Pet Evolutions in the Zaishen Menagerie

So Ive been working on a Ranger survivour and thought that while I do this I would level up some ZM pets as well. All the pets in my ZM were capped at level 5 and just left there. As ive been leveling my ranger ive grabbed a pet and have been leveling the same way i have for all of the pets. My question is....How come some of the Level 20 pets have unlocked all the Evolutions at level 20 and others have only unlocked Elder? I was under the assumption that all pets could be all evolutions, and if this is not the case, then why doesnt wiki have a list of those that cant unlock all evolutions? Or is this a bug in the ZM?

Level 20 Dire/Hearty is considered to be 1 rank above level 20 Elder.

Of this i am aware. But how? does this mean that you have to level the pet to 21 to unlock dire? this answered nothing.

It means you have to raise a pet to level 20 hearty or dire to unlock level 20 hearty and dire.
If you raised a level 20 elder, you'll have to turn it in, check out a level 15 hearty/dire, and level that to 20.

I've only leveled each of my pet types once, and have unlocked:

Elder, playful, aggresive, hearty and dire for each one.

All were set to guard, and only attacked when I attacked.

The only ones without said evolutions that I have are the black widow and black moa, both captured and turned in at level 20. Those ones need to be re-leveled to gain all of the evolutions, from what I've seen.

Evolution level and pet level are seperate things. Pets can reach level 20 (obviously) but the evolution has 7 levels.

Level 1 = lvl 5 Elder
Level 2 = lvl 12 Elder
Level 3 = lvl 12 Dire/Hearty
Level 4 = lvl 15 Elder
Level 5 = lvl 15 Dire/Hearty
Level 6 = lvl 20 Elder
Level 7 = lvl 20 Dire/Hearty

Any of the evolution ranks will unlock all the ones under it. So if you get a level 20 Dire/Hearty, you get all evolutions opened for that pet type.

I am aware that heroes can go into the menargerie grounds to charm different pets, but can heroes hand in pets?

Would be sweet to have a pozy of player/3 heroes and 4 pets charging through the lands

Yes. Talk to the tamer, and ask to look at your hero's pet to turn it in.