What's your opening enclosure?

[Antimony96]

Guests enter your zoo, maybe pass the gift shop and welcome center. What's the first habitat they see, and what's your philosophy behind that being your first animal (if you have one)?

@Leaf Productions has discussed this in a few of his videos, but what he often does and what a lot of real zoos tend to do is put a "kinetic" animal at the very front--one which is playful and energetic, and popular enough to draw attention but not too popular that it makes the rest of the zoo less exciting by comparison. Penguins, monkeys, and gibbons apply here. Flamingos are a very common entrance animal, too--not as active, but they make a lot of noise and are visually eye-catching for obvious reasons.

 

[NachoB]

Penguins, meerkats, flamingos.

 

[Captain Callum]

Almost always something aquatic. Flamingos, african penguins, Asian otters or sea lions are my usual palette to choose from. Generally the idea came from real life zoos which my most memorable experiences come from active aquatic based entrance habitats.

 

[SuzieSky]

Prairie dogs on one side and cassowaries on the other.

 

[Angeł]

I have a few different options for this.

A lot of the time, I go for some kind of primate. Either gibbon species, Lemurs or Capuchins are the best options for me. They’re loud, interesting, are fun for guests of all types to watch, and immediately garner interest in your zoo. I’ve been to plenty of zoos with primates right at the entrance, as a way to entice guests further in to the zoo.

Another option is a mixed species enclosure with smaller animals. My go to is Striped Skunks/Raccoons, although things like Small Clawed Otter/Red Panda, Meerkat/Aardvark, Meerkat/Crested Porcupine also work. These mixed species exhibits are exciting, and usually consist of very active and interesting to watch smaller animals. My zoo at the moment has Skunks and Raccoons at its entrance!

The third option is either Sea Lions or Penguins. They are loud, make for interesting builds, and are popular without being the zoo’s ‘star animal’, but make for a great zoo mascot. They usually make for great standalone habitats too (as in, out of the usual themed ‘African Savannah’ sections). I’ve seen plenty of zoos use Sea Lions or Penguins as starter animals.

These are my usual three options when starting a zoo. Any of these, accompanied by a Reptile House and Butterfly Exhibit, can give your zoo entrance a realistic feeling and entice guests to explore more of your zoo!

 

[Fallax]

I like to have enclosures before the entrance sometimes, this is a bit common here in the UK. My current zoo, I have built a road and then car park leading up to the zoo. On the way up the road there is some paddocks for fallow deer and emu + wallaby. I also have 6 exhibit boxes in the entrance building to add some life to it. I'm planning on adding a third "pre-entry" paddock for llamas and then I will work on my actual entry exhibits...

 

[FlameWizard492]

I don't think that I have an ideal opener. I think it depends on what kind of zoo I'm going for. For the last year or so, I've been making a zoo for every DLC released. Here's what I made so far:

• Conservation - African Penguins
• Twilight - Row of spider exhibits
• Grasslands - Butterfly WE
• Tropical - None, but I have tortoises in the back of the hub area.
• Arid - Scarab Beetles next to a row of sweet shops (Cosmic Cow, Missy Good, etc.) that I'm calling Scarab Sweets, then after that, I have Dromedary Camels kind of in the center.

 

[Marvinb]

My main zoo has an flamingo exhibit as the first thing you see when entering. In addition to that i also have something inspired by my local zoo atteched to my entrance plaza. Its called the "unterirdischer zoo" or underground zoo, which features underground viewings for bats, molerats and similar stuff. Unfortunately im stuck with the bats and prairie dogs

 

[jcp011c]

Meerkats are my normal go to for entrance habitat, but I have also used the Capybara on several occasions. Prior to those DLC, the base game animal would have been the Aardvark or Bison though I've used the Giant Panda once or twice too.

My reasonings:

Meerkats - they are very recognizable, very social with each other as well as very active. Basically they're fun to watch. They're also cheap to get and cheap to take care of, so that is also a good benefit to them. They're always among my favorites at zoos I go to, even though I've seen them numerous times.

