Slender Lorises, Duct Tape, and Whataburger: A Fish on Dry Land

Fixed, except for the teaser in the previous review which I can't edit now. Relatively easy change.

I didn't realize it was still called Rio Grande. For clarification, ABQ Biopark isn't just the zoo: it refers to the entire campus, which includes the aquarium and botanic garden. I didn't have time to do either of those, thus I only saw the zoo portion of ABQ Biopark.

I've seen both of them before at LA and SD. I love Tazzies, but the real disappointment for me was the wombat as I've only seen Southern Hairy-nosed. Albuquerque has one of the only Commons in the country. Either way, a return visit might be warranted if I pass through there after renovations are done...

Check the gallery

Noted. I've never regularly eaten at Arby's and it's been a year or two since I last went before this, so I have yet to sample everything on their menu. I'm sure it's all good though.

I'll wait until the review before I go into too much detail, but I liked Oklahoma Trails a lot - on the whole, maybe more than Sanctuary Asia actually. It'll be interesting to see how the upcoming African area turns out, as it's quite ambitious in scale.

 

Yeah, when they changed the name of the park to ABQ Biopark, it became ABQ BioPark zoo. Even has it on the map you posted lol. I knew where you meant, at least. See, when you don't go in the gift shops to see all the branded merch, you don't notice these things!

I've only seen southern hairy-nosed as well, at Columbus and Toronto. Just convince yourself it was probably sleeping and barely visible, anyway.

Thank you Cheetah photos should always make the review, though

I had to drive 15 minutes to get my booster tonight and passed two Arby's on the way. Definitely one of my favorite fast food places, even after they switched from pepsi products to coke.

 

Day 3: Came for the Tayra and Tanuki, Stayed for the Whataburger

Ah, Oklahoma. The land of a famous song, lots of tornadoes, and some bison... yep, think that about covers it. As it happens, none of the three things I came to see/do in Oklahoma are actually *from* Oklahoma: tayra and tanuki come from Latin America and Japan respectively, and Whataburger was founded and is primarily based in Texas. But what better place to get Texas fast food than Occupied North Texas?


[Source: Randall Munroe, xkcd: Orbiter]

I felt surprisingly good for barely sleeping at all in Amarillo, and after another mediocre McDonald’s breakfast I hit the road for my 4-hour trip to the next zoo. I had continued having trouble with my duct tape situation the previous evening, and left as early as I could manage this morning to avoid the issue. Fortunately, Lady Luck (who lives in Oklahoma I guess?) smiled upon me and my sad sack car today, with the tape holding up the entire way to Oklahoma City. Therefore, I was able to arrive in the parking lot at noon on the dot. My camera was fully charged with electricity, my brain was fully charged with Monster Energy Drink, and my motivation was fully charged with the prospect of rare carnivores.

Oklahoma City Zoo

Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Size: ~65 acres (much of it under construction currently)
Species Count: 209
Closed Areas: future African area (under construction), inside of Noble Aquatic Center
Rarities: Tanuki, Nine-banded Armadillo, Galapagos Giant Tortoise (C. vandenburghi type)
Price: $12 admission
Time: 4.5 hours
Recommended Time: 4-5 hours currently; once African complex opens, 5-6 hours minimum or entire day

Species List: Oklahoma City Zoo Species List - Nov 2021 [Oklahoma City Zoo]
Media Gallery: Oklahoma City Zoo - ZooChat

I was saved from running out of time at OKC Zoo by the fact that a solid chunk of it is a field of red earth and bulldozers surrounded by chain link fencing; that area will soon become Expedition Africa, opened on the former location of a Pachyderm House (which once held the country’s oldest Pygmy Hippo) and a handful of other odds and ends. As a result of the construction, there were a few African animals randomly scattered about, including lions rotating with painted dogs and a pair of bat-eared foxes at the front of the Oklahoma native complex. I pretended not to notice – it’s the polite thing to do when someone’s house looks weird during remodeling – and started my roughly clockwise loop through the zoo.



