
- Another Mediterranean-themed aquarium swallowtail seaperch, cardinalfish, common damselfish, axillary wrasse*, ocellated wrasse*, golden goby*, red sea squirt, Prideaux’ hermit crab, smooth brittle star, smooth sea star, black sea urchin, rough star shell, Protula tubularia (tubeworm) and Mediterranean fanworm.
- A terrarium for goliath bird-eating spider
- A very dark aquarium for eyelight fishes, located in a dark room behind some curtains to block out any lights.
(due to the 20 photo limit I was not able to include photographs of everything, but you can find the rest in de gallery)
There are two enclosures I have not mentioned yet. In the back of this hall is a large and beautiful paludarium for Australian freshwater crocodiles. The enclosure has no less than 4 viewing windows, giving the opportunity to see the crocodiles from any angle wether they are on land or in the water. Besides the crocs, this enclosure is also home to pig-nosed turtle, red-bellied short-necked turtle, red line torpedo barb, Lake Kutubu rainbowfish, red rainbowfish, arulius barb and clown loach.
In the middle of the room is the largest tank of the museum, a beautiful coral reef tank. This tank has a viewing window on all four sides, but its impossible to see the tank in its entirety from any of these. This means the fishes will appear and disappear into and from sight, making it quite a fun challenge to try and spot as many as possible. The species line-up of this tank is impressive; blacktip reef shark, bluespotted ribbontail ray, pinecone soldierfish, two-spot basslet, square-spot fairy basslet, orchid dottyback*, dark-banded fusilier, bicolor goatfish, copperband butterflyfish, regal angelfish, whitetail damselfish, Allens damsel, blackbar chromis, orange anemonefish, bluestreak cleaner wrasse, tail-spot wrasse*, moon wrasse, Klunzinger’s wrasse, canary wrasse, canarytop wrasse, checkerboard wrasse, sixline wrasse, yellowtail coris, green birdmouth wrasse, yellow tang, Desjardin’s sailfin tang, palette surgeonfish, orangespot surgeonfish, white-freckled surgeonfish, doubleband surgeonfish, elegant unicornfish, bignose unicornfish, barred spinefoot, orange-spotted spinefoot, magnificent foxface, red-toothed triggerfish, Indian triggerfish* and pink-tailed triggerfish.
By now, I had seen most of it’s animal collection. However, I had previously been informed there are two additional tanks in the Africa room on the second floor, so I made my way up there. Here I encountered a really nice tank for sea horses, which was themed as a sea grass bed. Besides two species of sea horses, Barbour’s and tiger-tailed, this tank was also home to two species of pipefishes (banded and yellow-banded), Banggai cardinalfish, fire goby*, starry dragonet and gorgeous prawn-goby. On the other side of the room is an equally nice freshwater tank with mostly African species; giant freshwater pufferfish, African banded barb, congo tetra, stone roller and gray flying fox.
Next to the Africa room is the invertabrates room, which has a variety of insects and other bugs. I did however not have time left to visit this, as closing time was nearing fast. I took a quick look at the tank for great diving beetle, but skipped the rest.
There was yet to more see; I knew the museum is home to Chinese giant salamander. I knew this tank was somewhat hidden underneath a staircase, but since this museum has lots of those, I asked directions from a staff member. On my way to the right staircase, I passed an expansion of the Africa room, with some taxidermied animals (ranging from striped hyena and duiker to shoebill and great blue turaco) as well as living ones; in this room are a tank for African lungfish (which I did not find) and a terrarium for Egyptian spiny-tailed lizard. Back on the ground floor, I found the really nice giant salamander tank, but was disappointed to discover the animal was a no-show. From here I walked through a room with some displays (fossils, sculptures) about prehistoric life before finding myself back at the entrance/exit.
This museum defenitely exceeded my expectations. There is a lot to see and I kinda wish I left the zoo a bit earlier so I would have been able to see the rest. The animal collection is really interesting and varied; the aquarium/terrarium section of the zoo would make for an excellent attraction seperate from the museum. Species wise, it is home to both the crowd pleasers (sharks, crocodiles, sea horses, octopus, ‘nemo’) and rarities (saw quite a few new species here). The terraria, paludaria and aquaria were mostly really well done; some of them were basic but decent, while others were beautifully landschaped. None were bad. I loved how the signage was nearly completely up-to-date, a rarity in aquaria! And all that for an entrance fee of 5 euros! I would recommend anyone visiting Karlsruhe to pay a visit to this museum, especially as it’s very easily combined with the Zoo!
Next up: Tierpark Oberwald
DAY 8. 21-04-2024.
MUSEUM FUR NATURKUNDE, KARLSRUHE
NOTE: Something worth mentioning right now is the signage in this museum; it seems to be almost completely up to date regarding reptile, amphibian and fish species that are kept in the various tanks and enclosures. Even despite some large species-rich mixed aquaria I was only able to find two species that were not signed in the entire building! There were a few species signed that I did not see, but they could have simply been hiding from sight. Since I took a lot of photo’s of the signage this time, this report can be expected to be at least 95% accurate when it comes to the vertabrate animal collection! (Most of the crustaceans, starfishes and other invertebrates were signed as well. The exception here are some of the lower invertabrates like corals, which were not always signed)
When a species name is followed by * , it means the species was signed, but I did not see it.
