45 animals containing the letter S — each with origin, classification, and notes.
Below are animals that contain the letter S anywhere in the name. Each of the 45 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 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.
The world's most dangerous bird — a large, flightless ratite of the New Guinea and Australian rainforest, armed with a dagger-like inner toe claw 12 cm long; females are larger than males and leave all parental duties to the father; the brilliant blue-and-red neck wattles serve as status signals.
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 massive marine mammal with males weighing 4 tons and sporting an inflatable trunk-like proboscis — one of the deepest-diving mammals on Earth, capable of submerging to 1,500 m for two-hour dives.
Madagascar's apex predator — a cat-like carnivore related to mongooses that can climb trees with equal agility going up or down, hunts lemurs by leaping through the forest canopy, and is the largest carnivore native to Madagascar; despite resembling a cat, it is more closely related to civets.
A massive, semiaquatic African mammal — the third-largest land animal after elephants and rhinos, with surprisingly close evolutionary ties to whales and a reputation as one of Africa's most dangerous animals.
A large hoofed mammal domesticated 5,500 years ago on the Eurasian steppe — central to human history as transport, agriculture, warfare, and sport, with hundreds of breeds adapted to specific tasks.
A diverse group of marine cnidarians with translucent bodies and stinging tentacles — among Earth's oldest animals, with body plans essentially unchanged for 500+ million years and increasingly abundant in warming oceans.
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 diverse African and Asian mammal family famous for snake-fighting prowess — about 35 species ranging from solitary forest dwellers to highly social pack animals like meerkats.
The largest living deer species — North American and Eurasian, browsing on aquatic plants and tree bark, capable of being unexpectedly aggressive and outweighing most cars they collide with.
One of the most successful mammals on Earth — house mice have followed humans worldwide, while wild mice species number in the dozens, serving as both pest, prey, and the most-used laboratory animal in modern biology.
A massive Ice Age survivor of the Arctic tundra — famous for the defensive circle it forms against wolves, its extraordinarily warm qiviut wool, and the musky odour males produce during rut.
A bivalve mollusk attached to rocks and ropes by tough byssal threads — an ecologically critical filter feeder, a major sustainable seafood, and an emerging water quality indicator.
An eight-limbed marine cephalopod with three hearts, blue blood, and an extraordinary intelligence — capable of solving puzzles, using tools, and changing color across its entire body in milliseconds despite being colorblind.
North America's only marsupial — a Virginia-opossum surviving and thriving across most of the continent, with a prehensile tail, 50 teeth, and the famous "playing dead" defense.
An egg-laying, beaver-tailed, duck-billed, otter-furred Australian mammal — among the oddest animals on Earth, with venomous spurs, electroreception, and one of evolution's most surprising survivors.
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.
The second-largest land animal after the elephant, a massive grazing rhino with a square mouth and two horns, recovered from the brink of extinction but still poached for those horns.
A bizarre-looking antelope with an oversized, bulbous nose that filters dust and warms cold air on the Central Asian steppe; one of the most ancient living mammals, surviving alongside woolly mammoths, and now critically endangered after a catastrophic 2015 die-off killed 200,000 animals in three weeks.
A diverse order of amphibians with elongated bodies and tails — about 700 species worldwide, capable of regenerating limbs, organs, and even portions of the brain.
The smallest wild cat of the deserts — a compact, sandy-coloured cat with enormous ears, densely furred paws, and adaptations for life in extreme heat and cold; sand cats can survive without drinking water for months, obtaining all moisture from their prey, and can dig rapidly into sand to escape heat or pursue prey; deceptively cute in appearance but a formidable desert predator.
An eared seal — distinguishable from true seals by external ear flaps and front-flipper-driven swimming — with vocal "barking" colonies on rocky coasts and a long history of training for circuses, naval programs, and aquariums.
A semiaquatic marine mammal with streamlined body and flippers — the harbor seal of temperate coasts, with vocal "songs" of underwater communication, and life cycles split between sea hunting and land breeding.
Africa's most successful small wild cat — a tall, long-legged cat with enormous ears and a spotted coat, capable of leaping 3 metres into the air to bat down birds in flight; it has the highest hunting success rate of any wild cat, catching prey on more than half of all attempts.
An ancient cartilaginous fish that has roamed the oceans for over 400 million years — predating dinosaurs by hundreds of millions of years — with over 500 living species ranging from the 18 cm dwarf lanternshark to the 18 m whale shark.
A small ruminant raised for wool, meat, milk, and leather — among the earliest domesticated animals, with over a billion sheep alive worldwide today.
The largest of the gibbons — a black, shaggy ape of the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra that produces one of the loudest calls of any land animal using an inflatable throat sac the size of a grapefruit; pairs bond for life and sing coordinated duets that carry through rainforest for kilometres.
A black-and-white mammal famous for its sulfurous defensive spray — capable of accurate spraying up to 3 meters, with a smell so persistent it can linger for days even after washing.
A slow-moving, tree-hanging mammal native to Central and South American rainforests, so sluggish that algae grows on its fur — providing camouflage and a small ecosystem.
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.
A legless reptile of nearly every habitat on Earth — over 3,800 species ranging from the 10 cm thread snake to the 6 m anaconda, with sophisticated venom systems and an extraordinary ability to swallow prey larger than their heads.
The ghost of the mountains — a large cat of the high Himalayas and Central Asian ranges, rarely seen by humans; it has the longest tail relative to body size of any cat, which it wraps around itself like a scarf for warmth, and is known for its haunting, otherworldly call that sounds nothing like a roar.
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.
A small bushy-tailed rodent of trees and parks — among the most successful suburban-adapted mammals, with hoarding behavior that accidentally plants countless trees each year.
A radially symmetric marine invertebrate (more correctly called a sea star) with hundreds of tube feet, the ability to regenerate lost arms, and a unique digestive system that turns inside-out to feed.
A small, fierce mustelid — an elongated, chestnut-brown predator with a cream underside and a black-tipped tail; stoats are specialist rabbit hunters, able to pursue prey much larger than themselves, and can send entire rabbit warrens into paralysed panic; in northern Britain and at altitude, they turn pure white (ermine) in winter, retaining only the black tail-tip.
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.
The primate with the largest eyes relative to body size of any mammal — a tiny nocturnal primate of Southeast Asian forests whose enormous, fixed eyes cannot move in their sockets (the animal must rotate its entire head to change direction of gaze); each eye is as large as its brain; it is the only entirely carnivorous primate, eating insects, lizards, and small birds.
The world's largest carnivorous marsupial — a stocky, jet-black scavenger and hunter from Tasmania, famous for its bone-crushing bite, spine-chilling screams, and its battle against a contagious facial tumour disease.
A massive Arctic marine mammal with iconic tusks — pinniped giant of the polar seas, weighing up to 2 tons, equipped with sensory whiskers that find clams in dark seabed mud.
A small, slender, and ferociously efficient carnivore — capable of killing prey larger than itself, with seasonal coat color changes from brown to white in cold climates, distributed across most of the Northern Hemisphere.
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.
An African ground squirrel of arid scrub and semi-deserts, with sandy or grayish fur, a long bushy tail, and a habit of using the tail as a parasol against the sun.
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