Planet Zoo 2 runs on a full calendar. Seasons change the trees, the light, the weather and the temperature, and they affect both animals and guests.
Two kinds of calendar
- Temperate and cold maps have spring, summer, autumn and winter. Trees turn orange and red in autumn and lose their leaves, and snow can fall in winter.
- Tropical and African maps have wet and dry seasons instead (dry season 1, wet season 1, dry season 2 and so on). The sun sets a little earlier in the wet season, and shadows are long in the dry season.
The calendar also counts years. You'll see dates like "offspring due in the second dry season of year 8".
Weather and guests
- Rain: guests want umbrellas. The information centre sells them, so make sure you have one. Covered queues, picnic canopies and indoor houses become very popular on rainy days.
- Snow: it falls and settles in real time in cold winters. One mountain zoo dropped to −3 °C. Snow doesn't settle under roofs. There's no heater for guests, so keep walking distances short on cold maps and give people places to shelter.
- Storms roll in on some maps and darken everything for a while.
Seasons and light
Autumn on a temperate map looks beautiful, but on some maps (the North American taiga especially) the light gets very dim. It can look like early morning at midday. On top of that, spring and summer pass quickly while autumn and winter last longer. You can't pause the seasons, even in sandbox, so save your best screenshots for summer.
Temperature and animals
Every species has a comfortable temperature range, listed on its Zoopedia page and in its welfare panel. When the local weather is outside that range, the animal gets too hot or too cold and its welfare drops. If it stays bad, protesters may show up.
Heaters and coolers
- Habitat heater: place it in the habitat, set the target temperature and the radius. Many heaters set themselves to the species' range automatically. Shrink the radius so you're not heating the whole map.
- Habitat cooler: the same, but for animals that like it cold, such as grey wolves (I set mine to about 0 °C) and lynx.
- Keep heaters above the water, not floating in it, unless you're specifically heating the water.
Water temperature
For water and semi-water animals, the water temperature matters as well as the air. Water pumps let you set a water temperature. Gharials needed both air heaters and warmer water before they stopped "freezing", and otters only settled once a heater was placed in the water itself.
Temperature ranges I've used
| Animal | Comfortable range |
|---|---|
| Moon jelly | 9–19 °C |
| Golden eagle | 13–30 °C |
| Gharial | 14–41 °C |
| Sumatran tiger | 18–33 °C |
| Asian small-clawed otter | 18–33 °C |
| Orangutan | Above 18 °C |
| Blacktip reef shark | 22–28 °C |
| Clown anemonefish | 24–28 °C |
| Asian elephant | 5–30 °C |
| Grey wolf | −8–29 °C |
When you mix species in one tank or habitat, pick a temperature inside all their ranges. A reef tank at 26 °C suits most reef fish.
Breeding seasons
Many animals only breed at certain times of year:
- Toucans: spring
- Cownose rays: summer
- Golden lion tamarins: autumn and winter
- Many mammals have a mating season shown in their panel; grey wolves, for example, mate in dry season 1 on African maps.
If animals aren't breeding, check whether it's their season before you start changing the habitat.