I have to disagree with you. Yes the old Mangrove partly had a better mangrove feeling and more zoo nerd species (but only when it comes to birds, for inverts and fish the new hall is much more interesting, not to mention manatee), but it is unfair to compare that to a hall that is not even a year old. Give it 5-10 years and it will be just as lush. Also in terms of species it will improve, maybe it is a downgrade for now, but they will for sure add more species, especially birds, some reptiles too and hopefully very soon the Jellyfish.. There was hardly any education in the old hall. The two Mangrove signs have been replicated in much better form and there is a lot more education now (and better presented as well), with some nice additional signs on the work Burgers' does in Belize. In addition to that the volunteers who are now stationed in the Mangrove are most helpful (though this has more to do with the new education officer, who does a very good job in general). With the amazing Crab display, the manatees (the animals with the worst enclosure in Burgers' until a year ago), and a lot of butterflies, this hall is for me a lot more interesting than the old one.
Well you are right I got to be fair It is not that I don't like the current mangrove hall, the opposite is the case (I really like it), but it is just not what I expectet What normaly use to be a ten (on a scale from one to ten the best) is for Burgers Zoo not enough since they set new standards A mangrove forest is much more than a lagune, they may have combined the old fluded forest with it Yes no doubt the house needs some time and there is a german saying that you may understand "Am Anfang meckern sie alle" which describes it pretty well The new fish collection is delicate but they are more likely to be kept in private collections than the bird species and because of that easier to obtain That they have chosen (horseshoe and fiddler) crabs again (evenrhough the exhibit is nice, if only that weird fence would not be there) felt like a step back. They did not managed to breed them under quiet similliar conditions at the old house and therefor stoped introducing new ones The butterflys the same, I am no big fan of taking individuals out of their native enviorment if they can not establish a (almost) self-sustaining population in captivity I haven't seen the educational boards, I must have overlooked them, therefor well done Eventhough there are more interesting species many zoochaters would like to see as ambassador for their species at the national park (tapir) All in all the best would have been to add instead of replace and establishing a breeding programm for those species that are not breed yet Thanks for sharing your oppion that helps creating a bigger spectral view onto things
They have a large group of Fiddler crabs behind the scenes that they hope to breed, but I am unsure how realistic that is. I agree with you there, there should be plenty of space around the hall to establish enclosures for Jaguar/Tapir/Monkeys, but who knows what the plans are. There have at least been rumors that they would possibly add White-faced saki to the hall at a later stage. That should be the left part of the mud flat.
Certainly if this article is to be believed then it is very much possible to breed fiddler crabs in captivity - some have been reared to the twelfth generation. It does however seem to partly depend on which species is being bred. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274407164_Breeding_fiddler_crabs_in_captivity
Thanks for the link. Burgers' keeps both Uca rapax and Uca tangeri, both of which have according to your article been bred before in captivity.
I agree with your plant statement, but i have to disagree with your fish statement. The old mangrove had (this is from memory, could be wrong) mudskippers, archerfish and chichlids (zebra?). The new mangrove has more, indeed, but many of them are fish you could find in a petshop. I did like the four eyed fish, but those seem to not do to well in the hall. Im looking forward into seeing what will happen with the new mangrove. Hopefully more species will be added.
Horseshoe crabs and planned introduction of sakis? Both are quite out of place in a Belizean mangrove... I would go for white-shouldered capucins rather than sakis.
They did not have zebra cichlids in the former Mangrove, but they did have Pangasius and a small species, of which I don't remember the name. And are the fish they currently keep all so common in pet shops, quite a few are at least rare in zoos. This is what they currently keep: Redhead cichlid, Lowland cichlid, Salvin's cichlid, Firemouth cichlid, Pantano cichlid, Blue-eye cichlid, Banded astyanax, Liberty molly, Green swordtail, Pike topminnow, Mexican tetra, Yucatan gambusia, Seaweed blenny, Mangrove molly The problem with Capuchin monkeys is that they are omnivorous and Saki have been shown to do fine mixed with birds and butterflies (see Nuremberg).
