Taipei Zoo Part IV: Desert and African Animals

Going deeper into the Taipei Zoo, one passes a small desert animal section (as in the section itself is small, not that it displays small desert animals).

Here's an addax.

Both species of extant camels also get representation in adjacent exhibits.

And... that's all there is to it. Told you it was small. Behind it was an Australian animal section, but I didn't go there on my visit because it appeared to have only old standbys such as gray kangaroos, emus, and cassowaries, which are interesting enough animals but not exactly rare sights in zoos. Ironically, if I had visited the Australian area this post might actually have some maniraptors.

Continuing on, the zoo's section on African animals begins. These are plains zebras.

Some gemsbok and eland. Both are quite large and powerful antelope, and their enclosure was accompanied by signs warning visitors not to get too close.

Also present in their exhibit was this mountain zebra. The zoo has all three species of extant zebra, but sadly I didn't get good photos of the Grevy's.

Hippos were kept in a really deep moat surrounding an elevated "island" that originally displayed pygmy hippos. Contemplating the possibility of falling into the moat onto hard concrete, surrounded by dozens of hippos, was not pleasant, but at least the design should keep the hippos well confined under normal circumstances. While the exhibit was not especially small in and out of itself, there were so many hippos in there that it felt quite overcrowded.

Some African spurred tortoises.

A lioness playing with a ball. I realize the "playing with a ball" part is kind of hard to tell from my photo, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

A white rhino.

Some bongo.

A patas monkey.

A gorilla.

Some chimpanzees.

Some Barbary sheep.

An olive baboon.

A ruffed lemur. The zoo houses these alongside ring-tailed lemurs and brown lemurs. Don't be fooled by the seemingly drab concrete enclosure; the lemurs have a very large exhibit that has both indoors and outdoors viewing opportunities. The concrete area is just the indoors portion of the display, while the outdoors portion is a large, well-vegetated dome with a netted walkway going through it. I didn't manage to get photos of the outdoors area, so this doesn't do any justice to it.

An African elephant.