Hi', just returned from my travel! Very satisfactory and I enjoyed a lot. Overall, photographing infinite number of new species at the incredible Natural History Museum - and old-style dipslay of endless cabinets ordered taxonomically with countless rarities of the almost every animal group, from cestodes to priapulids and of course also infinite vertebrates and insects and fossils. Haus des Meeres was very pleasing to visit, I never has been in an aquarium that consist of a tall, 11 floor building instead a wide and low one as usual. Sadly, the two most extremely superexciting animals in the whole of Austria, the bowfin and the bearded leatherjacket, passed away both in Haus des Meeres after I asked the staff about them. And as expected, the countless rarities of small toothcarps and livebearers are BTS. But what remains is very enjoyable and it includes what I would rate as the best zoo exhibit I visited ever, only rivalled by Burger's Mangrove maybe. A two-floow tropical jungle where marmosets, sakis, bats, all sort of birds (guans, turacos, hornbills and various passerines), turtles and every kind of freshwater tropical medium-sized fishes, roam freely around you, and with every animal being extremely tame as for let you approach by millimeters, but also not interacting with visitors as they know visitors are not a source of food. So just the perfect grade of tameness for seeing every bird and monkey and bat and fish at zero distance without afraid them and seeing also them interact with themselves. Tiergarten Schönbrunn was nice, nothing extremely spectacular but definitely worth a visit. I would say it's comparable to Madrid zoo-aquarium or Wüppertal zoo. All the rare chameleons and small freshwater fishes that ZTL announces for here are BTS. As Jakub said, the broadbill is signed but one must have many luck to find a green bird that don't move in the foliage of an endless treetop jungle. I didn't found it, but I saw most of the other bird species announced for this exhibit, despite floor level being closed to public. Rats House was open, but I only saw the domestic fancy Brown Rats and the Northern Luzon rats, not the Gambian Pouched ones that was the interesting ones for me. They was signed, but no-show. If red-billed starling is on show, then it must be in the False Gharial walkthrough "dry forest" enclosure with marmosets, turtles, big fishes and many birds. The problem is that many normal Red-winged starlings live here and I don't know how to distinguish both species. The Blue-backed manniking that Jurek7 asked about are in the tropical aviaries in the right border of the zoo near the gibbons. First aviary is African-themed and the other American-themed, obviously the mannakins are in the latter. There are various individuals and they're very conspicuous and easy to spot both visually and acustically. They're very restless tough, so difficult to take a good photo as they are alwasy hoping from branch to branch or taking short flights. Visited also Desert House and Palm House - near the zoo, but not part of it - I expected more animal species at Desert House, and more labelling in the succulent plants. I also visited nearby Slovakia, passing a night in the High Tatras where I was lucky to find one of my most dreamed animals ever, the Blue Slug (Bielzia coerulans) endemic of the mountain chains of this zone.
Did you manage to see widowbirds in the african aviary? I have visited the zoo twice before but I can’t remember a walk-through with false gharials and marmosets. Just checked the map and did not manage to find it. Where is it?
Yes, I saw an splendid male widowbird pecking some greens at the feeder. And yes, the gharials are in Haus des Meeres, with cotton-top tamarins, red-winged starlings, emerald starlings, bearded barbets, red-crested turacos, giant gouramis, red-tailed catfishes, pacus and more (and a tube of leafcutter ants through the exhibit). I saw the false gharial almost catching a turtle that approached to him too much because a piece of lettuce ended just in the gharial's snout. It sounded like a shoot in the water, and a member of staff went here inmediately for see what is happening - and I explained her what I saw.
Yes the Vienna Museum has one of the four remaining mounted blaubok skins (the other three being in Paris, Leiden and Stockholm). Frustratingly neither Vienna's blaubok nor quagga have ever been on exhibit on any of my visits.
BTW - according to staff of Haus des Meers, there is no Slender-billed Red-winged Starling in the collection, only Red-winged Starlings O. morio.
Very usefull report as I hope to visit these three facilities next week. Do you have to buy tickets online for Tiergarten, Haus des Meeres and/or Museum or can you just buy these on location? More or less the same for Leiden. Their quagga (the last individual ever) was only on display in a temporary exhibit last year, but otherwise the blaubok, quagga, thylacine and so many other recently extinct mammals and other rarities like striped rabbit are held off-show.
I've only visited the Leiden Museum once (when I attended a meeting of the Society for the History of Natural History that was held in the museum). Both Leiden's quagga and blaubok were on exhibit then. It's a great shame that they no longer are.
Dear @AWP I bought the tickets directly on location for all three places without any problem. The only slightly more complicated place is Haus des Meeres that ask you for a vaccinate certification proof for entry, but once shown, they sell you the ticket directly.
My only visit to the Leiden Museum was in 2007. Incidentally, apologies for further digression from Vienna, but I was very interested by your comment that the Leiden Museum quagga was the "last individual ever". According to quagga expert Reinhold Rau, the Leiden quagga was acquired between 1830 and 1833 (about fifty years before the last quagga died in Amsterdam Zoo). The last quagga died in Amsterdam Zoo on 12th August 1883 and Reinhold Rau lists it as being in the Amsterdam Museum (also off-exhibit). Was the Amsterdam quagga loaned to Leiden for the temporary exhibition you mention?
The zoological collection of the University of Amsterdam was merged with that Leiden and is now stored at Naturalis.
