Alright, I said I would rank all of the exhibit animals and I’m a man of my word so we’re going to rank all 32 of them. Before I start I want to mention that I will be remaking the DLC animal ranking after the conservation DLC drops. This is because I got quite a bit wrong in the original list, from facts like the reindeer and wolves. To opinions like the giant otter and babirusa (looking back I did the babirusa dirty, they didn’t deserve that much slander). But with that being said let’s get into the ranking.

1. The sacred scarab beetle: I’m going to say now that this list will be a lot more chill than the last one as I don’t have many strong negative opinions on this lot. With that being said, I think most of us can agree this is the shittiest exhibit animal of the bunch. Puns aside, this was the animal they chose for the African DLC which feels really underwhelming IMO. Africa is so diverse with its large and small wildlife, yet they chose a beetle for the DLC. we already had two, much better beetles in the game one of which was from africa. This could have been a great chance to get a chameleon or armadillo lizard or black mamba, but we got a literal shit-eating bettle

2. The fire salamander: I don’t know why I get a sick pleasure out of roasting European wildlife but dammit it’s a wired hobby of mine. I get similar feelings about this one that I do about the scarab beetle but to a much lesser extent. It’s far from the worst option, they’re attractive enough, but I personally think there’s more that could have been done with a European exhibit animal, like the legless glass lizard for example.

3. Salmon pink tarantula: the base game had 4 spiders, 3 of which were tarrantulas. I feel like if they were going to add a fourth spider something like the Sydney funnel-web or golden orb weaver would have been more interesting, but this just feels like a shadow clone of the other tarantulas.

4. Common death adder: you have a massive variety of snakes at your disposal and of your limited exhibit spots you put two adders. Another example of a wasted opportunity to get a more iconic, photogenic, or endangered snake species.

5. Burrowing cockroach: I mean I would have gone with the Madagascar hissing cockroach personally but you do you frontier.

6. The Brazilian wandering spider: it’s definitely the most unique spider of the bunch. I just don’t find it super impressive compared to the rest of this lot

7. The brown snake: definitely a better choice than the death adder but it’s still pretty boring to look at.

8. Danube crested newt: I like how dynamic they are in that they swim around I just think the rest of the lot is more interesting

24/23: the desert and forest scorpions: good for rounding out the lot, some scorpions were definitely necessary, again they’re just not as cool as the rest

1. Goliath birdeater: Would be number one if they got some kind of frog to interact with (you know what I’m referring to)

2. Lehman’s poison frog: my main grip with them is that the game doesn’t quite do their colors justice in that they are way brighter in the real world.

3. The lesser iguana: I mean… it has lesser in the name. That and it’s pretty boring color scheme of grey make it pretty mid in my book.

4. Leaf insect: they’re cool I’ll give em that. And I’m glad we can show off their cool adaptation in our zoos

5. American bullfrog: when I originally made this list I thought I was gonna rank these guys higher but there is a surprisingly large amount of solid exhibit animals. I love American bullfrogs, although there’s a small part of me that wonders what they’d be like as an animal that could wander around habitats. Allowing us to have nice filler animals for our ponds, hell just imagine the visual of these guys sitting on a capybaras back. I dunno, just a wired thought

6. Boa constrictor: a certified hood classic…speaking of hoods when are we gonna get a cobra already

7. Puff adder: definitely the superior of the two adders in terms of aesthetics. You might be wondering why I’m talking so much about aesthetics in this list. Well, most exhibit animals don’t move much so if they’re not gonna do much they should at least be pleasant to look at.

8. Titan beetle: would be number one if there was an animation of them snapping a pencil with their mandibles

9. Mexican red knee tarantula: now these are spiders that know what’s up. Look at these fuzzy little doods. All ready for show and tell with their little knee pads. One of the few spiders I count as cute.

10. Blue-tongued skink: I mean, they would be cooler if we could see their tongue more but whatever

11. Western diamondback rattlesnake: is there an animation of them waving their rattle? I don’t know but it would be cool wouldn’t it

12. Goliath frog: I like big frogs. Nuff said

13. Tiger snail: I love the detail of them climbing on the glass. I don’t know if any other animals do this but it would be nice if we did. If we get geckos in the future I’d love to see them climbing on the walls.

14. Golden frog: probably one of my favorite frog species. Nothing else to add

15. Amazon giant centipede: one of the more unique exhibit animals, definitely a welcome surprise in the sea of spiders, frogs, and snakes

16. Goliath beetle: now this is a specimen. Gorgeous colors, interesting to look into, easy to spot. A very solid exhibit animal choice

17. Green iguana: I am personally part of the “make green iguanas habitat animals” crowd. We need more lizards for habitats and having one of these with climbing enrichment would be awesome

18. Gila monster: everybody is going to want a collection of venomous animals, and what collection would be complete without one of these guys. Definitely a top five worthy contender

19. Yellow anaconda: while I personally like the green anaconda more I can’t deny this one is gorgeous

20. Red-eyed tree frog: probably one of the most iconic animals of all time. Like I thought this was a base game animal for the longest time because of how essential it is to make this collection complete. Definitely worthy of the bronze medal.

21. The diamondback terrapin: there are a lot of reasons why I love this animal. One, it’s a symbol of conservation, two, they’re gorgeous, three they're native to my home state, four, they might pave the way for habitat turtles down the line, and five they actually move around, in a way that reminds me of my own pet turtles. Definitely the best Exhibit animal in the game. There’s no way that frontier could top this. Nothing can even comp--

22. AXOLOTOL BABY LET’S GOOOOOOOOOO GET HYPED, 10/10 100/100 GAME OF THE YEAR BOOOOOOOIS.

And that’ll do it for this ranking. As you can probably tell I’m pretty hyped for the conservation DLC. this is probably the only time where the exhibit animal makes me more excited than the main events, and that’s saying something since we’re getting simangs, leopards, and wild horses with hard to spell names in the coming DLC. plus I’ll get a chance to remedy the mistakes of my last DLC animal list. Until then see you next time. Let me know what you think of the list in the comments below