Ranking the stars; what are the popular zoo animals?

Usually big companies and/or rich people. Sometimes it could be also crowdfunding effort i. e. some school deciding to adopt something, raising money from teachers, students and their parents and then adopting something that is in the range of amount raised. We did it at my elementary school many years ago and we ended up adopting addax and a some crane species IIRC.

Also for these big sponsors, Prague usually does something "extra." I mean, one of the Silvery gibbon offspring is called "Silver Arrow" because of Mercedes sponsoring...

 

I can't work anything yet, I have visited 12 zoos.
50: dolphins, giant panda
45: elephants, meerkat, seals, giraffe, polar bear, apes
40: catta, koala, baboon, hippo, rhino, cheetah, bears, giant tortoise
35: ostrich, big cats, zebra, camel, llamas, eagles and vultures, crocodiles, pythons
30: monkeys, bison, domestical goat, tapir, canids, sloth, parrots, flamingos
25: antelopes, deer, other carnivores, small tortoise, caimans
20: barking deer, wild goats, takin, duikers, capybaras
15: other reptiles, little birds, insect-eater mammals, rabbits, maras
minus infinite: rats, mouses, little snakes, insects

 

Using the information from these posts, here are the most popular animals:

1 Giant panda 48
2 Apes 45
3 Old World monkeys, orcas, beluga, white tiger 44
7 Dolphins 43
8 Tiger, polar bear, elephants, penguins, whale shark 42
13 Koala, whales, lion 41
16 Ring-tailed lemur, giraffe, rockhopper penguin 40
19 New World monkeys, great apes, gorilla 38
22 Orang-utan, puma, sharks 37
25 Manatees, bears, hippo 36
28 Chimpanzee, meerkat, black leopard, black jaguar, snow leopard, sea lions, dugong, king penguin, pythons 35
37 Bonobo, brown bear, red panda, rhinos, manta ray 34

 

I've been to quite a lot of zoos - but where are Manta Rays, Dugong, Whales and Whale Sharks, the 'popular zoo animals'?

 

You'll have to ask the Zoochatters who gave them high marks.

 

A quick reminder for everyone who would still like to participate. I will wait until the end of this week for responses. The easiest way to contribute is via this survey:

Zoo animal popularity

You could have spared yourself the effort, as I will be doing this once all replies have come in and I have standardized them. You will have missed at least 16 responses from another forum and the survey...

Aquariums that do have Manta Rays and Whale Sharks use them a lot in their marketing and they are their drawcard animals (think Georgia Aquarium). Also in any zoo in which Manatees are properly displayed (every zoo except Berlin basically) you will find a lot of attention for Manatees with many people being fascinated by them. They have star appeal in e.g. River Safari, Nuremberg and Burgers' Zoo. So I am not really surprised about these rankings.

 

@lintworm Are you still focusing mainly on Europe or worldwide? I initially didn't notice that you were planning to do that and was going to contribute. If you are covering worldwide, I will try and fill in the survey.

 

In total I got 33 responses from zoo nerds who were willing to fill in the questionnaire, a big thanks to all of you!

When analyzing the results I found relatively high agreement across most users on the popularity of most groups/species groups (more about that below). When comparing to the little available literature my results are pretty comparable overall, with the same species mentioned as popular. The big exception to this are otters. Small-clawed Otters only come on rank 41, below flamingos, lemurs, manatees and others. But this is an exception rather than the rule. In general my results also show that mammals, especially large ones, and active animals are more popular, just as species which have a high cuddlyness factor. in total there were 21 species that were given on average 35 points or more out of 50, shown in the graph below:



Note that you cannot say based on just these data that e.g. penguins are more popular than sea lions, just that both are among the most popular taxa. It is also important to note that a priori popularity (attractiveness) doesn't necessarily mean that visitors spend time looking at these animals in practice. That also depends on interactions, animal activity and likely on enclosure design. As an example, nobody would give high points for Fiddler Crabs on attractivity, but people in Burgers' Zoo spend a lot of time observing these animals, due to the enclosure design.

The least popular species (groups) were amphibians, small birds, Elephant-shrews, small rodents, waterfowl and fowl and hedgehogs. Echidna and Hyrax also didn't exactly score many points, just like other small mammals and ectotherms.

There was relatively high disagreement (based on standard deviations) for several groups. Most disagreement was about how popular (in decreasing order) Whale Sharks, Belugas, Manta Rays, Platypus, Octopus, Peacocks, Orcas, Clownfish, Dolphins, Ostriches, Komodo Dragons and some other fish groups are for the general zoo going public. So generalizing, there is higher disagreement for popularity of fish, birds and animals about which there are serious welfare concerns.

