Scrubland

Lore & Background

In the Planet Zoo world, Scrubland is not a single location but a recurring ecological zone—the kind of terrain you'd find stretching between a riverbed and a rocky hillside, where the rains come late and the soil holds little water. The ground is a patchwork of pale sand and compacted earth, broken by clusters of thorny scrub, low-lying succulents, and the occasional gnarled small tree that has learned to survive on almost nothing. Rocks sit half-buried, warm to the touch by midday, and the air carries a faint mineral dust.

Animals that call Scrubland home are masters of the small and the hidden. They dig, they bask, they forage in short bursts between long stretches of shade-seeking. The biome's openness means predators can see far, but the scattered cover of bushes and rock piles gives smaller creatures just enough room to vanish. It is a landscape of tension and stillness, where a meerkat's upright watch or a fennec fox's enormous ears catching distant sound are the only proof that the quiet ground is teeming with life.

For the zookeeper in Planet Zoo, choosing Scrubland is a design statement: you are building a world of warmth, exposure, and honesty. There are no dense canopies to hide behind, no rushing waterways. What you build must work in the open, under a wide sky, and the animals you place must genuinely belong to that sun-drenched, dusty world.

In Their Own Story

The morning heat had not yet crested the low ridge when the meerkat climbed its small mound of packed earth and tilted its face toward the sun. Around it, the scrubland stretched in every direction—pale, dry, and patient. A fennec fox, ears like two pale moons, watched from the shadow of a flat rock, its whiskers twitching at the faint rustle of a beetle crossing the sand. The keeper had built this little world with care: a shallow water dish, a few scattered bushes for shade, a gentle slope for digging. No one was watching. The meerkat chirped once, sharp and bright, and the fox's ears swiveled. For a moment, the whole dry landscape held its breath, and then the beetle found a crack in the earth, and the world settled back into its slow, sun-warmed rhythm.

Reader's Guide

Scrubland is a biome preset in Planet Zoo that you select when designing an enclosure or a broader zoo zone. It provides a semi-arid terrain with sandy, rocky ground, scattered low shrubs, small dry grasses, and a warm color palette of ochres, dusty greens, and pale stone.

Its role in your zoo is to support animals adapted to dry, open, sun-baked environments. Small mammals like meerkats and fennec foxes, various reptiles, and arid-adapted birds all fit naturally here. The biome's visual language—open sightlines, sparse cover, warm light—helps guests read the enclosure as a believable habitat rather than a generic grassy pen.

When building in Scrubland, lean into its strengths: use the natural rock and shrub placements for hiding spots and visual interest, add a small water feature since the terrain is dry, and keep the overall design open and uncluttered. The biome works best when you let the landscape breathe. Pair it with warm-colored hardscape elements and you'll create an enclosure that feels like a sun-drenched corner of the real world, exactly as the animals in it would know it.

Did You Know?

• Scrubland sits ecologically between the more barren Desert biome and the lusher Grassland, giving players a middle-ground option for arid-but-not-extreme habitats.
• The biome's scattered shrub and rock placements are designed to give small, ground-dwelling animals natural cover and foraging micro-habitats without requiring the player to add every prop manually.
• Because Scrubland is visually open and warm-toned, it pairs especially well with animals that have striking coloration—like the pale fennec fox or the banded meerkat—making enclosures stand out against a zoo's greener zo
• The dry, sandy terrain means water features are not automatically abundant, so thoughtful zookeepers often add a small pool or drinking station to keep the habitat realistic and the animals' needs met.