Random animal generator, with a fact each.

A random animal generator picks an animal for you: for a drawing prompt, a school report, a game, a quiz or plain curiosity. This one holds 335 animals across seven groups and eight habitats. Each card gives a short checked fact, the weight and length range, what the animal eats, where it lives and a link to its source page. A second mode, Guess the animal, turns the same list into a game.

How to use the random animal generator

1. Choose a Group, such as Birds or Mammals, or leave it on Any group.
2. Choose a Habitat: Rainforest, Forest, Grassland, Desert, Mountain, Polar, Fresh water or Ocean.
3. Set How many animals you want at once, from 1 to 10.
4. Press New animal, or press Space. The first animal is shown large and any others below it.
5. Press Copy to copy the animal with its fact, size and source link.

What is in the deck

An animal can live in more than one habitat, so the habitat counts add up to more than 335. Insects and bugs also include spiders, scorpions and a centipede. Sea life holds sea animals without a backbone, such as octopus, jellyfish and lobster. Sharks and rays count as Fish, whales and seals as Mammals, and sea turtles as Reptiles, so pick the Ocean habitat to see all of them together.

Where the facts come from

The facts, sizes, diets and habitats come from the species accounts of the Animal Diversity Web, run by the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Every fact was written for this page in our own words and checked against the text of that account on 18 Oct 2026. Sizes are the ranges on the same account, with pounds, feet and inches worked out from the metric figures. The Animal Diversity Web says on its own site that it is an educational resource and that it cannot guarantee every detail, so treat the cards as a good start for a school project and check a second source for anything important.

Conservation status is not shown. It was not read from the IUCN Red List for each animal, and a status that is out of date is worse than none.

Guess the animal

Switch to Guess the animal and the page picks an animal and shows Clue 1: its group. Type your guess and press Guess. A wrong guess shows the next clue, in this order: group, habitat, what it eats, its size, a fact with the animal's name hidden, and finally the first letter and the number of letters. You can also press Show the next clue yourself, or Show 4 choices for four buttons, one of them right. Choices cost one point.

A round is worth more points the earlier you guess. If the animal has six clues and you guess on the second one, it is worth five points: six clues, minus one for each extra clue shown. Using the choices takes one more point off, and a round is never worth less than one point. Press Give up to see the answer and keep playing. Your streak counts rounds won in a row, and your best streak is kept in this browser.

You can type the full name or a short form that is not shared with another animal, such as lion or cheetah. For a name like gray wolf, type both words, because wolf alone could mean more than one animal. Grey and gray both work.

Counting the animals you have seen

The box under the game shows how many of the 335 animals you have seen, and how many in each group. An animal counts as seen when it is shown, or when a guessing round ends. The deck shows animals you have not seen first and starts again only when you have seen every animal that matches your filters. Press Reset my seen count to start over. The list is kept in your browser only.

Common problems

• No animal matches. A few mixes are empty, such as Amphibians in the Ocean. Change the group or the habitat.
• My guess was marked wrong. Try the full name as shown on the card, such as American black bear.
• The seen count went back to zero. It lives in this browser, so clearing site data or using a private window removes it.

To pick who answers next, use spin the wheel. To turn animals into study cards, try the flashcard maker, and for another guessing game see the random country generator.