Happy Holidays, Keepers! 

Any words highlighted in BLUE are links!

To start, it's time to welcome our winter prompts! These prompts will replace the fall collection and will run until the last day of February. Don't forget you can suggest new prompts in the Discord, we will be looking for new ones for Spring before you know it!

NOTE, the minimum roll requirement has been raised to four (4) for prompts.

We've added the Accessory item to the game, which allows players to depict their animals more than 50% covered by accessories on their reference. These are for sale in the Zoo Shop for 2,000 ZD. To use, select it from your inventory when uploading/updating your animal. These are also available as a prize for this prompt!

Another thing to note: IVF and Uranium Pills are being paused for the time being until we can get the lineage bug figured out.

Next, to allow our dedicated moderation team some time for themselves and their families during the holiday season, we will be taking a brief break. The group will be closed for submissions from Dec. 18, 2025 until January 2, 2026. During this time the admin team is not required to process submissions on Lorekeeper or requests in the Discord. I will hopefully be able to use this time to work on the current bugs and possibly roll out some updates to the site. This means the site may go in and out of maintenance mode during the break, this is normal and not something to report in the bugs channel.

Animal news incoming!

Thanks to our dedicated players the kākāwahie (by FancyRatties), Hawaiian crow (by Shirelin), and the eastern hare-wallaby (by creationsbyroyal) have been saved from extinction and can now be found in Critically Endangered crates.

In other animal news, the marbled polecat (by FancyRatties) and the Malagasy blue walking stick (by FraidyCat) have been sponsored into the game! You will find these critters in vulnerable and near threatened crates respectively.

One final bit of excitement, I've finally saved enough ZD to get my first gene paintbrush and have created the banded purple jay! This gregarious corvid species is now found in least concern crates.

As the roadmap outlined, we are having a small Holiday Event! To help keep us all busy this season, and during the short break, we are going to have our very first Great Reference Drive. This is similar to the "Draw the Person Above You" game but designed for Zoo ARPG! The first person, me, will request three (3) different species they would like referenced. The first player (FancyRatties) will claim one of those species and list three species of their own they would like referenced! The chain will continue from there. Please go HERE to read the rules and join the fun!

Friendly reminders:

It is the responsibility of the player to check their submissions for comments from the moderation team as we often include important information regarding the approval process there. This is true for approved submissions as well as declined ones.

Shading must be obvious and shown on the entire image to count, this is not a new rule and applies to digital and traditional art.