Hello everyone,
in this thread, I will try to make a stand for small mammals (and partly small birds as well) representation in Planet Zoo, summarise it's pros and cons. And maybe make Frontier shift from its stance that adding small mammals and birds as exhibit animals isn't going to happen.
First a little bit of info about me: Three years ago, I started to fulfill my childhood dream of being a zookeeper. So far only on a part-time or volunteer basis, but after I finish university in June, I'm going to switch on a full-time contract. My primary focus and biggest interests are small mammals and marsupials. And like everyone else, I would like to see some of "my" species in the game. However, the obvious problem with them is that they are just too small to be featured as habitat animals. Thus, adding them as exhibit animals seems like a no-brainer, but Frontier previously said, that having small mammals and birds as exhibit animals isn't likely. Buuuut....
• Even though the species diversity is already incredibly high, adding some of these species would send the game on a new level, having species never represented in a game before (and some of those are rarities in real zoos as well)
• Most of them when it comes to size similarly big as species we already have in game so they can be housed in the same-size terrarium as well, as they are housed this way in captivity.
• Some of the species have the potential to become really big community favorites given how good job Frontier does with animations. I mean look at some of those...
Goodman's Mouse lemur
Kowari
Persian jird
European hamster
Chinese giant flying squirrel
Lovely right?
Now, to balance it, obviously, there are some cons too...
• Even though they can inhabit the current size of exhibits we have, for some species it wouldn't be really adequate. This could be solved (and I'm borrowing this idea from different discussions) by having different sizes of exhibits (like small, medium, large).
• Contrary to reptiles and inverts, some of the small mammal species are more active thus current system with three predetermined positions animal switches off-screen wouldn't be satisfying enough. But it's not that big of an issue and I wouldn't mind that much about it.
• Problem with inadequately-sized exhibits could be solved also by adding new exhibit item - aviary. Aviaries were discussed here many times as well and I feel, that having something like this as an exhibit item would be really lovely and it would allow us to have some of the smaller mammals, passerine birds, hummingbirds, and other small gems who are being kept in these types of exhibits.
So this is my view, maybe there is more of us who likes these little critters and who knows...maybe we will actually be surprised by Frontier in future
Bonus pic: Me during my keeper duties with my most favorite species, who is surprisingly not a small mammal.
Meet Babirusas ☺
in this thread, I will try to make a stand for small mammals (and partly small birds as well) representation in Planet Zoo, summarise it's pros and cons. And maybe make Frontier shift from its stance that adding small mammals and birds as exhibit animals isn't going to happen.
First a little bit of info about me: Three years ago, I started to fulfill my childhood dream of being a zookeeper. So far only on a part-time or volunteer basis, but after I finish university in June, I'm going to switch on a full-time contract. My primary focus and biggest interests are small mammals and marsupials. And like everyone else, I would like to see some of "my" species in the game. However, the obvious problem with them is that they are just too small to be featured as habitat animals. Thus, adding them as exhibit animals seems like a no-brainer, but Frontier previously said, that having small mammals and birds as exhibit animals isn't likely. Buuuut....
• Even though the species diversity is already incredibly high, adding some of these species would send the game on a new level, having species never represented in a game before (and some of those are rarities in real zoos as well)
• Most of them when it comes to size similarly big as species we already have in game so they can be housed in the same-size terrarium as well, as they are housed this way in captivity.
• Some of the species have the potential to become really big community favorites given how good job Frontier does with animations. I mean look at some of those...
Goodman's Mouse lemur
Kowari
Persian jird
European hamster
Chinese giant flying squirrel
Lovely right?
Now, to balance it, obviously, there are some cons too...
• Even though they can inhabit the current size of exhibits we have, for some species it wouldn't be really adequate. This could be solved (and I'm borrowing this idea from different discussions) by having different sizes of exhibits (like small, medium, large).
• Contrary to reptiles and inverts, some of the small mammal species are more active thus current system with three predetermined positions animal switches off-screen wouldn't be satisfying enough. But it's not that big of an issue and I wouldn't mind that much about it.
• Problem with inadequately-sized exhibits could be solved also by adding new exhibit item - aviary. Aviaries were discussed here many times as well and I feel, that having something like this as an exhibit item would be really lovely and it would allow us to have some of the smaller mammals, passerine birds, hummingbirds, and other small gems who are being kept in these types of exhibits.
So this is my view, maybe there is more of us who likes these little critters and who knows...maybe we will actually be surprised by Frontier in future
Bonus pic: Me during my keeper duties with my most favorite species, who is surprisingly not a small mammal.
Meet Babirusas ☺
