Ever wanted to recolor a certain dinosaur, only to discover that the color you wanted required some outrageous item like a Spinosaurus Egg? Or how about confirmation that there isn't one, or perhaps more, undocumented traits?

Well, I did the work for all of you! Laying down bigassaurus exhibits and planting so many eggs and hatching them all to find the real (and easiest) answers regarding all of our currently available dino-pals!

Let's jump to said dino-pals themselves. Something to note is not all of the "dinosaurs" in the game are actually dinosaurs but for the sake of convenience I'll be referring to them all as dinosaurs anyway. They come in a variety of forms, each put into different classes that require their own set of skulls and footprints in order to revive:

• Ankylosauria (the stocky, armored dinosaurs)
  
• Ceratopsia (the dinosaurs with frills and, sometimes, horns)
  
• Ornithopoda (bipedal and herbivorous, some have elaborate head crests)
  
• Sauropoda (the long-necked, long-tailed dinosaurs)
  
• Stegosauria (dinosaurs with standing plates on their backs and spiked tails)
  
• Theropoda (bipedal dinosaurs known for mostly being carnivorous)
  
• Aquatics (a variety of creatures that require deep water for they cannot walk)
  
• Semiaquatics (creatures that require shallow water and some dry land for basking)
  
• Prehistorics (extinct land creatures that evolved after the Mesozoic, mostly mammals)

Some easy details to note here are how there are fewer carnivorous dinosaurs in the game compared to herbivores, which is true to life! There tend to be more herbivorous species than carnivorous... On land.
When it comes to the true dinosaur classes they are almost all herbivores with the exception of Theropoda and even then there's a herbivorous member! Ornithomimus stands out as the only herbivorous theropod in the game!
Among the Semiaquatics and the Prehistorics they're actually even in regards to which of its members eat veggies and which eat meat, an easy way to remember which of the Prehistorics eat meat is to check if it's a member of the carnivora clade. In other words: "Is it a cat? Is it a dog? Is it a bear? It's a carnivore!" Every other Prehistoric eats veggies.
And then there's the Aquatics. Every single one of them is carnivorous, which is also true to life! When one considers how barren of plant-life the oceans are, especially when thinking of the ocean as a 3D movement ecosystem, because sunlight can't penetrate so deep down into the water column it makes sense for the Aquatics to be all carnivorous as plants only really thrive in shallow water ecosystems. The preferred ecosystem for Semiaquatics, which do have a couple of vegetarians!

Another thing to note is exhibit size: It goes without saying that the larger the dinosaur, the more space you'll need per dinosaur. Interestingly, most dinosaurs have the same space requirements as their same sized peers with some exceptions.

• Small: 350 ft² (Can be fed with Grass/Insects)
  
• Dwarf Pronghorn: 390 ft² (Can be fed with Grass)
  
• Stegosaurus, Triceratops and Wuerhosaurus: 420 ft² (Can be fed with Bushes)
  
• Minmi: 490 ft² (Can be fed with Grass)
  
• Medium: 490 ft² (Can be fed with Bushes/Medium Cuts)
  
• Large: 700 ft² (Can be fed with Tree Leaves/Large Cuts)

(A funny little note: Animantarx used to have the exhibit size requirements of a small dinosaur but this was fixed a while back. I can't tell you what's up with Minmi tho, your guess is as good as mine.)

And then there's biomes. There isn't really much of a need to cover what dinosaurs prefer what biomes here since the game does such a good job of letting you know everything you need to know, from telling you what their biome requirement is before they even hatch to what level of ruggedness and moisture you'll need to create their preferred biome. Still...

• The Grass biomes are Forest, Rainforest and Taiga. To create a Taiga the terrain needs to be rugged, moisture levels don't matter. For the other biomes you'll want to keep things flat, add plenty of water for a Rainforest and not so much for a Forest.
  
• The Sand biomes include Desert, Savanna and Prairie. You'll always get a Desert if the terrain is dry, regardless of how rugged it is. I know, what a surprise. By adding plenty of water to flat sand you get a Savanna and if you add lots of water to rugged terrain you get a Prairie.
  
