25 animals containing the letter B — each with origin, classification, and notes.
Below are animals that contain the letter B anywhere in the name. Each of the 25 animals below opens to a full profile.
The deer-pig of Sulawesi — one of the most anatomically bizarre pigs in the world, with upper canine tusks that grow upward through the skin of the snout and curve back toward the skull; males carry these extraordinary recurved tusks throughout life, and in older individuals the tusks can complete a full circle; a Vulnerable species of Indonesian rainforest.
A large, ground-dwelling Old World monkey with a distinctive dog-like muzzle, complex social hierarchies, and remarkable adaptability — found across sub-Saharan Africa and Arabia in five species.
The only flying mammal — over 1,400 species worldwide, ranging from bumble-bee-sized to flying foxes with 1.5 m wingspans, navigating by echolocation and crucial as pollinators and pest controllers.
A massive omnivorous mammal with the broadest range of any bear species, including the grizzly and Kodiak subspecies, capable of hibernating for half the year.
A massive aquatic rodent — North America's largest rodent — that fundamentally reshapes landscapes through dam-building, creating wetlands that support biodiversity and modern landscape restoration efforts.
The "bearcat" of Southeast Asian forests — a shaggy, long-tailed civet relative that smells strongly of popcorn (from a chemical it produces to mark territory), uses its prehensile tail to hang from branches, and is one of the only mammals that can delay its own pregnancy through embryonic diapause.
A massive North American ungulate that once numbered 30-60 million on the Great Plains — nearly hunted to extinction by 1900, now recovered to roughly 500,000 across managed herds, ranches, and tribal lands.
A medium-sized wild cat native to North America — adaptable, secretive, and surprisingly common in suburbs and rural areas, with a stub tail giving the species its name.
A general name for several large bovines — the African Cape buffalo (one of the most dangerous animals in Africa), the Asian water buffalo (essential to rice farming), and the American "buffalo" (actually a bison).
The world's largest living rodent — a semi-aquatic South American herbivore the size of a large dog, famous for its docile temperament and remarkable tendency to be adopted as a companion by nearly every other animal it meets.
The striking leaf-eating monkey of African forest — the black-and-white colobus is one of Africa's most visually dramatic primates, with jet-black fur contrasting with white facial frame, a long white mantle over the shoulders, and a white-tipped tail; colobus monkeys eat mainly mature leaves that other primates avoid, relying on a specialised sacculated stomach to ferment and detoxify the leaf material.
A small, tail-less Asian ape that swings through forest canopies with extraordinary grace — the smallest of the apes, monogamous, and famous for elaborate songs that echo through Southeast Asian rainforests at dawn.
A wild mountain goat with massive curved horns that lives on near-vertical cliff faces in the European Alps, recovered from near-extinction through 19th-century conservation.
A large marine crustacean — once a poor person's food in colonial New England, now an iconic luxury seafood and the foundation of major Maritime fisheries on both sides of the North Atlantic.
A small, striped Australian marsupial that eats nothing but termites — one of Australia's most striking and critically endangered mammals, with a sticky tongue that can flick 100 times per minute.
The monkey with the most extraordinary nose in the animal kingdom — the male's enormous, pendulous nose can grow longer than 10 cm, acts as a resonating chamber to amplify calls, and appears to be a signal of genetic fitness to females; found only in the rainforests and mangroves of Borneo.
A small social mammal that lives in burrows in groups of dozens — domesticated for fur, meat, and pets, with European rabbits as the iconic species but dozens of distinct rabbit species worldwide.
A shaggy, long-snouted bear of the Indian subcontinent — specialised as a termite and ant eater, with long curved claws for tearing open mounds, a mobile lower lip and long tongue for extracting insects, and the ability to close its nostrils to keep out dust; the sloth bear's noisy sucking sounds as it vacuums up termites can be heard from 100 metres away.
South Africa's national animal and emblem — a graceful medium-sized antelope of the Karoo and Kalahari known for its spectacular "pronking" display, in which it springs repeatedly into the air with arched back and stiff legs; once migrated in herds of millions across southern Africa.
The world's smallest bear — a tree-climbing, honey-obsessed omnivore from Southeast Asia with an extraordinarily long tongue, a chest patch shaped like a rising sun, and an unexpectedly expressive face.
A small to medium kangaroo relative — there's no clear biological distinction between kangaroo and wallaby; "wallaby" generally means smaller species — found across Australia, New Guinea, and as introduced populations in New Zealand, Britain, and Hawaii.
The ancestor of the domestic pig — a powerfully built, tusked omnivore with coarse grey-black bristles that has recolonised much of Europe and Asia; a major game animal, agricultural pest, and ecological engineer whose rooting transforms forest floors.
A large African bovid famous for the greatest wildlife spectacle on Earth — the annual Serengeti migration, in which over 1.5 million wildebeest cross crocodile-filled rivers in a coordinated mass movement.
A stocky, burrowing Australian marsupial famous for producing cube-shaped feces — the only animal in the world known to do so — and a backward-facing pouch that keeps soil out while digging.
The most common and widespread zebra species, a grazing horse with vivid black-and-white striping that lives in family bands across the African savanna.
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