Stay tuned for more, such as which European zoos have the most popular collection, both in total score, but also relative to their total species richness.

 

It looks like popularity is largely a function of intensity of the optical stimulus: has to be large, colorful and move a lot.

However, of course, presentation, interaction and a social group matter a lot. For example, a group of chimps with a youngster is much more attractive than a group of adults, which are much less active.

 

Can you post the full list please?

 

Just a note that some results based on this data on which European zoos house the most (and least) popular collections can be found here:
The most comprehensive European zoo collections

For now I won't do so in public, but I can answer smaller queries .

 

These are common/well-known zoo animals that I decided to rank.

Mammals:

Orcas & Dolphins: 45
Elephants: 40
Giraffes: 35
Lions: 40
Tigers: 45
Jaguars: 25
Leopards: 25
Cheetahs: 30
Polar Bears: 35
Brown & Black Bears: 30
Pandas: 50
Walrus: 30
Seals & Sea Lions: 40
Rhinos: 35
Hippopotamus: 40
Okapi: 15
Camels: 20
Zebras: 30
Buffalo: 10
Moose & Deer: 10
Antelope & Gazelles: 10
Tapir: 5
Warthog: 20
Domestic Livestock (horses, cows, goats, etc): 20
Gorillas: 40
Chimpanzees: 30
Orangutans: 25
Gibbons: 15
Monkeys: 35
Lemurs: 30
Sloths: 35
Wolves: 20
Hyenas: 15
Fennec Foxes: 35
Other Foxes: 10
Small Cats: 15
Kangaroos: 35
Wallabies: 15
Koalas: 48
Tasmanian Devils: 25
Wombats: 20
Other Marsupials: 10
Platypuses: 30
Meerkats: 40
Bats: 10
Anteater: 6
Aardvark: 17
Pangolin: 3
Porcupines: 10
Capybara: 5
Beavers: 15
Prairie Dogs: 30
Naked Mole Rats: 15
Literally Every Other Rodent: 3

Birds:

Ostriches: 30
Emus: 10
Cassowaries: 15
Eagles: 38
Hawks & Falcons: 15
Vultures: 10
Secretary Birds: 25
Owls: 35
Penguins: 45
Flamingos: 40
Cranes: 17
Storks & Herons: 7
Shoebill: 15
Ibises & Spoonbills: 7.5
Pelicans: 10
Gulls: 3
Puffins: 30
Swans: 10
Geese: 5
Ducks: 15
Peafowl: 40
Turkeys: 6
Pheasants: 5
Chickens: 3
Curassows: 3
Hornbills: 10
Toucans: 25
Macaws & Parrots: 30
Turacos: 7.5
Pigeons & Doves: 5
Woodpeckers: 8.5
Kookaburras: 25
Other Kingfishers: 8
Shorebirds (lapwings, plovers, stilts, etc): 10
Superb Lyrebird: 30
Every Other Passerine: 2-25; Usually depending on how colorful or noisy the bird is

Reptiles & Amphibians:

Crocodilians: 40
Giant Tortoises: 23
Smaller Tortoises: 10
Sea Turtles: 45
Regular Turtles: 15
Komodo Dragons: 35
Iguanas & Tegu Lizards: 10
Gila Monsters: 4
Chameleons: 13
Blue-Tounged Skink: 10
Other Skinks: 3
Geckos: 5
Pythons & Anacondas: 30
Venomous Snakes: 25
Non-Venomous Snakes: 8
Toads: 4
Poison Dart Frogs: 14
Every Other Frog: 3

Invertebrates:

Octopuses: 37
Squid & Cuttlefish: 15
Nautiluses: 7
Japanese Spider Crab: 25
Regular Crabs: 3
Lobsters: 5
Butterflies & Moths: 2-10; Depending on how colorful it is
Bees: 1
Spiders & Tarantulas: 7
Every Other Insect: 1-3
Coral: 0

Fish:

Whale Sharks: 50
Pelagic Sharks: 45
Small Sharks & Dogfish: 20
Manta Rays: 35
Stingrays: 17
Large “Gamefish” ( tuna, trevally, jacks, etc): 19
Colorful, Tropical Fish (Tangs, surgeonfish, angelfish): 8

With fish it’s flat-out simple: If it’s not one of these fish above, usually the average zoo guest could care less.