• The Mud biomes are Swamp, Tundra and Alpine. Swamps simply need to be kept flat, level of moisture can be whatever. Although I don't think people imagine swamps as being devoid of water. Odd. Add elevation to a dry mudflat and you get a Tundra, if you then add plenty of water you get an Alpine biome.
  
• The Ocean biomes include Beach, Lagoon and Photic. These biomes check for different parameters as these biomes, presumably, should always have water. Rather than checking for moisture and ruggedness the same way as the other biomes it checks for depth and temperature. Depth is almost like ruggedness anyway if you're making an exhibit for Semiaquatics, whereas temperature is adjusted by adding heaters. Beaches can be at whatever temperature but they must have shallow water. The Lagoon and Photic biomes require deep water with Lagoons needing heaters to stay nice and warm!
  
• Speaking from experience, remember to be careful about rugged terrain as it can make movement a hassle when in first person and, at its worst, can make objects like feeders that are haplessly placed inaccessible.
  
• As a tip, adjust elevation before placing water. Use the drier spots in your exhibit to place animal enrichment such as shelters so your plants don't have to compete for space. You can also save movement space in your exhibit by creating rock piles, bunching rocks together. This looks especially good with shale surrounded by sandstone or piles of moss rocks!
  
• When building exhibits for Aquatics or Semiaquatics you can treat the two classes as one bigger class since all members of both classes live in Ocean biomes with all the Semiaquatics in Beaches and the Aquatics in Lagoons or Photic zones.

So now that you've picked your dino egg and have its exhibit set up, how about adding a little extra flair to your new friend? Well... That's assuming you have a DNA Machine. If you do, you'll have access to viewing your new friend's genetics while it's still in the egg, and most importantly for this guide, you'll be able to change it around a little!

You'll see three boxes in one of the tab menus, one green and two blue, that look like inventory slots and function exactly as such. The two blue ones will be the most important for this section of the guide as your egg has two slots dedicated to items to give it new traits. Traits add appeal to your dinosaurs and can adjust their appearance and behavior. Most are helpful! Some are high-risk, high-reward. There's no real "only bad" traits because even if it can make managing your dinosaurs a little harder they do come with extra appeal, which is great for encouraging guests to donate more money to your park.

Let's start with a rundown of all the available traits:

• Chubby: Dinosaurs with this trait love to eat! They're just growing young dinos!... No really, they grow to be bigger than their peers! As if the Sauropods didn't need to be any bigger!
  
• Damage: Remember when I said "high-risk, high-reward"? Yeah, that's Damage in a nutshell. Dinosaurs with this trait deal extra damage when attacking anything, including fencing sooo... Good luck if you want this trait for some reason!
  
• Friendly: Dinosaurs with this trait will love every dinosaur they're housed with, even if the Friendly dino is a carnivore housed with herbivores! Yep, even the mighty and ravenous Tyrannosaurus Rex will play nice with the diminutive Dodo just fine so long as the ex-tyrant has the Friendly trait!
  
• Parthenogenesis: This big word is an interesting one, and if you're a fan of other reptiles like whip-tail lizards and Komodo dragons you may already know what it means. And if you don't, it means a dinosaur with this trait can lay eggs without a compatible partner! Just place a Nest and you're good to go!
  
• Playful: This trait means this dinosaur is especially fond of playing with toys. Place a myriad of different toys with different functions and these dinos can become one of the most entertaining to watch, not just for in-game guests but also for you!
  
• Poopy: Your dinosaur poops more frequently... Hear me out: This is a good trait. Seeing as diseases in Parkasaurus can only be diagnosed through checking a dinosaur's feces then a Poopy dino makes its illness more easily apparent, long before it can spread.
  
• Scary: Makes your dinosaur scarier to other dinosaurs. Would certainly make it memorable to guests, but poor ol' lonely dino!
  
• Shiny: During the day your dinosaur may look completely normal but come nighttime your dino's secondary color lights up! One of my personal favorites, especially on Stegosaurs as all Stegosaurs look fabulous with this trait!
  
• Showoff: Showoffs love to be the center of attention. The guests' attention. These dinosaurs aren't as fussy about privacy as a result. Pairs well with Playful or Chubby for especially impressive stars of the park!
  
