It seems like African animals would have a bias towards avoiding the water lest they become croc food. It drives me nuts when African wild dogs and hyenas jump in because smaller predators which rely and mobility and pack mentality to survive wouldn’t seem likely give that up. On the other hand the Bengal Tiger and (especially) the Jaguar are outstanding water hunters, so they should be more willing to jump in and frolic in the water, IMO.
True, but not by swimming after them.
That would be extra badass though.
That is what they do…. Sneak on a branch till they’re directly overhead and then drop right on top. Totally badass!
Actually those caimans in the videos are a different species, the yacare caiman (Caiman yacare), roughly 1/10th the size of adult black caimans. They are not as small as Cuvier's dwarf caimans, the species in the game, but still much smaller than the black caiman, which are roughly the size of Nile crocodiles. Jaguars don't hunt adult black caiman, they will only go after juveniles, and rarely subadults that are in the same size class as yacares. Adults are top predators. In fact jaguars avoid water bodies occupied by adult black caimans. During my time participating in a survey in Rio Negro, we had observed this behaviour first hand.
If cats had opposable thumbs, they would have started keeping humans as pets millennia ago.
Cats don’t need opposable thumbs - they make their human pets do everything for them already.
I would also like porpoising for hippos. Until the introduction of deep swimming, the existing underwater navigation for hippos was more than acceptable, but now that we have deep swimming, the existing system for hippos has become too two dimensional compared to animals using the newer underwater navigation system. I believe hippos can be tweaked slightly to use an intermediate system where they utilize porpoising and the idle position you recommended in areas where the depth of water allows for such animations. This way their movement in water will look relatively more three dimensional compared to the current limited system they have.
Underwater navigation for hippos is definitely too linear. I hope it gets addressed at some point.
I think the animals you listed are all that is needed. Maybe throw in the Komodo.
What about Indian rhino and elephants?
They don't really deep dive, they stay close to the surface.
Sure? I think I've seen both submerge, but I don't know how deep they dive.
Elephants certainly do. They use their trunks as a snorkel.
They submerge their heads, but they don't go for full deep dives like, say, the penguins and otters.
