World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/coyote): Coyote — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The coyote (Canis latrans) is a highly adaptable wild canid found across North and Central America — from Alaska to Panama — where it plays a vital role controlling rodent populations and is classified as Least Concern by the IUCN with a stable and expanding population.

## Introduction
The coyote (Canis latrans) is a medium-sized wild canid native to North and Central America, whose scientific name translates from Latin as "barking dog" — a nod to its extraordinary vocal repertoire of howls, yips, and barks. Smaller than a gray wolf but far more flexible in its habits, the coyote has quietly become the continent's great wildlife success story of the past century, expanding from its original western plains heartland into every U.S. state except Hawaii, across Canada, and south to Panama. This omnivore thrives in deserts, forests, mountains, farmland, suburban parks, and dense city neighbourhoods alike, filling an outsized ecological role as a regulator of rodent populations and a recycler of carrion. Reviled and persecuted for generations, the coyote nonetheless continues to flourish, making it one of the most studied and debated animals in North America.

## Takeaway
Coyotes have expanded their range by more than 40% since 1900, colonising every U.S. state except Hawaii and reaching as far south as Panama.

## Takeaway
Their scientific name, Canis latrans, means 'barking dog' — a reference to their rich vocabulary of howls, yips, barks, and whines used to defend territory and maintain family bonds.

## Takeaway
Eastern coyotes carry wolf and domestic dog DNA from historic hybridisation, making them larger and better suited to forested and urban landscapes than their western counterparts.

## Takeaway
Coyotes suppress rodent and rabbit populations, reducing crop damage and the spread of tick-borne and rodent-borne diseases — providing significant economic and public-health benefits.

## Takeaway
Despite half a million being killed annually in the United States through trapping, shooting, and poisoning, populations remain robust because coyotes respond to persecution by producing larger litters.

## Takeaway
Coyotes are among the few large carnivores to thrive in megacities; stable urban populations have been documented in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and dozens of other major metropolitan areas.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/coyote): Coyote — wildlife guide.

## What is a coyote?
The coyote (Canis latrans) belongs to the family Canidae and is one of North America's most recognisable wild mammals. Adults typically weigh between 7 and 20 kg (15–44 lb), with males slightly heavier than females and northern subspecies considerably larger than their southern counterparts. Body length ranges from about 1.0 to 1.35 metres including a distinctive bushy, black-tipped tail that is held low when running — a reliable field mark separating coyotes from dogs. Their coat is a blend of grey, buff, and russet tones with a pale underside, and their faces are narrow and fox-like, with large erect ears, a slender muzzle, and striking yellow eyes. Nineteen subspecies are currently recognised, varying in size, coat colour, and genetic make-up across their vast range. The so-called 'eastern coyote' — sometimes nicknamed 'coywolf' — is the result of historic hybridisation with grey wolves and domestic dogs as coyotes colonised the north-east, leaving eastern populations approximately 64% coyote, 26% wolf, and 10% domestic dog by ancestry. This hybrid vigour has given eastern coyotes longer legs, larger jaws, and a greater capacity to prey on white-tailed deer, broadening their ecological role in forested and suburban landscapes.

## Where do coyotes live?
Coyotes occupy one of the broadest and most ecologically diverse ranges of any wild canid on Earth. Historically centred on the grasslands and shrublands of western North America, the species has expanded dramatically since the early 20th century as forests were cleared, wolves were extirpated, and human settlements provided new food sources. Today coyotes are found from the boreal forests of Alaska and northern Canada south through the United States and Mexico to the tropical forests of Panama — a latitudinal span of roughly 8°N to 70°N. Within that range they occupy deserts, prairies, temperate rainforests, alpine meadows, agricultural land, suburban neighbourhoods, and the hearts of major cities. They are supremely habitat-generalist, requiring only sufficient food, water, and cover for denning. In urban environments, coyotes tend to shift their activity towards night, using parks, golf courses, railway corridors, and river greenways as movement routes. Population densities in wolf-occupied territories are typically 40–65% lower than in wolf-free areas, confirming that wolves suppress coyote numbers through direct predation and competition — a dynamic well-documented in Yellowstone National Park since wolf reintroduction in 1995.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/coyote): Coyote — wildlife guide.