After a very short tram ride (just 2 stops from the zoo) and a short walk, I arrived at the Museum for Naturkunde a little before 4, allowing me two hours for a visit.
The museum is located in a classical building and is a stand-alone attraction. The entrance fee is just 5 euro’s, which is only a third of what my local natural museum in the Netherlands charges, which doesn’t even have any living animals. A bargain!
After the entrance, my attention was drawn to a small hallway with some diorama’s, very similar to those in the museum of Salzburg. Here too are some European species on ‘display’, from moose and wild boar to wildcat and golden eagle.
But I did come here to see live animals, so I took a right turn after the entrance and immediately found the first two terraria; one for a pair of Jackson’s chameleons and semi-aquatic one for Chinese crocodile lizards and white cloud mountain minnows. I did really like both of these enclosures. (and of course seeing a non-panther, non-veiled chameleon species is always a treat!)
Between both these terraria is the entrance to the gallery, where I left some of my stuff I wasn’t going to need. Across from that is one of many stairs to the second floor. However, I didn’t go upstairs as the next room on the ground floor was were I needed to go as there were more enclosures here.
The large room I was in now had a tanks in all four of its corners, all with a certain geographical theme. The first corner consists of two slightly L-shaped palludaria for South-American lizards and fishes. The first one of these is home to caiman lizard, brown basilisk, emperor tetra, Blue-red Columbian tetra, Sterba’s corydoras and blue-spotted corydoras. The other has plumed basilisk, silver arowana, Ocellate river stingray, White-blotched river stingray, duckbill catfish, spotted sailfin suckermouth catfish, royal panaque, Colombian blue-eyed panaque, pearl cichlid and common severum. I liked both of these terraria and enjoyed the varied line-up of species in them.
The second corner is themed around coral reefs, with an octagon-shaped tank in between two medium-sized squared tanks who together make an L-shape. All three tanks were were decorated nicely and well-lit, and had a lot of different species in them. Species in the octagon tank are Banggai cardinalfish, pyjama cardinalfish, purple queen anthias, vermiculate wrasse, yellowtail tang, elegant unicornfish, magnificent foxface, blue-green damsel, copperband butterflyfish, flame angelfish, blackfin dartfish, Picturesque dragonet, yellow devilfish*, pink-spotted watchman goby, gilded triggerfish and blood shrimp*. One of the other tanks has seven species; long-spine porcupinefish, radial firefish, broadbarred firefish, azure demoiselle, razorfish, red-knob starfish and cleaner shrimp. The final coral reef tank again has a large collection of fishes; zebra moray, stocky anthias, sunrise dottyback*, longsnout hawkfish, twospined angelfish, bluegirdled angelfish, regal angelfish, queen angelfish, clown anemonefish, foxface, powderblue tang, prickly leatherjacket, bristle-tail filefish*, Valentini sharpnose puffer and longhorn boxfish. Overall, a great set of tanks with some really nice species in them.
The third corner has an Atlantic theme, and again consists of two tanks that make an L-shape, with a hexagon-shaped tank in between them. It basically mirrors the coral reef corner in lay-out. The hexagon tank has violet sea urchins and red starfishes, as well as 9 fish species; small red scorpionfish, brown comber, striped red mullet, ornate wrasse, blacktail wrasse, tompot blenny* blotched picarel, goldline and wide-eyed flounder.
The first of the two square tanks consisted of just a sandy floor with a few small rocks in it, which makes sense as some of its inhabitants are spotted ray and flying gurnard. This tank is also home to red comb star, boarfish and longspine snipefish. This tank is darker than most others, which again makes sense considering the latter two species. The final tank in the Atlantic corner is home to a single, yet fascinating species; the common cuttlefish.
The final corner of this room is themed around the Australian desert, and consists of two terraria. One of them is a mixed enclosure for bearded dragons and frilled lizards (and Kimberly Rock monitors, although those were currently off display) and the other to a black-headed python.
Overall I really loved this part of the museum. I really like how different each corner was (tropical South-America, coral reefs, the Atlantic and the outback) and most tanks were really well done. I felt like this was already worth the entrance fee, but there is still lots more to see in the following room.
This room (which I believe was at some point added as an expansion) is large, and dominated by white walls, flooring and ceiling, and has multiple displays, tanks and terraria that really stand out because of how minimalistic the room itself is. The first thing I came across here was a large jellyfish tank (with spotted jellyfishes).
The next tank I looked at was the one with golden coral shrimps and shame-faced crabs (my first time seeing this species as I was unable to find one in the museum in Salzburg).
I continued walking around and encountered a lot more aquaria and terraria of different shapes and sizes, which I will list here;
- A dark tropical reef tank for laced moray, which also houses yellow boxfish, clown triggerfish (surprisingly unsigned) lyretail anthias, blue chromis, orange-tipped bristletooth, japan surgeonfish, copperband butterflyfish, midas blenny, royal gramma and blackcap basslet*.
- A small tank for red neon blue-eye, celebes rainbow, golden otocinclus, tylomelania snails, Amano shrimp and bamboo shrimp.
- A terrarium for banded-legged golden orb-web spiders (Nephila senegalensis).
