Found again some intresting facts about animals kept at Artis which are rare, little known and sofar not mentioned at ZTL for being kept at Artis. Both carnivores are from South-East Asia and because of the close relationships between the Netherlands and the former Dutch East Indies ( nowadays Indonesia ) I already found it strange that Artis wasn't mentioned as a former keeper for at least the Flat-headed cat. The London Zoo recieved the first animal of this species 1872 - first animal outside its native home-area, and Artis recieved an animal 2 years later, as far as I was able to find-out the first for the Netherlands and prob. also the first for continental Europe : Another very rare species kept at Artis and not mentioned on ZTL is the Otter civet. ZTL mention only the London Zoo and Dierenpark Wassenaar as former keepers with London being the first in 1954. Artis however already obtained the species 1880, was however unable to find more information about this animal :
The Kerbert-terras The Lion-enclosure at Artis which will become history in the near future ( ) is known as the Kerbert-terras and was disigned by architect Ouendag and for the disign he got instructions from the well-known Hamburger Zoo director Hagenbeck. The enclosure is named after the second director of Artis, Coenraad Kerbert. He became director of Artis in 1890 and was the second director of the Zoo ( the first one being Gerard Westerman ). Kerbert died 1927 in his office at Artis at an age of 78 years. In honor of this man the first "open" lion-enclosure of the zoo was named to him and measured 22 meter by 9 meter with a water-moat between the enclosure and the visitors. This moat is 7 meter wide and 2 meter deep. In June 1929 the lion-pair already living in a small cage at Artis was given access to their new enclosure. The Kerbert-terras shortly after being taken in use ( 1929 ) and the almost unchanged same enclosure 2017 : Lion-enclosure by vogelcommando posted 14 Jan 2018 at 9:21 PM
Historical notes about the Gorilla's at Artis - with pictures : The history of the Western lowland gorilla's at Artis is quite well-known. Both the Studbook for the species as well as ZTL provide us with some good information. Evenso I want to give a little history about the animals and provide photos of the animals and the enclosures. The first Western lowland gorilla at Artis was Japie, a male which arrived at Artis in 1936, in a time that Gorilla's were VERY rare in European zoos. In this period only a handfull of other zoos had the species in their collection ! Japie came from Cameroon and was approx. 8 1/2 month when he arrived at the zoo. He lived for 7 years and died on Oct. 28 1943. 2 photos of Japie shortly after his arrival at Artis. Then Artis was Gorilla-less for 10 year and then Babar, an approx. 1 year-old male from the Congo was recieved in June 1953 and he did very well at Artis , but in 1974 the Gorilla-house at Artis needed to be renovated and Babar was send for the period of the renovation to Burgers Zoo. Here he became problems with his heart and died at Arnhem in July 1974. Babar 1953 1955 a female was obtained for Babar, approx. 1 year old Moussa which came from Gabon but had lived first 6 months at the Zoo of Brazzaville before she was put on the plane to Amsterdam. She did not very well and died Aug. 1957. I've found sofar no photos of Moussa. 1964 2 Gorilla's were donated to the zoo, an approx. 2 year old male called Tembo and an approx 3 year old female Banja. Both were wild-caught in Cameroon and did very well at Artis. Tembo became a beautifull Silverback. During 1978 a female - Linda - from Dierenpark Wassenaar was send on breeding-loan to Artis and Tembo did his work well. After returning to Wassenaar Linda gave birth in Jan. 1979 to the first Gorilla born in the Netherlands - VIP ! Also Linda's second son - Yaoende , born 1983 - was the result of a breeding-loan from Linda and Tembo. Tembo and Banja were housed first in the Gorilla-house, a relative small enclosure with no access to an outdoor-enclosure and which is now in use as indoor-enclosure for the Chimp-group at Artis : Chimp house by vogelcommando posted 28 Mar 2016 at 8:37 PM In April 1990 a new Gorilla-enclosure was opened and Tembo and Banja, together with 4 more newly obtained Gorilla's moved to this much better enclosure : Indoor-enclosure Gorilla by vogelcommando posted 20 Nov 2018 at 8:02 PM Gorilla enclosure by vogelcommando posted 28 Mar 2016 at 8:37 PM They lived a happy live in the new enclosure untill 1997 when a bacterium killed a large part of the Gorilla-group : Banja died half Dec 1997 and Tembo died on Christmas Eve 1997. In front of the present outdoor-enclosure a statue inspired on Tembo can be found : Gorilla-statue by vogelcommando posted 26 Jul 2017 at 3:24 PM Tembo and Banja -1964 and Banja -1990 in the new enclosure Back to the history of the Artis Gorillas: 1965 a second wild-caught female - 18 years old - was ( almost ) obtained from Hannover. This animal - Rajah - came from the Lincoln Park Zoo but because Hannover had expected a male they were willing to sell Rajah to Artis. The animal died however already before it reached Artis... 1977 a wild-caught female Gorilla was recieved from Wassenaar but here I'm not sure if this was the breeding-loan of Linda or if another Gorilla from Wassenaar was send to Artis to stay there. Also no name known and no information about the further life-history of this animal. 1984 a wild-caught female from Rotterdam Zoo / Blijdorp arrived but was already send a year later to Tierpark Berlin. If I'm right this must have been Bianka but further information is not known to me. . 1985 Because Tembo had proven to be a good breeder 2 females from Wroclaw were send to Artis but without succes, both females ( names unknown to me ) died the same year... In 1990 Artis started to obtain further Gorilla's for the new constructed Gorilla-enclosure : From Dublin 2 Gorilla's arrived in March 1990 : 7-year old Yaounde, the son of Tembo and Linda and 5 year old Shinda from which I have no further information. From Stuttgart 2 further Gorilla's came in May 1990 : Dafina and Mojoko ( "Moyo") both bred in captivity. Dafina became 1993 the first Gorilla to give birth to a male-baby ( Awali ) at Artis and was the youngest Gorilla to give birth ( she was 6 years and 3 month at the time of the birth ). Awali had to be hand-raised and was later send to the Gorilla-nursery at Stuttgart. Moyo died half Dec. 1997 to the bacteria which also killed Tembo and Banja. After the big set-back of 1997 several zoos send Gorilla's to Artis, among them Duisburg and Apenheul. At the moment Artis has a healthy breeding-group which contained 6 males and 3 females in 2019.