## What do coyotes eat and how do they hunt?
Coyotes are highly opportunistic omnivores whose diet shifts with season, region, and prey availability. Across most of their range, small mammals — eastern cottontail rabbits, ground squirrels, voles, and mice — form the dietary backbone, comprising up to 90% of intake during spring and summer. In autumn, fruit, berries, insects, and other plant matter can account for more than half the diet, an unusual flexibility among wild canids. Coyotes also consume carrion, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, and, in suburban and urban settings, human food waste and outdoor pet food. Hunting strategy is equally flexible. Solitary coyotes stalk and pounce on rodents in a manner reminiscent of foxes; mated pairs co-operate to flush and pursue jackrabbits; and family groups or loose packs may relay-chase white-tailed deer until exhaustion. The 'bounce pounce' used to pin rodents beneath deep snow is an iconic behaviour shared with red foxes and reinforces how thoroughly coyotes have exploited the ecological niches left vacant across a continent that has lost many of its apex predators. By suppressing rodent populations, coyotes indirectly benefit bird communities, reduce agricultural crop losses, and help limit the prevalence of rodent-borne diseases including hantavirus and plague.

## How do coyotes communicate and reproduce?
The coyote's complex vocal communication is among the most studied in North American wildlife. Their signature sound — a high-pitched howl followed by a cascade of yips — carries over kilometres of open country and functions primarily to advertise territorial boundaries and maintain contact between family members. Pairs and packs produce 'group yip-howls' that increase in apparent number through rapid overlapping calls, a phenomenon sometimes called the 'beau geste effect', which may deter rival packs without revealing true group size. Coyotes also use whines, growls, huffs, and barks in close-range social interaction. Mating occurs between January and March. Pairs are largely monogamous within a breeding season and often reunite across multiple years. After a gestation of 60–63 days, females give birth to litters averaging 6 pups, though litter size is famously responsive to population pressure: when coyote numbers are reduced through culling, females produce larger litters and pups disperse earlier — an evolutionary counter-response that has made lethal control largely ineffective at reducing populations over the long term. Pups emerge from the den at around 3 weeks and are weaned by 5–7 weeks; both parents and sometimes 'helper' offspring from prior years provision and guard them. Young coyotes typically disperse at 6–9 months, with some travelling more than 160 km to establish new territories.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/coyote): Coyote — wildlife guide.

## Why are coyotes persecuted and why do they keep thriving?
Since European colonisation of North America, coyotes have been viewed with suspicion and targeted by farmers, ranchers, and government agencies concerned about livestock depredation and, more recently, by urban residents anxious about pet safety. The United States federal programme that became Wildlife Services kills an estimated 400,000–500,000 coyotes annually through trapping, aerial gunning, and poisoning; additional thousands are taken in recreational hunting and fur trapping. Yet North American coyote populations have not declined — they have grown. The biological reason is a density-dependent reproductive rebound: when local populations are reduced, coyotes produce larger litters (documented up to 19 pups), more females breed, and pups disperse quickly to fill empty territories, often within weeks. This compensatory reproduction means that lethal control rarely achieves sustained population reduction. Ecologists increasingly argue that non-lethal coexistence strategies — livestock guardian animals, secure food storage, hazing — are more effective long-term management tools. The coyote's success also reflects genuine adaptability: omnivory, habitat flexibility, tolerance of human proximity, and a social structure that scales from solitary individuals to extended family groups all contribute to a resilience unmatched among North American carnivores. The species stands as a compelling case study in how wildlife can persist — and even prosper — in the face of intense human pressure.

## WARN work
WARN does not currently run field projects for the coyote, as our conservation partnerships are focused in its partner-network countries. This guide is offered as free educational content because understanding how resilient species like the coyote navigate human-dominated landscapes provides valuable lessons for wildlife coexistence worldwide. Supporting WARN's habitat-protection work in our partner countries helps preserve the intact ecosystems that all wild carnivores — including relatives of the coyote — depend upon.

## Donation hook
Wild carnivores like the coyote remind us how resilient nature can be when given a chance. Every donation to WARN helps protect the habitats in our partner countries where less adaptable species — big cats, primates, forest birds — are fighting for survival without the coyote's advantages.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/coyote): Coyote — wildlife guide.

## Is the coyote endangered?
No. The coyote is assessed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, with a population trend described as increasing. Despite half a million being killed annually in the United States alone, populations remain robust and expanding across the continent.

## Are coyotes dangerous to humans?
Serious attacks on humans are extremely rare. A study covering 38 years recorded only 367 documented attacks by non-rabid coyotes across the U.S. and Canada. Bold urban coyotes can become a nuisance if fed by residents, so experts recommend never feeding coyotes and securing outdoor food sources.

## What is the difference between a coyote and a wolf?
Coyotes are considerably smaller than grey wolves, typically weighing 7–20 kg versus the wolf's 25–70 kg. Coyotes have a narrower muzzle, proportionally larger ears, and hold their tail down when running, while wolves carry theirs horizontal. Wolves are also more strictly carnivorous and primarily form large packs, whereas coyotes are flexible omnivores that hunt alone, in pairs, or in small family groups.