- A desert terrarium for a giant girdled lizard.
- A tropical terrarium for eye-lash vipers
- A mixed species terrarium for Hispanolian green anole, splashback poison frog, three-striped poison frog*, terrible poison frog and Maranon poison frog.
- An African-themed aquarium for armoured bichir, ornate bichir, jewel cichlid and angel squeaker.
- A terrarium for William’s electric blue geckos (which is huge considering the size of those animals)
- A terrarium for giant leaf frogs
- A mixed terrarium for greater Madagascar day gecko and panther chameleon
- A South-American themed tank with freshwater angelfish, cardinal tetra, black tetra, diamond tetra, cockatoo cichlid, darter characin*, red lizard catfish and panda corydoras
- A small tank with very blue lighting for a bunch of small species; Blue-striped cave goby, red-spotted dwarfgoby*, Orange-striped shrimpgoby, sailfin blenny, mandarinfish, elegant firefish, red-spot cardinalfish*, banded coral shrimp and Lysmata seticaudata shrimp*. Also this was were I saw the second of only two unsigned fish species; bluestripe pipefish.
- A southeast Asian paludarium for blue-spotted tree monitor, burmese archerfish, Lake Kutubu rainbowfish, almorha loach* and panda garra.
- A gorgeous terrarium for a species of snake I had never seen before: banded rock rattlesnake.
- A paludarium with a geographically random selection of species (which is rare for this mueum); Green tree python and pearl gourami from Asia, gold laser corydoras from South America and elephant fish and freshwater butterflyfish from Africa.
- A dark tank for axolotls
- Another aquarium with very blue lighting is home to leaf scorpionfish, comet, peacock mantis shrimp, frogfish*, Xenia umbellata (soft coral) and Cerianthus (tube anenome)
- An Asian-themed paludarium with 2 snake and 3 fish species; rhinoceros rat snake, red-tailed rat snake, Indian sailfin barb, orangefin coppery barb, and the (obviously non-Asian) African knifefish.
- A Mediterranean -themed tank for a common octopus, as well as saddled seabream, cardinalfish, long-snouted wrasse and Mediterranean red seastar
- Another Mediterranean-themed aquarium swallowtail seaperch, cardinalfish, common damselfish, axillary wrasse*, ocellated wrasse*, golden goby*, red sea squirt, Prideaux’ hermit crab, smooth brittle star, smooth sea star, black sea urchin, rough star shell, Protula tubularia (tubeworm) and Mediterranean fanworm.
- A terrarium for goliath bird-eating spider
- A very dark aquarium for eyelight fishes, located in a dark room behind some curtains to block out any lights.
(due to the 20 photo limit I was not able to include photographs of everything, but you can find the rest in de gallery)
There are two enclosures I have not mentioned yet. In the back of this hall is a large and beautiful paludarium for Australian freshwater crocodiles. The enclosure has no less than 4 viewing windows, giving the opportunity to see the crocodiles from any angle wether they are on land or in the water. Besides the crocs, this enclosure is also home to pig-nosed turtle, red-bellied short-necked turtle, red line torpedo barb, Lake Kutubu rainbowfish, red rainbowfish, arulius barb and clown loach.
In the middle of the room is the largest tank of the museum, a beautiful coral reef tank. This tank has a viewing window on all four sides, but its impossible to see the tank in its entirety from any of these. This means the fishes will appear and disappear into and from sight, making it quite a fun challenge to try and spot as many as possible. The species line-up of this tank is impressive; blacktip reef shark, bluespotted ribbontail ray, pinecone soldierfish, two-spot basslet, square-spot fairy basslet, orchid dottyback*, dark-banded fusilier, bicolor goatfish, copperband butterflyfish, regal angelfish, whitetail damselfish, Allens damsel, blackbar chromis, orange anemonefish, bluestreak cleaner wrasse, tail-spot wrasse*, moon wrasse, Klunzinger’s wrasse, canary wrasse, canarytop wrasse, checkerboard wrasse, sixline wrasse, yellowtail coris, green birdmouth wrasse, yellow tang, Desjardin’s sailfin tang, palette surgeonfish, orangespot surgeonfish, white-freckled surgeonfish, doubleband surgeonfish, elegant unicornfish, bignose unicornfish, barred spinefoot, orange-spotted spinefoot, magnificent foxface, red-toothed triggerfish, Indian triggerfish* and pink-tailed triggerfish.
By now, I had seen most of it’s animal collection. However, I had previously been informed there are two additional tanks in the Africa room on the second floor, so I made my way up there. Here I encountered a really nice tank for sea horses, which was themed as a sea grass bed. Besides two species of sea horses, Barbour’s and tiger-tailed, this tank was also home to two species of pipefishes (banded and yellow-banded), Banggai cardinalfish, fire goby*, starry dragonet and gorgeous prawn-goby. On the other side of the room is an equally nice freshwater tank with mostly African species; giant freshwater pufferfish, African banded barb, congo tetra, stone roller and gray flying fox.
Next to the Africa room is the invertabrates room, which has a variety of insects and other bugs. I did however not have time left to visit this, as closing time was nearing fast. I took a quick look at the tank for great diving beetle, but skipped the rest.