I wasn’t actually sure where the Tayra was supposed to be and the Tanuki were (I thought) only at the back end of the zoo in the Asian complex; therefore, I decided to hit the Herpetarium first so I could make sure to get a full species list. The building looked small from the outside, which makes sense because it appears to be an older building; I thought I had recalled OKC having a pretty solid herp collection, so I wondered how they could fit it into such a small building.



I quickly found out how; they sacrificed walkway space in order to shove ~60 species of herp into a building smaller than many people’s houses. It barely fits people without strollers going one way, and you would win money by betting that people weren’t only going one way and without strollers! Several times I had to just turn around and backtrack around the building’s loop because I couldn’t get past. In my opinion this is a poor and outdated design, especially given the current pandemic regime: narrow hallways and low ceilings make social distancing impossible, almost nobody besides myself was wearing a mask despite signage outside encouraging people to do so (which is pretty much the norm in Oklahoma), and this particular state is one of the least vaccinated in the country. Hopefully after the current projects are finished the zoo will prioritize building a new herpetarium; they have a great collection, but frankly at the moment it’s not displayed very effectively.



Other than the crowded walkways, the enclosures were well-furnished if smaller than what I would prefer to see. A few rarities cropped up among the 60-odd species in the collection, including Lake Titicaca Frog, Halmahera Gecko and Python, Kanburian and Sri Lankan Palm Pitvipers, Northern Yellow-faced Turtle, Klemmer’s Day Gecko, and Laos Warty Newt (the latter two of which I did not see unfortunately). The Lake Titicaca Frog in particular was a great find: as some of you may know, the population of these unusual frogs started out at Denver only a few years ago and has ballooned at an incredible pace... to the point of quickly becoming one of the more common amphibians on the continent in the span of just a couple years! To my recollection this was my first look at one, though unfortunately I did not get any photos worth sharing.


Sri Lankan Pit Viper

Moving on to the rest of the zoo: I swept through the children’s zoo because I’m a completionist at heart. The species of note here is the Galapagos Giant Tortoise, specifically Chelonoidis vandenburghi. I’m not 100% solid on my revised Chelonoidis taxonomy, but to my recollection OKC has the only breeding group in the country. They were sitting out on the lawn eating grass, as unaware as the guests of how unique they are.



I found a nice surprise just past the Herpetarium and children’s zoo: the Dan Moran Aviary, a building that is barely noticeable on the map. It turned out to be a small but nice little building, if for no other reason than it was blissfully quiet and empty compared to the packed Herpetarium. A middle walkway winded past four mixed-species enclosures separated from each other and visitors by mesh. A total of 18 species inhabited the building, including a few notable ones like Curl-crested Aracari, Yellow-breasted Ground Dove, and Hooded Pitta (unseen, as is their MO). Down the path from the aviary was a row of four outdoor cages for a few hardier temperate birds, including a pair of Laughing Kookaburra.



Friends, I couldn’t help myself; I did a bad thing. I heard from someone that it’s fairly easy to set Kookaburras off into a raucous cacophany, and I wanted to try it for myself. While a small handful of visitors watched me strangely, I pulled Youtube open on my phone and started playing clips of Kookaburra calls. At first the birds just glared at me, their mouths slightly agape like they wanted to tell me off but also didn’t want to give me the satisfaction. By the second video however, they’d had enough. A ripple of chattering erupted from their throats, and within seconds myself and those standing around me were treated to a true Australian display of nature’s most obnoxious home security system. Everyone was impressed; one guy even laughed and clapped me on the back, as if I’d walked in on a pickup basketball game and made a three-pointer from half court. Unfortunately, the kookaburras were genuinely riled up: one of them flew to the back of the cage to build up steam, then began divebombing the front mesh to get at me. I had stopped playing the video as soon as I had gotten them calling, but I had to leave pretty soon after that as the bird continued to divebomb towards me and I didn’t want it to get hurt. Word of warning: always be careful when messing with any animal from the island continent.

