I have really come to like the idea of an Islands Animal Pack. These are my thoughts, and my chosen species list.
Original species
These are animals where nothing else quite like them exists in the game.
The first and most obvious choice is the Tasmanian devil. It is now the highest animal on the meta wishlist and this pack would be an ideal place to put it. It would probably need some changes to its life history to make it usable (for example, its lifespan would need to be extended - under the normal game time, the animal would go from birth to death in slightly over two hours) but that is something I could live with if it meant these animals, which are an endangered and charismatic creature unlike anything else in the game so far. Tasmania has no other major endemic species that have the same clout as the devil.
Madagascar is an absolute requirement for an islands pack. There are tonnes of good options - among lemurs alone there are sifakas, aye-ayes, any of the true lemurs (such as mongoose, red-bellied or crowned) and the unique wetland-dwelling Alaotran gentle lemur. Add to that the radiated tortoise, Malagasy giant rat, Madagascar crested ibis, giant coua, the many small carnivores (the fanaloka, bokiboky or ring-tailed vontsira, for example) and even the Parson's chameleon, which is cat-sized and thrives when kept outdoors in even fairly temperate climates, and choosing a representative is very tricky. Ultimately though, the most-wanted species and one that is fairly decently represented in captivity is the fossa. This species could borrow animations from the clouded leopard, but I am inclined to think it would probably need to be made from scratch.
Another island that needs to be included is New Guinea. My personal favourite is the Victoria crowned pigeon, the largest of the pigeons and a predominantly ground-dwelling species. However, I think the preferred option for most players would be one of the tree kangaroos. Ultimately, either the Goodfellow's or Huon tree kangaroo would work well - the Goodfellow's is the species being worked with in Europe, Australia and Singapore, while the Huon is mostly kept in America. They both have vibrant colours and would be a welcome addition as another climbing animal.
A flightless bird is also a requirement in my mind, with the most obvious choice being the North Island brown kiwi. This is a species that is abundant in captivity in New Zealand and is also widespread, although not exactly common, in zoos elsewhere around the world including Europe, America and Japan. They would be able to use the smaller burrow. They would add a very welcome bird to the game. Another option that I have come to like, very much secondary to the kiwi, is the Gough moorhen. This near-flightless bird from Gough Island in the mid-Atlantic was abundant in captivity in Europe until 2008 - at one point in the mid-90s there were 16 zoos in the UK alone that kept them. At least one (Bristol Zoo) kept them mixed with African penguins.
Species which reuse existing rigs
These species are ones which could either be reskins or borrow heavily from the animations of species already in the game.
One recent addition to the game that could really do with an additional species is a gibbon, to use the brachiation structure. Many species of gibbon occur on Southeast Asian islands, including the lar and agile gibbons, but the only one that is both endemic to an island and has a decent presence in captivity is the silvery gibbon of Java. They are kept in several zoos in Europe and America. This species has the more fluty duet call typical of the smaller gibbons and is amenable to being mixed with orangutans, as Chester Zoo have this mix in their Islands complex.
Britain is one of the major island groups in Europe and it does have some wildlife that warrants inclusion. Among the most celebrated animals is the Scottish wildcat, subject to a huge captive-breeding programme in the UK (with 34 different zoos keeping them), as well as a single pair kept in Sweden. This would possibly use many movements from other cats, but would need new animations, sounds and a considerable remodel. This would add the first truly small cat to the game - so far, the ten cats in the game are all in the top ten largest species. There could be some controversy in terms of whether this is an island endemic, with most scientific research suggesting this is not a subspecies in its own right and is simply a population of the widespread European wildcat. Either way, this is a species I would love to see.
Finally, the most simple reskin of them all - the American flamingo. Although this is almost literally nothing but a recolour of the greater flamingo, it does have going for it a much more vivid colour and also represents multiple island groups including the Caribbean and the Galapagos Islands. They are commonly kept in captivity and would add variety for those that want to increase the diversity of birds in the game. The island chains they represent, especially the Galapagos, have few other possible habitat species - the biggest native land mammal of the Caribbean is the hutia, the size of a small dog, while other than the tortoise and the flamingo none of the endemic Galapagos species are legally displayed in zoos.
Exhibit species
There are two different types of exhibit now, both of which come with their own potential options.
Walkthrough exhibit
With fruit bats confirmed for walkthrough exhibits, an easy choice would be another species of bat such as the Rodrigues flying fox. They are an endangered species that is also commonly kept in zoos both in Europe and North America.
Alternatively, one could go for a small bird, especially one that is both too small to be a flying habitat bird and too sensitive or aggressive for a mixed aviary. Southeast Asia has plenty of options for birds, but whether they work depends partly on whether the walkthough option can be toggled on or off and whether the exhibit is viewable by other means than just a walkthrough. Perhaps my favourite option, as an endangered small bird that does best when kept among its own species and brightly-coloured is the Mitchell's lorikeet, native to Bali and Lombok. It looks superficially similar to the rainbow lorikeet (which is not an island species, and occurs mainly on the Australian mainland), but is critically endangered with possibly no more than 50 remaining in the wild. They are kept and bred in a number of European zoos and also in Singapore.
Typical exhibit
For typical exhibits, my preference is for something unusual. There are plenty of options.
Among reptiles, many remarkable species exist in Oceania. The tuatara is the sole representative of the fourth main reptile family and occurs only on New Zealand, the Solomon Island skink lives in social groups and carry their infants on their backs like monkeys, the nearest relatives of Fiji banded iguanas live over 9,000 kilometres away in South America and the crested gecko of New Caledonia was thought to be extinct between 1866 and 1994 and has since become very common in captivity.
Reptiles from islands elsewhere in the world include the unique chameleons and leaf-tailed and day geckos from Madagascar, one of the Caribbean anole lizards which have helped shape our understanding of island evolution more than almost any other animal or the critically endangered Santa Catalina rattlesnake, which is found only on the island it shares its name with (in the Sea of Cortez) and, uniquely among rattlesnakes, lacks a rattle.
With amphibians dominating the DLC exhibit animals recently, there aren't many I would choose. The only one I would really like to see is the Mallorcan midwife toad, a living fossil from the Mediterranean that is kept and bred in captivity in Europe and has a very interesting story regarding its evolution and discovery.
One of if not my absolute favourite choices is actually an invertebrate. I have recently found out about a fascinating ancient group of animals which have survived unchanged since the Cretaceous period, known as velvet worms. Many species live on islands but one that is now becoming quite regular in captivity, seems to be quite simple to breed and can be kept in a similar manner to poison-dart frogs is the Barbados brown velvet worm. They are about three times the length of the Lehmann's poison frog, can be kept in large groups and I find them fascinating. Although there are many options for an exhibit species, this may be the one I would choose.
