The Biology of ‘Animal Crossings: New Horizons’ Villagers

Scientists explain how these critters would behave in real life

Island villagers with international sensation KK Slider. ‘ACNH’ screenshots: Rae Paoletta

Right now, our collective mental health is being held together like a Cheeto precariously lodged in a door lock. The orange puff holding back the floodgates of our emotion is none other than Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

New Horizons’ premise is simple: You, the main character, try to improve the quality of life on a whimsical island by funding public works projects, landscaping the terrain, and most importantly, managing the moods of its mercurial inhabitants. Most of them are very cute. Some are Harry.

ACNH has 402 animal neighbors made of 35 distinct species. While no island holds all these villagers at the same time, the social dynamics between a jockish tiger and a cranky hippopotamus and a shy monkey living in the same space can be more involved than you’d think.

So what if we could recreate the Animal Crossing experience in real life? What if these animals actually did live on the same island together? We asked wildlife biologists and archaeologists to explain how these spirited islanders would actually fare.

Apparently, it would make Jurassic Park look like Peppa Pig.

Oh look, a ceremony for a stone bridge I paid for myself, with no contributions from anyone else!

There would be blood — lots

The average Animal Crossing island has enormous biodiversity, including cats, tanuki, squirrels, owls, rhinos, tigers, eagles, penguins, anteaters, koalas, kangaroos, frogs, wolves, alligators, sheep, bears, rabbits, and dogs. Many of these animals come from different parts of the world and would never live among each other in the wild — tanuki, or raccoon dogs — live primarily in Eastern Asia, while koalas reside only in Australia.

Putting all these animals into the same island menagerie would be, scientifically speaking, a shit show.

“I think a lot of the predators on the list would readily eat the rabbits and maybe the sheep,” wildlife biologist Amy Wray told Tenderly. “Some of these animals might also directly compete with each other, so on a longer time scale they would have to either adapt to stay out of each other’s way or some of the species would probably go extinct.”

While some of the large prey (e.g., tigers, wolves, alligators) would likely have a steady supply of food from the smaller animals on the island (e.g., sheep), the competition for even smaller predators like cats and owls would be fierce.

“I’d rank it as an 8/10 if ‘10’ is the benchmark for total disaster.”

This scarcity could shake up trophic levels in the ecosystem, meaning the stages on the food chain where each animal sits would be higgledy-piggledy.

“A bigger concern is the amount of large herbivores on the island,” biological anthropologist Dr. Michelle Rodrigues told Tenderly. “Rhinos, elephants, kangaroos, and sheep all need a lot of vegetation to subsist on, and then you have the koalas who are going to need a lot of eucalyptus. Since many of the mega-fauna did not evolve on the island, I would imagine that if transported to an island with limited resources, we’d expect more intensified resource competition.”

So where would scientists rank a real-life Animal Crossing island on a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being idyllic and 10 being unfettered chaos?

“I would guess this island ecosystem would probably be a 7,” Wray said.

“I’d rank it as an 8/10 if ‘10’ is the benchmark for total disaster,” Rodrigues echoed.

Personally, I’d bump the score to 9, because even in an innocent game for children, these villagers can’t get their shit together and be nice. Not even the iron fist of robber baron Tom Nook can keep everyone in line.

Mike, an ACNH player who calls his island “New Jersey,” told me he’s been trying to get a gorilla named Al off his island for weeks, so far, to no avail.

“He’s really so annoying and has a terrible house and style,” Mike said. “Something about Al on my island sucks. His dialogue is so boring and lame too. He also makes the worst DIYs.”

Chaos reigns in art, life, and everything.

(Left to Right) Mike and the aforementioned Al

Everyone would be hungry for everything

Not all animals in ACNH thirst for blood. Some are fairly frugivorous, meaning they eat fruit, which is convenient considering every ACNH island has its own native oranges, apples, pears, coconuts, or cherries.

“Animals we usually think of as true frugivores include certain species of birds, fruit-eating bats, and some primates,” Wray said. “But lots of other animals, including top predators in Animal Crossing like the wolves and tigers, will eat fruit occasionally — they just cannot survive on it alone.”

Animal Crossing islands have only a few other food options available: bugs and fish. When it comes to catching the former, no one’s better equipped than frogs and anteaters.

“Insects are important for both of their diets,” Rodrigues said. “Some of the omnivores might also be handy at catching bugs. From personal observation, I would say some domestic cats and dogs excel at it, while others are comically bad at it.”

Fishing also has a few clear victors.

“Penguins mainly eat fish, though they’ll also eat crustaceans, squid, and krill (very small, shrimp-like animals),” Dr. Anthony Caravaggi, a wildlife biologist, told Tenderly. “Being small, they can hide from the sun in crevices and caves and require less food than bigger species.”

Certain types of bears, like Grizzly and Brown Bears, are famous for their fishing skills.

“Depending on the type of bear, they could be good at fishing in a habitat with rivers or streams,” Wray said. “I would bet on either the penguin or the bear, depending on the habitat where the fishing was happening.”

There’s just one catch — no pun intended.

“If these animals have to use a fishing pole to fish, they might have a little bit of trouble holding it without any opposable thumbs.”

Blathers, you’re doing amazing, sweetie.

There would be no Blathers

Sure, there might be owls on this hypothetically real Animal Crossing island. But no one compares to AC’s longstanding museum curator, Blathers, who is too sweet and sleepy for our sewer world.

Even archaeologists are enamored with him.

“I’m very Pro-Blathers,” archaeologist Hanna Pageau told Tenderly. “I think an owl is a perfect choice for a museum curator. Owls are solitary, nocturnal, and known for reusing spaces other animals or humans have already created — how much more curatorial could you get!’

“Also, everyone knows an adorable and excited curator who owns that exact outfit.”

A lot of AC players take issue with Blathers’s controversial stance on bugs; although at least one-third of the museum is made up of insects, he’s terrified of them. Some species of owls actually eat insects, so it’s safe to say our birds of prey are not so squeamish.

But it doesn’t matter that Blathers, a video game character, doesn’t accurately represent owls. What matters is that beneath his argyle-chest-sweater-thing lies a pixelated heart that is happy. He’s terrified but doing his best anyway.

May we all do the same.