Animals that should have more (or have) enrichment bonus with other species.

[Utahraptor Arcanus]

Hello everybody, with the release of the new Americas pack, and several inconsistencies with the enrichment bonus that species of this pack present, alongside with several animals from other dlcs and even on the base game lacking several bonuses on the game. So in order to do this, I decided to compile a list of all the animals that could have more animals (or an animal that it could share it to begin with) on their enrichment list. If I forget some, feel free to point them out.
(Note: i will refer to "other african animals" a lot here, so just to let it clear, i'm referring to that one massive enrichment group that includes the zebra, wildebeests, gazelles, giraffe, buffalo, white rhino, ostrich, sable antelope and warthog)


Here's the list:
-The african savannah elephant currently only have a bonus with the Hamadryas baboon, although elephants might be more reactive than other animals, several mixes were considered successful, therefore making then suitable for enrichment, including Nyalas, red river hogs, the animals from the African enrichment group and arguably, the Hill Radnor sheep. A point can be made about the Asian elephant, though mixes between the two elephants has been disencourage in the last years.
-The cheetah should gain a bonus With the two africans rhinos, considering the mix with white rhinos was done successfully on Boras, Attica zoological park and flamingo land while Leipzig had success with black rhinos, both mixes are almost impossibles ingame as the rhinos will stress out the cheetahs and those will attack the babies.
-The African porcupine currently lacks any bonus, they should receive a bonus with the dik-dik (as they share the same range), with meerkat, spurred tortoise, and arguably, with the other african animals.
-Speaking on the meerkat, it should receive a bonus with the tortoise, dik-dik and (for more ironic this might sound) warthog.
-The american standart donkey currently lacks any enrichment with other NA animals, this should be changed with the addition of the American bison, and with arguably, bighorns, mooses, pronghorns and peccaries, as they range collides with the donkey range on zoopedia.
Speaking on it, peccary should have the bonus with alpacas (mainly for consistency, as they have it with llamas) and the rhea.
-The rhea should also have a bonus with giant anteaters.
-the asian small clawed otter should have a bonus with the siamang (For consistency) and the water buffalo.
-The swan should have a bonus with the greater flamingo as they both match enrichment, range and habits, alongside with the chicken as they are both domestic birds and the highland cow.

• as suggest by @Chuditch, quokka and koala should have a bonus aswell, as despite both being from different corner of Australia, some places posses the mix.
• As mentioned by @Mr-Hyrax 2 the saki (who currently lacks any enrichment) should have it with the capuchin, capybara, giant anteater, peccary and tapir.
• also by Mr Hyrax, the american flamingo should have a bonus with the capybara, as they share a certain range and lifestyle.
• as mentioned by @Mjmannella the three base game indian animals used to enrich each other on beta, but it was removed since them. While rhino-elephant was understandable considering the relationship of both animals, there's no reason why the peafowl shoudn't have a bonus with both.

And that's it for now, once again, feel free to add more ideas or to disagree with any of those.

 

[Mjmannella]

The african savannah elephant currently only have a bonus with the Hamadryas baboon, although elephants might be more reactive than other animals, several mixes were considered successful, therefore making then suitable for enrichment, including Nyalas, red river hogs, the animals from the African enrichment group and arguably, the Hill Radnor sheep. A point can be made about the Asian elephant, though mixes between the two elephants has been disencourage in the last years.

African elephants used to have a lot of species enrichment options back in the beta, sadly they were all reverted at launch. There was also a fun trio of enrichment with Indian elephants, peafowl, and rhinos.

-The cheetah should gain a bonus With the two africans rhinos, considering the mix with white rhinos was done successfully on Boras, Attica zoological park and flamingo land while Leipzig had success with black rhinos, both mixes are almost impossibles ingame as the rhinos will stress out the cheetahs and those will attack the babies.

This would require coding cheetahs as prey animals, meaning they wouldn't be able to hunt anything.

 

[Utahraptor Arcanus]

African elephants used to have a lot of species enrichment options back in the beta, sadly they were all reverted at launch. There was also a fun trio of enrichment with Indian elephants, peafowl, and rhinos.

I always wandered what happened with the peafowl-elephant-rhino enrichment thing, untill i discovered that elephants are extremelly aggressive against rhinos. Still think the peafowl should have the bonus.

As for the african, dunno why they butchered all those enrichment.

This would require coding cheetahs as prey animals, meaning they wouldn't be able to hunt anything.

i mean, coudn't they add an exception where cheetahs don't see baby rhinos as prey and rhinos don't see them as threat?

