Carnivore
Diet centered on other animals, from insects and krill to large prey, caught with teeth, beaks, talons or tongues.
Olm
The cave salamander with eyes buried under its skin, a predicted lifespan past 100 years, and an experimental fast of a year and a half.
Osprey
The fish-hawk that hovers over water, then plunges feet first to grab a fish in its talons.
Pacific Giant Salamander
North America's largest terrestrial salamander, guarding Pacific Northwest streams with a startled bark, a noxious tail secretion, and gills it can keep for life.
Pallas's Cat (Manul)
Round pupils, ears set low for peeking over boulders, and a BBC documentary's verdict as the grumpiest cat in the world, stalking prey across Central Asia's rocky steppes.
Panther Chameleon
The Madagascar color-shifter that retunes a lattice of skin nanocrystals within a couple of minutes, swivels its eyes through a 360-degree arc, and fires a hyoid-launched tongue up to twice its body length.
Philippine Tarsier
Hand-sized night primate with the largest eyes for its body of any mammal, a head that turns 180 degrees, and legs built for jumping.
Rainbow Trout
A stream fish whose sex is set by a Y-chromosome gene unrelated to any known sex-differentiating gene.
Red Kite
A deeply forked tail it steers with, relatively weak talons that keep it mostly on carrion, and an astonishing comeback in the UK.
Red-Eyed Tree Frog
A neon-green rainforest sleeper whose flash of scarlet eyes and bright flanks may give a predator pause long enough to escape.
Red-Lipped Batfish
A Galápagos batfish whose genus walks the seabed on modified fins.
Red-Tailed Hawk
The copper-tailed hawk whose cry voices bald eagles in TV ads.
Roseate Spoonbill
The pink wader that hunts by touch, swinging a slightly open spoon-shaped bill through the shallows and snapping it shut when it contacts prey.
Russell's Viper
A South Asian viper whose venom varies across India, enough that one antivenom did poorly against snakes from the semi-arid north in mouse tests.
Scalloped Hammerhead
A wide head that seems to sense prey no better than a sandbar shark's, but searches a wider area and can pivot into sharp turns at high speed.
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.
Serval
Savanna hunter with the longest legs and largest ears for its size of any cat, able to leap more than nine feet straight up to snatch a bird from the air.
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.
Shortfin Mako Shark
Considered the fastest shark in the world: burst speeds up to 70 km/h, warm swimming muscle, and hook-like, razor-edged teeth.
Snowy Owl
A powerful owl of the Arctic tundra that often hunts by day, colored for winter camouflage and able to take birds as big as geese.
South American Bushmaster
The longest of all vipers, able to aim a strike in the dark by body heat alone, from the only pit vipers in the Americas that lay eggs.
Southern Black Widow
Shiny black spider whose venom floods the nerve-muscle junction with acetylcholine and noradrenaline.
Southern Elephant Seal
The largest living carnivoran, with a roaring nose and blood built for breath-holds of up to two hours.
Sperm Whale
Hunts on dives that routinely reach 610 meters, fires biosonar clicks up to 236 decibels underwater, and occasionally swallows giant and colossal squid.