Just came along a very intresting video from Artis made in 1930. The most intresting species in this video is directly at the beginning : an uakari. Artis should have kept 2 different species around this time, the Red and the White uakari :
If I am not mistaken, we see the primate keeper Houtman at 3:03 with 2 Orangutans. He retired after 50 years of being a zookeeper in Artis in 1932. So if this is him and the video has really been recorded in 1930, this places the time of filming between 1930 and 1932.
I Found another old video of Artis, according to the description and title the video was recorded in 1934. At 12:33 you can see the "new penguin" enclosure that according to the quoted post should have been build in 1935. So I persume that this video was not recorded in 1934 but atleast 1 year later. In this clip we see both the African and king penguins. At 01:10 a different penguin enclosure can be seen, similiar to the one in the 1935 newspaper photo. Here we see 3 species of penguin; gentoo, chinstrap and a rockhopper or macaroni species. Credits of the video go to Filmcollectief.
Artis has a long history in keeping Anaconda's. ZTL list the first one being kept at 1858 but it's well possible that the species was kept even before that. Reason for this is that Surinam has long been a colony of the Netherlands and many animals from there were send with some regularity to the Netherlands. ZTL list only animals from the 19th centuary but also in the 20th centuary the species was kept in some numbers. 1902 a female gave even birth to 36 young - a very rare event in those times ! Most prob. this female was already graved when she came to Artis but evenso a nice breeding-result and a large number of the young were raised. A newspaper-article from a year later about the birth of Boa contrictors mentions also the Anaconda-birth from the previous year : Newspaper-article 1903 about the birth of Boa constrictor and Anaconda Althrough in the 20th centuary many more Anaconda's were kept at Artis it took until 1968 for the species was bred a second time. 16 young were born of which 2 were death at birth and one died shortly after birth. This time also the female was already graved when she arrived at Artis : Newspaper-article from 1968. The 1902-birth is also mentioned in this article but it says 'only' 26 young were born. In "Het Artisboek" from 1922 mr. Portielje and mr. Abramsz it's however clearly said that 36 young were born.
Great thread on zoo history. Thanks to all contributors Here are some more World First Beeding succeses of Artis Zoo Amsterdam: Aardvark (Orycteropus afer) 1969 Calabar angwantibo (Arctocebus calabarensis) 1963 Javan banteng (Bos j. javanicus) 1868 Wisent / European bison (Bos bonasus) 1865 Hippo (Hippopotamus amphibicus) 1865 Crested agouti (Dasyprocta leporina) 1849 Sclater's Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius sclaterii) 1939 Verreaux's Eagle-owl (Bubo lacteus) 1971 Lappet-faced vulture (Torgos tracheliotos) 1982 American black vulture (Coragyps atratus) 1904 Triton cockatoo (Cacatua galerita triton) 1968 Goliath heron (Ardea goliath) 1908 Eastern purple heron (Ardea purpurea manilensis) 1912 White-naped crane (Grus vipio) 1910 There is more to come (Maybe next weekend)
as promised more World First Breeding succeses at Artis Zoo Amsterdam Lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus) c. 1870s Short tail nurse shark (Pseudoginglymostoma brevicaudata) 2006 Grey bamboo shark (Chiloscyllium griseum) 1973 (1973 - 1986 Artis Zoo bred 672 grey bamboosharks) Spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus) c. 1916 Mississippi alligator (Alligator mississipiensis) 1915 (European first) Northern Rufescent tiger-heron (Tigrisoma l. lineatum) 1930 Purple-crested turaco (Tauraco porphyreolophus) 1970 (European first) The species bred before at one zoo in South-Africa according to IZY) Common grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) 1974 (European first?) Yellow-fronted woodpecker (Melanerpes flavifrons) 1971 (European first?) Southern busg pig (Potamochoerus larvatus koiropotamus) 1977 Bush dog (Speothos venaticus) 1915 Bawean deer (Axis kuhlii) 1866 West Indian manatee (Trichechus m. manatus) 1977 (European first)
According to the Avicultural Society's "First Breeding Register", yellow-fronted woodpecker bred in the UK in 1961.
Thank you! Much appreciated information for every zoo historian. Which British zoo bred the yellow-fronted woodpecker in 1961?
Thank you! Much appreciated clarification. All the European / World first breedings mentioned in this thread are zoo-breedings, The results of private breeders require an other thread.
Did some further research on the Spectacled caiman breeding and found out it was already in 1913 that Artis bred the species ( see this Dutch newspaper article from Oct. 21 1913 ) :
Thank you very much vogelcommando for your research. Data on fish / amphibian / reptile breeding more than 100 years ago in Artis are not easy to find.But you did
