Mammalia › Carnivora › Felidae
Lion
Up to 3.3 m long
Male lions are the only cats with manes.
Field Guide · Chapter 1 of 29
Mammals
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Mammalia › Carnivora › Felidae
Tiger
Siberian male to 3.7 m
A tiger easily swims across rivers 8 km wide.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Felidae
Jaguar
Up to 1.85 m long
A jaguar was seen hauling a heavy sea turtle a long way into the forest.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Felidae
Leopard
Males to 72 kg
Each leopard has a coat unique to itself, so people can tell individuals apart.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Felidae
Snow leopard
Broad furred paws and a tail nearly as long as its body let it chase prey down cliffs far above the tree line.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Felidae
Cheetah
93 to 104 km/h
Cheetahs now occur in just nine per cent of their old African range, mostly in unprotected areas.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Felidae
Cougar
1.50 to 2.75 m long
A wild cat whose range stretches 110 degrees of latitude, from Yukon to the southern Andes.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Canidae
Gray wolf
Males up to 1300 mm
Fifteen wolves working as one pack can bring down an adult moose.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Canidae
Domestic dog
Over 14,000 years
Dogs from farming societies carry extra copies of the genes that digest starch, which wolves lack.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Felidae
Domestic cat
Sleeps 12 to 16 hours
Cats cannot make enough taurine themselves, so their food must supply it.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Canidae
Red fox
Weighs 3 to 14 kg
Among the order Carnivora it is the most widespread, found on every continent but South America and Antarctica.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Ursidae
Polar bear
Males, 300 to 800 kg
The largest bear and land carnivore alive, by body mass.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Ursidae
Brown bear
Up to 600 kg
A brown bear can drag a dead elk uphill and outswim an Olympian.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Ursidae
Giant panda
99% of its diet
Its thumb is not a thumb, but a wrist bone with a pad of skin over it.
Mammalia › Primates › Hominidae
Eastern gorilla
Males 140 to 205.5 kg
The species shed more than 70 percent of its numbers from 1996 to 2016.
Mammalia › Primates › Hominidae
Chimpanzee
1 to 1.7 m standing
Along with the bonobo, the chimpanzee is among the closest living relatives of humans.
Mammalia › Primates › Hominidae
Bornean orangutan
Males up to 1.7 m long
The largest tree-dwelling ape still alive.
Mammalia › Proboscidea › Elephantidae
African bush elephant
The largest land animal alive. A grown bull stands about 3.2 m at the shoulder and weighs about 6 tonnes.
Mammalia › Proboscidea › Elephantidae
Asian elephant
Eats 150 kg a day
Some bulls each year enter musth, when testosterone can run up to 100 times higher than usual.
Mammalia › Artiodactyla › Giraffidae
Giraffe
Bulls stand 5.7 m tall
The world's tallest mammal, and the first thing to notice is its height.
Mammalia › Artiodactyla › Hippopotamidae
Hippopotamus
2.90 to 5.05 m long
Its closest living relatives are whales, not the pigs it resembles.
Mammalia › Perissodactyla › Rhinocerotidae
White rhinoceros
The white rhino is the largest of the five living rhino species.
Mammalia › Perissodactyla › Equidae
Plains zebra
Up to 322 kg
The most common and widespread zebra, found across much of southern and eastern Africa.
Mammalia › Perissodactyla › Equidae
Horse
227 to 900 kg
A horse is considered mature at four, yet its skeleton keeps growing until six.
Mammalia › Artiodactyla › Bovidae
Cattle
Over 940 million
Today's cattle descend from wild aurochs that were tamed about 10,500 years ago.
Mammalia › Artiodactyla › Bovidae
Sheep
10 to 12 year lifespan
Sheep fleece is the animal fiber people use most, and it comes off by clipping.
Mammalia › Artiodactyla › Suidae
Wild boar
Up to 240 cm long
Its head works as a plough, able to upturn rocks weighing 40 to 50 kg.
Mammalia › Artiodactyla › Camelidae
Dromedary camel
Up to 2.4 m tall
Nature has not produced a wild dromedary in nearly 2,000 years.
Mammalia › Artiodactyla › Cervidae
Reindeer
Bulls up to 318 kg
Reindeer are the only deer people have semi-domesticated on a large scale.
