Carnivore
Diet centered on other animals, from insects and krill to large prey, caught with teeth, beaks, talons or tongues.
African Wild Dog (Painted Dog)
A coat no two dogs wear the same way, four-toed front feet, and a hunt run at up to 30 mph until the prey tires.
Alligator Gar
Described as a 100-million-year-old living fossil, armored in interlocking ganoid scales, with two rows of fang-like teeth in its upper jaw and a swim bladder that can work as a lung.
Alligator Snapping Turtle
The 200-pound riverbed dinosaur with a spiked shell, a 1,000-pound jaw trap, and a pink worm wriggling on its tongue.
Amazonian Giant Centipede
Venomous, up to 30 cm long, and its big ones are known to climb cave ceilings and catch bats.
American Alligator
An armored reptile with jaws that can crack a turtle shell, and a mouth that can go through 3,000 teeth in a lifetime.
American Crocodile
A salt-tolerant crocodile with a tapered snout, and the first crocodilian with evidence of reproducing without a male.
American Mink
A fearless, semi-aquatic hunter that fur-farm escapes set loose in Europe and South America.
Arapaima
An Amazon giant that can reach three meters, breathes air through a lung-like swim bladder, and wears scale armor that resists piranhas.
Arctic Fox
Feet kept just above the point where living tissue freezes, a coat color set by one gene, and satellite-tracked treks of up to 40 kilometers to hotspots on the sea ice.
Army Ant
A colony of up to a million sisters that clings together as a living nest, then raids the forest floor as a fan-shaped army.
Asian Water Monitor
A semi-aquatic lizard that can reach 2.5 m, scent a rotten carcass up to 100 m away and prey on any vertebrate it can overpower.
Assassin Bug
The predatory bug that covers itself with the carcasses of ants, a disguise that seems to fool jumping spiders.
Atlantic Bluefin Tuna
A tuna up to 13 feet long that dives past 1,000 meters and keeps a warm body.
Atlantic Horseshoe Crab
A blue-blooded cousin of spiders and scorpions, with ten eyes and blood that clots when it meets certain bacteria.
Atlantic Mudskipper
A West African fish that blinks on land and hunts crabs and insects on the mud.
Australasian Ghost Shark
The deep-sea chimaera described from New Zealand seamounts with glowing tapetum eyes and tooth-crushing plates.
Ball Python
A generally calm python that wraps itself into a tight ball when threatened and can go weeks to months between meals.
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.
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.
Barreleye Fish
The deep-sea fish with a transparent, fluid-filled shield on its head and light-sensitive tubular eyes that rotate inside it.
Beadlet Anemone
A red blob on the rocks that picks fights with its neighbors using stinging blue spots.
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.
Black Ghost Knifefish
A nocturnal South American fish that senses its surroundings through a continuous electric field around its own body.