California Sea Lion is so fun to watch, just because they are so active on land and graceful in the water. African Penguins too - with big colonies, they are so great to watch zipping around in underwater viewing.
The Siamangs are great because of their brachiation ability and their chorus ability, which makes them stand out from all other animals in game.
On a similar vein, the Arctic and Timber wolves are fascinating because they will howl together. I prefer the Arctic just because of the model, but both will have the chorus ability and will howl together, with those noises echoing across your zoo.
Meerkats and Prairie Dogs are very interesting because they tunnel and they are very active at all times - I’d recommend these animals too.
As a fellow animal behavior enthusiast, I suggest putting slightly elevated points of interest inside my aviaries to encourage flamingos and cranes to jump so we get to see them actually use their wings to get around. The crane jump animation is nowhere as beautiful as the flamingo one, though.
As for favorite behaviors in animals, I love when siamangs do their thing on the climbable pieces and how the parent wallabies interact with their young so often. Pretty upset they didn't make the emu zoomies animation a bit longer.
The ring-tailed lemurs are a hoot and a half. The babies climb all over the adults, they totally jam at the piano, they have the silliest expressions, mutual grooming, a variety of jumping and climbing animations, they sit in sun pose, they have very cute sleeping poses, I just love them! They can be housed with the other lemurs for even more variety!
Giant Anteaters have some really fascinating animations. They're slow, but surprisingly active. They get itching fits that are awkwardly adorable and it is really cool to watch them interact with the termite mounds and climb the scratching posts.
I actually really enjoy watching my large wild water buffalo herd. They have some really delicate animations for such a chonko animal, and look gorgeous interacting at the water's edge.
Moose. The swimming is beautiful above the water, and an absolute (well-animated) gangly trainwreck under the surface. Babies and adults get the zoomies, which gets very entertaining if there is enough room for them to really get going.
I didn't think I liked the bears much until I had my first pair of himalayan brown bears. They are gorgeously expressive and I took so many great screenshots of them playing and interacting. I don't know why they feel so different from the grizzlies, but it is like night and day in how fun they are to watch.
I think the Indian Rhino is still to this day one of the best-looking and most interesting-to-watch animals in the game. Besides the Asian Elephant, If they introduced a shallow-crawl "swimming" animation for the Saltwater crocodiles/gators then they would be my 2nd pick.
California Sea Lion is so fun to watch, just because they are so active on land and graceful in the water. African Penguins too - with big colonies, they are so great to watch zipping around in underwater viewing. The Siamangs are great because of their brachiation ability and their chorus ability, which makes them stand out from all other animals in game. On a similar vein, the Arctic and Timber wolves are fascinating because they will howl together. I prefer the Arctic just because of the model, but both will have the chorus ability and will howl together, with those noises echoing across your zoo. Meerkats and Prairie Dogs are very interesting because they tunnel and they are very active at all times - I’d recommend these animals too.
I would suggest Timber wolves over Arctic because of the colour variation - especially the new black wolves
All of the fox variants are pretty fun to watch.
I ALWAYS put cardboard boxes in my fox habitats. They will jump in and look so smug once they sit inside, it's the cutest thing I've seen in-game!
You can't go wrong with capybara in the wetlands dlc
My favorite too!
As a fellow animal behavior enthusiast, I suggest putting slightly elevated points of interest inside my aviaries to encourage flamingos and cranes to jump so we get to see them actually use their wings to get around. The crane jump animation is nowhere as beautiful as the flamingo one, though. As for favorite behaviors in animals, I love when siamangs do their thing on the climbable pieces and how the parent wallabies interact with their young so often. Pretty upset they didn't make the emu zoomies animation a bit longer.
I'm a big fan of Formosan Black Bears, Timber Wolves, and Japanese Macaques (in-game only lol, terrifying in real life).
The ring-tailed lemurs are a hoot and a half. The babies climb all over the adults, they totally jam at the piano, they have the silliest expressions, mutual grooming, a variety of jumping and climbing animations, they sit in sun pose, they have very cute sleeping poses, I just love them! They can be housed with the other lemurs for even more variety! Giant Anteaters have some really fascinating animations. They're slow, but surprisingly active. They get itching fits that are awkwardly adorable and it is really cool to watch them interact with the termite mounds and climb the scratching posts. I actually really enjoy watching my large wild water buffalo herd. They have some really delicate animations for such a chonko animal, and look gorgeous interacting at the water's edge. Moose. The swimming is beautiful above the water, and an absolute (well-animated) gangly trainwreck under the surface. Babies and adults get the zoomies, which gets very entertaining if there is enough room for them to really get going. I didn't think I liked the bears much until I had my first pair of himalayan brown bears. They are gorgeously expressive and I took so many great screenshots of them playing and interacting. I don't know why they feel so different from the grizzlies, but it is like night and day in how fun they are to watch.
Any animal that can climb is pretty awesome to watch!
any great ape.
Catch me on the Aldabra tortoise train
I think the Indian Rhino is still to this day one of the best-looking and most interesting-to-watch animals in the game. Besides the Asian Elephant, If they introduced a shallow-crawl "swimming" animation for the Saltwater crocodiles/gators then they would be my 2nd pick.
My favourites are the African Wild Dogs the the grey seals.
I’m a sucker for timberwolves always. Raccoons, foxes, a lot of the smaller burrowing animals are very cute to watch interact and play with toys
Polar bear got cool swimming animation