'African Savanna' exhibit in my virtual wildlife park

Z

ZappyAd

Member
I am building an educational website for children to teach them about wildlife and conservation. The site is based around a virtual wildlife park that kids can explore online to learn more about animals, play games, and socialise (in a restricted way).

The park is up and running online and we are starting to add in more animals. In order to keep the interface tidy we are having to think about how we group our animals physically within the virtual (!) park - we are going to go by geographical region and the first region we are building is going to be loosley based on the 'African Savanna'.

For this region we currently have or are going to have soon:

African Elephant / Black Rhinoceros / Grevy's Zebra / Giraffe / Hippo

I would be interested to know if anyone has any views on what a good selection of animals would be for this area. We are looking primarily for animals that are in some way endangered and/or that children will recognize. Our target age range is 6-12 years old.

The website is Leafcutter Wildlife Park.
 
I think adding soem sort of carnivore (lion, cheetah, leopard, or hyena) would help add diversity and show a pretador/prey balance
 
Zoogoer2000 said:
I think adding soem sort of carnivore (lion, cheetah, leopard, or hyena) would help add diversity and show a pretador/prey balance
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Thanks for taking a look. We already have African Wild Dogs in the queue to be added (forgot about them!) but I agree that something like a big cat would be good.
 
We have almost finished putting together phase 1 of our African Savanna exhibit - it should be active online in a week or so. In the meantime if anyone is interested we have set up a user account in the virtual park for zoochat forum readers.

If you go to the website (www.leafcutterwildlifepark.com) and click the 'Enter' button you get to the login screen. Username and password both zoochat will get you in to the park so that you can take a look around.

If you have any feedback then please let us know.
 
Just thought I would post an update on the children's virtual wildlife park I have been developing.

We have made some progress on mapping out our park. We now have decided upon six zones that we are starting to populate with animals. The zones are as follows (with the animals we have already in bold, animals coming soon in italics)

The Americas
Giant Anteater, American Bison, Magellanic Penguin, Sloth, Capybara, Wolf, Brown Bear

African Savanna
African Elephant, Grevy's Zebra, African Wild Dog, Black Rhino, Common Hippo, Lion

Animals of Asia
Giant Panda, Siberian Tiger, Komodo Dragon, Tapir

Australia
Kangaroo, Crocodile, Tasmanian Devil

Polar Ice
Polar Bear, Pacific Walrus

Primates
Lowland Gorilla, Orangutan

If you have any feedback or thoughts then please let me know and as before the zoochat user is still available if you don't want to sign up for a free account of your own.

We also now have a facebook page that we are posting development updates to and where we are hoping to get some feedback and ideas on how we can develop things further. Link to facebook here

Link to the website is here: Leafcutter Wildlife Park
 
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Thanks to everyone who took a look at the website and for the email feedback.

hadrada: Jaguar is already quite close to getting added to the list. re the primates we are going to have to do a bit more thinking on how we can animate them convincingly, especially the smaller ones. Ideally we would want them to be able to interact with their environment convincingly so the challenge is figuring out exactly how we do that.

I'll keep everyone up to date with another post when we have made some more progress.
 
Maybe an addition of an antelope species would be good. Just a few examples that would be good are the Saiga (Critically Endangered), Blue Wildebeest (Easily Recognized), Greater Kudu (Attractive Species), Mountain Bongo (Endangered, Attractive Species), Gemsbok (Attractive Species), and the Gerenuk (Attractive Species, Educational Species (Adaptations)). Also, why not a Masai or Baringo Giraffe? Giraffes are easily recognizable and the Baringo Giraffe is endangered so it'd teach about conservation.
 
Thanks kudu21 I'll take a look at the antelope species.

We actually have a giraffe model but it is proving tricky to 'fit' into an enclosure given its height (the head keeps disappearing off the screen!) We might have to change the perspective to get it to work but I will see what we can do.
 
I would imagine that a giraffe would be quite hard! Good luck! It's a great idea!
 
hey mate, just some suggestions about the Australia exhibit.

Firstly, perhaps you could consider adding in New Zealand to the Australia section, just for some more unique animals, ie the Kiwi.

Secondly, consider adding animals such as the Koala and the Platypus, who are both unique and amazing animals in my opinion. Also, if you're interested, perhaps consider adding reptiles such as the Frilled Neck Lizard or the Eastern Brown Snake. There are also birds like the Kookaburra and various parrots etc you can consider.

Anyway, looks great so far, keep up the good work!
 
Mr_Liam - We were just looking at revising the list of species for that zone yesterday so a timely post! We were going to add in 'Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat' and 'Bridled Nail Tailed Wallaby' as they are recognisable and threatened species.

We thought about Koala and Platypus but haven't figured out how we would 'display' them - the way it is set up at the moment animals that can 'walk around' the enclosures work best so things that are up trees or in water are more difficult. Similar problem at the moment for things like sloth, birds and some of the smaller primates. We have a plan to experiment with different viewing perpectives which should open up some of these types of species.

re the kiwi - yes that is a good idea and we have thought about opening up that zone to capture more of that geographical area (is Australasia the right geographical name for the region?)

Thanks for all the feedback - we are actively updating our facebook page now with more of the development side of things for anyone that is interested here.;)
 
The Wombat and Wallaby are both fantastic ideas. Ah i understand about the Koala and Platypus, would take an interesting display method to accurately represent them. Is it at all possible to have an underwater style display for the Platypus? (sorry, i just think it's an incredible creature, deserves a place in the zoo :P)

Australasia, or Oceania are two words often used to describe the region. If in doubt, just call it Australia and New Zealand. Personally i'd go for Oceania, though that also includes the pacific islands etc.
 
Fossa dude said:
Do you have a Coral Reef or Insectarium?
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Not at the moment - it is something that we have had suggested by a number of visitors to the park. There is a challenge for us in how we would display fish or very small animals in the current perspective (which you can get an idea of from this you tube vid : here) but it is something we are experimenting with.
 
Try animals from lion king and the jungle book.

Lion King
Lion
Hyhena
Merkat
Warthog
Southern Ground Hornbill or Abyssian Hornbill

Jungle Book
Jaguar
Tiger
Asian Black Bear or Sloth Bear


Just and Idea
 
you need some sort of primate for your african savannah - a baboon species maybe, or vervet monkey?
 
gulogulogulo - thanks for the ideas. Baboons are on our list. Our current species list is now:

Africa
African Elephant, African Wild Dog, Black Rhino, Hippo, Grevy's Zebra, Lion

Asia
Giant Panda, Komodo Dragon, Snow Leopard, Siberian Tiger

Americas
Giant Anteater, Mountain Tapir, Wood Bison, Magellanic Penguin, Grizzly Bear

Polar Ice
Polar Bear, Pacific Walrus

Primates
Western Lowland Gorilla

Australia
Tasmanian Devil, Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat

So currently 20 species and planning on getting up to about 30 species by the end of the year. Currently on the 'possible' list for addition are:

Beluga Whale
Great White Shark
Blue Whale
Hooded seal
Bongo
Baboon
Capybara
Pig of some kind
Wolf species
Jaguar
Ostrich/emu
Kiwi
Platypus
Wallaby
Crocodile

We can now display marine life hence the whales/sharks. (Based on feedback from kids the more sharks the better as far as I can see!!)

We are also planning to include more 'incidental' bird life into the park so that appropriate species might be hanging around enclosures in the different zones. I am personally quite keen to also include zone appropriate vegatation with a bit of information for visitors to read about.

Thanks to everyone for the ideas - we are continually developing the park so if you have any thoughts then please let us know.
 
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