Your Favourite Individuals

Are there any particular individual animals in zoos you have a particular fondness for? Maybe they're quite a showy animal, or one you remember from your childhood? Tell us about them!

Some of my old (and new) favourites

• Dillon the Three-banded Armadillo (Edinburgh Zoo)
• Mowgli and Tina the Jaguars (Edinburgh, my first ever adopted animals!)
• Louie, Qafzeh, Liberius (my age), Cindy, and Velu the Chimps (Edinburgh)
• Snowflake the Gentoo Penguin (Edinburgh)
• Hannibal the Tegu (Edinburgh, used to be the star attraction of my local petshop)
• Bertus the Indian Rhino (Edinburgh, I always spent my last half-hour in the zoo up-close with him in the rhino house!)
• Tyson the Honey Badger (Edinburgh, my old best friend's favourite)
• Sasha the Amur Tiger (Edinburgh)
• Mercedes, Walker, and Arctos the Polar Bears, (HWP, self-explanatory)
• Mondula the African Elephant (Blair Drumond)
• The Californian Sea Lions (Blair Drummond)
• Gandalf the Rupell's Vulture (World of Wings)
• Anne the Elephant (Longleat, I saw her in the circus in my local park when I was little and got a picture next to her. I'd love to visit her in her new home as a kind of apology)

 

I liked Pat the Cat, the male Jaguar who lived at the Milwaukee Zoo until he died relatively recently.

 

I would say Lola the spectacled bear and Indera the sun bear from Belfast zoo. Also the Asian elephant herd from Dublin zoo.

 

Baby, boto, Zoo Duisburg.
Humphrey, aye-aye, Paris Vincennes
A hand-reared plumbeous redstart, London
Professor Wu, Chinese giant salamander, London
Steffi, giraffe, London and Whipsnade (I thought of her name)

 

Guy the gorilla, chi chi the giant panda, Pipaluk and Triplet polar bears , all London Zoo of my childhood.

Currently, has to be orangutan Rajang at Colchester he is the only individual I can think of, I don't know the names of many individuals anywhere!

 

Inca the (legendary) Asiatic black bear at Dudley. Every time I see a post in a Dudley thread my heart stops, but she's still chugging along at 38(ish).
Bruce the echidna at Paignton, the main reason I try to get to Devon every couple of years.
Sprout, baby orang at Dudley. I'm not a fan of great apes but when you've watched one grow up then they can get under your skin.

 

I realize I forgot to talk about the ones from my home zoo!

I am quite fond of Rollie (Southern Three-Banded Armadillo), Sherman (Pronghorn), Eli (Bobcat), and Carson (Canada Lynx).

 

Izu, the lion at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. He's ridiculously photogenic. I've seen lions quite a few times over the years, but I don't think I've ever seen one as handsome, and I love how much black is in his mane.

Orson, the now-deceased black jaguar at the San Diego Zoo.

Orkid, the orca at SeaWorld San Diego. I once asked an educator with help on how to ID the orcas myself, and when I asked about Orkid I was told "Orkid is the exact perfect image of what an orca should be", and while it was totally useless for identification, it does happen to be true. That aside, her intelligence and importance as the longest-living orca born in captivity also are of note.

Corky, the orca at SeaWorld San Diego, for her gentle nature and her unheard-of longevity amongst captive orcas.

The Panay Cloud Rat at the Los Angeles Zoo, for being absolutely impossible to see. I'm not sure it ever actually existed.

 

Ambika, the oldest elephant at National Zoo in DC. I visited in my first few days of living there, and remember being so surprised to learn that she was (i) nearing 70 years old; (ii) from India; (iii) wild-caught. I was under the impression that most (if not all) elephants in US zoos were captive-bred. Also had no idea zoos could keep them alive for so long.

So, I must have spent a good 30 minutes just standing there trying to comprehend what a massive and varied life she'd lived - to have been born literally one year after India even came into existence as a state. She would have seen the wild of India at its prime, and then, in all likelihood, gone through absolute hell to be brought into captivity in India of the 1950s. And then to have travelled across the world, arrived in the US, and seen the transformation of American elephant exhibit conditions.

It's so awe-inspiring. She's like a living monument.

 

From the St Louis Zoo
Moby Dick the Northern elephant seal
Siegfried the walrus
Einstein the northern tamandua
Virgil the albino raccoon (and huge-biggest I've ever seen)
Fred the Indian Fruit bat

 

Sparkle and Buck the Asian short claw otters that used to be at a small animal sanctuary near me which sadly closed down (the otters went to Hoo Farm and I was delighted to discover this on my first visit there a couple of years ago - Sparkle had sadly died, but Buck was still there with a new mate and a gang of youngsters.)

Rodders the chimpanzee at Monkey World (he always comes to the glass to have a look and see if you are someone interesting.)

