I'm thinking it's always going to be smaller animals that flock/fly a lot. In terms of birds, that probably cuts out a lot of options. Rainbow lorikeets are a perfect choice, though, as are cockatiels, budgies, and lovebirds. I'm still hoping for the kea, but their behaviour, much like that of macaws and other large parrots or birds of prey, would look far wonkier in a loop than bats, butterflies, or some of the aforementioned species.
The Bali myna is an interesting one because as far as I know they don't typically live in large flocks, so despite how important the captive breeding programme is for this bird it might not fit the bill.
Edit: One I'd love to see is the golden orb weaver spider.
To me, it seems Frontier favour flying species that would be held in larger groups (besides being species that are commonly held in walkthrough exhibits, as the name already implies).
Therefore, I can see birds like lorikeets happening, but larger, more solitary species, e.g. birds of prey, may yet receive a different system.
This might be because for these species, loops are easier to implement than having a free or at least semi-free navigation for each individual together with all the other in the same enclose at the same time. I am hopefull that therefore, the WE may not have to be the only way other species of birds could be implemented.
I have similar feelings to both
@NZFanatic and
@Existentialist Knight about what is practical/feasible to expect from PZ’s current walkthrough exhibit. Small species with more scattered/erratic flight patterns and are primarily housed/live in large flocks are what would work best visually in the current walkthrough exhibit. Species that are more solitary in nature or practice more “intentional”, less sporadic forms of flight would look pretty janky, and unfinished on an exhibit loop though. An example of this we already have in PZ is when only a limited amount of fruit bats are placed in a walkthrough exhibit. The loops the bats “run” on are pretty short and when there’s just a handful of bats in an exhibit their static circling becomes really obvious.
Medium to large birds would look even more “off” and unnatural than the fruit bats if implemented in walkthrough exhibits. And especially species that are nomadic or live in limited group sizes.
Additionally, species that tend to engage in frequent terrestrial behavior in captivity wouldn’t be good candidates for the walkthrough aviary. Because of the limited loops and lack of A.I. involved in exhibits, the species in them aren’t likely to ever engage with / land on the ground because of the frequent terrain clipping that would occur.
Hummingbirds are one of the few Taxonomic Families of birds where all members of the group would work nicely in something like PZ’s walkthrough exhibit. Like the soon-to-come butterflies, hummingbirds are pretty sporadic in their flight patterns, don’t display many terrestrial behaviors, are often housed in large numbers together, and their incredibly small size also makes them impractical as full, A.I. operated, habitat species. Additionally, there are a number of visually unique and colorful species that have been successfully raised and bred in captivity.
A fun example of hummingbirds in captivity is San Diego Zoo’s recently opened, state-of-the-art Hummingbird House. The house is laid out in an open-air, walkthrough style and it holds an assortment of hummingbird species together. There are three hummingbird species that share common spaces within the house: Blue-Chinned Emerald Hummingbirds, Anna’s Hummingbirds, and Costa’s Hummingbirds.
(Here’s an image of a male Costa’s Hummingbird, it’d be interesting to see how Frontier would handle its iridescent display feathers)
Other animals that I think would function well within PZ’s current walkthrough exhibit are finches, small songbirds, and non-venomous/deadly invertebrates that engage primarily in active, flighted behaviors. It’d be nice to see some moth and bee species added at some point to the walkthrough exhibit too.
