I must say I became a big antelope fan within the last year. As a child this was surely not the case.
This rings very much true for me as well, including the specific past year timeframe. I imagine most of it is lack of exposure to various types of antelope as a kid. Like, in child-oriented nature documentaries, they were never really the focus. You'd see lions or crocs snagging an unspecified "gazelle" and that was all the major screentime they got. I had a fairly robust collection of animal toys as a child, I'd ballpark at around 50 extant species in this particular collection that I loved the most, and not a single antelope in the bunch (incidentally, I actually dug them out of my old closet at my parents' house last week so they're very fresh on my mind). Even in the original Zoo Tycoon, the only obvious antelope was the Thomson's gazelle. The wildebeest and gemsbok seemed like they were definitely different things to my young mind, and the blackbuck, bongo, and sable antelope weren't included in the original retail version that I had.
Regardless of the reason, it's something I've been very cognizant of lately and wishing we had more antelopes in Planet Zoo. The base game antelope roster started off strong, but then we got
nothing over the course of the first 8 DLCs. The past 2 have picked up the slack, slightly, but there's still plenty more I'd actively like to see:
- Blackbuck. Super unique in appearance and region. It could be used in ways that no other antelope on the roster presently can.
- Blue wildebeest. Not exciting, but absolutely iconic. Probably top 5 most recognizable missing zoo animals at this point. I still think the black wildebeest was a weirdly arbitrary choice.
- Greater kudu or common eland. We probably don't need both, but having one of these big fellas would complement our current savanna squad perfectly.
- Addax. Critically endangered, much needed desert/North Africa representation, fascinating looking horns
- Bontebok. I think we need one hartebeest-style antelope (not sure what the specific term would be but if you know what they look like you know what I mean - bontebok, blesbok, hartebeest, hirola, sassaby). They're easily my favorite of the bunch, and tell a great conservation story as well.
- Waterbuck. i-just-think-theyre-neat.png
Those are my main wants, but I'm open to so much more. I guess honorable mentions go out to the dama gazelle, impala, dik-dik, and a duiker species. The roan antelope would be a welcome pick in a hypothetical "extra clones" scenario. And while I don't actively want them by any means, I suppose I wouldn't be opposed to seeing the saiga. I mean, it's hardly any worse than the proboscis monkey (not really, but still).
Also, no gerenuk because they freak me out. I don't think they're actually real.