There was yet to more see; I knew the museum is home to Chinese giant salamander. I knew this tank was somewhat hidden underneath a staircase, but since this museum has lots of those, I asked directions from a staff member. On my way to the right staircase, I passed an expansion of the Africa room, with some taxidermied animals (ranging from striped hyena and duiker to shoebill and great blue turaco) as well as living ones; in this room are a tank for African lungfish (which I did not find) and a terrarium for Egyptian spiny-tailed lizard. Back on the ground floor, I found the really nice giant salamander tank, but was disappointed to discover the animal was a no-show. From here I walked through a room with some displays (fossils, sculptures) about prehistoric life before finding myself back at the entrance/exit.
This museum defenitely exceeded my expectations. There is a lot to see and I kinda wish I left the zoo a bit earlier so I would have been able to see the rest. The animal collection is really interesting and varied; the aquarium/terrarium section of the zoo would make for an excellent attraction seperate from the museum. Species wise, it is home to both the crowd pleasers (sharks, crocodiles, sea horses, octopus, ‘nemo’) and rarities (saw quite a few new species here). The terraria, paludaria and aquaria were mostly really well done; some of them were basic but decent, while others were beautifully landschaped. None were bad. I loved how the signage was nearly completely up-to-date, a rarity in aquaria! And all that for an entrance fee of 5 euros! I would recommend anyone visiting Karlsruhe to pay a visit to this museum, especially as it’s very easily combined with the Zoo!
Next up: Tierpark Oberwald
DAY 8. 21-04-2024.
ZOO KARLSRUHE
PART 4
The path goes down even more here, and enters a dark corridor. This is the nocturnal area of the Exotenhaus, with a walk-in enclosure for bats at the very beginning of the hallway. I did really like the bat enclosure; the zoo did a nice job of recreating a cave, and it’s always fun to have some bats flying around your head. The species here is the Seba's short-tailed bat. The bat enclosure is optional and can be skipped by those who are not a fan of bats walkthroughs. The other two enclosures in the noctural section are situated on one side of the path each. One of them holds slow loris, the other one holds… slow loris. Yet both enclosure keep a different species as the smaller of the two is home to pygmy slow loris (which I did not see) and the larger to a single female Bengal slow loris. I especially liked the larger enclosure; spacious, nicely planted and some subtle lighting in the right places. I was really happy to see the loris active here, as this species in very rare in Europe and was a no-show in Augsburg. I do find it a somewhat odd choice to display two very similar species in the limited nocturnal section; however as a big fan slow loris, I do not mind at all!
After the nocturnal section, you turn a corner and enter the last part of the Exotenhaus; a hallway with a row of aquaria on the right side of the path, ending in a corner with some frog terraria. The first aquarium is South-America themed, and holds Endlers guppy, bleeding-heart tetra, lemon tetra (unsigned), freshwater angelfish, emerald cichlid, polka-dot lyretail catfish, royal panaque and palito.
The next tank is African and has a bunch of Tanganyikan cichlids. This tank was decorated with mostly rocks, making it stand out between the other, more tropical, densely planted tanks. Species: Simochromis diagramma, Cyprichromis leptosoma, Cyprichromis microlepidotus, Cyphotilapia frontosa, Neolamprologus leleupi, Julidochromis marlieri, Julidochromis transcriptus, Gnathochromis permaxillaris (not seen), Tropheus moorii and the catfish Synodontis multipunctatus.
Tank number three focusus on Southeast Asia. Inhabitants are the Boeseman’s rainbowfish, tricolor sharkminnow, rainbow sharkminnow, gold barb and sind danio, with the latter apperantly kept in no other zoos worldwide. Glass catfish was signed, but I did not see it.
Asia gets a second representation with tank number four, this time featuring moonlight gourami, tricolor sharkminnow (again), Grey flying fox, Silver flying fox, Indian algae-eater (unsigned), red-tail botia (not seen) and Asian bumblebee catfish (not seen).
We return to South America’s, with a smaller tank for discus fish, golden-striped headstander and green swordtail, and a larger one for black ghost knifefish, bushymouth catfish, Adolfs corydoras (not seen), silver prochilodus, red hook silver dollar, green swordtail (again) and darter characin.
The largest of all tanks is South American as well, and holds tucan fish, spotted sailfin suckermouth catfish, royal panaque, green terror (unsigned) and the zoos only cartilaginous fish, the smooth-back river stingay.
There is nothing special or unique about a row of freshwater tanks, but I enjoyed the aquarium section nonetheless. The tanks were designed quite well, and all of them had a big enough selection of species to keep it interesting.
The row of tanks ends with not an aquarium, but a beautiful and spacious terrarium for another Fiji banded iguana, meanig this species is displayed twice in the Exotenhaus.
End the end of this hallway a corner with 4 frog enclosures, which hold a few common species as well as a few that are very rare in captivity! I had the potential to see four new species here! The two terraria in the middle are medium-sized, and keep commonly kept species; one of them has golden poison frogs, the other has Golfodulcean and yellow-banded posion frogs. The two other terraria are much bigger, I would even say huge considering the species within. One of those is home to the Rio Pescado stubfoot toad, an unique and gorgeous looking frog that is critically endangered in the wild. It was not found in European zoos until Zoo Karlsruhe imported a bunch from Ecuador. I did not take long for these frogs to breed, and the offspring has been spreading around European zoos lately, slowly making the species become more common, although most zoos keep them off display. This is a really cool new conservation story, and it made me excited to see the species for myself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any, despite a lot of time spend at the enclosure. I tried to get some help from staff, but they were not of much use. A real bummer.
