Low
The overwhelming majority of life on Earth. Harmless to humans, and frequently far more interesting for it.
Saiga Antelope
An inflatable nose, loud nasal roars, and an Ice Age survivor of the Eurasian steppe.
Sandfish Sea Cucumber
A sediment-swallowing sea cucumber that is one of the highest-valued species in the bêche-de-mer trade.
Satanic Leaf-Tailed Gecko
Dead-leaf camouflage down to the fake decay and missing pieces, horn-like brow scales, and a loud, red-mouthed bluff when confronted.
Satin Bowerbird
Stick-avenue builder, blue-object collector, and a courtship act of buzzes, rattles and mimicry.
Scaly-foot Snail
The hydrothermal vent gastropod whose foot scales and shell are often mineralised with iron sulfide, with a heart that takes up about 4% of its body volume.
Scarlet Macaw
A big scarlet parrot that feeds mostly in the forest canopy, with a beak that can break open the toughest nuts.
Sea Lamprey
A jawless survivor from a lineage that split from ours roughly 500 million years ago, armed with a sucker mouth ringed in rasping teeth.
Sea Otter
The densest fur of any mammal, a rock tucked under one arm, and a keystone predator that stops urchins from overgrazing kelp forests.
Secretarybird
The stilt-legged snake executioner whose stomp, measured in one captive male, peaked at five times his body weight on average.
Seven-Spot Ladybird
The red beetle that bleeds poison from its leg joints.
Shoebill Stork
Prehistoric-looking swamp stalker with a foot-long bill shaped like a clog.
Short-Beaked Echidna
The spiny, egg-laying mammal that digs into ant and termite nests and carries an electric sense in its snout.
Siamese Fighting Fish
A fish up to 6.5 cm long that breathes air through a labyrinth organ, and whose males flare their gill covers at each other.
Signal Crayfish
A plague-resistant crayfish brought to Europe to supplement stocks the plague decimated, and a carrier of the disease itself.
Silkworm
A caterpillar that grows thousands of times heavier in a month, then wraps itself in one silk thread up to 1,800 metres long.
Silverfish
A wingless, silver-scaled insect that keeps molting as an adult and can go up to a year without food.
Snow Petrel
An all-white Antarctic seabird that sometimes nests hundreds of kilometers inland and spits stomach oil that can build up around its nest for thousands of years.
Sociable Weaver
The Kalahari architect that builds one shared straw mega-nest big enough for hundreds of birds, with some still standing more than a century later.
Sockeye Salmon
A silver sea-going fish that turns bright red and swims back to the freshwater system where it hatched.
Spitting Spider
A tiny house spider that entangles prey from a distance with a zigzag spray of silk, glue and venom, fired at up to 28.8 meters a second.
Spotted Lanternfly
A planthopper, not a moth, that turns red as it stocks up on its host tree's chemical defences.
Springbok
A gazelle-like antelope that bounces on stiff legs and flares a hidden crest of white hair.
Stag Beetle
Antler-like jaws for wrestling rivals, years spent as a larva tunnelling through rotting wood, and just a few weeks as an adult to find a mate.
Staghorn Coral
An antler-shaped coral that can grow up to 8 inches of branch a year, yet lost 97 percent of its numbers to one disease.