Have you ever made a fantasy zoo and realized halfway through that you've missed a species that you wanted to include? Or worse, only realized this afterwards?
Do you want to make a new fantasy zoo and you're having trouble researching which species you can include?
Well look no further than Mr Gharial's species research thread!
Mr Gharial (that's me!) is a psychopath who clearly has nothing better to do with his life than spending his hours scrolling through Zootierliste and Zoochat looking into which species would be available for his next fantasy zoo project.
Now, Mr Gharial is putting his time to good use (well, a slightly better use). By helping YOU with finding out which animals would be available for YOUR next zoo!
Mr Gharial is going to stop talking in the third person now...
Now regretfully I've done this before and forgot to include all regions (I was specifically looking into Caribbean and Madagascar animals, and I didn't think it important to write down all other regions or the animals that inhabited it). So how does this work? I scroll through ALL of Zootierliste and see which animals are realistically available in European zoos. While I do this, I also organise these animals into continents and regions. So by the end of it, I'll have a species list of every region in the world for you to use!
There are some downsides to this of course. The first being that this only showcases animals in European collections. ZTL has gone worldwide, but the American collections aren't near fully developed enough to make an American-based version of this.
Another downside to this is that I am bound by the limits of Zootierliste. And I can only see vertebrate animals and if an animal is readily available in the private trade but rarer in zoos, I wouldn't know.
For some areas, more invertebrates are included, as I've either done more research into it for previous projects, or I've visited zoos themed around this area that included more invertebrates. But other than that, help and additions are greatly appreciated!
Now I can only start uploading these AFTER I've finished scrolling through all of ZTL, so this project will be partially delayed. Though I can upload the first selection early because I did a lot of previous research into it.
Finally, my continents and regions may be questionable, and are more based on biomes and mountains than countries and continental plates.
Here's my division of the continents for this project:
Oceans will also be included, but I'll have to look at trends in the distribution maps to find out how I'm going to divide the ocean.
The one region I did finish (and also the region that includes the most included invertebrates) is the North Sea and the Bay of Biscay:
The first region will be uploaded somewhere this week, and I'll continue to look through Zootierliste for, well, a month or two probably. I'm currently going into the Carnivores so I'm halfway through the mammals.
Some notes:
There are some animals present in captivity that I won't include, like Octopuses (who, to my knowledge, don't reproduce in captivity and are always wild-caught) or Whales (which are very unethical to keep in my eyes and are on their way out in captivity).
There are a few animals for which I'll include additional information (Like the European eel which doesn't reproduce in captivity, but can still be kept ethically, which I'll go into a little further later).
Of course, I'll still make mistakes. I'm only working with the information present on ZTL, including how many animals a collection has. For example, there are a lot of rare species that only have one holder, but that holder might have a group of over 200 animals, so I'll include it in the list. But if group size isn't included on ZTL, then I won't include it because the collection might only have a single individual. If you see a species missing that you think would be available in a new zoo, feel free to correct me. And on other things too, of course.
I also won't be including import animals. Those familiar with my project will know I usually include some animals not or rarely present in European collections if there's proof of these animals being imported from other countries. So the Chinese pangolin, for example, isn't included even though I would consider importing them from Taiwan "realistic"
I hope I've cleared everything up going into this project but if there are still any questions feel free to ask them! Hopefully this will become a good resource for all Fantasy-zooers.
Do you want to make a new fantasy zoo and you're having trouble researching which species you can include?
Well look no further than Mr Gharial's species research thread!
Mr Gharial (that's me!) is a psychopath who clearly has nothing better to do with his life than spending his hours scrolling through Zootierliste and Zoochat looking into which species would be available for his next fantasy zoo project.
Now, Mr Gharial is putting his time to good use (well, a slightly better use). By helping YOU with finding out which animals would be available for YOUR next zoo!
Mr Gharial is going to stop talking in the third person now...
Now regretfully I've done this before and forgot to include all regions (I was specifically looking into Caribbean and Madagascar animals, and I didn't think it important to write down all other regions or the animals that inhabited it). So how does this work? I scroll through ALL of Zootierliste and see which animals are realistically available in European zoos. While I do this, I also organise these animals into continents and regions. So by the end of it, I'll have a species list of every region in the world for you to use!
There are some downsides to this of course. The first being that this only showcases animals in European collections. ZTL has gone worldwide, but the American collections aren't near fully developed enough to make an American-based version of this.
Another downside to this is that I am bound by the limits of Zootierliste. And I can only see vertebrate animals and if an animal is readily available in the private trade but rarer in zoos, I wouldn't know.
For some areas, more invertebrates are included, as I've either done more research into it for previous projects, or I've visited zoos themed around this area that included more invertebrates. But other than that, help and additions are greatly appreciated!
Now I can only start uploading these AFTER I've finished scrolling through all of ZTL, so this project will be partially delayed. Though I can upload the first selection early because I did a lot of previous research into it.
Finally, my continents and regions may be questionable, and are more based on biomes and mountains than countries and continental plates.
Here's my division of the continents for this project:
Oceans will also be included, but I'll have to look at trends in the distribution maps to find out how I'm going to divide the ocean.
The one region I did finish (and also the region that includes the most included invertebrates) is the North Sea and the Bay of Biscay:
The first region will be uploaded somewhere this week, and I'll continue to look through Zootierliste for, well, a month or two probably. I'm currently going into the Carnivores so I'm halfway through the mammals.
Some notes:
There are some animals present in captivity that I won't include, like Octopuses (who, to my knowledge, don't reproduce in captivity and are always wild-caught) or Whales (which are very unethical to keep in my eyes and are on their way out in captivity).
There are a few animals for which I'll include additional information (Like the European eel which doesn't reproduce in captivity, but can still be kept ethically, which I'll go into a little further later).
Of course, I'll still make mistakes. I'm only working with the information present on ZTL, including how many animals a collection has. For example, there are a lot of rare species that only have one holder, but that holder might have a group of over 200 animals, so I'll include it in the list. But if group size isn't included on ZTL, then I won't include it because the collection might only have a single individual. If you see a species missing that you think would be available in a new zoo, feel free to correct me. And on other things too, of course.
I also won't be including import animals. Those familiar with my project will know I usually include some animals not or rarely present in European collections if there's proof of these animals being imported from other countries. So the Chinese pangolin, for example, isn't included even though I would consider importing them from Taiwan "realistic"
I hope I've cleared everything up going into this project but if there are still any questions feel free to ask them! Hopefully this will become a good resource for all Fantasy-zooers.