## What is a coywolf?
The term 'coywolf' refers informally to eastern coyotes that carry a mix of coyote, grey wolf, and domestic dog ancestry — roughly 64% coyote, 26% wolf, and 10% dog on average. Hybridisation occurred as coyotes expanded north-eastward in the 20th century and interbred with remnant wolf populations. The result is a larger, more powerful animal capable of hunting deer, which has proven highly successful in forested and suburban north-eastern landscapes.

## Why do coyotes howl?
Coyote howls serve several communication functions: advertising territorial boundaries to rival groups, locating separated family members, and reinforcing social bonds within a pack. The chorus howl — where multiple animals yip and howl in rapid succession — creates the impression of more animals than are actually present, potentially deterring competing packs without revealing true group size.

## Do coyotes help the ecosystem?
Yes, significantly. As mesopredators, coyotes regulate populations of rodents and rabbits, reducing crop damage and limiting rodent-borne diseases such as hantavirus and plague. They also control populations of smaller carnivores like raccoons and skunks, which indirectly benefits ground-nesting bird communities. In areas where wolves are absent, coyotes partially fill the ecological role of apex predator, helping maintain balanced prey populations.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/hare): Hare — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
Hares (genus Lepus, ~32 species) are large, fast-running lagomorphs found across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, most classified as Least Concern by the IUCN, though European hare populations have declined significantly since the 1960s due to agricultural intensification.

## Introduction
Hares are long-eared, swift-footed mammals belonging to the genus Lepus, which contains around 32 species distributed across every continent except Australia and Antarctica. Related to rabbits but distinctly different, hares are larger, faster, and far more independent from birth — their young, called leverets, arrive fully furred and open-eyed, ready to scatter into the grass within hours of being born. The European hare (Lepus europaeus) is perhaps the most familiar species, synonymous with open farmland across much of western Eurasia, while the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) drives a legendary boom-and-bust cycle through North America's boreal forests. From the Arctic tundra to African savannahs, hares have colonised almost every terrestrial biome, playing a critical role as a keystone prey species that sustains predators from foxes to eagles.

## Takeaway
Hares belong to genus Lepus, with around 32 species found on every continent except Australia and Antarctica.

## Takeaway
Unlike rabbits, newborn leverets are fully furred and open-eyed at birth — a survival strategy for above-ground nesting.

## Takeaway
The European hare can reach speeds of up to 70 km/h, relying on endurance running rather than burrows to escape predators.

## Takeaway
Famous 'March boxing' behaviour is typically a female warding off an overly persistent male, not two rival males fighting.

## Takeaway
Snowshoe hare populations in North America follow a remarkable roughly 10-year boom-and-bust cycle tightly linked to Canada lynx numbers.

## Takeaway
Agricultural intensification since the 1960s has driven significant declines in European hare populations, prompting national Red List listings in several countries.

## What is a hare, and how does it differ from a rabbit?
Hares and rabbits share the mammalian order Lagomorpha and the family Leporidae, but they are distinct in fundamental ways. Hares (genus Lepus) are generally larger than rabbits, with proportionally longer hind legs and longer, black-tipped ears that can reach 10 cm or more. The most striking difference lies in how their young enter the world. Rabbit kits are born blind, hairless, and entirely helpless — they spend their early weeks in an underground burrow depending fully on maternal care. Hare leverets, by contrast, are born precocial: fully furred, with open eyes, and capable of hopping within minutes of birth. This is essential because hares do not dig burrows. Instead, they give birth in a shallow surface scrape called a 'form', offering minimal physical shelter. The leveret's only real defence is its ability to freeze, scatter, or eventually run. Hares also feed differently from rabbits: while rabbits favour soft grasses and vegetables, hares are adapted to harder forage — bark, woody shoots, buds, and field crops, particularly in winter. Both animals practise caecotrophy, re-ingesting soft faecal pellets to extract maximum nutrients from tough plant material. Behaviourally, hares are generally solitary animals that come together only during the breeding season, unlike many rabbit species that live in complex social warrens.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/hare): Hare — wildlife guide.

## Where do hares live, and which species are found around the world?
The approximately 32 species of Lepus have colonised a remarkable range of habitats. The European hare (Lepus europaeus) is native to open grassland, farmland, heathland, and moorland across Europe from the British Isles through the Middle East to Central Asia, and has been introduced to South America and Australia. The snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) inhabits the boreal forests of Canada and Alaska, where it turns white in winter for camouflage. The Arctic hare (Lepus arcticus) survives on the treeless tundra of the high Arctic. In Africa, the Cape hare (Lepus capensis) ranges across open savannah and semi-desert, while the Abyssinian hare (Lepus habessinicus) occupies the Horn of Africa. The Indian hare (Lepus nigricollis) is widespread across the Indian subcontinent, including Pakistan — a country where WARN's conservation network is active. Mountain hares (Lepus timidus) are found across Scotland, Scandinavia, the Alps, and into Siberia, often sharing range with their competitor the European hare. European hares thrive from sea level to elevations above 2,800 m and prefer landscapes that mix open areas for feeding with adjacent cover from hedgerows or woodland edges. Habitat heterogeneity — a mosaic of different crop types, grassland, and field margins — is consistently identified by researchers as the key driver of high hare density.

