Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-26923065-20160127114349/@comment-17754282-20171019171925

The 10 I would start the park with are Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Deinonychus, Ankylosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Iguanodon, Pteranodon and Plesiosaurus.

The reasoning is that these are probably the ten animals from the mesozoic era that everyone in the world can look at and have at least some level of recognition for what it is. If you've ever picked up the most basic of books on dinosaurs or had a reasonable decent set of Dinosaur toys, odds are that these 10 will be represented in some form.

You can put in all the Hatzegoptertyx, Nasutoceratops, Rugops, Concavenator and Amargasaurus you want, if you don't have dinosaurs people know and love, you aren't really going to draw the crowds - they can come later.

At a regular zoo, sure its cool to see animals you don't really know, like the binturong, loris, ocelot, aardwolf, bilby, tegu, gerenuk or whatever, but everyone really wants to see the lion, tiger, wolf, elephant, rhino, hippo, giraffe, crocodile, chimp, gorilla, penguin, bear and a big-ass snake.

And people aren't that bothered by which of those they see either - the average person doesn't care whether thats and Afican elephant or an Asian elephant they're looking at - all they care about is that it's an elephant. Ok, so that's not true all the time - grizzly bear, panda bear and polar bear are all different enough to warrant most people knowing the difference, but get into black bear, sun bear, sloth bear territory and wer'e back to all they care about is the fact that they saw a bear.

And it'll be that way with a zoo full of dinosaurs too - it doesn't matter if the dinosaur you put in is Triceratops, Torosaurus, Chasmosaurus, Anchiceratops, Arrhinoceratops or Pentaceratops - most people seeing it are going to call it a Triceratops regardless.


 * Note: I chose Deinonychus because the original post said that the animals would be scientifically accurate and thanks to the JP films, everyone knows the name Velociraptor, but think it looks like Deinonychus - if I put in a real Verlociraptor, everyone would get disappointed!