Alligator vs Crocodile
Did you know? An alligator is not a kind of crocodile.
Creature Library: every animal from Aardvark to Zorse.
An illustrated animal encyclopedia: photographs, sizes, lifespans, diets and habitats for 188 animals, written to be read by curious kids and trusted by their teachers.
The Full Index
Browse the full A to Z
Know the name already? Jump straight to its letter. The number under each one is how many animals are filed there.
- A 17 animals
- B 7 animals
- C 17 animals
- D 7 animals
- E 6 animals
- F 5 animals
- G 9 animals
- H 7 animals
- I 6 animals
- J 2 animals
- K 6 animals
- L 3 animals
- M 8 animals
- N 6 animals
- O 5 animals
- P 9 animals
- Q 6 animals
- R 5 animals
- S 13 animals
- T 9 animals
- U 6 animals
- V 6 animals
- W 4 animals
- X 6 animals
- Y 6 animals
- Z 7 animals
Animal Types
Start with a group
Every animal belongs to one of these groups. Pick one to see everything inside it.
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Mammals90 animals
Mammals are warm-blooded vertebrates with hair or fur that feed their young on milk.
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Birds39 animals
Birds are warm-blooded vertebrates with feathers, beaks and wings, and they all lay hard-shelled eggs.
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Reptiles23 animals
Reptiles are cold-blooded vertebrates with dry, scaly skin, and most lay eggs on land.
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Fish14 animals
Fish are vertebrates that live in water, breathe through gills and swim with fins.
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Invertebrates8 animals
Invertebrates are animals without a backbone.
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Amphibians6 animals
Amphibians are cold-blooded vertebrates that usually start life in water and move onto land as adults.
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Insects6 animals
Insects are invertebrates with six legs, three body parts and a pair of antennae.
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Arachnids2 animals
Arachnids are eight-legged invertebrates with a two-part body and no antennae.
Did You Know?
Facts worth repeating at dinner
A different handful from the library every day.
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Cattle: Read the full profile
Bulls are not angry at the color red. Cattle are red-green colorblind and charge at movement.
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Deer: Read the full profile
Reindeer are the only deer where females normally grow antlers too.
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Firefly: Read the full profile
The firefly controls its flash by controlling oxygen, not chemicals, and the switching is fast because nitric oxide lets oxygen flood the light-producing cells in a pulse.
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Guppy: Read the full profile
A female can produce a brood every three to four weeks, from a handful to over a hundred young, which is why the guppy is also called the millionfish.
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Isopod: Read the full profile
Having no drifting larval stage is a big part of how isopods managed to colonize dry land.
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Manatee: Read the full profile
They exchange about 90 percent of the air in their lungs per breath. We manage about 10.
Collections
Ready-made sets for lessons and rainy afternoons
Hand-picked themes, from record breakers to the animals everyone gets wrong, with a note on why each animal made the list.
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62 animals
Animals Everyone Gets Wrong
Starring the tiger
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46 animals
Mistaken Identity
Starring the red panda
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44 animals
Record Breakers
Starring the giraffe
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24 animals
Animals of the Night
Starring the leopard
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16 animals
Venomous and Poisonous
Starring the jellyfish
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12 animals
Clever Animals
Starring the dolphin
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10 animals
Back From The Brink
Starring the otter
Spot the Difference
Which one is which?
Some animals look so alike that even grown-ups mix them up. Learn the one trick that tells them apart.
Turtle vs Tortoise vs Terrapin
Did you know? In Britain, turtle means only the sea-going ones and anything in fresh water is a terrapin.
For Parents & Teachers
Made for curious kids and the grown-ups helping them
Every profile is short enough to read together and prints cleanly from your browser. Browse by letter, type or habitat to put a lesson set together in minutes.
Animal of the Day
Walrus
Odobenus rosmarus
A walrus hunts clams by touch, with 450 separately nerved whiskers that identify a shell through mud, then sucks the animal out of its shell with a piston-like tongue…
- Size
- Males 9-12 ft (2.7-3.6 m); females about two thirds that
- Lifespan
- 20-30 years, occasionally 40
- Diet
- Carnivore
Start Here
Animals to meet first
Hand-picked from across the library, from the tallest animal on land to one with eight arms.
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Tiger
Panthera tigris
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Elephant
Elephantidae: Loxodonta africana, Loxodonta cyclotis, Elephas maximus
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Giraffe
Giraffa camelopardalis
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Red Panda
Ailurus fulgens
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Dolphin
Delphinidae and other families (bottlenose: Tursiops truncatus)
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Penguin
Spheniscidae (emperor penguin: Aptenodytes forsteri)
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Koala
Phascolarctos cinereus
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Octopus
Octopoda (order, about 300 species)
Collective Nouns
What do you call a group of rhinoceroses?
A crash. English has a peculiar word for almost every animal gathering, and every profile in the library records its own. Here are a few favorites.
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streak
collective noun
a group of tigers
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pride
collective noun
a group of lions
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corps
collective noun
a group of giraffes
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leap
collective noun
a group of leopards
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coalition
collective noun
a group of cheetahs
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dazzle
collective noun
a group of zebras
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court
collective noun
a group of kangaroos
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sleuth
collective noun
a group of polar bears
Can you beat Buddy at The Animal Chain?
A word game played with real animals: name one that starts with the last letter of the one before. Quick to learn, hard to stop.
Where They Live
Explore the world, one continent at a time
Grouped by where they live: handy for a school project or a bedtime deep-dive.
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107 animals
Animals of Asia
Home to the tiger
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101 animals
Animals of Africa
Home to the lion
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92 animals
Animals of North America
Home to the polar bear
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82 animals
Animals of South America
Home to the penguin
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74 animals
Animals of Europe
Home to the fox
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67 animals
Animals of Oceania
Home to the koala
Join the Pack
One brilliant animal, every week
A short email with one animal, one photograph and one surprising fact to share with the family.
- One hand-picked animal a week
- First look at new profiles
- Short enough to read together