Kangaroo and koala shared habitat ?

[Shadora]

Hello,
I was planning on making an enclosure with both Kangaroos and Koalas in it as they benefit from each other according to the zoopedia... but they don't share any biome, and they still need natural elements ! Is it really impossible to have them in the same habitat without having unifitting foliage for one species or the other ?
Thank you in advance for the help :)

[grampers62]

Interesting question....
Often the plant types make only minor influence on the animal's well being and many players use the listed biomes as just a guide. The benefit from sharing would likely out weigh the foliage losses. The bigger need is the amounts of plants required. Hope that helps.

[Varick]

While the animals do not share same biomes per the zoopedia, that does not mean the biomes do not share the same plants. For example the Stringywood Euclyptus Tree is in both the Grassland (kangaroo) and the Temperate (Koala). Granted, there are not a lot of plants they share but as grampers62 said plants are a minor influence versus the other factors.

[Shadora]

Thanks a lot for both your answers ! I hadn't thought about the possibility of plants belonging to more than one biome :)

[Jaggid Edje]

One thing to be aware of when you look at the "benefit each other according to the zoopedia" is that the bonus it gives is to their enrichment, which is the same place that enrichment toys benefit the animals. And that has a cap.

Once you have plenty of enrichment toys available (through research), there is literally 0 benefit from combining animals that enrich each other. i.e. it's only really a useful tool in zoos where you haven't done much animal research yet.

Combining animals in habitats makes visitors happy, if the habitat has 3 (or more) species in it, but don't develop the habit of relying on the zoopedia for the information on what animals can be combined. All the zoopedia shows is those which 'enrich' each other, but 99% of viable animal combinations don't provide enrichment.

[grampers62]

Exactly why I rarely make multi species habitats.
We also haven't added yet that the habitat for multi species requires the combined space for each species to keep stress issues down.

[Jaggid Edje]

It's not actually the combined total space requirement which is required for combined habitats. The formula for habitat space has a single large requirement and then a specific, smaller amount added per additional animal (which is halved for juveniles).
In a combined habitat that initial requirement is only used for one single species, that being which ever has the largest requirement.

[grampers62]

Yes there space will show sufficient but there can be added stress when they get too close. Several times I've seen this occur and always more space solved the stress issues.

[Jaggid Edje]

That's just simply not true. Stress is not caused by other animals at all, only by visitors. You were misinterpreting whatever you saw.

The reason more space can help with stress is because it gives the animals more space to move around and thus potentially have fewer visitors at one time watching the animal. It's the visitors 'looking at' the specific animal that contributes the most to stress.

[grampers62]

Actually stress can be caused by other things than visitors. The primary cause is noise. Animals can also be stressed if space is insufficient. Animals can be stressed when a birth is near or if another animal is about to mature. And if other animals in the habitat are fighting an animal can get stressed. So much more dynamic than visitors being too close.

[Jaggid Edje]

That's not correct, eyeballs is the main factor. Specifically how many total visitors are looking at one specific animal. That's why one-way glass is the single most effective stress reducer.

Noise is actually not even calculated by the game. What the do not disturb signs do is reduce the 'value' of those visitor eyeballs for all visitors within the radius of the sign, to simulate a reduction in noise.
As for fighting, the only stress related to animals fighting is for the animals who were actually in the fight. Whichever animal loses gets some stress. Animals giving birth nearby has no stress element at all....I have no idea where you got that from.

[Varick]

Ok guys, I am going back to my land of pretty colors and self delusions. LOL :)

[grampers62]

Good idea.... Where's audiolady for some comic relief?

[grampers62]

Apologies to the OP, we should not be debating here in this forum where the community wants to be fun and sharing. Doubly so in someone else's post.

[Shadora]

It's alright really, I learned some stuff from the convo so I'm happy :)