 

[Mjmannella]

Predators and prey are pretty firmly coded to either cause predation or stress, depending on the sizes at play. There isn't really a way to make it more flexible unfortunately.

 

[Chuditch]

I'd like it if quokkas and koalas shared interspecies enrichment - they occur on opposite sides of Australia from one another, but koala + quokka is a very sensible mix and one I see often in zoos (some examples here, here and here). On the other hand koala + red kangaroo is one of the few interspecies bonuses I'd actually rather be removed but that might go against the spirit of this thread haha.

 

[Utahraptor Arcanus]

I'd like it if quokkas and koalas shared interspecies enrichment - they occur on opposite sides of Australia from one another, but koala + quokka is a very sensible mix and one I see often in zoos (some examples here, here and here). On the other hand koala + red kangaroo is one of the few interspecies bonuses I'd actually rather be removed but that might go against the spirit of this thread haha.

Added it to the main post.

Also while the point of the thread is about what enrichment bonus are lacking, i do agree some animals shoudn't have a bonus, and some don't even have an explanation. I'm still trying to find a logic for chimp + RRH having a bonus, despite the fact chimps predate on hogs younglings.

 

[Mr-Hyrax 2]

Saki should get enrichment with all the animals the Capuchin, as well as the capuchin itself.

The American Flamingo should have enrichment with the Capybara

 

[Marvinb]

Added it to the main post.

Also while the point of the thread is about what enrichment bonus are lacking, i do agree some animals shoudn't have a bonus, and some don't even have an explanation. I'm still trying to find a logic for chimp + RRH having a bonus, despite the fact chimps predate on hogs younglings.

Yeah chimps definetly should under no circumstance be kept with anything else

 

[Utahraptor Arcanus]

Saki should get enrichment with all the animals the Capuchin, as well as the capuchin itself.

The American Flamingo should have enrichment with the Capybara

Added those alongside with @Mjmannella mention of the India trifecta on the beta.

 

[Topaz Star]

I'm kinda on the fence with the species enrichment. I think it's a fun game aspect and I love having it in the game. But I don't think any animal that doesn't want to kill the other or tolerates another species in their habitat in some zoos should have enrichment from eachother. I think it would be interesting to look more at the reasoning why animals would enrich eachother and if it's realistic.

 

[Mjmannella]

I think prior to capybaras, the mechanic was meant to reward education-oriented habitat mixes by restricting them to species that live in the same areas. After capybaras, the plot got kinda lost.

 

[FlameWizard492]

I remember seeing a mixed habitat at the Houston Zoo that featured rheas, tapirs, and capybaras (and they had cute little babies!).

 

[Stressed Primate]

The whole African savannah group is a bit headache inducing. So as you said, we have African buffalo, wildebeests, ostrich, warthog, zebra, giraffe, sable antelope, white rhino, springbok and Thomson's gazelle. So far so good. BUT the warthog and white rhino aren't on each other's list (I guess because rhinos attack warthogs sometimes?), instead the white rhino is the only animal compatible with the nyala for a reason that I don't really get. The buffalo, ostrich, giraffe and zebra are compatible with the scimitar-horned oryx, but he can't interact with the other animals on the list. On the other hand, it's also partly in the "Sahara group" with the dromadery camel and dama gazelle, but not the addax which they both share. Nile leschwe is okay with buffalo, ostrich and giraffe, but not the zebra and the other African savannah animals. And then you have the Somali wild ass whose also weirdly split between the two groups, and the red river hog who's just all over the place as the only compatible animals for many animals but can only interact with a small part of the main group. Taking into account all the interactions kind of feels like doing table assignations at a wedding were some people randomly hate each other.

On the other hand, I'm not sure why the alpaca and llama's lists are not more similar. Alpaca not having enrichment with the capybara feels particularly odd, as the capybara has good interactions with pretty much everyone in Latin America aside from predators. Baird's Tapir not being compatible with collared peccary also seems surprising, considering they have a lot of shared enrichments. Do they have a tendency to fight when they are together?

 

[Chuditch]

The buffalo, ostrich, giraffe and zebra are compatible with the scimitar-horned oryx, but he can't interact with the other animals on the list. On the other hand, it's also partly in the "Sahara group" with the dromadery camel and dama gazelle, but not the addax which they both share.

Scimitar-horned oryx and addax readily hybridise IRL and so shouldn't really be kept together. I'm not sure whether not giving them interspecies was deliberate or not on Frontier's part but I think it's the correct way to go about it.

Alpaca not having enrichment with the capybara feels particularly odd, as the capybara has good interactions with pretty much everyone in Latin America aside from predators.

