#joymiller

Yes! You can learn more about our ‘meat-eating bull’ here.

Due to staff changes, things have indeed gotten quiet. I can’t say much right now but it’s always worth checking back in!

Yes! An overhead of the zoo can be found here.

As for ceratopsians, we currently have 5 species on display!

Aquilops

Nasutoceratops

Protoceratops

Styracosaurus

Triceratops

Thank you for such a lovely ask! Asks like these make us so happy!

(Painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme depicting a Barbary lion.)

Scientific Name: Panthera leo leo Diet: Carnivorous Projected Natural Lifespan: 10 - 14 years Length: 330 - 360 cm (10 ft 8 in - 11 ft 8 in) Weight:  200 - 240 kg (440 - 559 lbs) Locality: Northern Africa Exhibit: The Big Cat House

About The Barbary or Atlas lion is said to be the largest modern subspecies of lion. Once found in Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Morocco, excessive hunting of both the lions themselves and their prey caused them to be extinct in the wild by the 1960s. Unlike their southern relatives, Barbary lions did not live in prides, instead living either alone or in pairs. As apex predators, Barbary lions fed on a variety of large game, including Barbary stags, wild boar and red deer.   

At Huxley Here at the zoo, we are fortunate to have a pair of Barbary lions; Leonidas and Spartacus. The brothers exhibit the luxurious manes their subspecies is famous for, and this physical feature is one of the ways to tell the two apart. Leonidas, the more relaxed of the two, has a dark mane, while his boisterous brother Spartacus has a much lighter colored one. 

Notable Behavior As mentioned above, Spartacus is quite the spirited individual. It is not uncommon for him to burst from the grass in his exhibit, charging the fence in a huff. He seems to take particular issue with those wearing excessive cologne or perfume.

Keeper Notes As with all lions, the brothers spend much of their day sleeping, but you should see them come feeding time! Even as cubs, feeding was serious business. I definitely bare a scar or two from trying to get a hungry cub away from an empty milk bottle.

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Learn more about: Leonidas & Spartacus

A directory of all Huxley’s inhabitants can be found on our main site!

On March 19th 2018, Sudan, the last known male Northern white rhinoceros, passed away. He’d been suffering from an infection in one of his legs since the end of 2017 and, being the age he was, he just wasn’t able to fight it off any longer.

(Image source)

Hello everyone! Keeper Joy here with an interesting little piece on the history of Barbary lions in captivity!

Huxley isn’t the only (let alone the first) zoo to hold Barbary lions, there are actually several that contain lions of mixed Barbary percentage around the world even to this day! But one of the earliest places you could see a pure Barbary in captivity was in the royal menagerie kept at the Tower of London.

(Image source)

The blog post describes how we discovered that Barbary lions were being kept at the royal zoo and links to an article by the Natural History Museum that goes into a little more depth about the lions.

- Joy Miller

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