Animals You've Seen That Few Zoochatters Have Seen

I've never seen anything unusual in the wild - I like some casual birding now and then, but I honestly don't have the patience to wait around for five hours for a rare species to appear, nor do I like to get up at the crack of dawn.

If subspecies are allowed, my best answer would possibly be Motagua Valley beaded lizards. They keep them at Randers Regnskov in Denmark, and these are confiscated animals that cannot be seen elsewhere in Europe. It seems like relatively few Zoochatters have visited Danish zoos, and even fewer have visited Jutlandic zoos (most restrict their visits to Copenhagen). The overall rarest animal in captivity I've seen is probably the Amazon river dolphin, but that doesn't count in this thread as every European Zoochatter seems to have visited Duisburg by now.

 

I have a few I believe are quite rarely seen in captivity and wild.

Dallas World Aquarium:
Yapok
Southern Helmeted Curassow
Razorbill Curassow
Pale Winged Trumpeter
Guianan Red Cotinga
Nocturnal Curassow
Guianan Crested Eagle
Brown Throated Three-Toed Sloth
Jabiru
Venezuelan Red Howler
Nancy Ma's Night Monkey
Bearded Saki


Others:
Fanaloka- Capital of Texas Zoo
St. Vincent's Amazon- Houston Zoo
Red Browed Amazon- Zoo Tampa
Puerto Rican Amazon- Lincoln Park Zoo
Galapagos Shark- Mandalay Bay Aquarium
Oriental White Rumped Vulture- Zoo Miami
Side Striped Jackal- Bransons Wild World
Flapjack Octopus- Monterrey Bay Aquarium
Northern White Rhino- San Diego Safari Park
Sumatran Rhino- Cinncinnati Zoo

Wild:
Mississippi Sandhill Crane (I know this is a subspecies, but considering that a local who lived on the same street I found the cranes from told me they had "Never seen a crane in their life" I thought it is worth mentioning)
Taumilipas Crow
Piping Plover
Bachman's Sparrow
Brown Headed Nuttatch
Florida Scrub Jay
Scrub Lizard
*I have also seen a california condor in the wild but the large number of people who have also seen them, along with the fact that the zoos which keep them in the US are some of the most frequented, I am very hesitant to include it in this list*

These are just the species from the top of my head, I will most likely have more additions to add to this list.

 

Sperm whale - the sea
Atlantic spotted dolphin - also the sea
Azores noctule - Sao Miguel, Azures
Crab-eating racoon - Emperor Valley Zoo, Trinidad. No idea how unusual these are in zoos but I've only seen one in many years of zoo visiting.

 

From a (European) zoo perspective it is probably the Baikal seal in Leipzig, Commerson's dolphin in Duisburg, Saiga in Cologne and the Kit fox (not Swift fox) in Burgers'... Most other zoo rarities will have been seen by many others as well.

In the wild I have seen two mammals that have been seen by very few people at all: Kipunji and Brown-tailed vontsira.

 

Having recently been to San Diego and LA, and also Pairi Daiza this year, I've now ticked off a few mentioned on this thread....ones still available to see anyway

Not yet mentioned.....

Leopard Seal - Atlantis Marine Park, Western Australia (although I guess a fair number of members will have seen these at Taronga)
Steenbok (Kruger and Johannesburg Zoo)
Common/ Grey Duiker (Kruger and Johannesburg Zoo)
Likely lots of African fish at Pretoria Zoo aquarium - will need to look up
Ringed Seal - San Diego Sea World
Cinnamon Mangabey (Mystic Monkeys, South Africa)
Bushbuck (Wild in SA, and at Johannesburg Zoo)
Brown Snake Eagle (Pretoria Zoo)
Brown-necked Parrot (Pretoria Zoo)
Kurrichane Thrush (Kruger)
Mountain Reedbuck (Drakensburg)

 

These species have probably been seen by more Zoochatters than expected but I’ll give this a go...
- Spotted Handfish
-Greater Glider
- Yellow-bellied Glider
-Whiptail Wallaby
-Proserpine Rock Wallaby
-Bridled Nailtail Wallaby
-Lumholtz’s Tree Kangaroo
-Razor-billed Currasow
Honourable mentions go to Red-bellied Pademelon, Spectacled Flying Fox and Platypus.

 

I don't recall the exact years but it was the mid late 70's. They had an original group of 3. Kept at the old aquatic house (which was torn down for River's Edge) where Siegfeid the walrus was displayed .

As for wild critters: blue whale -for rare
There are probably lots of critters seen in the wild that most likely lots of posters have not seen, because they are rarely or never kept in zoos.
Example : Pyrrhuloxia . Not extremely common not horribly rare, but you kinda have to go out of your way to see, and as far as I know never kept in zoos. Most posters would probably have such local species.

 

I see Yellow-billed Magpie wild with some regularity as well as having seen them frequently in captivity, but to most Zoochatters they would be a rarity. I can think of some who quite likely have seen them, but I'd guess they're few. I know Sacramento, LA, CuriOdyssey, and Turtle Bay Exploration Park hold the species, but I think that's it. No facility outside California holds or has held them as far as I've ever heard.