Capybara - If I want a walkthrough habitat at the beginning, this is what I use. They're just so...chill. They may not have the level of activity of the meerkats but they're still very social. I really don't know how to explain it but I just get a smile on my face when I see them in my game. Sadly I've never seen them in a real life zoo, which is weird since they're actually pretty common.

Base game animals:

Aardvarks are weird looking and to me that makes them interesting, definitely the more exotic and surprising animals we got in the game, much less the base game. Now that we have so many more animals I don't see using them for other opening spots in my zoos.

American Bison - Going big and for a North American Zoo, they're pretty iconic in terms of American animals. Especially since we have relatively few very large animals over here. They work well for warmer zoos and colder zoos as well, and really fits the "rustic" theme like no other base game animal, IMO.

Giant Panda - Sometimes I want to just get a hugely popular appeal animal in at the very beginning instead of later on. If I'm going to go big, there's nothing "bigger" than Giant Pandas in terms of conservation history. They're also my favorite animal so there's been two zoos that I really wanted to just get them in right up front, throwing caution to the wind financially. Lemme tell ya, it works.

I've used a couple of other animals once just for a particular theme of zoo- Wetlands Zoo (which is tropical themed) I've got the a Tortoise in there. Australian Zoo I've got the Koalas..which, they show up fairly soon often anyways. But the above 5 are the ones I've used more than once.

 

[nutrit]

Always flamingos lately otters

 

[FlameWizard492]

Always flamingos lately otters

Would you prefer a Sea Otter or North American River Otter?

 

[nutrit]

Would you prefer a Sea Otter or North American River Otter?

Sea otter but I would like to have both. Otters rules

 

[hudsonbear]

I like wallabies near the entrance - they're cute, they're fun and they put people in a good mood when they see them! (This is probably just me, but something about seeing those little guys bounce around always puts a smile on my face.) One of our local zoos has them right by the entrance, in a walkthrough enclosure, and I always love going to see them.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

I tend to do a mix. I like to not have one entrance habitat but multiple depending on which way you go.
In my second zoo this was quite simple. Walk in and in the front were penguins with kangaroos behind them for a panorama shot, while there was a big main attraction animal right to the side with giraffes. This worked really well, but sadly that zoo got deleted by accident so i cant tell how the left side would have developed.
On my current zoo, there actually is no entrance animal traditinally, when you go into the zoo for a small stretch there are no animals with a path to the left with prez wild horses and cranes, aswell as a hill to look over a river in the front with bisons at the side as my intentioned first big shot animal.
Ironically though, the true entrance animals are the wild horses and not even from inside the zoo, as their habitat has rather good visibility from a little plaza outside of my zoo, so whenever i let customers into my zoo, there will be large groups of them oogling at my horses before even passing the entrance, funny how things work out sometimes.

 

[CounselorCloud]

Most of my intro habitats include smaller animals such as aardvarks, raccoons, flamingos, etc. It makes it easier to have multiple small habitats around the front, while allowing enough interest to draw people in further. Stuff that can easily be built around and draw more people in at the entrance while enticing people to go further in order to see animals like the bears or big cats. Otherwise, it is usually just one of each shop (i.e. 1 food, 1 drink, 1 bathroom, 1 info, and 1 gift shop) alongside quite a few exhibit species to grow the interest rate of my zoos as well as the profits faster for ease of expansion.

I generally avoid most walkthrough exhibits or bigger multi-animal habitats near the entrance so that it is not overwhelmingly packed right at the entrance.

In real life zoos, it makes more sense to do the popular animals slightly further and force them to pass various shops in order to entice them to spend more money along the way.

 

[Eletan888]

It's always flamingos for me! I've done sea lions before, but I usually like to save them for the center of the zoo

 

[lunavinceres]

I almost always have a canine near the entrance. I just like puppers.

 

[LuckyFoxEnterprises]

Usually always start with a butterfly house and other exhibits, then red pandas.

 

[NZFanatic]

Usually meerkats, small-clawed otters, porcupines, badgers, skunks - the small critters. Occasionally bigger animals.