## How do hares behave, and what is the truth about 'Mad March Hares'?
Hares are primarily crepuscular and nocturnal, emerging at dawn and dusk to feed on grasses, herbs, cereal shoots, and woody vegetation. During daylight hours they rest in their form — a flattened hollow in dense vegetation — where their grizzled brown-grey fur provides remarkable camouflage. Their senses are acute: large eyes positioned laterally give near-360-degree vision, and those long ears can swivel independently to pinpoint sound from any direction. When threatened, a hare's first strategy is stillness and concealment; if that fails, explosive acceleration carries it away at up to 70 km/h, combining speed with sudden directional changes that wrong-foot most predators. The famous 'Mad March Hare' spectacle — immortalised by Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland — is not a battle between rival males as once supposed. Research has confirmed it is predominantly a female repelling an overenthusiastic suitor. During the breeding season, which peaks in late winter and spring, males pursue females relentlessly. A female who is not yet receptive rears up on her hind legs and boxes hard at the male's face and chest with her forepaws. This not only discourages premature mating but may also test the male's stamina and commitment as a mate. Successful males that persist through this assessment may then be permitted to mate. European hares can produce three to four litters per year, each of one to four leverets after a gestation of around 41 days.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/hare): Hare — wildlife guide.

## What threatens hare populations, and why are European hares declining?
Despite holding a global IUCN status of Least Concern, European hare populations across the continent have undergone serious long-term declines since the 1960s, prompting several national Red Lists to classify the species as Near Threatened or Vulnerable. In Germany, Lepus europaeus is listed as Vulnerable. The primary driver is the intensification of modern agriculture: larger field sizes, the loss of field margins, hedgerows, and fallow land, the switch from spring to autumn-sown cereals, and increased pesticide and herbicide use have collectively stripped away the habitat heterogeneity that hares need. Autumn-sown crops grow tall and dense early, reducing access to short swards where leverets shelter and feed. Pesticides reduce the diversity of herbs and invertebrates that young leverets need. Mechanised harvesting directly kills leverets resting in forms hidden within crop fields. Predation by red foxes and raptors such as golden eagles and eagle owls is a significant natural mortality factor, especially during population lows. European Brown Hare Syndrome (EBHS), a haemorrhagic disease caused by a lagovirus, can cause localised mortality events. In North America, snowshoe hare populations naturally swing through roughly 10-year boom-and-bust cycles, a dynamic driven primarily by predation pressure from Canada lynx and reinforced by vegetation recovery. Climate change is an emerging concern: mountain hares that moult to white in winter face a growing camouflage mismatch as snow cover decreases, increasing their vulnerability to predators.

## What is being done to help hares recover across their range?
Agri-environment schemes across Europe represent the main policy lever for hare recovery. These schemes incentivise farmers to create field margins, uncultivated buffer strips, beetle banks, and cover crops that restore the habitat heterogeneity hares require. Studies in the UK and Hungary have shown that farms enrolled in higher-tier agri-environment agreements can sustain significantly higher hare densities than intensively managed neighbours. In the UK, hare counts on farmland have been used as a biodiversity indicator under government monitoring programmes. Predator management in game-managed areas, while controversial, has been associated with higher hare densities in some studies, suggesting that predation pressure interacts with habitat quality. Researchers continue to study the epidemiology of European Brown Hare Syndrome to understand how disease interacts with habitat fragmentation. In North America, snowshoe hares are not considered at risk, but monitoring their populations provides one of ecology's clearest windows into predator-prey dynamics, informing broader wildlife management policy. Public awareness is widely considered important: farmers who understand hare ecology are more likely to adjust cultivation timing, delay mowing of field margins until after the main levereting period, and support landscape-level habitat improvements. Greater public knowledge of hare biology translates directly into more sympathetic land management decisions across millions of hectares of farmland.

## WARN work
WARN does not currently run dedicated hare projects — hares are found primarily in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, outside the countries where WARN's partner network operates. This guide is offered as free educational content. Understanding the pressures facing wildlife like the hare — especially how agricultural land-use choices ripple through ecosystems — builds the broader public awareness that benefits conservation everywhere, including in the countries where WARN works.

