I want to ask you guys is there any worth visiting zoo/aquarium near Taipei? I won't go to South of Taiwan like the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium. My certain zoo will be Taipei Zoo, any must-see there?Please give me some advice.
Well Taipei has formosan pangolin which is definitely a must-see , I also *heard* it's one of the best zoo in Asia (with all of Singapore's main zoo, Zoorasia and the like) combining a generally good welfare and a great collection.
I will visit Taipei in 11th july or 12th july.Just asking,anyone here keep a species list of Taipei?What is the best time to see the pangolin?Is the bird of paradise hard to spot(or is it still there)?
re Pangolin: When I was there they'd just put a feeding tube thing in. Which was pretty cool because it was see-through and so you got to see the tongue in action^^ I don't know if there's a specific time for that, but it was later in the day. (I also got to go inside the enclosure ) But you should still be able to see it even if it's asleep, because you can see into the "burrow".
Thanks Najade.Actually I have already see a pangolin sleeping so I want to see them eat or moving.I know they were in the formosan part of the zoo which have quite some good species,right?
When I was in Taiwan for a couple of days last year I decided to only visit Taipei Zoo. I had also wanted to go to Hualien to try and see African manatees, but the journey was going to take too long. (Apparently they no longer have African manatees anyway) There are plenty of rarities all around the zoo; as you say the Formosan section holds so many gems, but it's worth taking time to explore the entire zoo. The reptile house, huge bird aviary and hoofstock collection are other highlights, but there are so many other things to watch out for, like the Formosan crab-eating mongoose in the Asian Tropical Zone. Red BoPs were signed (in the aviaries near the cranes) but I didn't see them when I visited in May 2016. There's also a lot of wildlife around. I saw Formosan blue magpies and spent some time looking for snakes (without success, although many species are meant to be common). There are also some frogs in the pools by the butterfly house, and pangolins are meant to be roaming wild on the zoo's enormous site. Visit the entire zoo, even if it takes two days. It's great. Have fun!
And of course seeing so pandas and koalas in China and Japan I have no interest in them.Pangolin,serow,Somali wild ass,Ferrer badger.... That's what I want to see.I've only plan to have one day in the zoo(only Taipei zoo)
According to vision there is only one female red BoP so spotting her is pretty difficult,I think.Also I think their insect house is pretty good too,is that right?
Yeah the insect house is good but there weren't a huge number of inhabitants visible when I was in there. (I'm also less interested in arthropods than I am in vertebrates, so given a choice I revisited the reptile house)
No for couple of reason.First,my trip will mainly be a sightseeing trip with my parents, with a day scrolling through the zoo,and for sightseeing,there is so much other to see in taipei.Second,2 hours by speed train isn't very near.Third,I don't see something interesting in that zoo other than the one that taipei have.
I have been here in 2006 so things must have changed a loooooot since them. But they have extremely interesting species, a fabulous nocturnal house with lots of prosimians (lorises, coucangs...) bobcats, pangolins (not seen), Asian Arowana, an endemic frog Rana swhinhoana, etc etc... Outside nocturnal house, they had many native endemic species, such as Formosan macaque, Formosan serow, Formosan subspecies of wild boar, etc. They had clouded leopards and crested serpent eagles. They had Malay bear and sun bear. They had addax, mountain zebra, elands... When I visited it I was a sort of obsessed with birds so I visited the bird zone with special interest. A big walkthrough aviary was home of scarlet ibises, mynahs, Argus phasants, green peafowl, Swinhoe's pheasant (also endemic of Taiwan), Formosan green pigeons, Nicobar pigeons, etc... labels indicate some more interesting species such as species of night-heron Gorsachius leuconotus, but I was unable to see it, or pigeon Columba pulchricollis.... Outside the walkthrough aviary there was various series of bird enclosures. They hold the unique Black Eagle (Ictinaetus malayensis) sharing enclosure with brahminy kite!!!!!! (a potential prey!) unfortunately, it's aviary starts well over the ground and it's difficult to see the inside. A series of enclosures holds each one a fowl-type bird (pheasants, curassows, etc) and a passerine in each one, one of these is the red bird of paradise, I saw the male (how I wish to have had the camera that I have now... I only got an extremely horrible blurry photo from very far). Other in the same battery have Formosan blue magpie (seen but unable to photograph) and endemic laughing trush Garrulax poecilorhynchus, other hold common magpie. In the opposite side I remember grey junglefowl and crested fireback. In another place they had a battery of enclosures holding the largest collection of cranes together that I've seen ever, including a very aggresive sarus, and very rare black-hooded crane, as well as very rare black-faced spoonbill. Insect house unfortunately was closed during my visit. I have a complete list of species of what I've seen in this visit. If you have interest I can put it here. But probably, eleven years after, it changed a lot...
for interest's sake I would appreciate that a lot. But do it as a separate thread, not attached to this one.
OK, I will send you in a pm. If the starter of this thread wants it, then I also will put it as a reply in this thread.
I would love to have a species list kakapo.BTW,the nocturnal house is under construction from 2012 and will said to finish in this year.Can you list the animal in the nocturnal house separately?
