Which echidna species did London keep in the 1970s - 90s period? According to ztl bruijnii was kept from 1899 - 1901 and again 1912 - 1943. bartoni was kept from 1965 - 1994. I have a guide book from 1983 that has an echidna photo labeled Bruijn's and some older members remember seeing bruijnii at London. I assume ztl I'd wrong?
'The Mammals' by Desmond Morris (1965) listed 3 species of long-beaked echidnas: the Bruijn's echidna (Zaglossus bruijnii) had 3 or 4 toes per fore foot and the Barton's echidna (Z. bartoni) and Bubu echidna (Z. bubuensis) had 5 toes per fore foot. In the 1970s, London Zoo's long-beaked echidnas were listed as Zaglossus bruijni, but I had my doubts. I spent some time watching an echidna watching around its enclosure in the Moonlight World and waited for it to put up one of its fore feet, so I could count the toes. It had 5 toes on a fore foot, indicating that it was not Z. bruijni. I have seen the type specimen of the Bubu echidna at London's Natural History Museum, but I do not know if there are any other specimens, so I considered London Zoo to have Barton's echidnas. For a time, Z. bruijni incorporated Z. bartoni and Z. bubuensis (Taxonomic history of the genus Zaglossus) until the species was again split. The three extant species are Z. bruijni, Z. bartoni (Species Zaglossus bubuensis - Nomenclature & Taxonomy - The Taxonomicon) and the Attenborough's echidna (Z. attenboroughi). There is a specimen of Z. bartoni in Bonn's Alexander Koenig Zoological Museum.
The long-beaked echidnas in London Zoo's Clore Pavilion were always labelled Zaglossus bruijni but they were considered to belong to the bartoni sub-species and were listed as such in some of the annual reports. During that period, bartoni was only considered a sub-species but, by today's taxonomy, it is considered a distinct species.
