Dominant Species FAQ
167 questions players ask · Updated Nov 7, 2026 · Full rulebook
Object
Key Terms
- Does adding or removing a species cube change dominance immediately?
- Must you point out a dominance change that goes against you, or can you stay silent?
- Do you have to keep recalculating dominance on every tile during play?
- Can a species alone on a tile be dominant?
- Can an endangered species claim dominance, or keep it when its last matching element leaves the tile?
- Is a species kept alive by another animal on a tile with no matching elements still endangered?
- Can an endangered species score points for a tile in a Domination action?
- What is the difference between dominance and domination?
- Can an animal keep dominance on a tile after all its species leave it?
- Is dominance established just by thinking it, or must it be claimed with the cones?
- Are dominance cones placed by an action, or do they just follow the board?
- If two animals tie for the most matching elements on a tile, who dominates, and does the food chain break the tie?
- Do scoring ties use initiative order or the food chain?
- Where do species go when they are removed from the board, such as by Evolution or a Domination card?
- When an effect eliminates one opposing species, such as Competition, does it remove one cube or every cube of that colour?
- What is the difference between an animal and a species, and how are they counted on a tile?
- Can a player call a dominance change even after a tile has been scored?
- Besides the Dominance card, what does being dominant on a tile give you?
Components
- Are dominance cones limited to ten, and what do you use when you run out?
- What do the player boards do, and are they only player aids?
- What do the numbers printed on the environment tiles do?
- How many hex tiles of each type are in the game?
- What happens when you run out of species cubes during Speciation?
- Do dominance cones score points on their own?
Setup
- How many species cubes does each player get at each player count?
- How many action pawns does each player get at two players?
- Do the rules change when six players play?
- Does the cube you use as your VP marker come out of your starting cubes?
- How many animals does each player control at two or three players?
- How is setup handled when fewer than six animals are in play?
- Can a player start with no dominance marker and no cubes on the board?
- Do unplayed animals get initiative markers?
- Where is the Ice Age card placed during setup?
- Are player colours fixed to specific animals in the original game?
- How many starting elements does each animal get, and do amphibians start with more?
- Do amphibians get an extra action pawn as their bonus?
- Can you cover or replace the starting elements on your animal display?
- Are the elements printed on the board removable, and do they still count once covered by tiles?
- What is the official way to shorten the game?
Sequence of Play
- Can you place an element on a spot where three tundra tiles meet?
- When are elements surrounded by three tundra tiles removed from the board?
- Does Glaciation remove every element surrounded by three tundra tiles, or only those next to the new tile?
- What if an element that should have been removed by Glaciation was missed and the game has moved on?
- Are Glaciation tundra placements limited?
- How many bonus VPs does Glaciation give for a new tundra tile placed next to existing tundra tiles?
- When several Action Pawns sit on the Glaciation track, which one resolves?
- Where can I place an Action Pawn on the Glaciation track, and can I take it back?
- Do Action Pawns on the Glaciation track slide left during Reset, and does a pawn block the pawns behind it?
- When Glaciation covers a tile, how many species of each color stay on it?
- Where do elements removed by Glaciation go?
- What does an Action Pawn on Regression protect?
- Does an Action Pawn on Regression take the element out of the Regression box?
- Can two players both protect the same element type in Regression?
- Can Regression remove an animal's printed elements, or a base element when it also has an adaptation of that type?
- How do elements move from Adaptation into the Regression box?
- What happens when Adaptation is chosen and the animal already has six elements?
- Can you swap an element on your animal for a new one through Adaptation?
- When an Action Pawn on Wasteland saves an element, does it remove one disc or every disc of that type?
- Does a Wasteland action still remove matching tundra elements when it returns only one element, or none?
- When a Wasteland element in the box causes tundra elements to be removed, is that box element removed too?
- What happens to elements left on the Adaptation, Abundance, Wasteland and Depletion rows at Reseed?
- How many elements does a Depletion action remove?
- If no Action Pawn is placed on Depletion, does anything happen to the Depletion box?
- In what order are action pawns resolved in a round?
- How does Speciation decide where new species are placed?
- How many species does the Insects' free speciation place?
- Must I speciate onto every adjacent tile, or can I place fewer species?
- Can you Speciate onto a tile where none of your other species are present, or using an element not on your animal display?
- Can the Mammals' Extinction ability save more than one endangered species, or one per tile?
- Do endangered species still score when a tile is scored, before they go extinct?
- Can a species stay on a tile where its animal has no food until Extinction?
- Who gets the Survival card, and does it change hands only at the Survival step?
- What is the order of steps in the Reset Phase?
- How does Competition remove species across the three terrain types?
- When Arachnids compete first, on how many tiles may they compete, and do they need a presence there?
- Do Reptiles, Insects and Arachnids need an Action Pawn to get their free animal action?
- Do Birds need an Action Pawn on Migration to move two tiles, and does the bonus stack per pawn?
- Can Birds move two tiles outside the Migration action, for example during Wanderlust?
- Can the same species move in two Migration actions in one turn?
- Can you choose a Migration value higher than the number of species you own?
- Can Birds claim dominance on a tundra tile after Migration, where they now stand alone?
- When Wanderlust places a new tile, who moves adjacent species first?
- Where can I place my Action Pawn during the Planning Phase, and must I take the leftmost free space?
- Can one player place more than one Action Pawn on the same action, such as two Speciation or two Domination actions?
