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Planet Zoo 2 temperature guide: ranges by biome, species and pairing

The extremes at a glance

• Coldest lower limit: −40 °C, the Bactrian Camel.
• Hottest upper limit: 41 °C, shared by ten species: Black Rhinoceros, Gemsbok, Gharial, Lion, Meerkat, Nile Monitor, Nyala, Spotted Hyena, Springbok and White-Backed Vulture.
• Widest range: the Bactrian Camel again, 80 °C wide (−40 to 40 °C).
• Narrowest range: 3 °C, for the Blunthead Cichlid, Boeseman's Rainbowfish and Ocellated Eagle Ray.
• Lowest upper limit: the Snow Leopard at 10 °C. No other species tops out below 19 °C.
• Highest lower limit: 26 °C, for the Giant Slippery Frog, Golden Poison Frog, Lehmann's Poison Frog and Red-Eyed Tree Frog.

Temperature by enclosure type

Range width depends heavily on enclosure type. The table compares the four enclosure groups; the 37 aquarium species include the 16 that can also go in an exhibit.

No habitat animal has a range narrower than 15 °C, and no aquarium species has one wider than 15 °C. Every species that accepts temperatures below 9 °C is a habitat animal; the coldest any aquarium or exhibit species goes is 9 °C.

Temperature by biome

Each species lists one or more biomes (71 of the 136 list more than one), so a species counts once in every biome it lists. The last column is the band that every species of that biome accepts: the highest lower limit to the lowest upper limit. Where the lowest upper limit falls below the highest lower limit, there is no such band.

Only four biomes have a band that suits all their species. All 17 desert species accept 24 to 29 °C, even though the biome also holds the Bactrian Camel's −40 °C floor. Reef species share 24 to 27 °C, mangrove species 24 to 28 °C, and the 40 tropical species 26 to 28 °C. The other eight (estuarine, grassland, lakes and rivers, open sea, taiga, temperate, tundra and wetlands) mix cold-tolerant and warm-only species with no temperature in common.

Tundra and taiga are the cold outliers. Taking the middle of each species' range, the median tundra species sits at 4 °C and the median taiga species at 6.5 °C; every other biome's median falls between 12 and 27 °C.

The ranges that repeat most

The 136 species use only 59 distinct ranges, and a few of them cover large blocks of the roster. Species with identical ranges lose nothing on temperature when they share a space, so these clusters are a quick way to find animals that line up.

All 20 species on 18 to 33 °C are habitat animals that list the tropical biome, and all 16 on 14 to 36 °C are habitat animals that list grassland. The eight species on 24 to 28 °C are all aquarium species.

Species with the narrowest ranges

These 22 species accept 5 °C or less. Seventeen are aquarium species and five are exhibit-only; none is a habitat animal.

Sixteen of the seventeen narrow aquarium ranges fall within 23 to 29 °C. The Axolotl is the odd one out at 15 to 20 °C: its upper limit is below the lower limit of every other species in the table, none of which goes under 23 °C.

Species with the widest ranges

Twelve species accept a span of 40 °C or more, all of them habitat animals. Nine of them list taiga or tundra among their biomes.

Shared temperature when species live together

When two species share a space, the range both accept runs from the higher of their two minimums to the lower of their two maximums. Across the 324 compatible pairings the Zoopedia lists, every pair overlaps by at least 1 °C. In 252 of them one species' range sits entirely inside the other's, so the pair simply inherits the narrower range; in the other 72, both species give up part of their range.

The split between habitats and aquariums is sharp. The 154 habitat pairings share between 14 and 62 °C, with a median of 22 °C, and 96 of them share exactly 14 to 36 °C. The 170 aquarium pairings share between 1 and 9 °C, with a median of 4 °C.

The tightest fits all involve the Ocean Sunfish, whose range (10 to 25 °C) ends just above the 24 °C minimum that three of its seven tank mates need. Another 20 aquarium pairings share 2 °C, and 16 of those include the Pacific Bluefin Tuna or the Pacific Sardine, both of which top out at 26 °C. On the habitat side the narrowest shared range is 14 °C, for Cape Buffalo with Red Deer, Giant Panda with Red Panda and Greater Flamingo with Red Deer.

Groups of three or more

The same rule extends to any group: take the highest minimum and the lowest maximum of every species in it. The Cape Buffalo, Red Deer and Greater Flamingo are all listed as compatible with one another; together they share 14 to 28 °C, the same band the buffalo and deer already share as a pair, because the flamingo's 14 to 33 °C range covers it. Add a species with a narrower range and the band shrinks again.

The habitat planner works out the shared temperature for any set of species you pick, and each animal page lists the shared range next to every compatible species. For the full pairing lists, see what animals go together; to check one pair in detail, use the animal comparison.

Temperature ranges come from the official Zoopedia, checked 2026-10-14. Biome bands, medians and shared ranges are calculated on this site; how the data is collected explains the process.