## Donation hook
Hares are a reminder that even common wildlife can quietly disappear when farmland loses its diversity. Supporting WARN helps fund education and rescue work that keeps the public connected to animals like the hare — and to the habitats we all share.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/hare): Hare — wildlife guide.

## Are hares the same as rabbits?
No. Hares and rabbits are distinct animals in the same family (Leporidae) but different genera. Hares are larger, have longer ears and legs, do not burrow, and give birth to fully furred, open-eyed young called leverets. Rabbit kits are born blind and hairless in underground warrens.

## How fast can a hare run?
European hares can reach speeds of approximately 70 km/h (43 mph) in short bursts. Combined with rapid, unpredictable direction changes, this speed makes hares one of the most difficult prey animals for ground predators to catch.

## Why do hares box in spring?
The boxing seen in spring is usually a female (doe) repelling a male (buck) that has approached too early or too persistently. The female rears up and strikes with her forepaws to discourage the male or test his stamina. It is not, as once thought, two rival males competing.

## What do hares eat?
Hares are herbivores that eat grasses, herbs, cereal crops, and in winter bark, buds, and woody shoots. Like rabbits, they practise caecotrophy — re-ingesting soft faecal pellets to extract maximum nutrition from tough plant material.

## Are hares endangered?
Most hare species are listed as Least Concern by the IUCN. However, European hare populations have declined substantially since the 1960s, and several European countries classify the species as Near Threatened or Vulnerable nationally. The main driver is agricultural intensification reducing habitat quality.

## What is a leveret?
A leveret is a baby hare. Unlike baby rabbits, leverets are born precocial — fully furred, with open eyes, and able to move within minutes of birth. The mother nurses them briefly once a day, usually at dusk, and the leverets scatter and hide separately during the day to reduce predation risk.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/caracal): Caracal — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The caracal is a medium-sized wild cat native to Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, classified as Least Concern globally by the IUCN but critically threatened in parts of Asia, including Pakistan, where fewer than 150 individuals may remain.

## Introduction
The caracal (Caracal caracal) is one of Africa and Asia's most striking wild cats — a lean, copper-coated predator instantly recognisable by its impossibly tall, black-tufted ears. Found across approximately 60 countries from sub-Saharan Africa through the Arabian Peninsula to western India, it thrives in habitats ranging from open savanna and rocky hillsides to semi-desert scrub. Despite its common nickname "desert lynx", the caracal is not closely related to true lynxes; it belongs to its own genus and lineage, sharing its closest family ties with the African golden cat and the serval. Swift, secretive, and supremely agile, it can leap more than three metres vertically to snatch birds from mid-air — a feat that made it a celebrated hunting partner in Persian and Indian royal courts for centuries. Globally listed as Least Concern, the caracal nonetheless faces mounting pressure in Asia, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East.

## Takeaway
The caracal's 20-muscle ears can swivel independently and its long black tufts are thought to help funnel sound and facilitate visual communication between individuals.

## Takeaway
It can launch itself more than 3 metres into the air from a standing start, allowing it to knock multiple birds from a flock in a single leap — a behaviour almost unique among wild cats.

## Takeaway
Globally the IUCN rates the caracal as Least Concern (last assessed in 2016), but regional assessments paint a very different picture: the species is Critically Endangered in Pakistan with an estimated 100–150 individuals remaining.

## Takeaway
Caracals are persecuted heavily by livestock farmers across southern Africa and the Middle East, making human-wildlife conflict one of the single greatest threats to local populations.

## Takeaway
The illegal exotic-pet trade routes caracals from East Africa to Gulf states, where demand for exotic animals remains high despite CITES trade restrictions.

## Takeaway
Three subspecies are currently recognised: the Southern caracal (C. c. caracal), the Northern caracal (C. c. nubicus), and the Asiatic caracal (C. c. schmitzi), with Asian populations facing the most acute survival pressure.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/caracal): Caracal — wildlife guide.

## What is a caracal?
The caracal is a medium-sized, powerfully built member of the family Felidae, placed in its own genus Caracal. Its scientific name was formalised by Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber in 1776. Adults stand 40–50 cm at the shoulder. Males measure 78–108 cm in head-to-body length and weigh between 8 and 20 kg; females are slightly smaller at 71–103 cm in length and 6.2–15.9 kg in weight. The coat is short, dense, and uniformly tawny-rufous to brick red — occasionally almost grey in arid populations — with a pale, lightly spotted underside. The face is marked by bold white patches around the muzzle and eyes, and a thin dark stripe runs from each eye to the nose.

