You asked how Prime zones really work. We went and found out.

If you only read one bit

If the zone is active, it counts. Whatever you are.

The species list on a migration zone is who it spawns food for. It is not a guest list. 18 of 22 species got credit in zones that didn't list them. Herbivores, carnivores, the bird, the croc. All of them.

If the zone is inactive, it counts for nothing. Ever.

Even if it lists your species. Even if you stand there for an hour. Hundreds of test visits to sleeping zones this month, zero credit.

Patrols don't care what you eat or how big you are.

Four different active patrols, condition done. Every species, every size.

Small dinos don't get a lower bar. They get one box free.

Hypsi, Troodon, Beipi, Dryo and Deino all spawn with one box already ticked. The Hypsi and Beipi I tested still needed five. "Small species only need four" is that fact, misread.

Condition 9, the mystery one, is "reach 95% growth". Confirmed.

Not children. Not nests. Grow to 95% and it ticks on the next growth tick. Tested on five throwaways the same night, details below.

On the Live map: solid zone means it's awake and counts. Outlined zone means it's asleep and doesn't. Go to the solid ones. Stop reading the species list.

What you asked

The concerns came down to three things. "I visited the migration zone for my species and it didn't count." "I'm a small dino with four conditions, why isn't it showing Prime?" And "I walked through a zone and the tracker never moved." Reasonable, every one, and the guides you were reading back you up on all three.

Thing is, the guides don't agree with each other either. One says follow the active zone for your species. One never mentions active and says visit three zones instead of two, "to be safe". One just lists the conditions. None of them shows a log line, because none of them can see inside a server.

I can. The server's mods hook the exact moment the game notices a dinosaur inside a zone, and they read the Prime checkboxes straight off your character. So rather than argue about it, I tested each of the three concerns directly, and here's what I found.

How the night went

species spawned and shoved into zones

got credit in a zone that didn't list them

zones visited, every one on the map

Hypsilophodon lost in the line of duty

Act one: I volunteer my Hypsi

I had a Hypsi at 67% growth with four conditions ticked and no Prime. The guides say four is enough for a small species. My Hypsi said otherwise, which was a good start. So I began teleporting it into zones that specifically excluded Hypsis.

Zone one: counted. Zone two: counted, condition 5 ticked. A sleeping zone: nothing. So far so good. Then I dropped it into the fourth zone and it turns out the fourth zone's centre point is at the bottom of a lake.

◉ In memoriam. My Hypsilophodon. 67% grown. Shrunk to a hatchling for science, teleported into the deep end, drowned in fifteen seconds. Died proving that species lists don't matter. The save file is encrypted and gone forever. I took it well.

New rule for the lab, written that night in slightly larger letters than the others: use throwaway dinosaurs. So I taught the server to spawn its own.

Act two: a throwaway Beipi

Same test, nobody's actual character. Two zones that excluded Beipis: both counted, condition 5 ticked. A sleeping migration zone and a sleeping patrol: nothing. Four awake patrols: condition 6 ticked. The Beipi read "not eligible" at four conditions and "eligible" at five. Same as the Hypsi. The free box is a head start, not a discount.

Act three: all of them

Sitting at character select with no dinosaur, I wondered whether the other species would behave the same. So I had the server run the same routine on every playable species with nobody touching a keyboard. Spawn, drop into an awake zone with an empty species list, drop into a second awake zone, check the box, stand in a sleeping zone, off you go, next.

Species	Zone 1 (not listed)	Zone 2	Condition 5	Sleeping zone
Diabloceratops	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Dryosaurus	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Kentrosaurus	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Maiasaura	ghosted*	ghosted*	no	nothing
Pachycephalosaurus	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Stegosaurus	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Tenontosaurus	counted	ghosted*	no	nothing
Triceratops	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Carnotaurus	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Ceratosaurus	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Deinosuchus	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Dilophosaurus	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Herrerasaurus	ghosted*	ghosted*	no	nothing
Omniraptor	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Pteranodon	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Troodon	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Gallimimus	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Tyrannosaurus	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Allosaurus	counted	counted	ticked	nothing
Austroraptor	ghosted*	counted	no	nothing

Sixteen clean. Four got ghosted. And the ghostings are the best thing I found all night, because they're the bug you keep reporting, caught red-handed.

◉ *Ghosted: why a zone sometimes ignores you

When you spawn, the game hands your dinosaur a little number. Zones remember who visited by that number. The problem is the game hands the same numbers out again, fast. Over one night with one person online I saw four repeats in twenty-two spawns.

So the Maiasaura spawned with the same number a Dryosaurus had ten minutes earlier, walked into the exact zones the Dryo had visited, and the zones went "seen you already, mate". Only those zones. When the same thing happened to the Tenontosaurus and the Austroraptor, a zone their number's previous owner had never entered counted them fine.

