I visited this zoo in late May and the Afrykarium area is definitely a construction zone. They are building this great exhibit as we speak. I spoke with the zoo's Director and he is very excited about it. He showed me a simulated video tour of the Afrykarium and it truly looks amazing. I believe that when done, it will be one of the top 10 zoo exhibits on the Continent. When he mentioned the manatees, he definitely said they are aiming for African manatees.
I think they plan to move their talapoins there (they have only 2 of them now). But plans tend to change a lot.
The monkeys in the simulation looked much larger than talapoins, I was thinking they would be a guenon of some sort. Talapoins would be better I think
Is there a species list for this exhibit? I've had a look around and can only find references to a few species.
The situation is variable. Here is my unofficial list based on zoos and press news: Mammals: - Brown fur seals - Hippotamus - Aardvarks ?? - dik-diks - duikers - royal antelopes - Common dwarf mongooses - Hyrax - Talapoins - Manatees Birds: - greater flamingos - hornbills - hadada ibis - Egyptian plovers - Northern Red Bishops - african penguins and more Reptiles: - nile crocodiles - Loggerhead sea turtle Hundreds of species of fish (including sharks and rays) and much more (Amphibians, small reptiles, jellyfish)
That's quite a decent line-up, I'm especially impressed with the royal antelope as there are none on this side of the Atlantic. If they get them then it may well be another mecca for the zoo enthusiasts of this site!
Talapoins are primates, other than that they're conspicuously absent though. Still, three small antelope species and African manatee more than make up for that!
Exhibits for lemuridae in Madagascar House, lar gibbon house, part of Terai Pavilion for pileated gibbons and saimiri house are quite good. Probably african manatees unfortunately won't come. West Indian ones will live in Afrykarium.
I had a feeling this would be the case, although several people have commented on here that the Africans were a (near) definite. A shame that we can't expand the sirenia that are held in zoos in Europe but it makes more sense to be involved with West Indians as they are more readily available and breed quite well so there won't be a shortage of them. Zooman, you're welcome.
Remember that the theme of Africarium is " lifegiving waters of Africa". The main point of this pavilon would be water tanks.
The Afrykarium is part of the larger African area, which includes a number of hoofstock exhibits, lions, Madagascar House and North African Desert House, so it will be an extension to this area focuses on aquatic African species. There is a paucity of primates in this part of the zoo though, despite the zoo as a whole having a very good primate collection, including a number of African species. Hopefully they will add some of these to this area in the future.