• Shy: On the other hand, Shy dinos need more privacy than usual and stress more easily as a result. But I guess that makes them cuter to your guests since they still have higher appeal than without the trait.
  
• Sleep: These dinos love to sleep. And sleep. And sleep... And sle-zzzzz...
  
• Smart: Smarty pants dinos level up more quickly, which gradually raises their appeal, on top of having that initial boost to their appeal. If you have any dinos you intend to keep in the park for the long-haul, this can make for a great trait to add to your favorites!
  
• Spooky: Turns your dino into a ghost! He's gonna catch 'em all 'cause he's Dino Phantom!

So now that you know what does what, here's how to get the traits (with the cheapest options separated from the rest)!

And now we reach the part regarding the green box in the egg's status page. That is reserved for an item to change your dinosaur's primary color. All dinosaurs have a default primary color when you get their egg from the chicken but this color can be changed to one of nine available colors: Pink, Magenta, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple and Black.

(Note: I used to have an Imgur link here but it is very outdated now, I'll come up with something else to host images for all the dinos, including what they look like with the Shiny trait.)

Notice that there is only one slot for color, you can only change your dinosaur's primary color and either be lucky or breed for your preferred secondary color. In regards to getting the color you want, I've noticed that items can be separated into consistent "groups". An example of what I mean is: Let's say you were feeling like changing your Velociraptor's color, so you put an Epic Gem as the color item and this turned your Velociraptor blue. Then you placed some Grass and it resulted in blue as well. Now, let's say you later got a Tyrannosaurus Rex and you wanted to make it pink. During your experimentation you placed an Epic Gem and this resulted in pink. Thanks to your experimenting with Velociraptor you know you could save a ton of money by using Grass instead of that absurdly expensive and limited Epic Gem!

I could make a separate section just detailing all these groups!... But let's keep the scope small and stick to the best, and by best I mean cheapest, options for each and every color. Yes, even the colors that recommend Cool Glasses or Spinosaurus Eggs have much cheaper alternatives! Because Shallow Digs are free, all options that list Skulls or Footprints will mention those but if you need an item for a particular color ASAP then store-bought alternatives will be included as well.

If you haven't noticed (which you'd probably miss just from the fact that there's a LOT of dinosaurs in this game and a sauropod's poopton of information to comb through) there's a pattern to these groups! This was already briefly covered in the section before listing the dino colors but to break it down once again...:

What colors items contribute to a dinosaur species is consistent. If Grass and an Epic Gem turn one dinosaur Blue, then if you use an Epic Gem on another dinosaur and it turns Pink, then Grass should also turn that second dinosaur Pink.

However, there's also another category of color groups! If two dinosaur species share the same default color, take Stegosaurus and Spinosaurus for example, then all of their color groups will be the same! If Tree Leaves turn Spinosaurus Black, then it will also turn Stegosaurus Black!

So now you've given your dinos cool colors and tantalizing traits! But can you get more than two traits in one dinosaur? The answer is yes, in fact you can slap on every trait in one dinosaur in just a few generations! Breeding is OP in this game if not for how expensive some of these traits can get, but do they pay off quickly!

To breed dinosaurs, you will need a pair of dinosaurs of the same species and opposite sex. Next, care for the parents-to-be until they have at least 80% happiness. Once you've got that arranged you need to buy a nest as dinosaurs in this game do not reproduce on their own. This may seem like a bummer if you're used to playing games where animals reproduce on their own but this method allows you to control the populations of your park dinosaurs. Short on space? Then place only a single nest or no nests at all, never worry about unplanned babies! Got plenty of space? Maybe want to be cute about fulfilling the herd requirements of social dinosaurs? Place multiple nests for bigger clutches!

When two dinosaurs breed they pass down all of their traits onto their offspring! And if you've got dinosaurs with traits that would also mean you've likely got a DNA Machine lying around so you'll be able to add two more traits onto the offspring! The machine also lets you adjust other traits of the egg such as what sex the dinosaur will be and what colors it inherits from its parents.

