Savanna
Adapted to expansive tropical grasslands, enduring prolonged dry seasons and following migrating herbivore herds.
Giraffe
Bulls can top eighteen feet, with a roughly twenty-five-pound heart built to fight gravity and an eighteen-inch tongue that dodges acacia thorns.
Gouldian Finch
A small Australian finch whose red or black head color traces to one stretch of DNA near the Follistatin gene, and whose chicks hatch with light-reflecting beak nodules that help their parents feed them in a dark hollow.
Hamadryas Baboon
Silver-maned sacred baboon of ancient Egypt, living in harems that stack into clans, bands and troops hundreds strong.
Harris's Hawk
The desert wolf of the sky that hunts in cooperative, matriarchal tactical family packs.
Helmeted Guineafowl
A speckled ground bird with a bony helmet and a very loud alarm call, and a knack for staying upright when the ground drops away.
Impala
An antelope whose leaps often carry it over bushes and even other impala, with scent glands under black hair on its hind feet.
Komodo Dragon
The largest living lizard, armored in bone and equipped with iron-coated serrated teeth and anticoagulant venom.
Maned Wolf
Stilt-legged golden canid of the cerrado that sees over tall grass and marks its territory with urine that reminds many people of a skunk.
Meerkat
Sentinel shifts on its hind legs, glare-cutting eye patches, and some immunity to a scorpion's sting, just enough to make it lunch.
Mound-Building Termite
A fungus-farming termite whose queens and kings can live as long as 20 years in the lab, while its workers live only a few months.
Plains Zebra
Stripes linked to biting flies, a coat as unique as a fingerprint, and a yearly Serengeti trek of around 2,900 kilometers.
Red Kangaroo
Australia's biggest marsupial, hopping at 64 km/h on powerful hind legs, balanced by a tail it can also rest on.
Secretarybird
The stilt-legged snake executioner whose stomp, measured in one captive male, peaked at five times his body weight on average.
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.
Spotted Hyena
Bone-crushing jaws, matriarchal clan rule, and a whoop that carries for miles.
Toco Toucan
A blood-vessel-packed bill that doubles as a radiator, and a throat that takes fruit without the tongue ever touching it.
Volta Electric Eel
The biological super-battery that hit 860 volts, the strongest electric discharge known from any living animal.
White Rhinoceros
1,800 to 2,700 kilograms of armored grey hide and a keratin horn, carrying a name nobody has ever actually proven right.