London Zoo and its Inhabitants over the Years Quiz

Answer: Sir Stamford Raffles

All the people given as alternative answers were founder members of the Zoological Society of London. However it was Sir Stamford Bingley Raffles, when he was Lieutenant Governor of Bencooleen, who in 1819 agreed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah which enabled Britain to establish a trading post in Singapore.

The Society was founded in 1826 and Sir Stamford was its first president. He died later that year and the Marquess of Lansdowne then became the next president. The Society obtained some land in Regents Park in London with the intention of establishing a place there for the scientific study of animals. Accordingly, they built London Zoo and it was opened in 1828 to Fellows of the Society and their invitees and in 1829 was granted a Royal Charter by George IV. In 1831 the royal animal collection from the Tower of London was given to the Society for the Zoo.

Answer: Quaggas

Okapis are related to giraffes and the other two incorrect answers are invented words but quaggas (Equus quagga quagga) were a subspecies of zebra. They inhabited South Africa but were hunted to extinction during the nineteenth century and it is believed that the last wild quagga was killed in the 1870s. Those in zoos survived a little longer with the last of these quaggas dying in Amsterdam Zoo in August 1883.

The first of the three quaggas arrived at London Zoo in 1831 and stayed there until 1834. The second one arrived in 1851 and lived at the Zoo for twenty-one years until her death in 1872. Although both of these were female, the third quagga, presented to the Zoo in 1858, was male. However, he died in 1864 after a serious injury and no offspring were produced.

London Zoo was opened in 1828 to enable the scientific study of animals and only Fellows of the Zoological Society of London and their invitees were allowed in. Nineteen years later in 1847 the general public were admitted to simply look at the animals. In 1835 the first chimpanzee had joined the Zoo and in 1837 Charles Darwin, later to write the influential 'On the Origin of Species' (1859), had became a Fellow of the Society.

Answer: First hippopotamus to be seen in Europe for many centuries

Hippopotami (Hippopotamus amphibius), the third largest land animals after elephants and rhinoceri, are native to Africa but now inhabit a smaller area of the continent than in earlier times. They are described as semi-aquatic and their closest relatives are whales, dolphins and other cetaceans.

Obaysch was captured at about one year of age on an island in the White Nile and, with other animals, was given to a British Consul General by the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt in exchange for some hounds. He arrived at London Zoo in 1850 amid great excitement as he was believed to be the first hippopotamus to be seen in Europe since classical Roman times and the first one in Britain since hippopotami lived there in prehistoric times.

During a period of what was described as 'hippomania', ten thousand visitors a day came to look at Obaysch in 1850 and overall attendance at the Zoo was double that of the previous year. In 1854 a female named Adhela was sent by the Viceroy but the pair did not produce any offspring until 1871. Their first two calves died when they were very young but the third lived from 1872 until 1908 while Obaysch died in 1878 and Adhela in 1882.

Since its opening in 1828 London Zoo has continued to expand and in 1849 it opened the world's first reptile house while the first public aquarium was opened there in 1853.

Answer: Jumbo

The name Jumbo was a corruption of Jumbe, a Swahili word meaning 'chief', which was the name given to him by a keeper. He was born in Sudan in about 1860 and it is believed his mother was killed by poachers. Jumbo was first taken to a Parisian zoo, Jardin des Plantes, before being transferred to London Zoo in 1865. He was popular with the public and gave rides to both children and adults. His time at London Zoo was comparatively short as he may have been growing short-tempered and the management, worried in case he hurt a visitor, sold him to P T Barnum's circus in 1882. Barnum included Jumbo in his travelling circus but the elephant was killed by a runaway train in Canada in 1885.

Jumbo was an African bush or savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana) and these elephants are the largest of the three living species of elephants and so the largest land animals. They live in a range of countries in Africa, usually in shrublands or grasslands, and are herbivores. The species has been listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature with the largest threat to its continued existence being habitat destruction.

