North American Animals

Lithobates catesbeianus

The American bullfrog is the largest true frog native to North America, named for its deep, resonant call that resembles a bull's bellow. Highly adaptable and voracious, it will eat almost any animal small enough to fit in its mouth, from insects to other frogs, and has become one of the world's most widely introduced invasive amphibians outside its native range.

Ambystoma mexicanum

The axolotl is a remarkable salamander from a single lake system in Mexico that never fully undergoes metamorphosis, instead retaining its larval, gilled form and living its entire life underwater. This permanent juvenile state, called neoteny, along with its extraordinary ability to regrow lost limbs, organs, and even parts of its brain, has made it one of the most studied animals in modern regenerative biology research.

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.

Tursiops truncatus

The bottlenose dolphin is one of the most widely-recognized and intelligent marine mammals, found in temperate and tropical oceans worldwide.

Octopus vulgaris

The common octopus is a remarkably intelligent, boneless marine invertebrate found in coastal waters worldwide, renowned for its problem-solving abilities and rapid camouflage.

Desmodus rotundus

The common vampire bat is one of only three bat species that feeds exclusively on blood, mainly targeting livestock across Latin America under cover of darkness.

Diplodocus carnegii

Diplodocus was one of the longest dinosaurs to ever walk the Earth, an enormous long-necked, long-tailed herbivore that roamed what is now western North America during the Late Jurassic period. Despite its massive length, it was relatively lightly built for its size, with a skeleton adapted to minimize weight while still supporting its huge frame.

Photinus pyralis

The firefly is a soft-bodied beetle famous for its ability to produce light through a chemical reaction in its abdomen, a phenomenon called bioluminescence used mainly to attract mates on warm summer evenings. Despite the name, it isn't a fly at all -- it's a beetle, most closely related to click beetles and other Coleoptera.

Canis lupus

The gray wolf is the largest wild member of the dog family, once ranging across nearly the entire Northern Hemisphere and living in tightly-coordinated family packs.

Iguana iguana

The green iguana is a large arboreal lizard native to Central and South America, often found basking on branches overhanging rivers and streams.

Harpia harpyja

The harpy eagle is one of the largest and most powerful eagles in the world, a rainforest apex predator capable of snatching monkeys and sloths directly from the treetops. Its enormous talons can exert a grip strength far beyond a human hand's, making it one of the most formidable raptors on Earth.

Eretmochelys imbricata

The hawksbill sea turtle is a critically endangered marine reptile named for its narrow, pointed beak, which resembles a bird of prey's hooked bill. It plays a vital ecological role on coral reefs by feeding primarily on sponges, helping maintain the balance of reef ecosystems by preventing sponges from overgrowing and smothering coral.

Panthera onca

The jaguar is the largest big cat in the Americas and the only living member of the genus Panthera found in the New World, prowling the rainforests of Central and South America.

Herpailurus yagouaroundi

The jaguarundi is a small, elusive wildcat found from South America through Central America, notable for a long, slender, weasel-like body unlike the more compact build of most wild cats. Despite living alongside the much larger jaguar across parts of its range, the two are only distantly related within the cat family.

Dermochelys coriacea

The leatherback is the largest sea turtle species in the world and the only one without a hard bony shell, ranging farther into cold water than any other reptile.

Danaus plexippus

The monarch butterfly is famous for an extraordinary multi-generational migration spanning thousands of kilometers between Canada, the United States, and central Mexico.

Aurelia aurita

The moon jellyfish is one of the most common and widely-distributed jellyfish species, drifting through coastal waters worldwide in large seasonal blooms.

Monodon monoceros

The narwhal is an Arctic whale famous for the male's long spiraled tusk, which is actually an enormous protruding canine tooth, earning it the nickname 'unicorn of the sea'.

Ursus maritimus

The polar bear is the largest land carnivore on Earth, superbly adapted to hunting seals across the sea ice of the Arctic Circle.

Pharomachrus mocinno

Known as the resplendent quetzal, this bird is widely considered one of the most beautiful in the world, revered by ancient Mesoamerican civilizations including the Maya and Aztec, who considered it sacred and associated it with the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl. Males grow spectacularly long, iridescent green tail streamers that can trail well beyond the length of their own body.

Enhydra lutris

The sea otter is the heaviest member of the weasel family and one of the few mammals known to use tools, cracking open shellfish with rocks while floating on its back.

Stegosaurus stenops

Stegosaurus is one of the most recognizable dinosaurs ever discovered, instantly identifiable by the row of large, upright bony plates running along its back and the sharp spikes at the end of its tail. Despite its considerable size, it had a remarkably small, low-slung head with a brain roughly the size of a walnut relative to its huge body.

Ambystoma tigrinum

The tiger salamander is one of the largest land-dwelling salamanders in North America, named for the yellow or olive blotches and stripes marking its dark body. Most of its life is spent hidden underground in burrows, either ones it digs itself or ones abandoned by other animals, only emerging at night or during its brief breeding season.

Triceratops horridus

Triceratops was one of the last non-avian dinosaurs to exist before the mass extinction event 66 million years ago, instantly recognizable by the massive bony frill extending from the back of its skull and the three prominent horns on its face. It lived across what is now western North America, sharing its environment with predators like Tyrannosaurus rex.

Cathartes aura

The turkey vulture is a widespread scavenger found across the Americas, playing a critical ecological role by cleaning up carrion using one of the keenest senses of smell in the bird world.

Tyrannosaurus rex

Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest land predators to ever exist, dominating the ecosystems of western North America at the very end of the Cretaceous period roughly 66-68 million years ago.

Phocoena sinus

The vaquita is the world's smallest and most endangered cetacean, found only in a small area of the northern Gulf of California in Mexico. Fewer than a handful of confirmed individuals are believed to remain in the wild, making it one of the most critically threatened marine mammals on Earth.

Odobenus rosmarus

The walrus is a massive Arctic marine mammal easily identified by its long ivory tusks, thick blubber layer, and distinctive whiskered snout.

Crotalus atrox

The western diamondback rattlesnake is one of the most dangerous and widely-distributed venomous snakes in North America, easily identified by the diamond pattern along its back.

Gulo gulo

The wolverine is the largest land-dwelling member of the weasel family, a solitary and famously tenacious predator and scavenger of far northern forests and tundra. Despite its bear-like appearance, it is much smaller than its reputation suggests, roughly the size of a medium dog, but is capable of driving much larger animals like wolves away from a carcass.

Marmota flaviventris

The yellow-bellied marmot is a large ground squirrel found in the mountains of western North America, spending nearly eight months of the year in deep hibernation.

Thunnus albacares

The yellowfin tuna is a large, fast-swimming fish found in tropical and subtropical waters across the world's oceans, prized both as one of the ocean's most powerful predators and as one of the most commercially important fish species for human consumption. Its name comes from the bright yellow coloring of its dorsal and anal fins, which become especially long and dramatic in mature adults.