The Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota is not a real large zoo but it has some things well worth seeing. The Great Plains Zoo, like other zoos (St. Louis Zoo, Tracy Aviary, and Lincoln Park Zoo), is located in the heart of Sioux Falls. It also has the Delbridge Museum of Natural History connected to the Great Plains Zoo. I won’t write about the museum in this post. However, I will note that the Delbridge Museum of Natural History has a wide variety of species displayed.

Upon entering the zoo, there is a great exhibit with Japanese macaques, sometimes called snow monkeys.

They are called snow monkeys because they live in the mountains of Japan, where there is a lot of snow. One of the way the macaques stay warm is sitting in hot springs in those mountains. So not only are they one of the few monkeys that live in a cold climate, but they are also one of the few monkeys that can swim. Have you ever visited a natural hot springs? I find them wonderful.

I head south, and it is like I am heading south because the next display is red-necked wallabies and western grey kangaroo (I didn’t get a photo because it was hiding in the barn). These were followed by an alpaca. So both of these animal groups their natural homes are south of the United States, with wallabies and kangaroos from Australia and alpacas from South America.

At the wallaby and kangaroo exhibit, you can go inside. They probably stay away, but one or two may hop to you!

Across the path was a Chinese Alligator. There was also a sign explaining the difference between an alligator and crocodile.

I really don’t see the difference between the Chinese and American alligators. According to Wikipedia, the American alligator is a bit heavier and longer. I have seen comparisons between alligators and crocodiles, but have never seen at a zoo information explaining the difference between Chinese and American alligators.

Next was an animal I have never seen before: a New Guinea Singing Dog!

When I got home I immediately researched these wild dogs. They are very closely related to the dingo of Australia though the singing dogs tend to be smaller. Both dingoes and singing dogs were brought to their areas by traveling primitive peoples. Both are closely related to domestic dogs and wolves. Some people think it is not a separate species, but rather just a different breed of domestic dog. They are called singing dogs because their howl is higher and more melodious than wolves or dingoes. Wikipedia has a recording of a singing dog, which is worth listening to.

I next pop into the Primate House. They have 3 types of primates representing very different groups. The ring-tailed lemur is from Madagascar and is not a monkey. The black and white Colobus monkey is from Africa, and is fairly common in zoos. Last, is the squirrel monkey which is from South America and used to be commonly sold as pets in the United States (they were not good pets).

Now I stop by the camel barn. They have a Bactrian camel, which is a two humped camel (though you can’t see the humps in the photo). The dromedary is the single hump camel.

Wild Bactrian camels are very rare. At the Great Plains Zoo the camel is next to the farm animals, which makes sense because in Mongolia and other Asian areas these camels are used for riding and hauling things.

The next building is the zoos bird house, however it was closed due to the Avian Flu in the area. Similarly the penguins were inside.

Now I head to the area with hoofed mammals. First up is a black rhinoceros.

There are two kinds of rhinos in Africa: the black rhinoceros and the white rhinoceros. The black rhinoceros is named for it’s dark coloration, though in some areas they are more brown (even tanned) than black. The white rhinoceros is not white, it can be lighter but that’s not where they got their name. The “white” in white rhinoceros comes from English-settlers to Africa misinterpreting the Dutch word “wijd” for white. The “wijd” refers to the wide lip of the white rhinoceros. The white rhinoceros (1.5-2.5 tons) is larger than the black rhinoceros (1-2 tons).

I now head over to more hoofed animals namely giraffes, Grevy’s zebra and bongo.

On their zoo map, they list these as African savanna. This is true for the giraffe and Grevy’s zebra, however the bongo is a secretive antelope that occurs in forested areas of Africa. Just like the African forest elephant, I am sometimes amazed how such a large animal like the bongo can keep itself hidden. However, it did keep itself hidden and was not officially named until 1837, when most of the African animals had already been named.

