Review of the year part 1 - Bristol 2012

We are nearly at the end of 2012 so we will finish off the year with some of the new highlights from the last twelve months, starting with Bristol Zoo in this post and finishing off with some round the world news next week

January

Newborn stingray

Babies have been born to two new stingrays which arrived at Bristol Zoo last summer.

Nine ocellated freshwater stingray pups were born last week after two new females were introduced to the Zoo’s male stingray last year.

The new females, sisters named Catalina & Genevieve, arrived at Bristol Zoo from

Weston Seaquarium and have wasted little time in breeding. Catalina has produced six pups and three pups are from Genevieve.

Not just for Christmas

For the last few months we have had one of the most unusual invertebrates I have seen on display anywhere on view in Bug World, a group of Christmas Island Blue Crabs, Discoplax hirtipes. Related to the more famous (and slightly larger) Red Crab, Geocarcoidea natalis, it is one of nearly 20 species of terrestrial crab (plus 160 marine species) found on or around Christmas Island.