Naturalist
Naturalist (v5.0pre3, by Starfish Studios) is a pure ambient-wildlife mod — it adds no bosses or hostile threats, just realistic and semi-exotic animals to flesh out the overworld’s biomes. Its roster covers North American wildlife (Alligator, Bass, Bear, Bluejay, Boar, Canary, Cardinal, Catfish, Coral Snake, Deer, Duck, Finch, Firefly, Rattlesnake, Robin, Snail, Sparrow, plus a Forest Fox and Forest Rabbit) alongside a savanna/safari set (Elephant, Giraffe, Hippo, Lion, Rhino, Zebra, Vulture) and smaller terrarium-style additions (Lizard, Snake, Tortoise, Dragonfly, Butterfly, Catterpillar).
This server’s naturalist.json keeps effectively the entire roster enabled — only the Butterfly is turned off (butterflyRemoved: true, spawn weight zeroed), likely for performance or visual-clutter reasons since butterflies are a purely decorative, spawn-heavy mob in the original mod. Every other animal keeps its default spawn weight and group size (savanna megafauna like the Lion and Rhino are deliberately rare — spawn weights of 3 and 1 respectively, group sizes 1–3 — while flocking birds and shoal fish like the Bluejay, Canary, Cardinal, Finch, Sparrow and Bass spawn in groups of 3–6 at weight 10). None of these animals are aggressive or boss-tier; Naturalist exists purely to make explored biomes feel populated, complementing the pack’s higher-threat creature mods rather than competing with them.
Anticipated questions
Q: Are any Naturalist animals dangerous? A: No — Naturalist is a pure ambient-wildlife mod that adds no bosses or hostile threats; it exists purely to make explored biomes feel populated.
Q: Which animal is turned off on this server?
A: Only the Butterfly (butterflyRemoved: true, spawn weight zeroed) — likely for performance/visual-clutter reasons, since butterflies are a decorative, spawn-heavy mob.
Q: Why are lions and rhinos so hard to find? A: Savanna megafauna are deliberately rare — the Lion has a spawn weight of 3 and the Rhino just 1 (group sizes 1–3) — whereas flocking birds and shoal fish spawn in groups of 3–6 at weight 10.