Another large frog terrarium has no less than four species combined. The most conspicious of those is the blue poison frog which were very easy to find. The other 3 would all be new species to me; the blessed poison frog (which I had missed in Heidelberg due to time constraints), the Brazil-nut poison frog (of which Karlsruhe is the only public holder worldwide!) and the Lehmann’s poison frog (of which Karlsruhe is the only public holder in Europe, and which I am familiar with because of Planet Zoo!). I was happy to find multiple blessed poison frogs rather quickly, which made up for not having time to look fort hem in Heidelberg. But I again was not able to find the others, which really frustrated me. Only 1 of 4 target species seen is not something to be satisfied with, but I had accept my losses and continue.
After the frogs, the route goes upwards again and leads to the upper level of the main hall of the Exotenhaus, which I had already visited at the beginning. Adjacent to the Exotenhaus is a restaurant, which is seperated by large glass panels; from a selected seats in the restaurant, you are able to look into the Exotenhaus while enjoying a lunch or coffee.
Overall, I really enjoyed the Exotenhaus and it was defenitely my highlight of the zoo so far (and spoiler alert: that wouldn’t change). I loved the layout of the building, covering multiple levels and somewhat representing a full journey from treetops to under the water. The animal selection is varied with mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs and fishes, and also includes a few rarities. The enclosures are mostly good, especially the huge toucan aviary and walk-in bat cave. The main hall itself is also nicely done, and is well stocked with plenty of species. The biggest flaw of the Exotenhaus is the enclosure for pygmy marmosets and parakeets, which is too dark and depressing for me. I spent exactly two hours in the Exotenhaus (including a quick lunch break), which ment it was already 13.15 when I exited. It was time to go on; I still had to visit the Pachyderm house, carnivore house and monkey house, and needed to leave the zoo somewhat on time as I planned to visit the city’s natural museum afterwards.
Underneath the restaurant, accessible from outside, are some toilets. Close to this is a somewhat randomly located, basis cage for three bird species; Goffin’s cockatoo, purple-naped lorikeet and crowned lapwing.
After this I passed some none-zoo stuff like a giant chess board, a children’s car ride and a pergola garden, I walked under the bridge that devides the zoo in two, and arrived at the house for hippos and elephants. Before visting the actual building, I walked the path directly under the bridge that leads into a dead end from which you get a view into part of the elephant enclosure. I found the viewing opportunity kindof lacking, and I’m sure the view would be better from the bridge (which I guess can be accessed for free from outside the zoo). I had a hard time assessing how large this part of the enclosure really is, but it doesn’t look all too big. From outside the building, there is also viewing into the indoor enclosure through large windows. Again, the viewing here was limited, this time mostly due to sun glare, but it did not seem very large either. But, at least the floor seemed to be 100% sand.
Before entering the elephant/hippo house, I took a look at the open-topped outdoor enclosure for lesser flamingo’s, which is decently sized and very green and lush. However, the birds were not out. Another enclosure you will encounter before entering the building is a pond for European pond turtles.
The main building consits of three indoor enclosures and two small side enclosures. Firstly, the indoor enclosure for lesser flamingo’s. The birds are not behind glass or netting; instead, the barrier is just a low fence and the views of the flamingos are excellent. The enclosure consists of mud, rocks, plants and shallow pools, a perfect mix for this species. The one thing that worries me somewhat is that these birds might suffer from the loud noises if the building is crowded.
When I visited Karlsruhe in 2007, the elephant indoor enclosure was a concrete disaster, extremely tiny and despressing. Concrete flooring, tiled walls and barely enough space for the elephants to turn around. In 2012 (I think) the zoo made an upgrade, and now the different boxes for the elephants have been combined, made larger and given sand flooring. It is still not a great indoor enclosure, but it’s not as terrible as it used to be. The elephants are still viewed through heavy steel fences and there is still lots of concrete, making it also one of the uglier indoor elephant enclosures around. It seemed the elephants (I think they have 3) had freedom of choice between being indoor or outdoor, but I did see just one outside and two were indoors.
The other pachyderm in Karlsruhe is the hippopotamus, which also have their indoor enclosures here. And unfortunately, it’s not great. The land areas are barely enough for a hippo to turn around. The water areas are slighty larger, but still small and taking an actual swim is not an option for the hippos. They can submerge, but that is it. But enclosures are seperated by a visitor bridge with glass on the sides; at least the views of the hippo’s are really good as you can get quite close to them.
Besides the flamingos and pachyderms, the building also has 2 smaller enclosures; one of them is a small but nice aquarium for Mangarahara cichlids, the other is an enclosure (or actually 2) for Etruscian shrews! I loved seeing this species 2 times in 3 days, and I liked that Karlsruhe also keeps them right next to their biggest inhabitants, just like Innsbruck did with the wisents. The shrew enclosures are designed as an underground tunnel system, with one of the tunnels leading to an ‘above ground’ portion the shrews are able to acces. I did see a small group of shrews cuddled up together.
