Why did my Wildlife Score drop?
Each of your Wildlife creatures contributes a certain number of points towards your total Wildlife Score. You can check out more information about this from your Wildlife Collection view in your in-game Menu:

This number shows your total Wildlife Score. It combines the points for each creature that you have, not including any Eggs since those don't contribute any points until they're merged.
This number shows the total score for that particular type of creature. In this case, the combined score of all the stages of Ladybugs in this image equals 70.
Under each creature, you can see the total number of points that each one individually contributes to the total score at the moment. The amount it contributes depends on its stage and rarity.
As you continue to merge your creatures, your Wildlife Score will generally increase since higher stage creatures are worth more points.
TIP: We recommend merging in groups of 5 as this will increase your score more quickly!
That being said, there is one circumstance in which you may notice that your Wildlife Score will drop when completing a merge.
If you've just merged stage 4 creatures, instead of immediately receiving stage 5 creatures, you will receive Magnificent Egg Nest(s) and your score will drop temporarily:

As seen above, the starting Wildlife Score is 7777. After merging the stage 4 creatures, the Magnificent Eastern Bluebird Nests appeared and the Wildlife Score dropped from 7777 to 7527:

When you collect the eggs from that nest and merge them, your Wildlife Score should be better than before:

As seen above, the Wildlife Score grew from 7527 to 8187 after merging the Eggs. That's 410 points of a boost compared to the Wildlife Score we started with!
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