Least Concern (LC)
Widespread and stable, for now. Being common is not the same as being safe, and several of these were assessed decades ago.
Banded Archerfish
The mangrove sniper that builds a water rifle from its own tongue and turns a single shot into a self-amplifying bullet of water.
Bare-Nosed Wombat
A tough-skinned rump, cube-shaped scats, and the strength to crush an attacker against the burrow roof.
Barn Owl
A heart-faced hunter that is completely silent on the wing and, in tests, found prey in total darkness by sound alone with an error of under one degree.
Barramundi
A fish that mostly matures as a male and switches to female as it grows, on its way to a maximum length of 200 cm.
Beluga Whale
Nicknamed the "sea canary" for its squeals and chirps, with an unfused neck and a bulbous forehead that can break through ice for a breath.
Bighorn Sheep
Horns weighing up to thirty pounds, head-first charges at up to forty mph, and hooves shaped to snag any slight protrusion.
Black Caiman
The Amazon's largest predator and the biggest member of the alligator family, with males that grow past four to five meters.
Black Ghost Knifefish
A nocturnal South American fish that senses its surroundings through a continuous electric field around its own body.
Black Mamba
Its scales are olive-brown, but the inky black mouth it flashes when cornered backs a venom that attacks the nervous system two ways at once.
Black Swan
Australia's red-billed swan, whose black plumage is linked to a pigment gene that is cut short in the white mute swan.
Black-Tailed Jackrabbit
A desert hare that zigzags at up to 40 miles per hour and eats its own droppings for a second pass at its food.
Black-Tailed Prairie Dog
A keystone rodent that digs towns of multi-chamber burrows, and whose shrill jump-yip seems to set off the neighbors.
Blue Jay
A crested jay that can imitate the scream of a Red-shouldered Hawk. In one Virginia study, blue jays cached 133,000 acorns from one stand of oaks.
Blue Wildebeest
A bearded grassland grazer whose foreleg muscle is substantially more efficient than a cow's.
Blue-and-Yellow Macaw
A blue-and-gold parrot that blushes red, crushes nuts and seeds in its beak, and drops in on riverbank clay licks to eat soil.
Blue-Footed Booby
Bright blue webbed feet, a high-stepping courtship walk, and plunge-dives that hit the water at up to 60 mph.
Blue-Ringed Octopus
Golf-ball sized tide pool titan flashing iridescent electric blue rings and deadly tetrodotoxin.
Boa Constrictor
A nonvenomous snake that stops its prey's heart from pumping, and one mother on record who had daughters with no father.
Bobcat
A spotted, short-tailed stalker that steps its back feet into its front-foot prints to cut the noise of the hunt.
Boomslang
Giant round eyes, a 180-degree gape, and venom that turns the blood against itself.
Bottlenose Dolphin
Each dolphin is believed to keep its own signature whistle for life, and dolphins have passed the mirror test for self-recognition.
Bowhead Whale
A bow-shaped skull that breaks through sea ice, DNA-repair genes that may help it resist cancer, and a lifespan estimated at over two centuries.
Brown Rat
A whisker-guided survivor that breeds all year and quickly learns to shun the taste of food that once made it ill.
Budgerigar
The nomadic outback parrot that rewrites its own call to match a brand-new mate.
Conservation categories are from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. AnimalTracks is independent of IUCN.