What it means for you: if you walk into an awake zone and the tracker doesn't move, you've inherited a dead dinosaur's number on that particular zone. It's not you, and you haven't lost anything. Go to an awake zone that dinosaur never went near. That one will count.

Act four: every zone on the map

Then, because the server was empty and I'd come this far, the routine woke up every migration and patrol zone on the island one at a time, dropped a throwaway in, read the result, and tucked the zone back in. Sixty of them counted the visitor. Eight patrols would not switch on for me at all and I honestly don't know why. Four migration zones are big drawn-out shapes where my teleport lands in the wrong spot to trigger them, but real players walking in have been credited in those all month, so they're fine.

Everything was put back exactly as found. Nobody's rotation was touched.

One thing I noticed along the way, because people ask this more than anything: over six hours with a single hatchling online, every migration and every patrol on the map lapsed and nothing replaced them. The zone rotation runs on players. A quiet server is an empty map. Come back when there are more of us, or bring friends.

Condition 9: solved

The Prime list has a mystery slot. Every guide calls condition 9 "raise children to subadult". I'd already binned that label because a dinosaur with no mate, no eggs and no kids had it ticked. But I didn't know what it actually was.

So I went back through a full day of Prime checkbox changes from every real player on the server and pulled out every time condition 9 ticked on its own. Five times. Here's what each dinosaur was doing at that exact second.

A Deinosuchus was hit with an admin grow command from 25% to 100%. Condition 9 ticked one second later.
A Ceratosaurus logged in at 94.8% growth. Two minutes later, at roughly 95%, condition 9 ticked. That took it from four conditions to five, and the game flipped it to eligible for Prime on the spot.
A second Ceratosaurus I can place at about 95% from its login and logout growth. Ticked.
A third Ceratosaurus and an Austroraptor both ticked it late in a long session and were sitting at 100% growth shortly after.

So I tested it properly. Five fresh throwaways, grown in steps while I watched the checkbox. Nothing at 94.97%. Ticked at 95.17%. Three more crossed 95% on their own natural growth and ticked on the very next growth tick. Once it's on, it stays on, even if you shrink the dinosaur back to 50%. Condition 9 is "reach 95% growth". Not kids. Not nests. Just don't die.

One more thing I saw doing it, which the guides don't mention: four of the five test dinosaurs lost condition 7, the "never be infertile" box, within a minute of hitting adulthood. That is the infertility mutation rolling at the adult stage change. It's luck, and it can take a box away from you late. Plan for five with a spare if you can.

◉ About that "locks at 75%" rule

Every guide says Prime eligibility "locks in at 75% growth". What I actually saw is messier and more useful. Below 75%, the eligible flag updates the instant your fifth box ticks; one throwaway went eligible at 50% growth in the same second it earned its fifth condition. Above 75%, a zone visit that completes your five did not flip the flag for over a minute, until the dinosaur's growth changed. And in the wild, a Ceratosaurus that got condition 9 as its fifth at 95% went eligible on the spot, because condition 9 arrives through the growth path.

So the practical rule: get your five before 75% if you can. If you're one short after 75%, reaching 95% is the box that can still save you, and it re-checks your eligibility when it lands. I'll keep poking at the exact mechanics, but that's what the game did every time I looked.

The ten conditions, as the game actually stores them

#	Condition	What I've actually seen
1	Visit a Sanctuary as a juvenile	Sanctuaries always count, awake or not. 26 ticks on "sleeping" sanctuaries in one day.
2	Get nested in	Not tested yet.
3	Perfect diet, 1% of each macro	Not tested yet.
4	Visit a Mass Migration zone	Not tested yet.
5	Visit 2 Migration zones	Awake zones count anyone. Sleeping zones count nobody.
6	Visit 4 Patrol zones	Any species, any size, awake only.
7	Never be infertile	Free unless the mutation lands on you, and it rolls at the adult stage change. Four of five test dinosaurs lost it there.
8	Never get muscle spasms	Free unless you eat your own kind.
9	Reach 95% growth	Confirmed. Nothing at 94.97%, ticked at 95.17%, latches.
10	Be a Hypsi, Troodon, Beipi, Dryo or Deino	Confirmed on all five. Free box.

What changed because of this

The Live map and the Overlay now draw every awake migration zone. Solid means go. Species filtering is gone, because species doesn't matter.
Condition 9 on the tracker now says "Reach 95% growth".
If a guide and the tracker ever disagree, this page is where I'll show my working.
I have a new Beipi. I did not ask for a Beipi.

Solid zones. Any species. Five boxes before 75%, or make it to 95%. Don't die.
◉ BE NOT AFRAID