Glad you liked the Exotenhaus.
After the toucan aviary, and before descending to the piranha aquarium, at the very corner of the hall, you can take a lift that takes you to a vantage point on top of the toucan aviary. The birds are easy to see from there.
@Philipine eagle I must have missed that lift!
DAY 9. 22-04-2024.
TIERPARK OBERWALD
Everything ends, and this day it was time for me to head home again. I planned to take the 12AM train from Karlsruhe back to the Netherlands. But, that did still leave me with some hours I could utilize in the morning. I planned to spend the morning in Tierpark Oberwald, a wildpark just a few minutes from the city. I took a tram and from the tram stop, walked about 15 minutes until I reached the park. The park does not have an entrance fee and is open 24/7, so if one would want to visit a zoo in the middle of the night, they could do it here!
Tierpark Oberwald is located in a large forest, and is a typical wildpark. It currently keeps 13 species of animals, all ungulates except for 1, in large enclosures that all follow the same formula. All the enclosures are very simple; a metal or mesh fence (depending on how large and strong the species in it is) surrounding a piece of forest, with a wooden stable as a shelter. It might be very basic but that doesn’t mean it’s bad; the animals kept here all very well adapted to living in the European climate and don’t require much else anyway.
The lay-out of the park is very simple; the enclosures are mostly square-shaped, with paths between and around them. There was a map situated there, and I decided to stick mostly to the recommended walking route. This means the first enclosures I came across were the two enclosures for wisents. On the other side of the path were the onagers. Despite having access to spacious paddocks, both species were hanging out near their stables.
On the path between those species is also the enclosure for the only non-ungulate/non-mammal in the park; tawny owls. Their enclosure if made up of wooden walls with 2 small viewing windows; it’s a pretty dark enclosure, but this also gives the owls a lot of shade and privacy. Next to wisents is the enclosure for Rocky Mountain goats, quite a rare species in European zoos! They have given a pile of rocks for climbing, but otherwise have a very similar enclosure. The enclosure across from them (next to the onagers) was currently vacant.
On the next path, there was an enclosure for deer on either side. One of them held Vietnamese sika deer, the other Eurasian forest reindeer. The latter species was relatively new; it was not yet on the map, and the fences still had restrictive tape attached to prevent animals from running into them. I saw three reindeers, who were very actively running around their entire enclosure.
Next up are the Bactrian camels on one side and the alpine chamois on the other. The camels were surprisingly a no-show. I cared much more about seeing the chamois though, and luckily I was greeted by a medium sized herd of them. Parts of their enclosure were slightly inclined/elevated with both terrain and rocks, and the chamois seemed to prefer hanging out there as I saw 3 of them on the top of a hill and another on one of the other rocks. This was my third time seeing alpine chamois in a week, after not seeing them in ten years.
The next animals are both from the Asian plains; Przewalski wild horses on one side and Persian gazelles on the other. I really enjoyed the gazelles; tierpark Oberwald keeps a bachelor group of males of varying ages, most if not all surplus from Zoo Karlsruhe. There are really cute animals feel very unappreciated and somewhat of a ‘forgotten species. Some of the gazelles were very friendly and came up to the fence, and allowed me to pet them on their noses. So cute!
From here I walked to the final three enclosures. First of those are the blackbucks. I saw a huge group (around 50!) of female blackbucks here. Really cool to see such a large herd! Luckily the enclosure was spacious enough to accomodate so many of them.
The mooses inhabit what is very likely the biggest enclosure in the zoo. The male moose was very hard to spot as it was lying down in the vegetation, but the female was very easy to find as she was in the shelter. The final animal of Tierpark Oberwald is the white-lipped deer. There seemed to be two large enclosures, with a male deer in each of them. This is a species that has disappeared from Dutch zoos, so I’m always glad to encounter them in zoos abroad.
Since this is a wildpark situated in a forest, I also spotted some avian wildlife during my walk, including a black woodpecker!
Despite having a limited species line-up, Tierpark Oberwald is defenitely worth a visit to those who enjoy wildparks or those who love walking in general. All the enclosures here are simple but great for the species, and there are even a few animals that are somewhat rare in zoos. Because of its unlimited openening times, its extremely easy to combine with Zoo Karlsruhe or the Museum, or both. Since it is also completely free, I can’t think of any reasons to skip it if one finds themselves in Karlsruhe!
EPILOGUE: ZOO KARLSRUHE (again)
After visiting Tierpark Oberwald, I returned to the train station of Karlsruhe, where I had stored my luggage. At this point, It was only 09.30, and I didn’t have to take a train until 12.00. So, I decided to use the remaining time to do a short revisit to the Zoo. It was literally only a 2 minute walk, so I had absolutely no reason not to! My main goals; a second attempt at spotting the 5 frog species I had missed on the first day. I also wanted to visit the pinniped enclosures, which I I had missed/skipped on the first day.
I started my rewalk with very quick revisits to the coatis, gazelles, penguins,the Australian aviary (where I did see the black cockatoos that were a no-show the day before) and wallabies. I also noticed I missed the emu enclosure on the previous visit, which is located between the wallabies and elephants, across from the polar bears. From the polar bears, instead of going up towards the otters, I went straight ahead so I could visit the seal/seal lion enclosures. The zoo keeps both common seals and Californian sea lions. The seal enclosure is really small, but the water was deep enough to at least allow for some diving (unlike Augsburg, but that enclosure was larger). The sea lion enclosure is larger (in both land and water parts) and is at least decent; nothing like Nürnberg, but better than Augsburg or Heidelberg at least.