The next couple hours were slightly less eventful. I looked out onto a large lake where wild gulls flocked, some sea lions inhabited a rocky pool at a building that once housed dolphins, and a row of raptor aviaries had perhaps the most bizarre species mix I have ever seen (Andean Condor, White-necked Raven, Red Junglefowl, and Helmeted Guineafowl – making me, I’m pretty sure, the first ZooChatter in history to have a photograph of a condor and a proto-chicken standing next to each other). A row of small grottoes seemed innocuous at first, but the last one surprised me – a pair of sleeping Tanuki! Apparently the zoo needed a second enclosure for them and so they ended up on the other side of the zoo.




The next couple of complexes were for cats and great apes. The cat complex, I now know, is where the Tayra used to be. I say used to be because the enclosure that once held them now has a Fishing Cat (one of three enclosures for that species in the complex) and Tayra was nowhere to be found throughout the zoo. Dang it. The cat complex was decent, with 7 species housed across several enclosures. The ape complex was also fine but not particularly memorable; the apes were fairly inactive when I was around and I’d seen all of them plenty of times before, so I decided to head up and check out the still fairly new Sanctuary Asia.

The first exhibits you see in Sanctuary Asia are older and for the zoo’s elephant herd. This might be the most impressive-looking elephant complex I’ve seen at any zoo, full stop. I saw a total of 6 Asian elephants living across three regular yards and a demonstration yard where keepers were attempting to entice a young elephant to come through a gate by throwing pieces of fruit by it (to little avail – the youngster was far more interested in the dead leaves that had accumulated in the demo yard). The yards were giant lawns with fresh-looking grass, massive wooden shade platforms, and a large elephant-deep pool. You could look inside part of the massive elephant barn with Asian motifs as well. The whole complex was great, and seeing half a dozen elephants in total was a treat.



Past the elephants was the rest of the complex that opened more recently. This included two massive yards for Indian Rhinoceros, including a mother and youngster; a netted enclosure for Francois’ Langur and two more Tanukis (including an all-white individual!); a pair of Cassowaries; outdoor and indoor enclosures for a Komodo Dragon, which can be seen from inside the Lotus Pavilion (where one can buy zoo-made American Chinese food – a fact I wish I had known before I snacked on chicken tenders an hour or so earlier); and a habitat for Red Pandas that culminates in a dead end. A path by the cassowaries and Komodo leads back down to the apes. The complex is impressive in scale and seems to be a worthwhile addition to the zoo, although personally I found it too low in species for my taste. It has a strong pan-Asian motif to it, if you can tell:



The final complex was Oklahoma Trails, where I hoped to pick up a few more species for ZCCNA – and that I did. The complex is home to a staggering 68 species, of which only two (Bat-eared Fox and Seba’s Short-tailed Bat) were not native to the United States. The exhibits follow one long loop, with a patch of woodland in the middle where Northern Cardinals were excitedly chirping and sorting through the leaf litter. The outdoor enclosures feature a large Bison yard; very large, rolling yards for Grizzly and American Black Bears (the Grizzlies were unseen – they had dug a burrow into the ground to doze in, as apparently they do every winter); a large yard for elderly Whooping Cranes that looked beautiful with the fall foliage; and several other enclosures for ungulates, birds, carnivores, prairie dogs, and alligators. A mixed-species aviary held many native birds, including Mourning Dove, Northern Bobwhite, Ring-necked Pheasant, Killdeer, and a variety of waterfowl.




The highlight for me was inside the red barn-turned-small nocturnal house, Creatures of the Night. I suspected the Tayra might be here – after all, the Seba’s bats weren’t Oklahoma natives – but alas it wasn’t. However, I found another surprise: a Nine-banded Armadillo, sleeping in a plastic tub half-buried in wood chips. This was my first ever living Nine-banded – in a zoo or wild – and in captivity it’s roughly as rare as Tayra. It also counted for ZCCNA like a Tayra. Needless to say, I walked away a satisfied customer.




The last few odds and ends required backtracking on the Oklahoma loop, and consisted of the remaining remnants of the African collection: a few hoofstock in large grassy yards and a series of newer chain-link enclosures for painted dogs and cheetahs. The last enclosure of the day was the giraffe paddock; my camera’s battery finally gave in immediately after I took my last photo of the day there, as if it instinctively knew how long I would need to depend on it. It’s learning...

