Andrew: this is a thread about Zoo misconceptions, and you are obviously labouring under a misconception of your own - they could not have been a 'Lady' and a 'Gentleman' if they use words like "eee" and "them's" ! Hix
People assuming small animals are babies: A girl at lake district wildlife park shouted ooh! baby turtles!, at the exhibit for eastern box turtle. she then took a photo with flash on, and said "sorry if I blinded you baby turtle".
I actually heard people calling the tapir a panda today. I can overlook people calling the apes monkeys (for a little while) but I just had to correct this one.
Recently, a friend of mine tried to explain what a tapir is, with the description "a mixture between a pig and a panda". Not immediately connecting that description to a Malayan tapir, I asked him: "Why a panda?". He replied: "Because it has the same black-and-white pattern as a panda" and didn't really seem to believe me when I told him that three out of four tapirs actually are brown (or mostly brown). Similarly, when media actually do depict tapirs once in a blue moon, it's usually the Malayan one. I wonder why, since Brazilian tapirs (or lowland tapirs or whatever you call them) are much more ubiquitous in zoos. And one would think that most Western people generally only know tapirs from zoos...
I know that this is somewhat off-topic, but I think that any such media outlets would choose to display Malayan tapirs solely because of their striking pattern. People are simple attracted to animals that are black (think jaguars or leopards), white (such as polar bears, white tigers or lions, or any albino animal), or both (zebras, giant pandas, and in this case, Malayan tapirs). To make my post more on-topic, I did overhear a guest call Sulawesi crested macaques 'orangutans' a few days ago. I just shook my head and walked away...
On the subject of tapirs, I was watching one rest and a couple walked up behind me. It was in a large mixed exhibit with guanaco, rhea, king vulture, tons of birds, and a capybara. Girl: Hey, look! (points to the tapir) Isn't that, like, the biggest rodent in the world or something? Guy: Yeah, it is! You really know your animals! I couldn't stop laughing afterward.
Overheard at the Spectacled Bear enclosure at Chester (which also contains Brown-nosed Coati) yesterday, and presented without comment: Woman (pointing at a group of coati) - Look at the baby bears! Child - They aren't bears mum, they are coati. Woman - They must be bears, why would there be signs for bears if they weren't bears? Their tails just haven't fallen off yet.
General Zoo Misconceptions Bears are like frogs. They hatch into bear tadpoles, their legs grow, then they lose their tails. Simples.
Unlike lemurs which grow their tails after birth "Ah look that baby is so small it hasn't got its tail yet" Actually it had been amputated after a fall.
Baby capuchin's erect penis was called an 'umbilical cord', so the monkey was 'newborn' (despite walking on its own and being too large to fit in female's womb). The woman who made this conclusion realized her error only after seeing the urine dripping! Pygmy hippo is just a 'baby hippo', despite the obvious difference in head shape and lack of common hippo's froggy eyes.
You're quite right. Whenever tapirs are depicted, it's nearly always the Malayan species. In my library I have a book called "The Wildlife Man" by Barry Kaufmann-Wright. In it there's a chapter about the author's early career as a zoo-keeper at Jersey Zoo in the mid 1960s. He describes an incident where he is chased and bitten by one of the tapirs. The book is illustrated with line drawings by Janie Stagg and Dave Smith, and the drawing of the tapir incident clearly shows a Malayan tapir biting the author as he leaps over a fence - but Jersey Zoo has never kept the Malayan species, only the Lowland (Brazilian) kind. Presumably the illustrators were given a brief to draw a tapir, and never checked to make sure they were drawing the correct species.
I'm sure there will always be some idiots, but I was pleasantly surprised at Dudley Zoo. Lots of kids reading signs out to their parents and a very loutish bloke identified the tapirs correctly.
the universal "truths" about fishes: fish cannot breathe air fish cannot "talk" (make sounds) fish do not care for their offspring fish cannot see colors fish are stupid, do not have memory etc.
A wander round Chester at the weekend revealed a family looking for the Capybarbars and (my new favourite because it was quite adoreable) a young lad who was excited to wander off to see the Respectable Bears Oh I also overheard a member of the education team say 'Rhino horn is actually just made up of the same material as our horns!'
One that I heard a while back at Marwell that shows misconceptions might not always be what you think. If anyone is familiar with Marwell think carefully about the zoo layout around Aridlands. For those not familiar with Aridlands it is an indoor desert exhibit that includes the housing for addax and dorcas gazelles. A woman was stood by the addaxes calling her young son, who appeared to be about 3 or 4, over saying "You know what these are". I thought this is either going to be really impressive that the kid is familiar with addaxes or some spectacular misunderstanding is going to happen. The little boy ran over excitedly shouting "camels". "Thats right, you like camels" said his Mum. I went back to the Addaxes my self and suddenly realised what was happening. From inside Aridlands, you can look through the Addax's door across their outdoor area and a small portion of the next paddock. This paddock you can see a small part of is home to a pair of bactrian camels.