Staying in the African savanna but moving away from hoofed animals, there is the African painted dogs (sometimes called African wild dogs) and a Galapagos tortoise (though the Galapagos Island Archipelago is off South America, hmmm).

The African painted dogs have been said to be the most successful hunters on the African plains. They work as a pack, similar to wolves, and run their prey to exhaustion.

I am always amazed at how large the Galapagos tortoises are. They can weigh as much as 700 lbs! They are also incredibly long lived reaching ages of older than 150 years old.

I now head toward the North America exhibits, with the bison and red wolf ups first.

I like bison, though they are probably one of the most dangerous hoofed animals in North America. There are two kinds of bison, the American bison and the European bison. The American bison is heavier but the European bison is taller. Go figure.

Red wolves are one of the most endangered species in North America. One of the reason they are so rare is that they have bred with dogs, gray wolves, and coyotes. This makes finding a “pure” red wolf very difficult. The red wolf use to range through the Appalcian Mountains along the east coast of the United States south to Florida then west to Texas. I found a nice historic range map at the Northeast Wolf Coalition. Currently there are less than 20 red wolves in the wild found in a small area of North Carolina. This means there a lot more red wolves in zoos, than in the wild!

There were exhibits for bobcat and foxes, but the animals were either hiding or not out at all. So this means I went on to the bear area. The first bears were American black bears.

The American black bear is a true American bear. They only occur in North America and they live from one end of the continent to the other. There are black bears in Florida and Maine and also in California and Alaska, and a lot of states in between. Wikipedia has a nice range map with both their current range and historic range

I have seen several black bears in my life (both in the wild and in zoos), and these looked a bit larger than many I’ve seen. However, they were dwarfed by the brown bears at the Great Plains Zoo.

The bear zookeepers were just letting the brown bears into their outdoor enclosure. When they came out I was amazed at how large these bears were.

The bear closest to me and in the tunnel was large (from the Alaska Peninsula, sometimes called a Peninsula Brown Bear) but the other was even larger. The really big bear came from Kodiak Alaska (where I used to live). I contacted the zoo when I got back home and they told me he weighed just under a thousand pounds (1,000 lbs). That is a really large bear, and he is still growing.

So we have huge bears on Kodiak Island and huge tortoises on the Galapagos Islands, so what makes animals grow so big on islands? Something to think about.

I now head over to the Asian Cats area. The Great Plains Zoo has three Asian cats. The first two are big cats that I have seen in several zoos: the Amur tiger and snow leopard.

I am always impressed by the tigers size. The Amur tiger used to be called the Siberian tiger, and is the largest subspecies of tigers. They are also the largest of any living big cat. The snow leopard blends into the rocky surface, just as they do in the wild.

The last Asian cat is one I had not seen in a zoo before: the Palla’s Cat.

The Palla’s cat is obviously a small cat. In fact, at first glance you might think it is a kind of domestic cat. They live in the colder mountainous regions of central Asia, with the greatest numbers in Russia and Mongolia. Even on the limb, it seems to blend in with its environment.

As I headed to the exit, I realized I missed two areas, the bighorn sheep and Komodo dragon exhibits.

When I lived in Colorado I loved seeing bighorn sheep in the wild. I didn’t see any rams at the Great Plains Zoo, which was a little disappointing.

I have found it interesting that despite their size and history of being sometimes dangerous, Komodo dragons are fairly common in zoos.

As I am leaving the zoo and checking out the Delbridge Museum of Natural History, I notice an enclosure with dwarf mongoose.

Just like meerkats, these mongoose were very active. I didn’t realize they could climb trees until I saw one on a branch. The bubble is for people to stick their head in and be kind of part of the mob (that’s what you call a group of mongoose).

This concludes my visit to the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was not a real big zoo but it was a very pleasant walk with some interesting animals. I really liked the New Guinea singing dog, the Pallas Cat, and the huge Kodiak brown bear.

So this is Ivan the Zoo Guy to all the Zoo Folk out there, I hope you have time to enjoy a zoo, maybe the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.