- Must every Action Pawn be placed each round, and in what order are they placed?
- What does the Initiative action do, and does turn order ever change without it?
- Can a player who took the Initiative action put the pawn back on the Initiative space?
- Do the initiative markers shift automatically each round, and what do the arrows on the Initiative track mean?
- Are the initiative markers color-coded to specific animals?
- Does Food Chain order change when initiative changes?
- Which ties does Food Chain order break?
- Are actions voluntary, and can I forfeit an action after placing my pawn?
- Can I choose a Domination tile where I have no species, or no dominance cone?
- What happens when a Domination action picks an empty tile with no species on it?
- Can the same tile be dominated again, or scored twice in one turn with two Domination actions?
- What happens in a turn when no player takes the Domination action?
- When does a Domination action take a Dominance card, and can I avoid one?
- Who takes the Dominance card when a tile is scored, and must the dominant animal be the one who chose the tile?
- When a Domination action scores a tile, does it score every tile of that terrain type?
- How are points awarded when a Domination action scores a tile, and how do ties and lone animals work?
- Do you draw a Dominance card when you establish dominance on a tile?
- Can an Action Pawn be placed on an already-resolved Domination space?
- How is dominance on a tile decided from elements?
- When can dominance be checked or declared, and must players keep checking it during play?
- Is there a limit to how many Action Pawns can go on the Dominance track?
- Must I take a Dominance card if the only one available would hurt me?
- When a Wanderlust tile stack is used up, does the Wanderlust action lose an eyeball space?
- When is the earth tile underneath a taken Wanderlust tile revealed, and what happens to unchosen earth tiles at reseed?
- How is Wanderlust resolved when several Action Pawns are placed on it?
- Do tundra tiles count toward the Wanderlust bonus?
- Which actions and cards give bonus VPs?
- At the end of a round, do unchosen Dominance cards and action-display elements get replaced?
- Can I remove elements from my animal's display voluntarily?
The Cards
- Can an Evolution card add a species to a tile where your animal has no species?
- Can the Evolution card replace two species that belong to the same opponent?
- Where does the species placed by Evolution come from, and what happens if your gene pool is empty?
- When Evolution replaces an opponent's species, does it go back to that player's gene pool?
- Can you choose Immigrants' eliminate-all-but-one option when you already have only one species per tile?
- Can you choose Immigrants' lose-an-element option if your animal has no element disks?
- Where does the Action Pawn that Immigrants makes you lose come from?
- Does Immigrants affect every animal on the board, including the player who chose it?
- In what order do the animals resolve Immigrants?
- Do Action Pawns gained or lost through Dominance cards last for the rest of the game?
- If the Instinct card places an Action Pawn on an open space, is it resolved the same turn?
- Can Instinct place an Action Pawn on the first Glaciation space, and does it stay there through the Reset Phase?
- Do the Intelligence and Parasitism cards give extra Action Pawns by initiative position or by food chain position?
- Can you choose a Dominance card that does nothing for you, just to keep it from the others?
- What does holding dominance on a tile let you do?
- During Domination, can the player choose any Dominance card, or only ones in certain positions?
- Who chooses which species Blight or Catastrophe removes?
- What does the Catastrophe card do to the chosen tile and to the tiles next to it?
- Does Blight leave one element type or one element disc on the tile?
- Can Blight, Catastrophe or Mass Exodus be played on a tile with one or no elements or cubes?
- How does Biomass decide which tile loses a cube?
- Can Mass Exodus move opposing species, including onto tiles where they become endangered?
- Can the Predator card remove all of a player's species from a tile?
- Which species can the Hibernation card bring back?
- Does Hibernation let an endangered species claim dominance?
- How is the Ice Sheet card resolved, and does it use action pawns?
- Does the Fertile card score only one animal's species on the chosen tile, or every species there?
- How many species does Fecundity add, and can you add none?
- Can the Habitat card place an element on a tile corner that already holds an element?
- Can you choose a sea or wetland tile whose element spaces are full when you resolve Aquatic?
- Is the element from Aquatic chosen by the player, or drawn at random?
- Can Metamorphosis swap an element for another of the same type, and can the outgoing element be drawn back from the bag?
- If an animal has only its preprinted elements, can Metamorphosis give it a new element?
- Which animals gain a random element from the Symbiotic card?
- How is the Ecodiversity card scored?
- Does the Disease card's 'more elements' mean total element disks or element types?
- How many VP does the Biodiversity card score for tiles shared with opponents?
- Who gets the Survival card when players tie for the most species on tundra?
- How many VP does the Survival card's holder score?
- Can a Dominance card that subtracts points push your score below zero?
Endgame
- Does the game end as soon as the Ice Age card is revealed?
- What happens, and in what order, once someone takes the Ice Age card?
- How many VP does the Ice Age card score for the tiles an animal dominates?
- At final scoring, are tiles scored by dominance or by species counts?
- How are ties broken when scoring a tile or at the end of the game?
- How are endgame tile points split when several animals share a tile?
- Where is the Ice Age card placed in the Domination deck?
- Can the Instinct card add an Action Pawn on the final turn, before Ice Age scoring?
Optional Rules
- How many animals does each player control in a 2- or 3-player game?
- With several animals per player, which animal's score counts at the end of the game?
- In the two-animals-per-player variant, can Evolution replace two species that all belong to one player?
- In the Random Earth Setup, how many VP does each player start with when species counts differ?