CHALLENGE: Create an interesting exhibit with a "boring" animal!

The challenge is as following:

Create (on paper) an idea for a really interesting and educative exhibit with an otherwise really boring and unnoticable animal species. You may have several species on exhibit, and you have any tool imaginable to make the exhibit interesting, as long as it is actually possible to do.

I start, choosing an animal species for my exhibit:

FLESH FLIES!

The set-up is a 4 foot tall, 3 foot long and 2 foot wide escape-proof aquarium standing freely in the middle of a room. The aquarium is illuminated with LEDs (no need to cause further Global Warming!), and some of the aquarium's height (approx. 2 foot) is soil. On the soil surface, small plants that require large amounts of nutrients grow, and the flies' maggots feast on decomposing meat.

And here, the interesting stuff begins:

The maggots themselves leave a memoriable, albeit less-than-charming impression; but a strong one none the less. Their feasting aids in the decomposition of the meat, and it is explained to the audience (in a little video) that this is how decay works; living organisms break down larger molecules into smaller ones that plants can use. Without decay, we would be drowning in dead bodies, it is explained. Next to the aquarium is a time-lapse video of a typical "decay session", from fresh meat to organic soil. The time-lapse video also explains the life cycle of the chosen species(s) of fly, and how flies are well-adapted at speeding up decomposition.

On the ground surface, nutrient-demanding plants live. It is explained in the next video how plants use organic components from decomposing organisms to grow and become food for herbivores such as zebras, which in turn become food for carnivores such as lions. And when the lions (and zebras) die, their bodies decompose, restarting the cycle.

This shows the public how nature works in a circular fashion where nothing is wasted.

Not to mention the kids will forever remember the sight of potential dinner smellily rotting into nothing

Perhaps they'll even learn the little lesson in ecology

Your turn to create an interesting and educative exhibit with a "boring" animal species!

 

Sorry!

I'm new and didn't see there was a sub-forum for Fantasy Zoos; sorry!

 

Hm, what constitutes a "boring" animal? Legit question, I'm pretty easily impressed. People don't understand why I enjoy watching ants...

 

To: TheMightyOrca

By "boring" I mean an animal the average zoo visitor (if the average zoo visitor can even be defined) would spend very little time looking at or reading about. One they would just look at and walk away from, completely unimpressed.

My hypothesis is that if presented the right way, virtually any animal can be interesting to the general public - and if you only give the public what they ask to see, they might never know what they've just missed

 

I guess under that criteria, most animals seen at zoos would be considered "boring".

Anyway, I agree with you. I think an interesting exhibit helps make any animal more interesting to the general public. I'll see if I can think of something, first I gotta pick an animal...

 

You mean like "How to Exhibit a Bullfrog?"

 

For those who never read the article:

http://www.zoolex.org/publication/conway/how_to_exhibit_a_bullfrog.pdf

 

Okay, how about this: an aquarium exhibit featuring ocean floor scavengers. The tank would have a fake whale carcass, and the exhibit would be about how an ecosystem grows around it. Hagfish, of course, and various crustaceans and clams.

 

That's one of the more unique (in a good way) ideas I've heard in a while. Maybe you can have three different tanks that show the 3 stages in decomposition of a whale carcass.

 

Thanks! I was watching a documentary where this happens with a dead gray whale at the bottom of the ocean, and I thought it would be a neat idea. There was a general ZooChat thread a while back about using zoos to teach scientific concepts, so I brought that in. Plus, I don't think people know all that much about underwater scavengers.

Having it at different stages would be even cooler!

 

CHALLENGE: Create an interesting exhibit with a "boring" animal!

Challange accepted!

Visitors receive money when looking at the animal, or receive a voucher. Bang-problem solved.

 

Squirrel Woods

Squirrel Woods would be a large, indoor glass-fronted enclosure for eastern gray squirrels, with compartments in the enclosure filled with nuts and berries for foraging. Trees, acorns, and leaves would be everywhere in this unique enclosure and would teach visitors to appreciate such common creatures.

 

Inspired by the above post - an Urban exhibit!

An exhibit focusing on wildlife that interact with people on a regular basis, featuring an open-flight aviary (under mesh or indoors) for seagulls and city pigeons (which can be fed) modeled on a city park, a large glass-fronted house den where Zookeepers and paying guests can relax with various domesticated animals with a view-in dog house that talks about how domestication occurs, as well as a large exhibit in three or four sections with different 'habitat' areas for the Coyote to illustrate it's unique environmental adaptions. Smaller exhibits also talk about how Raccoons, Squirrels, Bats, Badgers, and Possums survive near humans and in human-affected environments.

The final area focuses on how humans are encroaching upon these species' habitats and how many die off due to roadkill, etc., giving a startlingly personal look at how our daily lives affect wildlife and nature.

 

Challenge Accepted: Anoles
Anoles are a common sight in Florida,The Bahamas, and most other Caribbean Islands. I would have a habitat of the forest floor with logs, leaves and tree trunks for them to hide and relax under/on, and I would showcase their tail dropping technique and how they use it to escape predators, plus The fact that they can , ya know, regenerate their own tails.

 

I used to have a pet anole. I put some Spanish moss in her cage and she loved to chill out in it. They're pretty neat and I've been thinking of getting another.

Anyway, my exhibit idea? I think it would be cool to create an exhibit that looks like a city or suburban environment and use it to hold animals commonly found in such areas, like raccoons and opossums. Maybe it can be designed like a backyard, with a fake porch, a well-groomed lawn and shrubbery, maybe even lawn furniture and a trash can.

 

I visited Best Zoo last year and it had two unusual ways to exhibit relatively common species.

There was an exhibit of house mice, which were placed in a loaf of bread that had been hollowed out, so they had a relatively cheap source of food.

There was also a display of chicks in a room. Visitors could hold the chicks in their hands, which made a pleasant change to interact with animals. The downside is that it seems that at least some of the chicks were later used to feed other animals at the zoo.

 

When I was a kid I got to watch chicks hatch at the Minnesota Zoo. It was pretty awesome.

 

Challenge (belatedly) accepted! My species: common raven, common crow, and turkey vulture.

The exhibit is themed as a meadow bordering a stretch of highway on a minor grade, that latter of which doubles as the zoo pathway. The exhibit itself is around 500 square metres, a small rocky outcrop at the back holding the way to the night area. Towards the front is a fake deer corpse stuffed with cow and deer meat meant to simulate roadkill. An alternate path is that of a small dirt trail that takes visitors along the right side of the exhibit where interpretives explain how decomposers break roadkill down, complete with small vivariums for carrion beetles, including the endangered American burying beetle. This path leads to an alternate view of a grey wolf exhibit, owing to the suggested symbiotic relationship wolves have with ravens.

Every week, the zoo would hold demonstrations with the birds, feeding the birds with a large moose corpse and handling them.