mechanics that surprised you?

[(Trustee)ZooGrammy]

I wish we had a screen of it doing it's trick. 

[(Admin)Cricket]

So do I :)  That would be interesting to see.

[Wolverale12]

I actually knew about that with the Lion's Mane Jelly, must've been messing around with aquatic life in show tanks when I was a kid or read it somewhere online.

[Hawkkeye666]

2 hours ago, ZooGrammy said:

I wish we had a screen of it doing it's trick. 

It´s quite boring, they can only swim up and swim down for 2 guest happiness each.

No new animations.

[(Trustee)ZooGrammy]

Don't they do that all the time? 

[Hawkkeye666]

10 hours ago, ZooGrammy said:

Don't they do that all the time? 

Correct. But they do it in show tank in this case.

[jbl89]

May I add some mechanics that were definitely planned, but were scrapped?

 

- in beta screenshots of Marine Mania, we see it's possible to have foliage in show tanks. Perhaps it would have been better for the animal's happiness? On the other hand, the real life show tanks I've seen, are indeed rather cleanish. But more surprising: the foliage was smaller, just like in the original game, most was 1/4th of a square. No idea why they changed that ...

- there was also something with temperature and/or salinity planned. Too complicated? Some indications can still be found in the final game.

[(Designer)Khaydar]

When using APE I've found beached animations for the beluga. I guess they first planed to show aquatic animals struggling on land, but was scraped due to the game being family friendly

 

Here's a gif showing the animation

.

[bonobo]

oh wow! that beluga gif is interesting. i wonder what the plan was? the ability to dump sea creatures on land just like you can dump animals or guests in the tanks? or maybe they intended tank walls to degrade like the exhibit fences do, and if they got too bad the glass would break like the fences break, but instead of escaping all the animals would be left stranded on the bottom of a dry tank and in danger. that could have been an interesting extra layer of challenge. 
the marine mania changes are interesting too. it might have been nice to build more complex exhibit designs with quarter tile plants, more natural looking reef arrangements. i can see why they ditched the plants in show tanks though.

thank you for the answers everyone, i'd hoped there would still be lots left that would surprise me and i can't believe some of this stuff! @Vondell right? same, i don't know how i missed this. this feels equivalent to just now discovering about the mermaids.

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

What a great discussion!   Come on, there's gotta be something we still missed...