How we answer

Every animal on the site gets the same questions, the ones that actually come up in the guessing game. This page says what each answer means and where the line is drawn, so when two people disagree about a pangolin, you can check who's right by our rules.

The answers are written by hand, one animal at a time. They're judgement calls, not measurements, and no reference book has a column for most of them. Where the honest answer is it depends, the site says so rather than picking a side.

Quick answers

What is it?

The animal's broad group: mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, insect, arachnid, crustacean, mollusc and a few smaller ones (a tardigrade is its own thing). This is the scientific grouping, not the everyday one. A whale is a mammal, and a spider is not an insect.

Carnivore?

• Yes: it mainly eats other animals.
• Omnivore: a real mix of plants and animals. Most bears, pigs and people.
• Insects only: it lives on insects and similar small invertebrates. Technically meat, but not what anyone means when they ask “does it eat meat?”.
• No, herbivore: plants, fruit, seeds or algae.

Dangerous?

The question is “could it seriously hurt a person?”, not “is it fierce?”.

• Yes: known to seriously injure or kill people. Big predators and heavyweights like lions and hippos count, and so do small things that are dangerous in other ways: venomous snakes, scorpions, box jellyfish, and animals that spread serious disease, such as mosquitoes and ticks.
• Can be: capable of hurting you, but usually only if provoked, cornered or handled. A zebra's bite, a swan defending its nest, a bee sting. Most large wild animals land here.
• No: not a meaningful risk to a person.

It's a guide for a game, not safety advice. Treat any wild animal with care whatever the answer says.

Domesticated?

Yes only if people have bred it in captivity for generations, until the kept form is different from the wild one. Dogs, cows, chickens, goldfish, and less obviously honeybees, silkworms and farmed salmon. A tame animal isn't domesticated. An elephant can be trained, but a working elephant is still a wild animal.

Awake when?

When it's mostly active: Daytime, Night (including dawn and dusk animals, which most people count as night), or Day & night for animals that keep no strong schedule.

Hibernates?

Yes covers any long winter shutdown, not only textbook hibernation: a hedgehog's deep hibernation, a bear's lighter winter sleep, and the cold-season dormancy of snakes, tortoises, frogs and many insects. It means “does it disappear for the winter?”, which is what the game is really asking.

Kept as a pet?

• Commonly: an ordinary pet you'd find in a pet shop or a neighbour's house. Cats, rabbits, budgies, goldfish.
• Sometimes: kept by some people, somewhere, usually by enthusiasts or where it's legal. Tortoises, tarantulas, pet pigs, hedgehogs.
• No: not realistically kept as a pet.

Do people eat it?

• Yes: widely eaten, the kind of thing on a normal menu somewhere.
• In places: eaten in some countries or cultures, now or traditionally, but not widely.
• No: not a food animal.

This is a factual answer about the world, not a recommendation. Some animals marked “in places” are protected, and eating them is illegal in most of the world.

At a glance

Found in

Where it lives in the wild, by broad region: continents, plus Oceans, Rivers, the Arctic, Madagascar and New Zealand where those matter. Worldwide means almost everywhere people are, which is usually because people took it there.

Size

Five sizes, judged against animals everyone can picture rather than exact measurements:

• Tiny: about mouse-sized or smaller. Hamster, robin, frog.
• Small: roughly cat or rabbit size. Hedgehog, chicken, koala.
• Medium: fox to sheep. Dog, badger, otter.
• Large: bigger than a person. Lion, deer, horse.
• Huge: far bigger than a person. Elephant, giraffe, bears, whales.

Legs, covering, colours, lifespan, group

Legs are counted the way you'd count them looking at the animal: a snake has none, a bird or a kangaroo two, an insect six. Lifespan is a typical lifespan, not a record. “Lives in” is what its group is called, if it lives in one.

Groups, not species

A few entries are whole groups rather than one species, because that's how people pick them in the game: Whale, Snake, Monkey, Shark, Owl, Frog and a handful of others. Their answers describe a typical member. Some members break the rule (most snakes are harmless, but the entry says “Dangerous: Yes” because enough of them aren't), so if it matters, look up the specific species.

Photos and summaries

The photo on each animal's page is the lead image from its Wikipedia article, hosted on Wikimedia Commons. Each one is credited with its author and licence, and links to its source. Photos that aren't freely licensed aren't used at all. Everything else on the page, the answers and the “Did you know” fact, is written for this site. Where an animal doesn't have our own overview yet, the one-line summary under the photo is quoted from Wikipedia and marked as such.

Notes, measurements and sources

Some animals have more: a short overview, a note under any answer that needs explaining (why a cheetah is “can be” and not “yes”), real sizes, where it lives and what it eats, and the animals it's most often mixed up with. That material is written for this site from published sources, which are listed at the bottom of the page, and a person checks each animal against those sources before it goes up. The date it was last checked is shown under the sources.

When we get it wrong

Some answers are arguable and a few are probably wrong. If you spot one, report it. Every report is read, and answers get changed when the case is good. You can also reach the person who maintains the site directly. See Contact.