London Zoo was founded by the Zoological Society of London and has continued to grow since it was opened in 1828. For instance, the world's first insect house was opened there in 1881 and okapis have been part of the Zoo since members of the Society were credited with officially discovering them in 1901.

Answer: A A Milne

A A Milne wrote both 'Winnie-the-Pooh' (1926) and 'The House at Pooh Corner' (1928) about a boy called Christopher Robin and some toy animals, including the bear Winnie-the-Pooh. In his introduction to the earlier book Milne makes it clear that the name Winnie came from the bear in London Zoo, who was also known more familiarly as Winnie, while Pooh was the boy's name for a local swan.

Winnipeg or Winnie was a female black bear cub left with London Zoo in December 1914 by Harry Colebourn, a Canadian soldier going to France to fight in the First World War. After the War he decided to leave the bear in the Zoo and she stayed there until she died in 1934.

The black bear or American black bear (Ursus americanus) is native to North America and its habitat ranges from north central Mexico to Alaska. It is the smallest species of bear on the continent and is omnivorous, eating fruits and vegetation as well as fish, insects and sometimes other mammals. The black bear is accounted a least-concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as it is estimated to have a population twice as great as the other bears on the continent put together.

The Zoological Society of London, which opened London Zoo in 1826, decided a hundred years later to establish a second and much larger zoo to house the larger animals. Accordingly a site near Dunstable in Bedfordshire was chosen and Whipsnade Wild Animal Park, later renamed Whipsnade Zoo, was built and opened to the public in 1931.

Answer: He arrived on November 5th, Guy Fawkes night

Guy was a western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and in the wild these live in lowland tropical rainforests in several African countries with many inhabiting the Republic of the Congo. They are the smallest subspecies of gorillas and, as the males age, some of their black fur changes colour to grey so that they are known as silverbacks. These gorillas mainly eat vegetation, especially fruit when available, but may eat insects at times.

Of the incorrect answers, the keeper's name is invented but the author was, and the village is, real. Guy was about a year old when he arrived at London Zoo on November 5th, 1947, apparently holding a tin hot-water bottle. He had been captured in what was then French Cameroon and then been sent to London Zoo in exchange for a Bengal tiger. During his life he became known for being gentle and was much liked by the public. He carried on living at the Zoo until he died of a heart attack during an operation in 1978 and two statues of him were erected in London - one in Crystal Palace Park in 1961 and the other near the entrance to London Zoo in 1982.

Like other zoos in Europe, London Zoo was at risk of being bombed during the Second World War. A number of the animals, such as elephants, orangutans and rhinoceri, were sent to its sister zoo, Whipsnade, for safe keeping and the aquarium was closed until 1943. However, other parts of the Zoo, including the children's zoo, which had been opened in 1938, were only closed for a week in 1939 and for a week in 1940 but otherwise stayed open throughout the War.

Answer: First polar bear cub to be successfully reared in Britain

Brumas was born in late 1949 and her parents were named Ivy and Mischa. Her own name was created from two keepers' names - Bruce and Sam (reversed). From early in her life she was very popular with the public and in 1950 a record number of three million people visited the Zoo, which was about a million more than was usual at the time. Brumas stayed at the Zoo until she died in 1958.

A few years later in 1967 a second polar bear cub, Pipaluk, was born at London Zoo and his name was chosen because it means 'the little one' in Inuit. He too was reared successfully and lived at the Zoo until 1985 when the bears' terraces were closed. He was then moved to a zoo in Poland, where he stayed until he died aged 22.

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are native to regions within the Arctic Circle, such as Alaska, parts of Canada and Russia. They are the largest species of bears and also completely carnivorous, eating mainly seals. Although their cubs are born on land, the bears spend much of their lives on sea ice or in the sea and are classed as marine mammals.