In short: the Oklahoma City Zoo is a great zoo with some cool species and lots of very nice-looking exhibits. I love autumn and thought that the fall foliage (still clinging on this far south in late November) added to the aesthetic, but I’m sure it looks nice in spring and summer as well. I ended up finishing the zoo around 4:45 PM with almost no rushing except on the last few enclosures (and that was mainly because my camera battery was in the red), so an improvement over the previous day’s nail-biting performance.

Traveling

As with Albuquerque, it was dark by the time I got out of OKC. Fortunately, it was only 5 hours to my next city and zoo, and the next zoo would be smaller than today’s; therefore, I knew I could drive part of the way there, catch up on sleep, wake up the next morning and drive the remaining couple of hours. I ended up driving 3 hours to a small town just over the border in Arkansas. It’s like Kansas, but with more “ar”. Also it’s pronounced differently, and it looks completely different and people have different accents and cultures. Basically, it’s nothing like Kansas.

Hey, I didn’t name this stuff; I just live here.

Fast Food Review of the Day: Whataburger

“What a burger!” You get it. Whataburger is a staple food group for Texans; it’s known for good burgers (obviously) and also for being one of the only places - sometimes the only place! - open 24 hours in a Texas town. If you look at a location map of Whataburgers for Texas, it seems almost like they have a mandate: Leave No Hungry Texans Behind. The company was gracious enough to allow a few stores to open up in Occupied North Texas as well, and it is to one of these I ventured last night.

I got a classic double-patty burger, fries, and a specialty milkshake – chocolate mint (in case you weren't able to tell by now, I like my milkshakes). I had read that the single-patty burger might be too little for some people, but I don’t think I was the target audience; I barely finished it and the fries, and had to pathetically empty my milkshake in small sips through the rest of the trip to Arkansas so my stomach wouldn’t rupture en route. The burger was great; it was similar to the slightly charred outside of In ‘n Out patties, but beefier and juicier – basically more oomph. The fries were crispy and had a great taste to them; I’d be comfortable saying they rank near the top of fast food fries, although it’s hard to beat the curly fries from Arby’s. The milkshake was thick and tasty as well.

Verdict: if you ever go to Texas – or the ONT – feel free to swing by Whataburger and give it a try. Who knows, you might even see political superstar Beto O’Rourke skateboarding in the parking lot.

 

Another great review.

You were *that guy* with the kookaburra. Ugh, *that guy* is awful.

Sorry about the tayra, they're such nice animals. I'm always a surprised when people mention the rarity of nine-banded armadillos, there's at least 7 places within 3 hours of me that have them. I wouldn't expect this area to be an armadillo species hot spot.

I love that the bears get to dig their own den! I haven't heard of any other zoo doing that, probably some of the larger ones like Northwest Trek maybe.

I tried whataburger on my texas trip. Found it underwhelming, and the menu was confusing.

 

Thanks very much for your review of Oklahoma City Zoo, and I'll make a number of comments that echo what I added to some of your photos yesterday (not everyone notices the photo comments).

The brand-new Predator Pass, with its Cheetahs and African Wild Dogs, looks like a pretty good addition to the zoo. When I visited in 2008, this exact same area held Cheetahs, African Wild Dogs, Bush Dogs, Spotted Hyenas, Black-backed Jackals, Mexican Grey Wolves, Maned Wolves and Bat-eared Foxes. All of those EIGHT species had decent exhibits and now the zoo has gone down to TWO species on the same footprint and so that's a bit disappointing.

Here are three examples of the old 'Wild Dog Drive':

Spotted Hyena exhibit (2008):



Maned Wolf exhibit (2008):



Bush Dog exhibit (2008):



I think that Elephant Habitat and Sanctuary Asia have been tremendous additions to the zoo in recent years, but out of curiosity I looked up my 2008 road trip thread and Oklahoma City had a number of interesting hoofstock species back then. The Hoofstock Row at the top of the zoo (now Sanctuary Asia) held Gerenuk, Bontebok, Sable Antelope, Greater Kudu, Somali Wild Ass and others. Where Expedition Africa is going used to be known as Deer Ravine, with Tufted Deer, Pere David's Deer, Hog Deer, Sika Deer and Chinese Goral. I even saw Black Rhinos and Pygmy Hippos nearby.

