Realized I forgot to reply to this comment, when initially I had thought of a response.
If this was true and intended, then a lot of animals from Africa would also have temperate biomes. There is a monsoonal forest belt around the equatorial rainforest belt in Africa, and a lot of animals, even some rainforest animals would then have this tag. Anything from Mandrills to Bongos and Elephants to Hippos would additionally have this tag if your theory was right. In fact they apparently did at some point, according to the screens shared in the previous page, but were then changed to tropical. I see a clear pattern here, that shows temperate biome for deciduous tropical forests is not intended, at least not anymore, as all of them have been changed to tropical. I hope the developers will not shy away from continuing to fix the remaining examples, like the Cuvier's Dwarf Caiman, Capuchin Monkey and Malayan Tapir, otherwise they would not match the base game animals. A game should be consistent with its mechanics. The trade off is just 1-2% welfare, so it's nothing terrible for the players who already have those plants.
I am hopeful after today's announcement on Polar Bears. Caimans having suitability for 3-6 degree Celsius is very worrying for someone who cares about animal welfare like me. The only crocodilian that should be ok with such temperatures is the American and Chinese Alligators. The only way to fix this is to remove temperate biome from them. This way it will be 2 birds with one stone. Animals will have proper temperature suitabilities, and a consistent biome mechanic that applies to all animals equally.
Update: Reticulated Giraffe, Nyala and Cape Buffalo are also good examples to disprove that logic. Non of them live in traditional rainforests, but apparently have the tropical biome to represent the deciduous forests along the coast of East Africa.
It's not only those ones. Here, I'll make a list of all tropical animals in the game that would have had the temperate biome if his theory was right:
1) Aardvark
2) African buffalo
3) African elephant
4) African wild dog
5) Aldabra giant tortoise
6) Amazonian giant centipede
7) Boa constrictor
8) Bongo
9) Brazilian salmon pink tarantula
10) Brazilian wandering spider
11) Common warthog
12) Galapagos giant tortoise
13) Giant anteater
14) Giant forest scorpion
15) Giant otter
16) Giant tiger land snail
17) Goliath beetle
18) Goliath birdeater
19) Green iguana
20) Hippopotamus
21) Komodo dragon
22) Lesser Antillean iguana
23) Mandrill
24) Nile monitor
25) Nyala
26) Pygmy hippopotamus
27) Reticulated giraffe
28) Saltwater crocodile
29) Southern cassowary
30) Spotted hyena
31) Titan beetle
32) Western chimpanzee
33) Yellow anaconda
I don't know if I missed any, but I think these are enough to prove that deciduous tropical forests in the game are not considered to be part of the temperate biome. There is indeed abstraction in the form of tropical dry forests being lumped up with grassland and tropical deciduous forests (monsoonal forests) being lumped up with tropical. Furthermore, we can see this by looking at the aardvark, African buffalo, boa constrictor, common warthog, giant anteater, giant otter, giant tiger land snail, goliath beetle, green iguana, Komodo dragon, Nile monitor, nyala, and reticulated giraffe, all of which have both the tropical and grassland tags
at the same time. If tropical monsoonal forests were really classified as temperate, then all of these 13 animals that have both grassland and tropical biomes would also have the temperate biome tag as tropical deciduous forests (monsoonal forests) are the "in-between" biome between tropical rainforests and grasslands, being in the transitional zone. An animal living in both rainforests and savannahs would also be existent in the monsoonal forests between those two habitat regions. This is clear proof the game isn't following the form of abstraction he was claiming. They probably indeed thought about that possibility at some point in the past, as we can see from the screens
@DrBurrito shared, but that is no longer the method they are following. The remaining 4 animals (capuchin, Malayan tapir, dwarf caiman, cockroach) are against the pattern all the other 33 animals I've listed above follow.
On the other hand, there are indeed animals in the game from the tropics or subtropics that should keep their temperate biome tag, or taiga in other cases, since their range does extend into temperate broadleaf or coniferous forests. Those animals should keep the tags. Here's the list of those animals:
1) Baird's tapir
2) Bengal tiger
3) Binturong
4) Chinese pangolin
5) Clouded leopard
6) Dhole
7) Eastern blue tongued lizard
8) Eastern brown snake
9) Formosan black bear
10) Gharial
11) Greater flamingo
12) Indian elephant
13) Indian peafowl
14) Indian rhino
15) Jaguar
16) Koala
17) Mexican red knee tarantula
18) Sun bear
And then there are those missing the temperate biome tag, but that isn't the focus of this thread, so I'll leave it at that.
I thought abundant means that they don't grow there. English isn't my native Language