The caracal's most iconic feature is its large, erect ears, each tipped with a black tuft up to 5 cm long. Around 20 independent muscles allow each ear to rotate and swivel separately, giving the animal exceptional directional hearing. The tufts are widely believed to enhance sound collection and to serve as visual signals during social interactions, though the precise function is still debated. In captivity the caracal can live up to 20 years; in the wild the average lifespan is closer to 10–12 years. Phylogenetically, the caracal diverged from the ancestral felid line more than a million years before the lynx lineage appeared, explaining why superficial similarities are a product of convergent evolution rather than shared ancestry.

## Where does the caracal live?
The caracal has one of the broadest distributions of any wild cat, spanning approximately 60 countries across the Old World. In Africa it occurs across all five geographic regions, from the southern tip of South Africa through East Africa's savannas, across the Sahel to North Africa's fragmented woodlands and Morocco's cedar forests. It is absent only from the dense rainforests of the Congo Basin and the barren heart of the Sahara.

Beyond Africa, the range extends through the Sinai Peninsula, the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Iran, the Caucasus foothills, Central Asian republics including Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and east into Pakistan and north-western India. Habitat preference is wide: the species tolerates dry woodland, thornbush scrub, rocky hillsides, semi-desert, and grassland, but generally avoids closed-canopy forest and truly hyper-arid sandy desert. It shows a clear preference for areas with sufficient prey and dense cover for stalking.

Home ranges vary enormously with prey availability. Males in prey-rich South African coastal areas hold territories as small as 31 km²; males in arid Namibian ranchland can roam territories averaging more than 300 km². A male's range typically overlaps with those of several females but is defended against rival males. In Pakistan the species clings to survival in the Cholistan Desert, the Kirthar Range of Sindh, and the highlands of Balochistan.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/caracal): Caracal — wildlife guide.

## What does a caracal hunt and how does it catch prey?
The caracal is an obligate carnivore and an exceptionally versatile hunter. Across its range, small to medium-sized mammals dominate the diet: rodents, hares, rock hyraxes, and small antelope such as young kudu and adult springbok. In arid zones reptiles and birds feature more prominently. Although the species is most celebrated for hunting birds in flight, mammals account for more than half of the diet across all documented populations.

The caracal's hunting strategy combines stealth with an explosive burst of speed and a remarkable vertical leap. It stalks its quarry through grass or scrub, then charges with a sprint reaching up to 80 km/h. Against avian prey it uses powerful hindlimbs — packed with fast-twitch muscle fibres — to launch itself more than 3 metres straight up, battering multiple birds from a flock with swift swipes of the forepaws before any escape. One individual has been documented striking multiple birds in a single encounter using this technique.

Like the leopard, caracals occasionally cache large kills in trees or dense thickets to protect them from scavengers. They are primarily nocturnal and crepuscular, with peak activity at dawn and dusk, though in well-protected areas daytime hunting is observed. Their acute hearing, amplified by those movable tufted ears, allows them to detect hidden prey beneath grass or leaf litter before pouncing — a skill shared with the serval.

## How do caracals reproduce and raise young?
Caracals are solitary and largely non-seasonal breeders, capable of mating year-round across most of their range, though birth peaks occur in some populations during the dry season. Females advertise oestrus through vocalisation and scent marking; males compete for mating access but provide no parental care after copulation.

Gestation lasts 68–81 days, after which the female gives birth to a litter of one to six kittens — the average litter size is around two to three. Births occur in dense cover: rock crevices, hollows in fallen logs, or abandoned burrows of aardvarks and porcupines. Kittens are born with eyes sealed shut and ears folded; the eyes open at approximately 10–14 days. The mother alone nurses and protects the litter. Kittens begin taking solid food at around four weeks and are fully weaned by four to six months of age.

Juveniles remain with their mother for roughly five to six months, during which they learn hunting skills through observation and practice. Males disperse further than females when they reach independence, and this dispersal is increasingly dangerous in fragmented landscapes where young animals must cross roads and agricultural land. Sexual maturity is reached at around 12–16 months in both sexes, with successful first breeding typically occurring closer to 14–15 months. Mortality among young caracals in farmland areas is high; retaliatory killing by livestock farmers is a leading cause of death in sub-adult age classes across southern Africa.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/caracal): Caracal — wildlife guide.

## Why is the caracal threatened in parts of its range?
Despite a globally Least Concern status, the caracal faces serious and accelerating threats at a regional level. In North Africa the species is considered to be on the brink of extinction; Morocco lists it as Critically Endangered. In Pakistan the estimated national population of 100–150 individuals places it among the country's most imperilled large carnivores.