Ok, this is the pm that I've sent to Chlidonias: This is the probably outdated list of animals that I've seen at Taipei Zoo, fortunately I wrote them by hand in a page of my natural history diary (I keep that kind of diary since 2002). The order of the species are more or less the same in that I saw them chronologically, so this can give you a rough idea of the distribution of species inside the zoo. First, the species that I got feathers of (as I was fully in my season of "feather collection obsession"): -Treron formosae -Paradisaea rubra -Sturnus melanopterus -Acridotheres fuscus -Pavo muticus -Grus antigone Second, the species in (roughly) chronological order: -Muntiacus reevesii -Sus scrofa (taiwanese subspecies) -Capricornis swinhoei -Neofelis nebulosa -Melursus ursinus -Macaca cyclopis -Lophura swinhoii -Otus bakkamoena -Hylobates syndactylus -Pongo pygmaeus -Tapirus indicus -Panthera pardus (I saw them mating!) -Helarctos malayanus -Elephas maximus -Panthera tigris -Buceros bicornis -Crocodylus porosus From this point, this is inside the Nocturnal House: -Three arowana species (I only remember Scleropages formosus, but for sure other of them is Osteoglossum bicirrhosum... I can't remember the third) -Macropodus opercularis -Pantodon buccholzi -Mormyrus? -Lepisosteus or Atractosteus sp. -Protopterus sp. -Polypterus, 2 spp. -Chitala chitala of big size -Gnathonemus petersii? (I wrote "elephant mormyrids") -Other fishes -Choloepus didactylus -Hystrix cristata -Hystrix brachyura -Prionailurus bengalensis -Lynx rufus -Leptailurus serval -Cheirogaleus medius -Potos flavus -Nycticebus coucang -Nycticebus pygmaeus -Dasyprocta sp. -Myocastor coypus -Rana swinhoana -Python reticulatus -Atelerix albiventris -Tyto capensis -Strix leptogrammica -Ketupa flavipes (End of the nocturnal house). -Casuarius casuarius -Hylobates lar -Phoenicopterus ruber -Phoenicopterus chilensis -Phoeniconaias minor -Dromaius novaehollandiae -Macropus giganteus or fuliginosus -Camelus bactrianus -Camelus dromedarius -Addax nasomaculatus (I've seen a fight) -Oryx leucoryx -Oryx gazella -Probosciger aterrimus -Ara macao -Ara ararauna -Ara militaris -Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus -Cacatua moluccensis -Spilornis cheela -Haliastur indus -Ictinaetus malayensis -9 species of cranes: all the african ones (B. pavonina, B. regulorum, A. virgo, A. paradisea, B. carunculatus) and G. vipio, G. antigone, G. monacha... I can't remember the 9th, maybe Grus grus?? -Gallus sonneratii -Lophura ignita -Crossoptilon auritum (I believe that this was sharing enclosure with red BoP) -Lophura swinhoii -Lophura nycthemera -Phasianus colchicus -Pavo cristatus -Numida meleagris -Pelecanus onocrotalus -Pelecanus crispus -Ramphastos toco -Ramphastos sulfuratus -Streptopelia orientalis -Columba livia -Caloenas nicobarica -Chalcophaps indica -Goura cristata -Ducula bicolor -Cygnus atratus -Cygnus olor -Tadorna tadorna -Anas clypeata -Anthracoceros malayanus -Equus burchelli (I remember cattle egrets in the same enclosure, not sure if wild of captive) -Equus zebra -Taurotragus oryx -Giraffa camelopardalis -Hippotragus equinus (being topped by a giraffe) -Hexaprotodon liberiensis -Loxodonta africana -Geochelone nigra Added after, while I was remembering them, so not in chronological order: -Platalea minor (with the cranes) -Ciconia ciconia -Leptoptilos crumeniferus -Threskiornis aethiopicus -Eudocimus ruber -Aix galericulata -Aix sponsa -Crax rubra -Urocissa caerulea -Pica pica -Corvus macrorhynchos -Sturnus nigricollis -Acridotheres tristis and other species appart from fuscus (maybe cristatellus?) Wild fauna inside the zoo: mynahs (Acridotheres cristatellus???), an squirrel (probably Callosciurus erythraeus), a dragonfly (Neurothemis ramburii), a butterfly (Papilio polytes). Also I remark that I had not enough time to see all the zoo. Some zones remained unexplored. Sorry for this disorganization and unprecision on species. During my feather collector fever I paid little attention to other animals than birds. Some years ago that fever disappeared and was substituted by the own-photos-of-species collection fever. A loooooot of the animals that I saw was not photographed (for example in the nocturnal house due to poor light conditions), and now I would die for have took photos of some of the species that I probably never will see again!
Great list,kakapo,although I am not familiar with scientific name.It seems like you didn't visit the reptile/amphibian house and the so-called temperate zone area.As I am a more mammal person,you list probably wouldn't help much,but still,very great list!
It was difficult to me to find the english most usual common names of each species for those that have common names. Even with spanish common names would be more difficult to me to write the list than with scientific or true names. If you doubt with some of the species I can search the common names for them. Certainly I don't remember to visit a reptile house. But I vaguerly remember that was one near the Insect House, and the path was blocked because the zone was under reconstruction. So very easily, the reptile house could be also under reconstruction by november 2006 when I visited Taiwan.
