Animals That Start With B

Haliaeetus leucocephalus

The bald eagle is a large bird of prey and the national bird of the United States, typically found near large bodies of open water with an abundant fish supply, from Alaska and Canada down through the contiguous United States. The species was once endangered in the U.S. due to hunting, habitat loss, and the pesticide DDT, which thinned its eggshells and caused widespread breeding failures; after DDT was banned and decades of conservation effort, bald eagle populations recovered enough for the species to be removed from the U.S. endangered species list in 2007.

Basiliscus basiliscus

The basilisk lizard, nicknamed the 'Jesus Christ lizard,' is famous for its remarkable ability to run upright across the surface of water for short distances without sinking. Native to the rainforests of Central and northern South America, it relies on this unusual skill primarily to escape predators.

Balaenoptera musculus

The blue whale is the largest animal known to have ever existed — larger than any dinosaur — filtering enormous quantities of tiny krill from the ocean through comb-like baleen plates as it roams nearly every ocean on Earth except the high Arctic. Populations were driven to the edge of extinction by 20th-century commercial whaling before international protections took hold; an estimated 10,000 to 25,000 remain today, a small fraction of pre-whaling numbers.

Hapalochlaena lunulata

The blue-ringed octopus is one of the most venomous marine animals in the world despite being barely larger than a golf ball, found in tide pools and shallow reefs across the Indo-Pacific. Its venom contains tetrodotoxin, a toxin powerful enough to cause paralysis in humans, though the octopus itself is docile and only bites when directly provoked or handled.