It seems as if the zoo has improved considerably, but also lost a LOT of cool species at the same time. Another example is Oklahoma Trails, with you noting 68 species during your visit. The zoo's own website states that this area has "more than 100 different species of animals" and "more than 800 individual animals" but those numbers harken back to 2007 when the exhibit opened and the website's description has never been altered. You didn't mention the signage in the Oklahoma Trails section of the zoo, but that is another real highlight with Indigenous-themed, attractively painted signs. That area really is like a zoo-within-a-zoo.

Even the Cat Forest zone has gone from 9 species (in 2008) to 7 species. The Noble Aquatic Center had the existing pinniped pool (which I called "small" and "below par" even back then...I would likely be appalled seeing it again now). That building had a couple of levels of aquarium tanks, which weren't that impressive but has led to yet more species gone from the collection.

Overall, the zoo has added (since 2007) the Children's Zoo, Elephant Habitat, Zoo Museum, Sanctuary Asia, an Animal Hospital and Predator Pass. Next up is the big project known as Expedition Africa, and then of course long-term goals will be to revitalize the former Aquatic Center/pinniped exhibit and build a new Herpetarium. The current Reptile House (as noted in the review above) is tiny and cramped, but it is almost a century old and was built in 1928. The zoo has bred more than 100 species in those close confines, which is hugely impressive and deserving of a shiny new building one day.

 

The bears at Henry Vilas dig their own dens.

It's not hard to make a kookaburra to call using just you own voice - whistling usually does the trick, and they don't get as mad as they do when they hear a recording.

 

They just brought back cheetahs a few months ago, after not having them for years, so maybe there's hope for the other species, too.

 

@snowleopard Thanks for providing a window back; I looked through all of the photos in that gallery to determine what to upload and it was crazy to see how much of the zoo has changed in the last decade. I like the zoo as it is now, but it's hard not to look at all of those now-gone species in what appear to be good (if not particularly exciting or interesting) enclosures and feel like something's been lost.

To be honest I was so focused on getting the zoo finished in time and taking photographs I hardly paid any attention to the signage. I went ahead and uploaded an example photo so everyone can see:

I thought it would be harder and I went overboard. I didn't make that mistake again, although to be fair I also never tried again after that. Didn't make much difference, unfortunately; this would not be the last zoo where a pair of those loud birds went off on me...

 

Native?

 

That's what im saying

 

Shhhhh we pretend they're native, just like the UK does

 

The OKC Zoo definitely needs a larger Herpetaruim. I live in Texas, so I've seen nine-banded armadillos several times. Also, as a Texan, Whataburger is delicious, and In n' Out can get stuffed! Whataburger (or as some here pronounce it "Water-burger") started in Corpus Christi, so if you feel like visiting the Texas State Aquarium, you know where to eat.

 

@Chlidonias & @TeaLovingDave We all know that it is pretty simple to distinguish a real Japanese Tanuki from a mainland raccoon dog*.

1) Can they shapeshift into humans and objects?
2) Do they consume lots of energy drinks to compensate for the stress of transformation?
3) Do the males use their testicles as sails, bridges and weapons?

If any of these crucial requirements are not met, then they are no true Japanese Tanuki.



*Based on the completely factual documentary film "Pom Poko".

 

Not technically, but Ring-necked Pheasants are established and fairly common in the central United States - so putting them in an aviary displaying local birds makes sense. Certainly makes *more* geographic sense than some of the waterfowl in there, for instance.

Good to know. I had just assumed because of the signage that they were of Japanese origin, I didn't know anything about their particular animals. I'll make some edits where I can to change references to Raccoon Dog for clarification... except for the title because I like the alliteration

 

1 is true, 2 im not sure, and 3 is partiallly (they do have large testicles to symbolize luck)