 

Yes, but given that most ZooChatters are very young, there will be a number of species that the older members saw in London Zoo years ago that probably few ZooChat members will have seen; some that I saw there, that I've never seen elsewhere, which immediately spring to mind, are

• Barton's echidna
• mountain gorilla
• giant armadillo
• moon rat
• Hispaniolan solenodon
• Indian wild ass (khur)

 

Of course you are right that many ZooChatters are young but we - "oldies" - also represent a good part of the ZooChat-community !
Several of the species you mention are surely seen by only a few ZooChatters but on the other hand, what is few ? I myself would say if fewer as 10 ZooChatters have seen the species, we realy can say that only few have seen the species.
Some of the species mentioned sofar like Emperor penguin, San Fransisco garter snake, Mountain tapir, Aardwolf, Numbat, Californian ccondor , Chinese giant salamander, are surtainly rare but are kept at collections which are regular visited by ZooChatters so at least more then 10 ZooChatters will have seen any of these species. For example a quick ( incomplete ) search of pictures of the California condor in our Gallery showed at least 16 ZooChatters which had uploaded photos of this species.
A species surtainly not seen by more then 10 ZooChatters is the Ross's gull, a species found in a very remote area which is rarely visited by people in general and no ZooChatter in particular.
Once in the 10 - 20 years an adventures specimen of this species start traveling and with a lot of luck western birders can see the species then. At the beginning of this year I was one of those lucky birders and saw a specimen at Vlissingen in the Netherlands. At least one other ZooChatter also made the way to Vlissingen and saw the bird but furter I think very few of our fellow ZooChatters have ever seen this species.

 

Species, subspecies, and even genera are allowed

I've seen that guy too, while shark cage diving off of Oahu

 

For the sake of this thread, let's split this into two categories: "Animals that only a few Zoochatters have seen" and "Animals that only a handful Zoochatters have seen." According to a thread I read recently, Zoochat has 4,500 active member, so let's consider it "few" if 30 or less member have seen it and "handful" if less then ten have seen it.

This is my fist time starting a thread, not including my introduction one, so next I'll know to be more clear about the directions in my opening post

 

If we are counting animals seen in the wild, ZooChatters who have travelled to areas that other are rarely visited by other ZooChatters have an advantage, which is greater still if they have stayed there for some time and have had opportunities to see really secretive or unusual species. When I lived in Ghana I saw some familiar zoo species like grey parrots, hooded vultures and a royal python, but also some rarely seen ones like Johanna's/Mme Verraux's sunbird, the chestnut wattle-eye, the African dwarf bittern, the thick-billed cuckoo and the nicator.

 

WOW, didn't know that ! I was "using" the Dutch situation, thinking the UK is even further from the breeding-grounds and thus the species would be even more rare overthere !
However, good to know the UK is bleshted with regular visiting Ross's gulls !

 

The Chestnut wattle-eye was one of the next species I wanted to mention in this thread because I was so lucky to take care for a pair at Walsrode in the 1980s and I knew you had seen them in the wild which makes also 2 ZooChatters having seen this pretty species .

 

Andean cat, kodkod, goblin shark...
As envious as I am of the lists others have posted, I've been very fortunate myself

 

Lucky you are indeed. The goblin shark is probably the number one animal I want to see someday

 

Tigrina Parque Estadual Rio Vermelho
Red hartebeest Zoológico nacional de Cuba
Cuban red tail hawk Havana zoo
Red eared guenon Havana zoo
Yucatán Brown brocket Xcaret Mérida zoo
Volcano rabbit Chapultepec zoo
Mexican black howler monkey Chapultepec zoo Xcaret
Central american agouti Chapultepec zoo
Mantled howler monkey San Juan de Aragon zoo
Mexican horned pit viper San juan de Aragón zoo
Mexican agouti Zoomat africam safari
Mexican prarie dog africam Safari
Horned guan Zoomat africam safari
Mountain fer de lance Zoomat
Tzotzil fer de lance zoomat
Mexican tamandua Zoomat
Neo tropical otter Zoomat San Juan de Aragón zoo
Resplendent quetzal Zoomat
Chiapas caimán Zoomat
Collared forest Falcón Zoomat
Zoomat is zoologico Miguel Ángel del toro

 

Your photo of the linsang at Frankfurt was for a long time the most intense source of jealousy on the forum for me. Imagine then, my frustration when I come to this thread ready to finally post about my own linsang sighting and find that you have seen Short-eared Dog! I had always assumed, because the Wikipedia entry uses an illustration, that it had never been photographed let alone held in captivity. Now I'll have to move to South America

There are a fair number of Asian animals that I've seen that will fit the category of 'few', but I'm going to just provide a couple aimed at the 'handful' category:

Spotted Linsang at Chengdu Zanhuayuan
Sunda Clouded Leopard at Lok Kawi and Bogor
Cat Ba Langur at Cuc Phuong
Bearded Seal at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom

(Dugong will have been seen by many at Sydney I guess, but that might still make the cut. I saw mine in Jakarta)

Most of my travels have been in the footsteps of other zoochatters, but there is one place I am pretty sure I am the only one to have ventured to and which provided me with a fairly unique sighting, the circumstances of which will be revealed in an upcoming thread.....

Pig-tailed langur, Simias concolor