I was looking at some mixed exhibit ideas from zoos around the world on the internet and found a really unique one. Boras zoo in Sweden I believe has white rhino and cheetah together. They say they actually do quite well together and the cheetah have access to a separate part of the enclosure that the rhinos can’t access.
Unique mixed species exhibit
- Thread starter paul78
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Somebody in the threads made a chart awhile back. But I believe it’s been about a month or so since I’ve seen it. I would just do sandbox with the options turned off to replicate some. In reality a lot of animals can be mixed and tolerate each other. I’ve even seen foxes and wolves mixed with bears. In the case of the cheetah and the rhino the rhinos know the cheetah is no threat to them and the cheetah is too quick for the rhino. We should be able to mix quite a bit really but you could always experiment I guess.
Those are some unique but fun combinations on the pictures 
gonna try some of them too in 1 of my zoo's
the only thing is that you don't have the interspieciesbonus
gonna try some of them too in 1 of my zoo's you can mix a lot of animals together, there was indeed someone who posted a chart, but i sometimes put animals together who are no meat eaters, and if they have enough space and the same plants/ground it should work...
the only thing is that you don't have the interspieciesbonus
Here's the site I use for mixing animals, if you check "Expand animal compatibility" at the top and then click on an animal, it shows you every animal they can live with and what biomes they share!
I believe I read somewhere that the carnivore/herbivore mix is considered unethical by most standards. Especially the cheetah and zebra - you can tell even in that photo that both animals are extremely uneasy around each other. Cheetahs already struggle in captivity. The otter/binturong mix is a good one, though. I've seen otters mixed with siamang before, too.
@NZFanatic I was pretty surprised by that photo. In the other photos it shows the zebras are actually the bully of the exhibit. The rhino cheetah mix doesn’t bother me to much as they’ve been mixed for years and there’s no way a big white rhino would even view the cheetah as a threat. Now a black rhino on the other hand wouldn’t tolerate them at all. I have seen some bad results of mixed exhibits tho as rhinos chase giraffes. Elephants bully everyone. One I seen had wolves mixed with brown bears and although it worked for yrs a bear did kill a wolf. I’ve also seen Pygmy hippos with mandrills with the mandrill being aggressive.
doesnt work dor me it shows absolutely nothing with other animals and stuff
Weird, although I did find it a bit awkward to work with to start with - worth noting that you can't click on animals that don't have any matches, e.g. armadillo, but if you click on african buffalo without the "expanded animal compatibility" it should show this:
And with expanded ticked it should show this longer list:
Works for a good percentage of the animals, and those that can't be clicked can't share with anyone, as far as I understand.
If that doesn't help, maybe it only works with certain browsers? I'm using Chrome.
Yeah usually the Big Ticket animals aren't often mixed. There are good results and bad results but that's why I always compare African habitats to fish tanks - Feature Species (rhino in one exhibit, giraffe in the next) and Community Species (springbok with rhinos, zebras with giraffes), but not rhinos and giraffes together (it's doable, but more risky).
I keep seeing YouTubers mixing their great apes together, too. No way that would work in real life, at all, ever. Dublin Zoo had some success mixing gorillas with mangabey, and I know a few zoos have mixed orangutans and siamangs together, but you'd never put chimpanzees and gorillas in the same habitat, and absolutely not orangutans with either. Chimpanzees also can't mix with any other primate species due to the fact that they are omnivorous and will gladly kill and eat a monkey (gorillas are pretty much purely vegetarian, on the other hand).
Some of those make me cringe hard.
It is an interesting one because to me from an animal welfare perspective there is nothing wrong with short periods of stress where zoo animals are exhibiting some territorial behaviour / intimidation but you need to avoid chronic stressors. I'm not up on the literature any more but there was some compelling evidence in animal behaviour circles when I did my undergrad that never allowing zoo animals to experience fear / discomfort / social aggression is as damaging to them as it would be for a human child. Obviously you have to manage risk but meerkats kill other meerkats in zoos relatively often but we still agree they should be kept with other meerkats. If you minimise the risk and ensure different species have safe spaces they can retreat to then I see no problem with mixed exhibits. But badly designed or as a gimmick for the public it is clearly bad.
It is an uneding question in the industry, but zoos do typically try their hardest to avoid life-threatening situations between animals. Cheetahs and rhinos together is a good example. On the one hand, yes, you might think that a rhino would never see a cheetah as a threat, that a cheetah would never have a go at a rhino, but there are so many variables to consider when putting these two together. Does the cheetah have a place it can go where the rhino can't get to it? Maybe. Are there also places in the habitat where the cheetah can't avoid the rhino?
Do we want to breed either animal? For both animals (any cheetah and any rhino subspecies, even the less endangered southern white rhinoceros) captive breeding is hugely important. So if the rhino has a calf, can we trust the rhino to protect the calf from the cheetah, if the cheetah should ever decide to go after the calf? Maybe, but at what cost to the cheetah? Can we guarantee that the cheetah will never go for the rhino calf? No.
Typically zoos introduce stressors via a very simple method - changing the environment. This is especially effective in primates, as primates typically hate sudden change (just as humans do). I remember when Auckland Zoo used to have chimpanzees and they totally upgraded their habitat with new climbing equipment. They expressely said that the chimps would hate it, that it would freak them out, but that it was important to do it anyway, otherwise the chimps would become bored and complacent. Same with their orangutans (twice now, I think). They also did it with their Sumatran tigers once, adding in some basic logs (transported by their elephants, as a little fun fact - the elephants were stimulated by the scent of a predator as they moved the logs into the tiger enclosure, as well as by the work they were doing). The tigers were terrified of the logs at first. What are these? Where did they come from? We were inside the normal amount of time, but we came out, and here's some stuff that wasn't there before. Soon they were exploring it, marking it, climbing on it.
Point is, unconventional mixed-species habitats aren't a surefire way of achieving good mental health in animals and can have disastrous effects if not managed extremely carefully. There was even a case I heard about once where a baby giraffe was so fascinated by an ostrich it shared its habitat with that the ostrich was constantly stressed and started plucking.
I understand the Reason why it shouldn't be possible to have a Enclosure with Chimpanzees and other Primates but would a Enclosure with Bonobos and Gorillas work?
I read bwindi chimps and gorillas occasionally interact at the same feeding trees in the wild with some aggression at times. I imagine the silverback would be the aggressor in this circumstance. Chimps tho can be a very aggressive animal towards one another tho.I should say studies of gorillas have also shown some mob behavior and aggression also. I’m sure some zoo or person has mixed the two in the past but agreed wouldn’t be a wise choice. I was pretty impressed with the strength of the gorilla tho according to gorilla facts they have a 1300psi bite force. Can deadlift 1800lbs and end a cage steel bar without a problem.
Doubtful. Bonobo are considered the more chill cousin of the chimpanzee but they're still territorial, and so are gorillas. In this case of great apes it's also difficult to design an enclosure where one species can effectively get away from the other.
Edit: That said, it is just a game - if it works in-game and you want to do it, by all means. I'm more of a sucker for realism than most.
I did come across these photos online. I would have posted them last time but opted for the others. But these all include gorillas. You can’t tell if a silverback is on display with them tho. But I don’t know if a male would exhibit hostile behavior to a animal it didn’t consider a threat.
Indeed, they look like the Dublin Zoo gorillas I mentioned earlier. In Dublin Zoo they mixed gorillas with mangabey, which as far as I know was successful. It wouldn't work with chimpanzees, though, as they are known to actively hunt small monkeys in the wild.