Although London Zoo remained open for all but two weeks during the Second World War, its buildings did suffer some damage from bombs during the early 1940s. The animals were not physically harmed but finding food for them was difficult. However, the general public responded well to appeals from the Zoo to send in suitable food, such as acorns, and to 'Adopt an Animal', for instance a dormouse for one shilling per week.

Answer: Golden eagle

On both occasions Goldie escaped while his cage was very briefly open and the first time was in February when he remained free for some twelve days, avoiding attempts to capture him. He did not go far though, as he mostly stayed in Regents Park in London, where the Zoo is situated. The media covered the story extensively and an estimated five thousand members of the public went to look at him. Goldie was finally lured to the ground by a dead rabbit and captured by a deputy head zookeeper. Ten months later in December he managed to escape again but this time was recaptured after four days.

Golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) are very large birds of prey native to the northern hemisphere. There are six subspecies and, although less wide-spread than they were earlier, these birds still inhabit parts of North America, as well as parts of Europe, northern Asia and North Africa. They are exclusively carnivorous and generally eat small mammals, but sometimes smaller birds and reptiles, and they have been known to prey on larger mammals, such as badgers, and other birds of prey, such as owls.

During the 1960s several new housings for its animals were built in London Zoo. In 1965 both the Snowdon Aviary and the Casson Elephant House were opened while the Clore Pavilion for Small Mammals was opened by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1967. This building trend continued as, for instance, the Ambika Paul Children's Zoo and the Millennium Conservation Centre were opened in 1995 and 1999 respectively.

Answer: Appeared in advertisements

Belinda was a popular inhabitant of London Zoo and she was used in television advertisements for the Zoo, as well as apparently appearing on other television programmes. She was also used as part of a number of hypnotherapy programmes to help people overcome arachnophobia.

Mexican red-kneed bird-eating spiders (Brachypelma smithi) are one of over a thousand different species of tarantula and, as their name suggests, are very large spiders. They are native to the Sierra Madre del Sur and Sierra Madre Occidental mountain ranges of Mexico. Females can live for thirty years although males may only live for five to ten. They are carnivorous and can eat small mammals and reptiles as well as insects and birds but their venom is only strong enough to be poisonous to their prey.

During Belinda's time at London Zoo it continued to build new residences for its animals, as it had been doing since it opened in 1828. In 1972 the Sobell Pavilion for Apes and Monkeys was opened by Prince Philip and in 1976 Queen Elizabeth II officially opened new Lion Terraces. In 1990 the Queen and Prince Philip visited the Zoo again and Prince William and the Prince and Princess of Wales visited the Insect House.

Answer: Komodo Island of Dragons

The Komodo Island of Dragons, as the Zoological Society of London's website refers to the enclosure, was opened in 2004 by Sir David Attenborough. On Sir David's 90th birthday in 2016 the enclosure was renamed 'The Attenborough Komodo Dragon House'.

These reptiles are native to parts of Indonesia and were named after the island of Komodo there. The Zoo authorities took care to make the enclosure 'dragonprooof' as Komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis) are the largest species of lizard, sometimes growing to ten feet in length. They are apex predators and kill and eat anything from pigs to deer to water buffalo and can also attack people. They have long sharp claws and sharp teeth and are believed to be able to produce venom to help overcome their prey.

The alternative answers were all designed for the public to walk through them. The African Bird Safari walkthrough was also opened in 2004, as was a Meet the Monkeys walkthrough. Both the In With the Lemurs and the In With the Spiders walkthroughs were opened in 2015. In between these two years a number of other new residences for the zoo's animals were built, such as Gorilla Kingdom in 2007, Giants of the Galapagos in 2009, Penguin Beach in 2011 and Tiger Territory in 2013.

As the opening of these new buildings suggests, London Zoo has continued to expand since its opening in 1828. It provides the best care it can for its animals, and and this now includes trying to duplicate an animal's natural habitat when possible. For example, Land of the Lions, opened in 2016, was built for some Asiatic lions and designed to resemble the national park in India where they live in the wild.