If the parents are different colors then the offspring's colors can mutate to something completely different, as an example let's say two Tyrannosaurs, Bass the Black-and-Yellow and Precious the Pink-and-Purple, fill a nest together. The resulting offspring, at a 50% genetic split, shows it will hatch with mama's Pink primary color but her secondary color mutated to Magenta. Pretty cool!... But what if I'm not feeling for the Magenta? If I grab the slider and adjust its position I can change the colors the baby rex will be born with, including cycling through more color mutations! With this, I decide Iris should be a Red-and-Purple Tyrannosaurus! This is the only way to get some semblance of control over a dinosaur's secondary color! You get a lot of secondary colors to choose from, but not all so you're still not guaranteed to get the color combo you want. Be mindful of that!

And while I could leave the breeding section finished here there is one more weird thing to mention: Remember Parthenogenesis from the traits section? Yep, let's cover that. Dinosaurs with Parthenogenesis can lay eggs without viable partners but they cannot lay eggs alone, it appears they still require a companion. That companion can be anything, one of the same sex, different species, just so long as the dinosaur is not by itself or with unhatched eggs.

Also, the dinosaur with Parthenogenesis doesn't have to be female, male dinosaurs with this trait will also lay eggs. What? Did you think the Grindr reference in the section title was just a throwaway joke?

• Red and Magenta are *very* similar in shade at first glance, if you can't tell if your egg has a red or magenta dinosaur try comparing with items that make it red and magenta.

• For social species, the minimum number of individuals of the same species to keep a herd happy is at least one member of the opposite gender and 2 other individuals. Solitary dinosaurs do have a social need but their ideal social circle is sharing space only with a potential mate.
  
• From what I've noticed, dinosaurs value privacy more than social needs. It is much easier to make a herd-living dinosaur super happy by itself so long as it's other needs are met but a dinosaur under constant surveillance will almost never be super happy, even if you've taken care of all of its other needs.
  
• Among the true dinosaurs every herbivore prefers to live in herds, including the giant Sauropods, so make sure their exhibits are nice and spacious!
  
• Among the carnivorous true dinosaurs the vast majority are solitary with one exception: Velociraptor.
  
• Solitary herbivores are practically non-existent, just Archelon. Other social carnivores can only be found among the Ocean dinos: Dunkleosteus, Elasmosaurus, Ichthyosaurus and Placodus.
  
• The Prehistorics follow the "social herbivore, solitary carnivore" rule to a T. Even Dire Wolf and Sabertooth are solitary in this game despite there being real life evidence of them living in packs.

• The majority of animals in the game are medium-sized and there are more small animals than there are large animals.
  
• With the exception of Sauropods, herbivorous true dinosaur families tend to be medium-sized with one small exception in each family.
  
• All Sauropods are large-sized. I mean, if you wanted a Sauropod it was most likely for the spectacle of its great size anyway so you know what you're getting into when you want to build an exhibit for these titans. Just remember that they are herd animals!
  
• When building exhibits for Ocean biome animals and space is an issue you should consider a Semiaquatic as these beach bums have no large members of their family but if you can spare the space for a large aquarium then an Aquatic may be right for you, there are no smallfries among the aquatics.
  
• The Theropod and Prehistoric families share the trait of having at least one member in all size classes with the majority being medium-sized and the minority being large.

LittleBlueDragoness: That's me! I typed and researched almost everything, some commenters would later add their own discoveries in the comment section. In fact, they're credited here!

Kajin Thần Thánh: For first pointing out Parthenogenesis dinosaurs cannot breed when in an exhibit alone. They even tested this for several days!

Mr. Oddly Fox: First to point out Scary Pumpkins and the Spooky trait in this guide. While they were already mentioned in the Steam News I doubt everyone reads those thoroughly so it was nice of Mr. Oddly Fox to be another source of this information.

Sewer rat: First to point out Bushes turn Coelophysis (and therefore any default Yellow dinosaur) Black.

Ichthyovenator1225: First to point out several new colors for dinosaurs that hadn't been added to the guide yet.
Ceratopsia Skulls turn Sinoceratops (and any default Purple dinosaurs) Blue.
Sauropod Footprints turn Euoplocephalus (and any default Black dinosaurs) Purple.
They also pointed out Cheese Hats turn Spinosaurus Black but I wanted to mention only the least expensive items for the lists. Still, if you have a spare Cheese Hat and don't want to just throw it away you could turn any default Purple dinosaur Black with it instead!