There are twice as many antelope as monkeys. Not saying that antelopes aren't wonderful, just that monkeys are more appealing because zoos generally have several species, whereas the game now gives you 4 -- 3 if you're very focused on realism. Audubon Zoo has an entire primates loop, of which only a few species are not monkeys, and a solid 5 are, plus spider monkeys elsewhere in the park. And the Smithsonian has around 6 monkey species as well. It feels bad to advocate for monkeys taking the spot of a less unique DLC addition, but we honestly should have started the game with at least 5 species IMO.
Yes but the thing is, ungulates are 1. A much larger group of animals that also need larger representation and 2. Ungulates are the most common type of animals in zoos. Why do we have so many african antelopes? Because allmost every zoo has them and if they do theirs a good chance there are atleast 5 or more. Cervids needed years to be even remotly represented in the game, having all 3 of them as dlc and arguably still atleast a small deer like the muntjak in the must have list. Suids are omnipresent in zoos, every zoo i know has atleast one and the 4 by far most common species (peccaries, wild boar, red river hog, domestic) arnt in the game yet. Bovids are fine now, we got the major one for each continent with the european one being basicly a clone, but there are still very good domestic additions like the yak, scottish highland and wattussi cattle. Goats are a joke in the game, we got two but atleast a domestic one (the number 2 most common zoo animal in the EAZA is the african dwarf goat), a takin and either an asian or northafrican one is desperatly needed. Asias antelopes arnt even in the game, so much for them and we got just one horse aswell, with atleast a donkey and the prezwildhorse needed.
Yes, monkeys are great and underrepresented, but they can be fixed with a few more animals, but i would argue that ungulates would need atleast 10 more additions (muntjak, takin, markhor/barbary sheep/any other goat, peccary, wild boar, red river hog, blackbuck, nilgai, a dwarf antelope like a dik dik or a duiker) to feel somewhat complete, but thats still disregarding domestic animals which would bumb an extra 4 onto that list, as a domestic cattle, donkey, pig and goat are the must if we should ever get more domestic animals and want to build petting zoos and the like.
Just because africa has a good ungulate representantion that does not mean that we dont need more and even africa has some niches begging to be filled like the red river hog or the very big and small antelopes that we for some reason dont have any of.
And while i agree that its a crime we obly got 2 dlc monkeys, its an equal shame that ungulates are also often overlooked for dlc. The only packs with 2 ungulates are the wetland pack, europe pack and the arctic pack, while only two others had one. So we got 8 ungulates per dlc, 3 being cervids that wernt in the base game, 2 goats that wernt in the base game, 1 bovine, 1 antelope and 1 suid. Thats an allright representation, allmost a fifth of the dlc animals but still no where near enough. Im not saying every dlc must have ungulates but i would be lying if i would say that we have enough and should stop getting more, which just feels dismissive to me.
Yes i know we got like 10 african antelopes but that does not invalidate how sucky the representation for not subsaharan african ungulate in the base game was and honestly how much still is needed. We are finally at a point where the ungulate representantion in the game is decent, but thats not a reason to stop.
But hey, guess two flies with one hit, if this isnt the best place to rant about the unpoularity of ungulates, where else should it be?