Skin Variants

Skin variants, also known as variant skins, texture variations, or simply variants, are alternative animal skins (textures) in addition to the "base" or default skin.

In Zoo Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon DS

White Bengal tigers in Zoo Tycoon, which work as a separate animal to the regular Bengal tiger.

While in Zoo Tycoon there are technically no skin variants, there are two animals that could be considered variants of other animals - the White Bengal Tiger and Black Leopard, which are a leucistic color morph of the Bengal tiger, and a melanistic color morph of the leopard, respectively. However, they act as completely separate animals ingame.

Both animals reappear as distinct versions in Zoo Tycoon DS.

In Zoo Tycoon 2

Skin variants were introduced in Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species, retroactively affecting some animals from Zoo Tycoon 2. Following expansions, Marine Mania and Extinct Animals, also included some skin variants.

Adult Saber-toothed Cat with a white skin variant and a regular colored baby in Zoo Tycoon 2. A white baby is unobtainable.

Skin variants are solely visual and have no effect on gameplay, and are never addressed in the ingame text. However, the names "base" and "variant", are used in the game coding.

Some skin variants consist of a subtle color or pattern variation, while others look completely different, e.g. a white tiger. Some of them have the same chance to show up as the original skin, while others are extremely rare with only a 1% chance (e.g. king cheetah). An animal can have 0, 1 or 2 variant skins. Though the maximum number of variants the game will recognize is 5.

Skin variants can only be obtained by placing animals from the buying panel. Animals born at the zoo or created at the Extinct Research Lab will always use the base skin for the species.

List of skin variants

• King Cheetah (2 skins)
• Paler African Elephant
• Gemsbok
• Jaguar with bolder spots
• Snow Leopard
• Male Moose with dark brown coat
• White Bengal Tiger
• Common zebras with different stripe patterns
• Addax
• Asian Elephant
• American Bison
• Spanish Lynx
• Markhor
• Javan rhinos with more of their rough texture
• Scimitar-Horned Oryx
• African wild dogs with dark brown, and lighter fur coat.
• Belugas with gray skin.
• Brown and gray bottlenose dolphins.
• Narwhal
• Rockhopper Penguin
• California Sea Lion
• Grey Scalloped Hammerhead
• Darker Goblin Shark
• Blacktip Reef Shark with yellowish and gray skins.
• Whale Shark
• White sharks with grayer skin
• More vibrant Leatherback Sea Turtle
• Green Sea Turtle females with blue and dark shell respectively.
• Grey and black false killer whales.
• Pacific Walrus
• Ankylosaurus with a mosaic pattern
• Black or white saber-toothed cats
• Deinonychus with different pattern
• Deinosuchus
• Dimetrodon with yellow sails
• Kentrosaurus
• Protarchaeopteryx with darker colors
• Quaggas with white faces
• Stegosaurus
• Stokesosaurus
• Utahraptor with darker colors (males will have green eyes and females will have orange)
• Velociraptor with lighter coloring and green eyes

Additionally, most marine ambient animals also have at least one skin variant. Koi also have 2 skin variants.

In Zoo Tycoon (Xbox)

In Zoo Tycoon (Xbox), skin variants are called by an official name for the first time in the series. Every standard exhibit animal (save for bonus downloads) has one rare skin variant that can only be obtained randomly from breeding. It is currently unknown what likelihood each variant skin has to be obtained. However, investing in the Animal Breeding Research tree to its maximum level (Bloodline Research) will increase the odds of a skin variant baby by 50%.

List of skin variant types

• Albino
• Bianco
• Black Nosed
• Blond
• Brown
• Chincilla
• Crescent Moon
• Dark
• Depigmented
• Double Striped
• Erythristic
• Golden Tabby
• Grey
• Leucistic
• Maltese
• Melanistic
• Pale
• Pale "Tsavo"
• Pseudo Melanistic
• Striped
• Stripeless
• White
• White Necked

In Zoo Tycoon Friends

Tiger variants in Zoo Tycoon Friends.

In the discontinued game Zoo Tycoon Friends, animals skin variants could be selected directly from the adoption center. In the announcement trailer, 5 different colors are shown for the tiger, including three shades of orange, a white tiger and a black tiger. Each variant had a different price and star rating. Promotional images also show variants in other animals such as rhinoceros, elephant, horse and giraffe. Due to the game's obscurity, it is unknown whether all animals featured variants, or what effect they had on gameplay.

Gallery

Zoo Tycoon 2

Comparison between Moose base skin (right) and variant (left)

Zebra skin variants (stripe pattern)

White Bengal tiger

Jaguar base skin (left) and variant (right)

King Cheetah (front) compared to normal Cheetah (back).

African Wild Dogs with base skin (center) and two variants.

Black Saber-Toothed Cat

White Saber-Toothed Cat

Dimetrodon base skin (front) and variant (back).

Blacktip Reef Shark base skin (front) and two variants.

Left to right: base skin female, variant 2 female, male, variant 1 female Green Sea Turtles.

Zoo Tycoon (Xbox)

Albino Antilopine Kangaroo

Bianco Rothschilds Giraffe

Black Nosed Addax

Blond Kodiak Bear

Brown Cinnamon Bear

Chincilla Tibetan Blue Bear

Crescent Moon Olympic Black Bear

Dark Bushbuck

Depigmented African Forest Elephant

Double Striped Indochinese Tiger

Erythristic Congo Lion

Golden Tabby Siberian Tiger

Grey Eastern Chimpanzee

Leucistic Huacaya Alpaca

Maltese South China Tiger

Melanistic Costa Rican Cougar

Pale Northern White Rhinoceros

Pale "Tsavo" Masai Lion

Pseudo Melanistic Malayan Tiger

Striped Syrian Brown Bear

Stripeless Sumatran Tiger

White Thornicroft Giraffe

White Necked Scimitar-Horned Oryx

Trivia

• Both "skin variant" animals in Zoo Tycoon are researchable as Endangered Animals.
• Interestingly, while the white Bengal tiger was converted into a skin variant in Zoo Tycoon 2, the Black Leopard is still a separate animal, instead of a variant for a yellow-colored leopard which would be more accurate.
• No African Adventure animal has skin variants, despite this expansion being released after Endangered Species introduced them.
• In Zoo Tycoon 2, a white Bengal tiger is present in the map for the Endangered Species Demo, and there is a king cheetah in The Cat Sanctuary.
• In Zoo Tycoon 2, skin variants for young animals exist in the game files, however, the coding makes it impossible for them to show up, as babies will always be born with the base skin.
• In Zoo Tycoon 2, the Musk Ox, Spectacled Bear, Gray Wolf, and Manta Ray each have one skin variant in the game files, which went unused in the actual game.
  • Female moose have a unused variant meant to complement the male moose's skin variant.
  • Common zebras have an additional skin variant that is unused due to the texture name coding.
• The texture file for the false killer whale's grey skin variant includes a reference image that was used for making the texture.
• Although the bottlenose dolphin's blue skin variant is labelled as the base, the grey variant is set to be the default texture. This means that selecting a dolphin for purchase will always be set as the grey variant before placement.
• While the rare skin variants in Zoo Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon 2 are mostly realistic, some variants in Zoo Tycoon (Xbox) are based on undocumented sightings - such as the melanistic cougar and Maltese tiger.
• The Asiatic Black Bear is the only bonus download animal for Zoo Tycoon 2 that does not have a skin variant in any capacity.