I would personally prefer to see the one of two species leave the zoo and for their enclosures to be merged with one another; those two combined would make for a very decent pinniped enclosure, but on their own they’re both lacking, especially the seal enclosure.
After the sea lions, I revisited the hippos and elephants and made my way to the carnivore house. This time, I did not see any tamanduas, but the Geoffroys kat was more active this time around. Of course, I also tried to spot the lemur leaf frog and Carvalho's surinam toad, but was unsuccesful again.
I decided not to revisit the monkey house and made my way to the Exotenhaus. In the main hall, I saw most birds species that I saw on the previous day, including the unobtrusive tricolor parrotfinch. I did not however see any of the species that I missed that day, and I wonder if they are actually still here; especially crowned pigeons would be hard to miss. The signage might be outdated.
I did a quick reward of the entire building. I hoped to see the hornbill this time and get longer views of the toucan, but neither species showed themselves. I finally arrived at the frog enclosures, where I frustratingly missed 3 out of 4 potential new species the day before. Again, I found all the other species (yellow-banded, golden, striped, blue and blessed poison frogs) quickly, but not the 3 target species. Until… I finally spotted a brazil-nut poison frog emerging from behind a flower pot; it would have been impossible to see previously. The views of this frog were still quite poor due to the angle, but I least I got to see this very rare species (until it moved back behind the flower pot). The Lehmanns poison frog remained a no-show though. That just leaves the Rio Pescado stubfoot toad in the other large terrarium. After searching for a few minutes, I finally managed to spot one! And quickly after that a second one, which even emerged from it’s bromelia flower leaf it had been hiding in. So, after seeing these 2 species, I had now seen 4 out of 7 potential new frog species. A much better score than 2 out of 7.
I exited the Exotenhaus, and then left the zoo. I caught my train and travelled back to the Netherlands not much later, finally ending this years zoo trip. I had a really great time in southern Germany and Austria; I absolutely loved Nürnberg, München, Salzburg and Innsbruck and also enjoyed visiting Augsburg, Oberwald and both musea. Revisiting Heidelberg and Karlsruhe after 17 years was nice as well.
As for my 2025 zoo trip, I am currently considering either northeasterern Germany (Schwerin, Timmendorfer Strand, Rostock, Stralsund, Felidae + Eberswalde, revisits to Berlin/Magdeburg) or eastern Germany (Erfurt, Dresden, Cottbus, Chemnitz, revisit to Leipzig, maybe Görlitz / Hoyerswerda)
DAY 9. 22-04-2024.
TIERPARK OBERWALD
Everything ends, and this day it was time for me to head home again. I planned to take the 12AM train from Karlsruhe back to the Netherlands. But, that did still leave me with some hours I could utilize in the morning. I planned to spend the morning in Tierpark Oberwald, a wildpark just a few minutes from the city. I took a tram and from the tram stop, walked about 15 minutes until I reached the park. The park does not have an entrance fee and is open 24/7, so if one would want to visit a zoo in the middle of the night, they could do it here!
Tierpark Oberwald is located in a large forest, and is a typical wildpark. It currently keeps 13 species of animals, all ungulates except for 1, in large enclosures that all follow the same formula. All the enclosures are very simple; a metal or mesh fence (depending on how large and strong the species in it is) surrounding a piece of forest, with a wooden stable as a shelter. It might be very basic but that doesn’t mean it’s bad; the animals kept here all very well adapted to living in the European climate and don’t require much else anyway.
The lay-out of the park is very simple; the enclosures are mostly square-shaped, with paths between and around them. There was a map situated there, and I decided to stick mostly to the recommended walking route. This means the first enclosures I came across were the two enclosures for wisents. On the other side of the path were the onagers. Despite having access to spacious paddocks, both species were hanging out near their stables.
On the path between those species is also the enclosure for the only non-ungulate/non-mammal in the park; tawny owls. Their enclosure if made up of wooden walls with 2 small viewing windows; it’s a pretty dark enclosure, but this also gives the owls a lot of shade and privacy. Next to wisents is the enclosure for Rocky Mountain goats, quite a rare species in European zoos! They have given a pile of rocks for climbing, but otherwise have a very similar enclosure. The enclosure across from them (next to the onagers) was currently vacant.
On the next path, there was an enclosure for deer on either side. One of them held Vietnamese sika deer, the other Eurasian forest reindeer. The latter species was relatively new; it was not yet on the map, and the fences still had restrictive tape attached to prevent animals from running into them. I saw three reindeers, who were very actively running around their entire enclosure.
Next up are the Bactrian camels on one side and the alpine chamois on the other. The camels were surprisingly a no-show. I cared much more about seeing the chamois though, and luckily I was greeted by a medium sized herd of them. Parts of their enclosure were slightly inclined/elevated with both terrain and rocks, and the chamois seemed to prefer hanging out there as I saw 3 of them on the top of a hill and another on one of the other rocks. This was my third time seeing alpine chamois in a week, after not seeing them in ten years.