 

Definitely Ratu, sumatran tigress from Warsaw zoo - she came to Warsaw when I was 9 years old and it was so amazing to observe her life, her first steps in "relationships" with other tigers and a few years later - first steps in maternity. She and other cats from Warsaw, like snow leopards Nadaam (dead now...) and Krakus (at Bydgoszcz zoo now) or family of Geoffroy's cat introduced me to world of Felidae and zoos. I was writing and documenting in photographs their lifes, that was like a kind of book and adventure.

Also I like to "get to know" new individuals, especially in Felidae family. My favs are also Nuri from Wrocław, she's got amazing temper; Arjuna, javan leopard from Prague; sumatran tiger hand-raised Zoya (Ratu x Andy) and her older siblings - Diana, Denar and Dandys (Ratu x Iban).
And I could not forget many small cats, like margays from Decin, Jihlava and Brno and asiatic golden cats from Wuppertal. They're so little-know species and they show me a lot from the world of Felinae.

 

Of course I have photos of my favourites.
Mukisi, the male eastern lowland gorilla at Chester: he and his mate Noelle were the first gorillas I ever saw and I have never seen a more impressive animal than he was in his prime.

'Mukisi' 1974 by gentle lemur posted 11 Aug 2015 at 1:22 PM

I first saw Oscar, the Sumatran orang, as a baby in the awful old Ape House at Bristol where he was hand-reared and eventually reintroduced to his mother Henrietta. He went to Chester to mate with Lola, fathering Emma and Subis, who are still at the zoo. Unfortunately I don't have colour photo of him as an adult, but I always remember seeing him for the first time.

Oscar as an infant by gentle lemur posted 8 Mar 2009 at 1:58 PM

Apes have the advantage of being long-lived, so I remember seeing Coco, the chocolate-coloured chimp on my first visit to Twycross many years ago. I am so pleased that she now lives in nice large enclosure with a proper group of chimps including two of her children.

Coco by gentle lemur posted 14 Oct 2018 at 9:10 PM

Finally, I must agree with Crowthorne that Bruce the echidna at Paignton is another long-lived favourite. I may have seen him at one of his previous zoos, without appreciating his uniqueness, but I always visit his enclosure when I'm at Paignton and I have far too many photos of him.

Short-beaked echidna profile by gentle lemur posted 6 May 2016 at 11:26 PM

 

What a fabulous picture of Bruce! Although I have only seen him once, he has made quite an impression on me.

 

Mama the (late) chimpanzee at Burgers’ Zoo because she managed to make me see just how old an animal can get and still continue on!

Willie the Bornean orangutan at Chester, seeing him grow each time I visit and having known him since he was a baby in Apenheul it’s a real privilege to see him as regularly as possible!

Al the ring-tailed lemur at London Zoo, at 26 years old he’s a sweet little dude.

Mobikisi and Margrit the bonobos from Stuttgart and Frankfurt respectively. Mobikisi has always been a favourite of mine and Margrit, well you don’t just become the oldest ape to have ever lived (67 currently!) and not win over some hearts.

Also Bert the aardwolf at Hamerton, Baby at Duisburg, Bruce at Paignton, Kouillou the breeding silverback at Port Lympne and Mamy the aye-aye at Chester

 

Firstly, the one who started it all, Bulu the Bornean orangutan who was born at ZSL and moved to Paignton in 1992. Here she somehow gradually trained individual visitors to bring Interesting Things to show her and I eventually met up with some of these people when we realised we were all doing the same thing She was later abetted by Gigit, whom I met at Tywcross before her move to Paignton. She had a way of charming visitors and a lot of them went away with photos of her. Both sadly missed - Gigit died much too soon in 2005 and Bulu went in 2008.

Babinka the mandrill - hand reared in Brno before coming to Paignton, she never really fitted into the group and would sit by herself outside. Brutus, the male at the time, watched over her to some extent but generally the others took no notice of her. She would look at you with the most beautiful, expressive eyes, ensuring a continued interest in mandrills on my part. She died in 2010.

One who's happily still alive - Kumbuka, now ZSL's silverback. I watched him grow from a scrawny youngster at Paignton into the magnificent Poldark of the gorilla world that he is now. I had several memorable interactions with him both at Paignton and ZSL. Very special.

Link, Paignton's Ouessant ram, who has shown me that sheep have a lot more going for them than you might think.

Finally, Paignton's little 5 year old orang,Tatty. I've watched her from birth and she has always been bursting with character. Her joie de vivre is almost palpable and she never fails to lift my spirits. I am honoured that she recognises me and comes over to the window to carry on the tradition of looking at Interesting Things.

 

My favourite individuals are London Zoo’s northern white rhinoceros “Ben” and Whipsnade Zoo’s famous hippopotamus pair “Henry” and “Belinda”; these are all animals that I remember well as a very young child and they were also long-lived creatures that I saw numerous times over several decades.

(The northern white rhino “Ben” arrived at London Zoo in 1955 he was sent to Dvur Kralove in 1986 where he died in 1990. The hippos “Henry” and “Belinda” arrived at Whipsnade in 1950; “Henry” died in 1993 and “Belinda” died in 1995.)