So this is part of why we chose to accept that our list is imperfect. I did review parrots as an option to include, however I chose not to count them because I figure it might get complicated picking specific species here and there. We're willing to allow the New Zealand parrots (family Nestoridae) to count if player are so inclined, but I don't really want to start picking out specific species within a genus or family to either allow or not allow. I think it gets a little too challenging to remember everything if we have too many examples like "the Bourke's Parrot will now count, but the
Neophema species don't", etc.
Similarly, we know that there are other diurnal geckos, such as
Naultinus,
Lygodactylus,
Gonatodes, and
Sphaerodactylus (the latter three of which are fairly commonly found in captivity). We chose to only discount
Phelsuma regardless due to this family in particular being more well-known to more members as well as being arguably the most common zoo gecko genus. The "day geckos" were just too obvious to allow in, basically. So yes, your New Zeland geckos can count despite not being nocturnal.
The hope was that where we needed to compromise and allow diurnal species for simplicity's sake would make up for where we needed to exclude some nocturnal species.
As for hippos, that is another family I overlooked by mistake. Hippos
do count for the challenge.
If you wouldn't mind editing the main post to add the two family's to the list of admissible animals, I'd appreciate it. Thanks for the questions!
~Thylo