What's the weridest animal you've seen in a zoo?

The Naked Mole Rat was a big hit in St. Louis a few years back.

Well, from when I was really little I remember seeing a white tiger and a capyabara, which is the worlds largest rodent. I went back to the same zoo recently and the capybara is the only thing I really remember, since the tiger was gone.

Oh and the prairie dogs, but I’ve seen those in the wild (read: had them living all over my yard) when I lived in New Mexico. Still, they were very feisty in the zoo.

The weirdest animal I ever saw at a zoo was this Mangabey, most certainly not the same one in the link, at the San Diego Zoo. It wasn’t that the animal, the Mangabey was so weird, but for some strange, very unsettling reason, he really seemed to have the hots for me. It was the strangest thing, I’d never seen anything like it, and after a while it started to make me really uncomfortable… every time I moved he or I think it may have been a she even, would follow me, back and forth, he/she would get really agitated and he/she kept presenting his/her butt to me! It was really wild. It kind of creeped me out a little bit. Like what is it about me, what could it be that this animal finds so compelling?

A Shoebill. These things are HUGE. The one I saw was a good 4½ feet tall. And the zoo I went to (San Diego?) let them have free roam of the park. I watched it eat a frog out of the pond, and it was a little scary.

Good picture.

@tragiclikebowie

Now I want a capyabara. Super cute! I bet they’re mean as fuck too

Humans. They take animals out of the wild, and place them in small fake habitats, or cages, and some are made to preform. It’s so sad.

I’ve only been to one zoo, and it was when I was fairly young, but my favorite and most memorable animal (it was a picture that I saw, and not in a zoo) is a tapir. google them. soooo freakish.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – I used to be a zookeeper at the St Louis Zoo and worked with the naked mole rats. They are indeed strange!

@starshine I know what they are. And they own. :)

@Symbeline , heck yes they do!

A catdog, of course.

@davidbetterman Damn you, Matt Groening!—

@davidbetterman What about Blinky?

@Violet Man if you saw what was in the Red River in Winnipeg, that thing would seem like a cute little stuffy that a small child would feel secure with at night. :)

@Symbeline do you happen to have a link?

@Violet How about this Rock Lobster?
@Symbeline “Doh!”

@davidbetterman that is hilarious!

@Violet No.

I might have been on drugs or something, dun worry about it. Still, you hardly forget you first headless pig amirite?

—@Symbeline I tried to google Red River Winnipeg weird fish, and didn’t find anything truly weird. Maybe I should have replaced fish with pig? I once saw a monkey next to shopping center in a pretty large city. No one ever believed me. If you think you saw a healdless pig, maybe you did! Maybe it was deformed and its head was a part of the body (I’m trying to find this video of a baby like this), or most of it’s head was shot of bitten off.

I sure am glad that pigs can’t fly…or can they?

@Violet Oh no no no, that pig would have never been online. Or at least I doubt it.
Wasn’t trying to be mean or nothing, just funny. I did come across a dead pig without a head by the shore of that river, and it was gross, as any three eyed fish might be.
But then, most rivers have weird shit in it, Whether it’s a pig, some monkey, a stray shopping cart or a dead body.

I thought you said you saw a live pig with no head. There is is this medical condition the causes deformed babies, with parts of their skull missing, bulging eyes, etc. But this one specific video clip I’m trying to find is of this baby, who’s just one giant circle, with arms and legs popping out, so it technically has no head. I thought maybe the pig you saw could have has this conditions too

Oh no the pig was dead. Sorry if I missphrased this. (It was dead enough to smell like utter shit anyways.) If you find that video, I’d be happy to see it though. I also saw that four legged girl in India who people said was the reincarnation of..uh, Shiva, or something. I think everyone did, but still. The world-messed up at times.

A fuck billed twatty puss.

The most memorable would have to be the adult male lion at the local zoo. My dad’s girlfriend got the bright idea to dangle her keys in front of him…he responded by violently leaping at the chain link fence and roaring at her. It was scary as hell but also super cool at the same time.

Runner-up would be the walrus at the Brooklyn Aquarium. The plexi glass partition thing was only about 4 feet high, so if you were stealthy enough you could reach over and pat them on the head (they often would rise up out of the water when humans were close by). The staff asked visitors not to do so, but it was hard to resist and the entire place couldn’t have had more than 4–5 employees.

Other humans.

The Mandrill. Actually its ass.

They just grosses me out. All swollen and dirty. I take no pleasure in looking at them.

Most primates do nothing for me, when viewing them at the zoo.

@ChazMaz That is too bad there Chaz! The primate house is my favorite place in the whole zoo…tremendous entertainment value there plus my MIL just looks so darn cute in there especially when she tries to throw things at me!

I mean they are cool and all.
I just keep getting distracted by their asses.

@ChazMaz hmmm….getting distracted by monkey butt is a personal issue there sir not something I can help you with!

I knew that was coming. :-)

@ChazMaz you so walked into that one.

Fruit bats, aka “Flying Foxes”. They were in an indoor enclosure with mesh windows and we could get really close to them, they would fly towards your hand if you held it up against the mesh (looking for treats, I was told). They were incredibly tame and friendly, and much bigger than I thought. If I could have kept one as a pet I would have. :)

The other thing that surprised me was ths the indoor monkey enclosure was infested with mice. I mentioned it to a keeper who said it was deliberate – the mice were kept in the enclosure because the monkeys are messy eaters, and the mice ate the scraps.

This wasn’t a weird animal in itself, but it was a really weird exhibit. I remember going to the Cincinatti Zoo as a kid and there was an exhibit of insects in their natural habitats. There were several small rooms up to look like a tiny piece of the desert, or the rain forest or whatever.

One of the final pieces on the exhibit was dedicated to the cockroach. It’s natural habitat was a kitchen with wallpaper and a small table. On the table was a bowl of Frankenberry cereal all soggy in milk and an open box of the same cereal. Roaches were crawling all over the cereal box and bowl. It was really yicky. I’ll never forget it.

YOU LOL

I’m a cannibal.