Human-wildlife conflict is the most pervasive threat. Caracals are efficient predators of domestic sheep, goats, and poultry, making them a target for retaliatory killing across Africa and the Middle East. In South Africa alone, tens of thousands of caracals were legally killed as problem animals in the twentieth century. Habitat loss and fragmentation due to agricultural expansion, overgrazing, urbanisation, and road construction compounds the problem by shrinking prey bases and breaking up connectivity between populations. Road mortality has become a significant issue in Turkey and Iran, where growing traffic intersects with the species' crepuscular activity peaks.

The exotic-pet trade is an emerging concern. Caracal kittens, prized for their striking appearance, are openly advertised online in several countries and smuggled from East Africa to Gulf states where demand for exotic pets remains high. Asian populations are listed under CITES Appendix I (prohibiting commercial trade), while African populations fall under Appendix II (regulated trade). Despite these protections, enforcement remains inconsistent. Climate change is beginning to affect prey availability in arid zones, while expanding human settlement reduces the undisturbed corridors the species depends on.

## WARN work
WARN does not currently operate field projects focused on the caracal — the species' core strongholds in southern and eastern Africa lie outside WARN's current in-network countries. In Pakistan, however, where the caracal is Critically Endangered with fewer than 150 individuals estimated, WARN's regional network is actively engaged in broader wildlife and habitat protection efforts that benefit the fragile ecosystems this cat depends on. This guide is offered as free public education, because informed communities everywhere are the first line of defence for wild animals under pressure.

## Donation hook
Every wild cat lost to habitat destruction or human-wildlife conflict weakens the web of life across entire ecosystems. Supporting WARN's habitat protection work helps preserve the wild landscapes that cats like the caracal — and thousands of other species — depend on for survival.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/caracal): Caracal — wildlife guide.

## Is the caracal a lynx?
No. Although the caracal is sometimes called the 'desert lynx' or 'African lynx' because of its pointed, tufted ears, it is not closely related to true lynxes. It belongs to the genus Caracal and diverged from the main felid lineage more than a million years before the lynx lineage arose. Its nearest relatives are the African golden cat and the serval.

## Can a caracal be kept as a pet?
In many countries it is legal to keep a caracal as an exotic pet, but wildlife experts strongly caution against it. Caracals have wild instincts, large territorial needs, and powerful prey-catching reflexes that domestic environments cannot accommodate. In Asia, trade in wild-caught caracals is prohibited under CITES Appendix I. The exotic-pet trade also fuels illegal trafficking, with caracals and other wild cats smuggled from East Africa to the Gulf region where demand for exotic animals is high.

## How high can a caracal jump?
A caracal can leap vertically more than 3 metres (roughly 10 feet) from a standing position. This extraordinary ability — driven by powerful, fast-twitch hindlimb muscles and a flexible spine — allows it to knock birds out of the air mid-flight. It has been documented striking multiple birds in a single encounter before any member of the flock can escape.

## What does 'caracal' mean?
The name comes from the Turkish word 'karakulak', meaning 'black ear' — a direct reference to the species' most immediately recognisable feature: its long, black-tufted, upright ears. The word entered European languages via Ottoman Turkish and has been in scientific use since at least the eighteenth century.

## How many caracals are left in the world?
There is no reliable global population estimate; the IUCN notes the total is in the tens of thousands and that comprehensive census data are unavailable across much of the range. Populations are considered stable or abundant in southern and eastern Africa — South Africa alone may hold 45,000 to 150,000 individuals. In Pakistan the national population is estimated at just 100–150 individuals, and in North Africa and much of the Middle East the species is rare and declining.

## What are the main threats to the caracal?
The primary threats are persecution by livestock farmers (retaliatory killing after predation on sheep and goats), habitat loss through agricultural expansion and urbanisation, road mortality especially in Turkey and Iran, depletion of wild prey, and the illegal exotic-pet trade. Climate change is beginning to affect prey availability in the arid zones that caracals depend on, adding a longer-term pressure to already stressed regional populations.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/serval): Serval — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The serval is a medium-sized African wild cat (Leptailurus serval) renowned for having the largest ears relative to body size of any cat species, a hunting success rate near 50 percent, and the longest legs relative to body size of any wild felid.

## Introduction
The serval (Leptailurus serval) is a slender, medium-sized wild cat found across sub-Saharan Africa, instantly recognisable by its exceptionally long legs, oversized rounded ears, and a golden-buff coat patterned with bold black spots and stripes. Standing 54–62 cm at the shoulder and weighing 9–18 kg, it is the sole member of the genus Leptailurus and belongs to the same evolutionary lineage as the caracal and African golden cat. Servals are creatures of the waterside: they favour tall-grass savannas, wetlands, reed beds, and montane grasslands where dense vegetation conceals both hunter and hunted. With a hunting success rate approaching 50 percent — among the highest recorded for any felid — the serval is a supremely efficient predator, an ecological keystone that keeps rodent populations in check across thousands of square kilometres of African grassland.

