Not meant to be a deep or serious thread - just a funny little trivia thread. Do you have any "good luck" or "bad luck" zoo animals? Not animals that bring you good luck or bad luck, but animals you are always lucky to spot even though they are said to be hard to spot, or animals you always miss even though they should be easy to spot. My good luck animal would probably be the red panda. I know it's not exactly notoriously hard to spot, but I often hear people complain that they're hiding or sleeping in a tree. Whenever I visit a zoo with red pandas, I practically always see them active. My bad luck animal is the Asian small-clawed otter. I think I've missed them in more than half of the zoos I've been to that kept them, and in another bunch of zoos I only saw them when I returned to their exhibit for the tenth time or so. As such, I barely consider them to be ABC's like most Zoochatters - since an animal that you rarely see can't really be an ABC. Your go!
I have bad luck with nearly all rare species I want to see in a zoo far away. And for now about 5 or 6 years I try to spot the raccoon dogs in a very small, free to enter at every time, animal park just a few minutes from home. I never saw them by until now. Spotting red pandas is depending on the enclosure's design I think, in some zoos I have good luck and in some zoos not. Raccoon dogs, all sorts of otter, all sorts of foxes etc... I never get to see them. At least I had good luck last year at a trip to Plzen to see the East African bat-eared foxes as well as the cape foxes. It's always disappointing to have big expectations to spot rare or favourite animals when you don't in the end. (happens enough to me to tell about it)
I have had terrible luck with the Pudu at Warsaw Zoo. I have been nearly a dozen times (maybe more, I haven't counted) and NEVER seen them despite going to the pudu enclosure on every visit. It's getting to the point where I'm starting to doubt their existence .
A tip for you: for nocturnal animals, try early morning or late evening. But best, ask when is the feeding time, or if you see a keeper working, hang around. They usually go out then. For aquarium animals, it is also feeding time. For the birds in large exhibits, stay near the feeder for 20 minutes or so.
