Shared Habitats

[-=kraken=-]

Thoughts on various animals that can share habitats other then the ones listed on Zoopedia especially some of the more unusual?

[Jaggid Edje]

For herbivores, any that have "close" to the same terrain requirements. Pretty much that's the only requirement. You can generally make it work even when biome/continent do not match.
Because visitors are super happy with habitats that have 3 (or more) species in them I pretty much do not make any non-carnivore habitats that aren't combos.

Some of my favorites gotos for many of my zoos lately have been:

• The all-bird mix of peafowl, ostrich, cassowary. Flamingo can go with them as well, though I rarely go over 3 at once as it tends to be a keeper nightmare cleaning up when all of them have offpsring if there's more than 3 of the 4 in a habitat.
  
• Cute Climber combination of Koala, Red Panda and Binturong.
  
• Red Panda, Japanese Macaque, and Dall sheep - I love Red pandas and this is just another combination that works well for them.
  
• Reindeer, Dall Sheep and Llama -- I don't know why, but this tends to be one of the most popular habitats in my zoos in terms of number of visitors consistently in the viewing areas.
  
• Bongo, Nyala, Aardvark, Aldabra Tortoise - Okapi can go with them as well, but causes a significant jump in the area requirement of the habitat.
  
• Climbers Empire: Mandrill, Western Lowlands Gorilla, Western Chimpanzee, Bonobo, and both Lemurs. All 6 of these can go into a single habitat.
  I generally split them into 2 habitats with 3 species in each though, seeing as 3 species is the magic number for guest happiness....plus all 6 gets to be a lot of work for keepers.
  
• I is for India: Indian Elephant, Indian Rhinoceros and Indian Peafowl.
  
• Giant Otters and the tortoises (either one)

And of course there's the hoofed grassland habitat. North American hoofed grassland animals coexist well with any of the African ones. There's a lot of zoopedia combos for the African ones, but what's not obvious is that you can throw Bison, Pronghorn Antelope and Thomson Gazelle in with any of them and all of them will be quite happy.

A really good tool for helping plan these is available at this link: https://planetzooplanner.azurewebsites.net/

If you use it, click the checkbox to allow Incompatible continents to get a lot more compatible options because continent really and truly does not matter at all.
There's enough shared foliage between continents and animals can tolerate a pretty decent amount of incorrect continent foliage and still hit 99% welfare.

[Firestar]

I think you can combine almost all Animals (except Carnivores) because sadly Frontier didn't put that much Effort into it.
You can even combine Chimpanzees with small Primates which obviously wouldn't work at all in Real Life (unless your Goal is a Chimpanzee Stomach filled with Monkey/Lemur Meat).
You can even combine the Hippo with Animals that would never work in Real Life. They are so teritorial that they even kill Antelopes but in the Game they can be kept together. The only Animal I know about so far which the Hippo can't share a Enclosure with, is the Indian Rhino.
I recommend to test it in Sandbox first if you aren't sure if a Combination would work

[Varick]

A Penguin/Seal/Macaque combination works well.

[-=kraken=-]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

For herbivores, any that have "close" to the same terrain requirements. Pretty much that's the only requirement. You can generally make it work even when biome/continent do not match.
Because visitors are super happy with habitats that have 3 (or more) species in them I pretty much do not make any non-carnivore habitats that aren't combos.

Some of my favorites gotos for many of my zoos lately have been:

• The all-bird mix of peafowl, ostrich, cassowary. Flamingo can go with them as well, though I rarely go over 3 at once as it tends to be a keeper nightmare cleaning up when all of them have offpsring if there's more than 3 of the 4 in a habitat.
  
• Cute Climber combination of Koala, Red Panda and Binturong.
  
• Red Panda, Japanese Macaque, and Dall sheep - I love Red pandas and this is just another combination that works well for them.
  
• Reindeer, Dall Sheep and Llama -- I don't know why, but this tends to be one of the most popular habitats in my zoos in terms of number of visitors consistently in the viewing areas.
  
• Bongo, Nyala, Aardvark, Aldabra Tortoise - Okapi can go with them as well, but causes a significant jump in the area requirement of the habitat.
  
• Climbers Empire: Mandrill, Western Lowlands Gorilla, Western Chimpanzee, Bonobo, and both Lemurs. All 6 of these can go into a single habitat.
  I generally split them into 2 habitats with 3 species in each though, seeing as 3 species is the magic number for guest happiness....plus all 6 gets to be a lot of work for keepers.
  
• I is for India: Indian Elephant, Indian Rhinoceros and Indian Peafowl.
  
• Giant Otters and the tortoises (either one)

And of course there's the hoofed grassland habitat. North American hoofed grassland animals coexist well with any of the African ones. There's a lot of zoopedia combos for the African ones, but what's not obvious is that you can throw Bison, Pronghorn Antelope and Thomson Gazelle in with any of them and all of them will be quite happy.

A really good tool for helping plan these is available at this link: https://planetzooplanner.azurewebsites.net/

If you use it, click the checkbox to allow Incompatible continents to get a lot more compatible options because continent really and truly does not matter at all.
There's enough shared foliage between continents and animals can tolerate a pretty decent amount of incorrect continent foliage and still hit 99% welfare.

Thanks for the detailed reply, much appreciated! and thanks everyone. I'll def check out a few diff combo's. I accidently put two all 100 point Prize Pandas in with the grizzly's and they lasted an entire 2 seconds

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Koolkatz:

Thanks for the detailed reply, much appreciated! and thanks everyone. I'll def check out a few diff combo's. I accidently put two all 100 point Prize Pandas in with the grizzly's and they lasted an entire 2 seconds

LOL...at least it was an accident. I've put a lot of animals in with grizzlies on purpose to see if there are any that actually work with them.
Red Pandas actually lasted several game-years. To the point I thought they were compatible. Then the grizzlies must have gone too long without a keeper feeding them...

I don't do experiments like that anymore. At this point I just am resigned to the fact that literally nothing goes in with carnivores unless the zoopedia says so. haha

[Firestar]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by Koolkatz:

Thanks for the detailed reply, much appreciated! and thanks everyone. I'll def check out a few diff combo's. I accidently put two all 100 point Prize Pandas in with the grizzly's and they lasted an entire 2 seconds

LOL...at least it was an accident. I've put a lot of animals in with grizzlies on purpose to see if there are any that actually work with them.
Red Pandas actually lasted several game-years. To the point I thought they were compatible. Then the grizzlies must have gone too long without a keeper feeding them...

I don't do experiments like that anymore. At this point I just am resigned to the fact that literally nothing goes in with carnivores unless the zoopedia says so. haha

It is possible to keep Grizzlys together with other Animals. I've created a North American Pleistocene Enclosure once. There live a Grizzly Bear, Reindeer, Pronghorns, Bisons and Indian Elephants (Mammoths :D). The Bear fears the Elephants too much and because of that, not a single Animal was killed by it

[Jaggid Edje]

Do the bears spend all their time being intimidated by the elephants though?

I didn't do a test like that with elephants and grizzlies, but did with some other carnivore, and I recall constantly getting a message about intimidation. No in game deaths, but the message got too annoying to just leave it that way.

[Firestar]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Do the bears spend all their time being intimidated by the elephants though?

I didn't do a test like that with elephants and grizzlies, but did with some other carnivore, and I recall constantly getting a message about intimidation. No in game deaths, but the message got too annoying to just leave it that way.

If I remember correctly, there's that Message but I think the Bear was still able to have a normal Life