Planet Zoo 2 cohabitation chart: which of the 1,221 animal pairs can actually share an enclosure

Planet Zoo 2 ships 130 species, which is 8,385 possible pairs. Of those, 1,221 pairs share at least one biome and one enclosure type — those are the only ones worth testing. Here is what the data actually says, plus the method so you can check it yourself.

The short version

  • 1,221 pairs are theoretically co-habitable (shared biome + shared enclosure type).
  • Within those, only a subset are annotated as likely compatible in the game's own data.
  • 8 species have zero likely-compatible partners in the current payload: Aardvark, Clown Anemonefish, Nyala, Sable Antelope, Springbok, North Sulawesi Babirusa, Schooling Bannerfish, Longfin Batfish.

The most sociable animals in the launch roster

Ranked by number of likely compatible partners:

Species Likely partners
Grey Wolf 30
Asian Elephant 27
Bactrian Camel 23
African Savannah Elephant 22
Cape Buffalo 22
African Penguin 20
African Wild Dog 20
Black Wildebeest 20
Blue Wildebeest 20
Common Ostrich 20

Notice the pattern: the top of the list is dominated by African savannah species. Savannah (14 species) and Rainforest (19 species) are the two biomes with the deepest rosters, so they naturally produce the biggest compatible groups. Building a single large savannah habitat around a wolf/elephant/camel core is the lowest-risk plan.

Enclosure types change everything

The 130 species break down as:

Enclosure type Species
HabitatTerrestrial 54
Exhibit 30
HabitatAquarium 19
HabitatAquarium + Exhibit 15
HabitatFlying 12

Half the roster (67 of 130) is aquarium/exhibit/flying, which means they can never share a paddock with the terrestrial savannah crowd no matter how well the biomes match. If you only count HabitatTerrestrial, the cohabitation graph shrinks dramatically.

How this was derived

Instead of guessing from the Zoopedia UI by hand, the dataset was extracted from Planet Zoo 2's own official Nuxt _payload.json — the same JSON that renders the in-game animal pages. That gives clean, complete fields:

  • biomes, continents, enclosure_types — the cohabitation keys
  • conservation_status, class, order, family, genus — taxonomy
  • barrier_grade, barrier_min_height_m, barrier_climb_proof, barrier_allow_water — fence requirements
  • size_male/female, weight_male_kg/female_kg — with a weight_source column so you know which numbers came from the payload

Because it comes from the official payload rather than datamining, the numbers are reproducible and the columns stay stable across patches.

Consumers

If you build breeding planners, zoo layout tools, or spreadsheets, the files are CC BY 4.0:

Rendered version

There's a filterable chart where you pick species A and B and get the verdict, plus the biome/enclosure overlap:

Conservation mix in the same roster, for the record: LeastConcern 63, Endangered 22, Vulnerable 18, CriticallyEndangered 12, NotEvaluated 8, NearThreatened 5, Domesticated 1, DataDeficient 1.

Game: Planet Zoo 2 (Frontier Developments), launch 2026-10-13 15:00 BST.