Creature Library is a free animal encyclopedia, and you can read all of it without telling us anything about yourself. This page explains the little information we do collect, why, and what you can do about it.
Last updated: November 9, 2026
The short version
- There are no accounts, and reading the site needs no sign-up.
- We set no cookies. Not for analytics, not for advertising, not for anything. Two small things are saved inside your own browser, and we explain both below.
- There are no ads and no social media widgets. Our text, pictures and fonts all come from our own server.
- We count visits with a privacy-friendly tool that does not use cookies, does not identify you and does not follow you to other websites.
- If you email us, we use your address only to reply.
- We do not sell or rent personal information to anyone. We never have.
When you browse
Like every website, our server receives basic technical information with each visit, such as your IP address, your browser type and the page you asked for. Our hosting provider needs this to send you the page and to keep the site secure and online. It sits in short-lived server logs and we do not use it to identify anyone or build any kind of profile.
Because our fonts, illustrations, stylesheets and scripts are all stored on our own server, reading a page here does not send any information about you to Google, to a font service, to an advertising network or to anyone else.
Cookies, and the two things we do save
We set no cookies at all. There is no cookie notice on this site because there is nothing to ask you about.
Two small pieces of information are saved inside your own browser, which is a different thing from a cookie because they are never sent anywhere.
- Your best score. If you play the Animal Chain game or one of the comparison quizzes, your highest score is remembered so you can try to beat it. It is a single number, it stays on your device, and we never see it.
- A marker for the view counter. A note that you have already opened this page, so that reloading it does not count twice. It is cleared the moment you close the tab.
Clearing your browser data removes both. Nothing on the site stops working if you do, and you simply start a fresh high score.
If that ever changes, we will update this page first, and we will ask for your permission before setting anything that is not strictly necessary.
How we count visits
We want to know which animals people read most, so that we know what to write next. To do that we use a privacy-friendly analytics tool that works without cookies and without collecting anything that identifies you. It records that a page was viewed, roughly where in the world the visit came from, and which site sent you, and it cannot link one visit to another or follow you to any other website.
We chose it over the better known analytics services deliberately. The usual ones build a profile of each visitor, and that is not something we are willing to do on a site written for children.
We also use Google Search Console, which tells us which searches bring people here. It reports on our own pages rather than on you, and it places nothing on this site and nothing on your device.
The view counter
Some pages show how many times they have been read. When you open one, your browser sends us the page number and nothing else. No name, no account, nothing about you.
So that one person refreshing a page does not inflate the number, our server scrambles your IP address into an unreadable string and remembers that string for half an hour. The scrambling cannot be reversed, your real IP address is never written down, and after thirty minutes even the scrambled version is gone. All that is left is a count.
When you email us
Our contact page lists an email address rather than a form. If you write to us, your email address and whatever you choose to put in the message arrive in our inbox and stay there. We use them only to read and answer your message, and we do not add you to any list.
If you would rather we deleted your message after we have dealt with it, just say so and we will.
Social media
Creature Library has pages on some social platforms, and we link to them. Those are ordinary links. We do not put share buttons, like boxes, feeds or any other social media widget on our pages, because those report your visit back to the platform whether you click them or not. Reading this site tells no social network that you were here.
Videos and links
Some pages link out to other websites, and a small number link to videos on YouTube. Those links do nothing until you click them. Once you leave our site, the other company’s privacy policy applies, not ours.
Children’s privacy
This site is written for children as well as adults, and a child can read every page here without giving us any information at all, because there is nothing on the site that asks for any.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Our contact page is meant for parents, teachers and other adults, and it asks children to have a grown-up write for them. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, please tell us and we will delete it.
Who we share information with
Nobody. The only company involved in running this site is our hosting provider, which stores the site and delivers its pages. We do not sell, rent or trade personal information, and we would only disclose anything if the law required us to.
Where your information is handled
Creature Library is run from India, so any email you send us is read and stored there. Our web server is located in the United States so that pages load quickly for our readers, most of whom are there.
Your choices and rights
You can ask us what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email us and we will do it. In practice the answer is usually that we hold nothing at all unless you have written to us before.
Depending on where you live, for example in India, California or the European Union, you may have further rights under local data protection law. We will honor those requests too.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle information, we will update this page and the date at the top. If the change is a significant one, such as adding analytics, we will make that clear rather than quietly editing the text.
Questions
If you have any question about this policy or your information, email hello@creaturelibrary.com.