Right, i have a few questions regarding nocturnal houses.... Becuase nocturnal houses are kept dark, to recreate the night time, do they turn the lights on to recreate day time, when its actually night time outside? And, Bristol zoos bats always used to (i dont know if they still can) be able to go from their indoor nocturnal house, into an aviary style enclosure outside, during the day, did/ does this not confuse them for what time of day its is? And, when some species move from zoo to zoo, and were perhaps kept not in a nocturnal house before, but are in a one in the new collection, does this mess up their sleep, feeding patterns? Thanks, hope it all makes sence!
Sense it did make. Erm, good question. I think Old Joes Mine at Longleat is light at night. I'm going on Sunday and shall ask. I would suppose its logical to do so, yeah. The place that has an outside aviary is weird, but then, maybe its like the bat going outside a cave during the day and then back into the cave still during the day where it's going to be dark no matter what time it is. And with regards to the whole transporting them to places that did not have this day/night switch, it's quite cute to think of it as the bats getting Jet Lagged. Lol.
Most Nocturnal Houses use a system called reverse lighting,so when its our day time it night in the Nocturnal House when its night time for us its Daylight for the Nocturnal House.
When I visited Bristol, the bat house was lit by daylight, and as Livingstone's flying foxes aren't really fussed about light conditions they were reasonably active.
Ah, thanks everyone. They were just some questions that i'd been thinking about for a while! thanks again
I have to admit, me too, good question Dom. Whenever i visit a zoo, with a nocturnal house, it is one of my first stops, i love the houses at Bristol and Perth.
Bristol's house has lighting that is programmed to fade up and down to replicate the sun rising and setting. I think they can even programme seasons in to it if required. In the old days, it was just a case of switching the light off in the morning! Anyone know of new nocturnal houses planned in the uk? I think that, sadly, these wonderful places could be on the way out...
I should hopefully be going to Bristol zoo for the first time in about 8 years this sunday, will be good see how much has changed. And i too have always enjoyed Bristol's nocturnal house, (except when i was very little and scared of the dark! But we won't talk about that!)
Like ZooGiraffe said, most zoos use a reverse light cycle and yes it takes a while for new animals to get used to the new cycle. Fortunately, now that most zoos use the same cycle for the same time period, when animals are transferred they dont need to become readjusted because they have been raised on such a system.
I really enjoy Nocturnal houses and often find them one of the highlights of My trips to zoos. I have been to a few nocturnal houses in the Uk (off the top of my head at least 5) and can say outright Bristol's is easily the best of them. For me what makes or breaks a nocturnal house would be mice most of these zoos are often infested with mice in the nocturnal areas (I do not want to embarass any zoos), these give the impressio of low levels of sanitation and disease. I think a zoo in the Uk should step up to the markl and create a worldclass nocturnal habitat. A quick note on Chester's bat house. Although I really ejoyed this experience I felt alongside this chester needed to display other noturnal mammals as ell as there bats. Nocturnal species (in a nocturnal exhibit) are highly underepresented in zoos..at leatst in the UK.
I would've enjoyed Bristol's nocturnal house more if it wasn't full of children pushing and screaming at the top of their voices; the same thing happened at London once. No wonder the aye-ayes and sand cats didn't show themselves there.
In the nicest possible way, I completely disagree! In my opinion, Twilight Zone is one of Chester's best exhibits and to say that Bristols is better is, in my opinion, madness. Fair enough, they don't have as many species but the experience is amazing - a true stand-out exhibit. Personally, I think zoos should be building more, rather than less, nocturnal houses. They provide a real sense of adventure and make small and supposedly boring animals exciting. Also, it's much easier to create an immersion exhibit in the dark as human elements can literally disapear.
I think that depends what timee of year and day you go. Obviously there are less exited children outside of the school holidays. We went there first thing and found the animals the most active I've ever seena nocturnal creature. All of the animals including the Ayeaye (bouncing around there enclosure like any primate species) and the sand cats...and the sloths behaving in a rather un-sloth like fashion.
I agree with you that It is one of Chester's stand out exhibits and i wouldn't actually make any changes to the twilight zone, I would however Either add onto it another nocturnal species showing some of the wonderful diversity of nocturnal life, or build it in another section of the zoo. Twilight zone does make for a wonderful experience but lacks diversity to show there is more the night life than bats
I do not know if this has changed recently but Bristol Zoo has traditionally opened at 9am - an hour earlier than most zoos . If you arrived on time and went straight into Twilight World it was still on the daylight time so you could clearly see many animals active and well lit . There are also very few young children around then . Twilight World does usually also exhibit some reptiles , fish and invertebrates .
On my last visit to Bristol, I made a special effort to leave home early enough to arrive before the lights went out. It was well worth it, because my main criticism has always been that the whole house is rather too dark - for my old eyes at least. I was glad of the opportunities for rather better photos too. I think nocturnal displays are very difficult to get exactly right; most of the enclosures look too small to me and each individual area needs very careful design and lighting to provide the right environment for each species while still providing reasonable viewing opportunities for the public. In theory displays for nocturnal reptiles and amphibia should work, but I can't think of any that have impressed me greatly. On the whole I think the very small mammals work best, I used to be particularly fond of the mouse lemurs and kowari in the Moonlight World in the Clore Pavilion at Regents Park. Alan
Having visited Bristol today, i have a new question. Have any zoos ever kept nocturnal birds in a night time setting? Thanks
Off the top of my head, the Jurong Bird Park in Singapore have a nocturnal house containing seven (?) species of owls, as well as nightjars.
I'm sure there must be a few zoos that keep the tawny frogmouth in nocturnal houses, off the top of my head i can think of Berlin, Frankfurt and Perth