I haven't visited Burgers Mangrove yet, so I don't know how large it is and if it's possible to include a restricted enclosure for capuchin monkeys. As free roaming species capuchin monkeys are clearly not a good choice. Northern black howlers would be the best choice, being the most folivorous monkey of Belize. How to acquire them is something else... Black-handed spider monkeys are mainly frugivores, so that's a possibility too. I grew up with the manatee bassin of Artis, so the one of Burgers was always quite large to me. It still amazes me how it was possible to keep three manatees in such a small bassin during the nineties. I know the butterflies of Artis and Rotterdam (and maybe Burgers) come from special butterfly farms in Costa Rica and I understood that these are quite eco friendly.
One area where mangrove swamps hold a variety of interesting animals is in Africa. It just reminded me of a clip from the 1998 documentary 'Tale of the Tides', filmed in Northern Kenya. Apparently among the animals that appear in the whole documentary are striped hyaena (eating what it can find on the strandline), crested porcupines (which feed on sea beans), vervet monkeys (which hunt for crabs), caracals (that, in turn, hunt the monkeys), crab-plovers, Nile monitor lizards, octopus, moray eels, squid, porcupinefish, clownfish, mudskippers, whale sharks, groupers and crabs (which appear to be the most important animal in mangroves worldwide). Other animals in Africa that visit mangrove swamps that did not (to my knowledge) appear in this documentary include clawless otters, marsh mongoose, hippopotamus, crocodiles and bull sharks. There is a lot of potential for an African-themed mangrove exhibit, although a fair few of the species are by no means specialists of that habitat.
Mudskippers always makes me happy, and especially when they are set up in a paludarium with archers, four-eyed fish and scats. I've seen that some mudskipper setups om captivity have an ebb and flow system. I'm not sure if zoos and aquariums do the same, but I love when aquarists do so.
Scats are fish. The family Scatophagidae contains a couple of species, but the best known is the spotted scat (Scatophagus argus) [argusvis in Dutch] from the Indo-Pacific region. I've seen it recently in the mangrove section of Cairns Aquarium (see Cairns Aquarium - Cairns Aquarium species list for a full species list of this section by Najade).
Perhaps worth noting that there actually is a single truly euryhaline (=can live in water of various salinities) species: the crab-eating frog, which lives in mangrove in Asia. There are others that can tolerate low salinities for a period (e.g., the well-known natterjack), but none matching the crab-eating frog. All cephalopods are strictly marine. Although they may, on occasion, turn up in mangrove, they are unable to survive in places with reduced salinity, whether permanent or periodic. Neither of the fish listed above ever turn up in mangrove, but some of their relatives do: some damselfish live in mangrove and several sharks live in mangrove (examples already mentioned in earlier posts). A huge number of fish occur in mangrove habitats. Just to mention a few of the more interesting that haven't been mentioned in earlier posts: -Rays, numerous species: mangrove whipray, golden cownose ray, sawfish, etc. -Nurseryfish (strange breeding behavior). -Mangrove rivulus (extremely robust, can even survive for months on land; breeds mainly by self-fertilization). -Medaka (a model organism; first vertebrate to breed in space). That depends on how strictly it is limited to Belize or if it includes nearby regions. Atlantic horseshoe crabs are found along the Yucatan coast in Mexico, having been recorded only a couple of hundred km from Belize. These Mexican horseshoe crabs primarily live in mangrove. However, the Atlantic horseshoe crabs in public aquariums originate from more northern populations that live in relatively cold water and they wouldn't survive long in tropical temperatures. Until someone gets individuals from the tropical populations, mangrove aquariums are limited to the Asian mangrove horseshoe crab and it would indeed be misplaced in a Belize exhibit.
I didn't know that, so thanks for the info! I thought Atlantic horseshoe crabs only lived in the temperate waters of eastern North America.
Any tip to distinguish both species in the Mangrove? They looks like very similar and I would like to know how to tag my photos of them...
Uca tangeri is the larger of the two, and is more blueish of colour. Uca rapax is significantly smaller and has a redish colour.