Mammalia › Artiodactyla › Cervidae
Moose
Up to 2.3 m tall
The moose is the tallest, largest and heaviest deer alive.
Mammalia › Artiodactyla › Bovidae
American bison
Up to 1,270 kg
At one time bison were found from Alaska to northern Mexico.
Mammalia › Diprotodontia › Phascolarctidae
Koala
Sleeps up to 20 hours
Its diet of eucalyptus leaves holds toxic compounds that deter most other mammals from eating them.
Mammalia › Diprotodontia › Macropodidae
Red kangaroo
Males 55 to 90 kg
It is the largest kangaroo, the biggest land mammal native to Australia, and the largest living marsupial.
Mammalia › Monotremata › Ornithorhynchidae
Platypus
Egg-laying mammal
Males have a venom spur on each hind foot, one of the few venomous mammals.
Mammalia › Pilosa › Bradypodidae
Brown-throated sloth
Sleeps up to 18 hours
It comes down from the trees only about once every eight days.
Mammalia › Pilosa › Myrmecophagidae
Giant anteater
Tongue 45 cm long
Its tongue can flick in and out nearly three times a second.
Mammalia › Rodentia › Castoridae
North American beaver
Up to 15 min submerged
Despite the myth, beavers do not eat fish. They live on bark, twigs, leaves and water plants.
Mammalia › Rodentia › Muridae
Brown rat
Up to 5 litters a year
Nearly all the world's port cities host large colonies of these rats.
Mammalia › Rodentia › Muridae
House mouse
Mature at 5 to 7 weeks
Humans carried the house mouse across the world, and it now lives as a human commensal.
Mammalia › Chiroptera › Phyllostomidae
Common vampire bat
About 9 cm long
Among bats it is one of the most social, and it shares food with its roostmates.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Mustelidae
Sea otter
Up to 54 kg (119 lb)
Unlike most sea mammals, it keeps warm with a coat that is the densest in the animal kingdom.
Mammalia › Cetacea › Balaenopteridae
Blue whale
Up to 30.5 m long
Nothing larger is known to have lived, and this giant feeds on tiny krill.
Mammalia › Cetacea › Balaenopteridae
Humpback whale
14 to 15 m long
Females are larger than males, one of the few mammals where that holds.
Mammalia › Cetacea › Physeteridae
Sperm whale
Dives past 2,000 m on one breath and hunts squid in the dark. It has the largest brain of any animal known.
Mammalia › Cetacea › Delphinidae
Orca
Males over 6 tonnes
Orca populations often specialize in prey such as sharks, rays and whales.
Mammalia › Cetacea › Delphinidae
Bottlenose dolphin
Males to 381 cm long
Offshore groups can migrate up to 4,200 km in a single season.
Mammalia › Carnivora › Odobenidae
Walrus
2.2 to 3.5 m long
A walrus eats clams by sucking them out of the seabed, like a vacuum.
1 of 47
On this page
- Lion
- Tiger
- Jaguar
- Leopard
- Snow leopard
- Cheetah
- Cougar
- Gray wolf
- Domestic dog
- Domestic cat
- Red fox
- Polar bear
- Brown bear
- Giant panda
- Eastern gorilla
- Chimpanzee
- Bornean orangutan
- African bush elephant
- Asian elephant
- Giraffe
- Hippopotamus
- White rhinoceros
- Plains zebra
- Horse
- Cattle
- Sheep
- Wild boar
- Dromedary camel
- Reindeer
- Moose
- American bison
- Koala
- Red kangaroo
- Platypus
- Brown-throated sloth
- Giant anteater
- North American beaver
- Brown rat
- House mouse
- Common vampire bat
- Sea otter
- Blue whale
- Humpback whale
- Sperm whale
- Orca
- Bottlenose dolphin
- Walrus
What is real here
Every photograph and every outline comes from a real, openly licensed image, credited at the bottom of its card. Only plain charts are drawn.
The words on these cards are written by AI from the sources named on each card. Software matched every number and claim to a sentence in those sources. Mistakes are still possible, so follow a card's links before relying on it.
Globe dots are real recorded sightings from GBIF. Where a card says native range only, they are clipped to that range. Otherwise they can include zoos, gardens and places the species was introduced.