This was changed in the last update and so the alpaca now shares enrichment with the capybara.

 

[SanRazo]

African elephants used to have a lot of species enrichment options back in the beta, sadly they were all reverted at launch. There was also a fun trio of enrichment with Indian elephants, peafowl, and rhinos.

This would require coding cheetahs as prey animals, meaning they wouldn't be able to hunt anything.

Man some of the zoopedia images of the beta remind me of zt1 zoopedia images and give me so much nostalgia.

 

[Stressed Primate]

Scimitar-horned oryx and addax readily hybridise IRL and so shouldn't really be kept together. I'm not sure whether not giving them interspecies was deliberate or not on Frontier's part but I think it's the correct way to go about it.

Oh, I didn't know that, interesting...
I guess hybridisation would be a nightmare to add to the game, plus it sounds like an especially bad idea for endangered species. Good to know.

This was changed in the last update and so the alpaca now shares enrichment with the capybara.

Oh, nice! I didn't read the changelog and the zoo I'm working on right now has neither species, so I didn't know.

 

[Marvinb]

Oh, I didn't know that, interesting...
I guess hybridisation would be a nightmare to add to the game, plus it sounds like an especially bad idea for endangered species. Good to know.


Oh, nice! I didn't read the changelog and the zoo I'm working on right now has neither species, so I didn't know.

Which makes it weird that the ruffed lemurs have interspecies enrichment

 

[Spiderhawk]

One thing I’m still so curious about: anteaters and manned wolf. I know it’s in real life, but are they just naturally tolerant of each other or do they have a similar relationship as Geladas and Ethiopian wolves?
Following up on many things said above:
There are videos of rhinos making warthogs fly. Chimps should not have enrichment with RRH under any circumstance.
Donkeys and sheep should get.
Seems the capuchin and saki range aren’t that close, fortunately they get along and have the same enrichments but in the wild they don’t know each other.
I don’t know of any African elephant habitats that share with other animals but I imagine they could get aggressive, whereas the baboons share a unique relationship in the wild.
as for the African animals: Come on frontier, let Timone and Pumba share a habitat bonus. I wasn’t aware of the hybriding that the schimitar, addax and gemsbok do in real life, ironically I keep them all together in my Africa zoo.

 

[Utahraptor Arcanus]

One thing I’m still so curious about: anteaters and manned wolf. I know it’s in real life, but are they just naturally tolerant of each other or do they have a similar relationship as Geladas and Ethiopian wolves?

They just tolerate each other, though in real zoos the management is way complex as neither the wolves nor the anteaters can have offsprings together thanks to anteaters aggressive temper and new wolves introduced need to be prepared before joining the habitat.

Seems the capuchin and saki range aren’t that close, fortunately they get along and have the same enrichments but in the wild they don’t know each other.

i believe there should be a bonus between the two as monkeys overall seens to benefit for sharing they space with other animals, mainly other primates, and besides the two are or only South american primates, so it's at least fitting.

I don’t know of any African elephant habitats that share with other animals but I imagine they could get aggressive, whereas the baboons share a unique relationship in the wild.

There's the four examples given in the main post (with Nyala, RRH, other savannah animals and sheeps) plus another examples with bat-eared foxes and that one famous video of a baby elephant playing with some guineafowls.

Should be mentioned that mixed exhibits with elephants really comes down to the individuals, some elephants are suitable for those, others aren't.

 

[Marvinb]

One thing I’m still so curious about: anteaters and manned wolf. I know it’s in real life, but are they just naturally tolerant of each other or do they have a similar relationship as Geladas and Ethiopian wolves?
Following up on many things said above:
There are videos of rhinos making warthogs fly. Chimps should not have enrichment with RRH under any circumstance.
Donkeys and sheep should get.
Seems the capuchin and saki range aren’t that close, fortunately they get along and have the same enrichments but in the wild they don’t know each other.
I don’t know of any African elephant habitats that share with other animals but I imagine they could get aggressive, whereas the baboons share a unique relationship in the wild.
as for the African animals: Come on frontier, let Timone and Pumba share a habitat bonus. I wasn’t aware of the hybriding that the schimitar, addax and gemsbok do in real life, ironically I keep them all together in my Africa zoo.

Maned wolves only prey on small critters like mice, birds and stuff so the anteater is way to big to be under any sort of predation risk.
And to the anteater it probably makes no difference if they share their space with a maned wolf or any other large ish animal like a tapir.

With rhinos it probably depends on the species. White rhinos are generally way more docile than black rhinos