The next animals are both from the Asian plains; Przewalski wild horses on one side and Persian gazelles on the other. I really enjoyed the gazelles; tierpark Oberwald keeps a bachelor group of males of varying ages, most if not all surplus from Zoo Karlsruhe. There are really cute animals feel very unappreciated and somewhat of a ‘forgotten species. Some of the gazelles were very friendly and came up to the fence, and allowed me to pet them on their noses. So cute!
From here I walked to the final three enclosures. First of those are the blackbucks. I saw a huge group (around 50!) of female blackbucks here. Really cool to see such a large herd! Luckily the enclosure was spacious enough to accomodate so many of them.
The mooses inhabit what is very likely the biggest enclosure in the zoo. The male moose was very hard to spot as it was lying down in the vegetation, but the female was very easy to find as she was in the shelter. The final animal of Tierpark Oberwald is the white-lipped deer. There seemed to be two large enclosures, with a male deer in each of them. This is a species that has disappeared from Dutch zoos, so I’m always glad to encounter them in zoos abroad.
Despite having a limited species line-up, Tierpark Oberwald is defenitely worth a visit to those who enjoy wildparks or those who love walking in general. All the enclosures here are simple but great for the species, and there are even a few animals that are somewhat rare in zoos. Because of its unlimited openening times, its extremely easy to combine with Zoo Karlsruhe or the Museum, or both. Since it is also completely free, I can’t think of any reasons to skip it if one finds themselves in Karlsruhe!
EPILOGUE: ZOO KARLSRUHE (again)
After visiting Tierpark Oberwald, I returned to the train station of Karlsruhe, where I had stored my luggage. At this point, It was only 09.30, and I didn’t have to take a train until 12.00. So, I decided to use the remaining time to do a short revisit to the Zoo. It was literally only a 2 minute walk, so I had absolutely no reason not to! My main goals; a second attempt at spotting the 5 frog species I had missed on the first day. I also wanted to visit the pinniped enclosures, which I I had missed/skipped on the first day.
I started my rewalk with very quick revisits to the coatis, gazelles, penguins,the Australian aviary (where I did see the black cockatoos that were a no-show the day before) and wallabies. I also noticed I missed the emu enclosure on the previous visit, which is located between the wallabies and elephants, across from the polar bears. From the polar bears, instead of going up towards the otters, I went straight ahead so I could visit the seal/seal lion enclosures. The zoo keeps both common seals and Californian sea lions. The seal enclosure is really small, but the water was deep enough to at least allow for some diving (unlike Augsburg, but that enclosure was larger). The sea lion enclosure is larger (in both land and water parts) and is at least decent; nothing like Nürnberg, but better than Augsburg or Heidelberg at least.
I would personally prefer to see the one of two species leave the zoo and for their enclosures to be merged with one another; those two combined would make for a very decent pinniped enclosure, but on their own they’re both lacking, especially the seal enclosure.
After the sea lions, I revisited the hippos and elephants and made my way to the carnivore house. This time, I did not see any tamanduas, but the Geoffroys kat was more active this time around. Of course, I also tried to spot the lemur leaf frog and Carvalho's surinam toad, but was unsuccesful again.
I decided not to revisit the monkey house and made my way to the Exotenhaus. In the main hall, I saw most birds species that I saw on the previous day, including the unobtrusive tricolor parrotfinch. I did not however see any of the species that I missed that day, and I wonder if they are actually still here; especially crowned pigeons would be hard to miss. The signage might be outdated.
I did a quick reward of the entire building. I hoped to see the hornbill this time and get longer views of the toucan, but neither species showed themselves. I finally arrived at the frog enclosures, where I frustratingly missed 3 out of 4 potential new species the day before. Again, I found all the other species (yellow-banded, golden, striped, blue and blessed poison frogs) quickly, but not the 3 target species. Until… I finally spotted a brazil-nut poison frog emerging from behind a flower pot; it would have been impossible to see previously. The views of this frog were still quite poor due to the angle, but I least I got to see this very rare species (until it moved back behind the flower pot). The Lehmanns poison frog remained a no-show though. That just leaves the Rio Pescado stubfoot toad in the other large terrarium. After searching for a few minutes, I finally managed to spot one! And quickly after that a second one, which even emerged from it’s bromelia flower leaf it had been hiding in. So, after seeing these 2 species, I had now seen 4 out of 7 potential new frog species. A much better score than 2 out of 7.
I exited the Exotenhaus, and then left the zoo. I caught my train and travelled back to the Netherlands not much later, finally ending this years zoo trip. I had a really great time in southern Germany and Austria; I absolutely loved Nürnberg, München, Salzburg and Innsbruck and also enjoyed visiting Augsburg, Oberwald and both musea. Revisiting Heidelberg and Karlsruhe after 17 years was nice as well.
As for my 2025 zoo trip, I am currently considering either northeasterern Germany (Schwerin, Timmendorfer Strand, Rostock, Stralsund, Felidae + Eberswalde, revisits to Berlin/Magdeburg) or eastern Germany (Erfurt, Dresden, Cottbus, Chemnitz, revisit to Leipzig, maybe Görlitz / Hoyerswerda)
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