I'm making a document of ideas for a spiritual successor to the Zoo Tycoon games that would be bigger and better. I've started on a species list but I have a problem. I don't really know all the species in captivity and sorting through all the families, genera, etc. is really painstaking. So I was wondering if anyone here had an extensive knowledge of all the species in captivity including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates of all kinds. Here's the doc https://docs.google.com/document/d/1js4QN4slELPcoT0knC2tJ9wA5prX4t9O2fv7y6AJm44/edit?usp=sharing If you'd like to help me, PM me and I'll give you a version you can edit.
ZTL IS already international, including the states of Europe and the Middle East. For everything else, try ISIS. Why shouldn't that "someone" be you? This could be more useful than creating "spiritual successors" of old video games.
I just don't want there to be like 1,000,000 animals. Limiting it also helps me decide what to put in.
If you wanted to cut down on the work for each species to be added (and the cost of production) you could always go with something more akin to what many of the football manager games do and have the game be more menu driven with a 2d visual design. That way you focus on solid visuals but each animal might only be handful of 2d visual instead of more complex 3d models. A couple of 2d images for male, femal, young and old could even be modifiedcto show injury, condition, age, deformities, colour morphs etc... A bit more retro however there is still merit in games with solid 2d visuals and it does give more capacity to lowering the production time and cost of esch new critter - ideal if you want to add more variety of species beyond the big commonly known and popular species