Does Africa Need Any More Mammals?

Calleo · Jun 7, 2023

Yes. Full stop. It’s one of the most diverse and heavily represented continents in zoos.

There are still a significant number of ABC species from Africa and other icons that are absent from the game but zoo staples. Examples:

Mantled Guereza
Gelada
Hamadryas Baboon
Barbary Macaque
Aye-Aye
Coquerel’s Sifaka
Serval
Honey Badger
African Civet
Common Dwarf Mongoose
Kirk’s Dik-Dik
Common Eland
Greater Kudu
Gerenuk
Forest Buffalo
Sitatunga
Aardwolf
Bat-Eared Fox

If I had to whittle that down I’d go for:

1. Mantled Guereza (it’s one of the most common primates in zoos everywhere)

2. Aye-Aye (one of the most unique and bizarre species around).

3. Gelada (probably the most recognisable of the baboons)

4. Serval (one of the most common felines in captivity)

5. Common Eland (the worlds largest antelope and a staple of any African plains exhibit).

6. Common Dwarf Mongoose (synonymous with any African area in a zoo, everywhere).

One of the positive of this pack is at least 5 of the 7 species would have made this list for me 2 days ago. The Dromedary, porcupine, Rhino, wild ass and addax. Only the sand cat and Dama Gazelle are ‘extras’ for me.

ElectricMonk · Jun 7, 2023

Ounze said:
Honestly? Yes. if we are going by biodiversity, then roughly one fifth of all mammals should be from Africa.

You’re claiming 1/5th of mammal species, worldwide, is from Africa?….

No

becks474 · Jun 8, 2023

synthetase said:
I want the animal @Aramar mentions. IDK why? They're not a zoo animal... I just think they would add something... I really want them.
I also really welcome:
View attachment 357956 View attachment 357957

The Wild Boar surely is not a typical animal for a Classic Zoo but Here in Germany there are a lot of so called "Wildparks" which concentrate more on local fauna and there you can really often find it. If you want to make an European section the Wild Boar is the Most important remaining animal in my opinion.

Marvinb · Jun 8, 2023

ElectricMonk said:
You’re claiming 1/5th of mammal species, worldwide, is from Africa?….

No

Honestly? I dont think its that far fetched.
Antarctica does have any mammals except a handfull of seals, Europe is pretty small and Australia doesnt have that many mammals in comparission to other continents

Antimony96 · Jun 8, 2023

Calleo said:
Yes. Full stop. It’s one of the most diverse and heavily represented continents in zoos.

There are still a significant number of ABC species from Africa and other icons that are absent from the game but zoo staples. Examples:

Nitpicky but "ABC species" refers to specifically the charismatic megafauna that are the absolute most popular zoo attractions--big cats, elephants, great apes, giraffes, etc.

Ounze · Jun 9, 2023

ElectricMonk said:
You’re claiming 1/5th of mammal species, worldwide, is from Africa?….

No

Alright, So I went ahead and grabbed a copy of the American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) database. I plugged in a Count if function to count the mentions of africa for the continent of origin (The AM column).
Of the estimated 6649 species of mammals the ASM has, 1,456 were found in Africa, 832 in North America, 1,313 in South America, 78 in Europe, 1,705 in Asia, and 647 in Oceania. Now you might notice this only adds up to 6,031 species, could be the count if isn't counting species with cosmopolitain distributions, could be the database itself has trouble with them, but the point is that I haven't had time to dig into it.
So long story short, the ASM estimates that 21.8-24.1% of mammals species live in Africa (not necessarily whole sale, but a part of Africa makes up some portion of their known range), 12.5-13.7% in North America, 19.7-21.7% in South America, 1.1-1.2% in Europe, 25.6-28.2% in Asia, 9.7-10.7% in Oceania.
I calculated these percentage with X/6649 (full database, which yield the smaller of each estimate, but account for cases like Europe where the Database seems to have lost it's mind), and x/6031 to account the possiblity that cosmopolitan species weren't counted, as well as Oceanic species, which would explain Antartica's zero, despite listed in the Database.
So yes, 20%, or 1/5th of mammal species do live in Africa.

Link to the ASM database which can be downloaded.

ASM Mammal Diversity Database

(work in progress) Mammal Diversity Database website

www.mammaldiversity.org

Countif function

COUNTIF function - Microsoft Support

How to use the COUNTIF function in Excel to count the number of cells that meet values you set.

support.microsoft.com

yoav_r · Jun 9, 2023

Ounze said:
Of the estimated 6649 species of mammals the ASM has, 1,456 were found in Africa, 832 in North America, 1,313 in South America, 78 in Europe, 1,705 in Asia, and 647 in Oceania.

Lol Europe is a continent like Pluto is a planet

Ounze · Jun 9, 2023

yoav_r said:
Europe is a continent like Pluto is a planet

I mean... kinda fair. Though honestly Europe just got screwed because of the long continous connection with asia, and large human density. Lot of the stuff has been wiped out before even the Romans.
Did some more math...

Continent	Species	Total Mammalian species	% of PZ Mammalians	Real world % (per ASM)	% differential
Africa	45	110	40.90909091	24.1	16.80909091
Europe	12	110	10.90909091	1.2	9.709090909
Asia	39	110	35.45454545	28.2	7.254545455
N America	24	110	21.81818182	13.7	8.118181818
Oceania	6	110	5.454545455	10.7	-5.245454545
S. America	10	110	9.090909091	21.7	-12.60909091

So while I do think Africa absolutely needs more animals, I really hope frontier focuses more on South America and Oceania for a bit. Seeing as they are under-represented compared to their real world counterparts, and that Africa is now nearly 17 points over-represented (compared to the 110 mammal species that will be in game on the Arid pack drop).

yoav_r · Jun 9, 2023

Ounze said:
I really hope frontier focuses more on South America and Oceania for a bit.

Note the mammal numbers are skewed by tiny shrew-like mammals which are irrelevant to zoos. I completely agree south americca should be the highest priority pack, but Oceania I think is in a pretty good state by now.

Marvinb · Jun 9, 2023

yoav_r said:
Note the mammal numbers are skewed by tiny shrew-like mammals which are irrelevant to zoos. I completely agree south americca should be the highest priority pack, but Oceania I think is in a pretty good state by now.

Yeah 60% of mammals are either bats or rodents which is crazy to me

Ounze · Jun 10, 2023

yoav_r said:
Note the mammal numbers are skewed by tiny shrew-like mammals which are irrelevant to zoos. I completely agree south americca should be the highest priority pack, but Oceania I think is in a pretty good state by now.

True, but they should be more relevant. Sengi, Grasshopper Mice, Selendons, and other small creatures would be great to have.

leehonglocal · Jun 11, 2023

Yes. These are the African mammals I wished and hoped for Planet Zoo to have.

African leopard
Any baboon species
Masai giraffe (another giraffe species could be a good idea)
Black-backed jackal

Pentoleaf · Jun 11, 2023

Yes.

We need a least one more arboreal African monkey. Colubus is my choice but there are other possibilities. Ideally we could get more than one.

We need a baboon. Olive baboon, hamadrayas baboon, gelada which is really more baboon adjacent but would at least scratch the itch.

We need a small antelope, like a dikdik or klipspringer, a larger antelope like an eland or kudu, and an unusual antelope like a gerenuk.

We need pygmy goats since they are one of the world's most common zoo animals full stop.

I would also really, really like to see rock hyrax and serval.