## Takeaway
The serval has the longest legs and the largest ears relative to body size of any wild cat, both finely tuned for hunting in tall grass.

## Takeaway
Its hunting success rate of approximately 48–50 percent is far higher than a lion's 20–25 percent, making it one of Africa's most effective predators.

## Takeaway
Rodents make up an estimated 80–97 percent of the serval's diet, giving the species an outsized role in controlling small mammal populations across African grasslands.

## Takeaway
The global population is assessed as Least Concern by the IUCN, but the North African subspecies (Leptailurus serval constantinus) is Endangered, with fewer than 250 mature individuals remaining.

## Takeaway
Habitat loss through wetland drainage and grassland conversion is the primary long-term threat, compounded by illegal hunting for pelts and the exotic pet trade.

## Takeaway
Servals are listed on CITES Appendix II, meaning international commercial trade requires documentation and permits — a measure designed to prevent exploitation of wild populations.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/serval): Serval — wildlife guide.

## What is a serval, and what makes it so distinctive?
The serval stands apart from every other African cat in its proportions. Its legs are the longest relative to body size of any wild felid, giving it a tall, almost gangly silhouette that belies explosive athletic ability. Its ears are equally remarkable: the largest relative to body size of any cat species, each one driven by more than twenty independent muscles that allow them to swivel and rotate up to 180 degrees. Together, these traits make the serval a precision instrument shaped by millions of years of hunting in dense, tall grassland.

The coat is a warm golden to tawny buff, covered in bold black spots that merge into stripes along the neck and back. The tail is short and banded, ending in a black tip. Melanistic (all-black) individuals occur occasionally, particularly in highland areas of East Africa. Adults weigh between 9 and 18 kg, with males typically larger than females. The serval is the sole living species of the genus Leptailurus, a lineage phylogenetically close to the caracal (Caracal caracal) and the African golden cat (Caracal aurata), together forming a distinct clade within the family Felidae.

Despite its spectacular build, the serval is rarely seen — largely nocturnal and crepuscular, it slips through reed beds and grasslands with quiet precision, pausing motionless for up to fifteen minutes while its rotating ears triangulate the position of hidden prey.

## Where do servals live, and what habitat do they need?
Servals are distributed across much of sub-Saharan Africa, present in approximately 35 countries from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east, and south to South Africa. They are notably absent from equatorial rainforests and hyper-arid deserts, preferring instead the productive, well-watered ecotones where grassland meets wetland. Savanna grasslands, riparian corridors, reed beds alongside rivers and lakes, and montane grasslands up to around 3,800 metres altitude in East Africa all support healthy serval populations. Tanzania — particularly the Serengeti ecosystem — holds some of the continent's densest known populations.

The key ecological requirement is not any single biome, but the presence of tall grass and surface water. Wetlands are especially important: they harbour higher rodent densities than surrounding habitats, and serval home ranges are often anchored on wetland core areas. Home ranges typically span 10 to 32 square kilometres, with both males and females overlapping considerably; males maintain larger territories that encompass the ranges of several females.

A relict population of the North African subspecies (L. s. constantinus) still clings on in Morocco, and possibly Algeria and Tunisia, in humid scrub and Atlas Mountain woodland — a fragmented remnant of a formerly widespread North African distribution that has been nearly extirpated by habitat loss and persecution over the past century. Reintroduction efforts have been attempted in Tunisia.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/serval): Serval — wildlife guide.

## How does the serval hunt, and what does it eat?
The serval is a specialist small-prey hunter whose anatomy, senses, and behaviour are all calibrated for catching rodents in dense vegetation. Rodents — principally vlei rats, shrews, and grass mice — account for an estimated 80 to 97 percent of the diet. The remainder includes small birds, frogs, lizards, insects, and occasionally small hares or the lambs of small antelopes.

The hunt begins with listening. A serval will stand or crouch motionless in cover for up to fifteen minutes, both ears angled forward and scanning independently. Its hearing is acute enough to detect the ultrasonic squeaks and rustling of rodents moving underground. Once prey is localised by sound, the serval erupts in a vertical leap of up to 3 metres, landing on the target with both front paws in a simultaneous downward strike. This 'pounce-and-pin' technique is strikingly different from the stalk-and-sprint strategies of larger cats.

The outcome is devastatingly efficient: the serval achieves a hunting success rate of approximately 48–50 percent, compared with roughly 20–25 percent for lions. In a single night of hunting a serval may make more than a dozen successful catches. By depressing rodent populations across its home range, the species provides measurable ecological services to surrounding farmland and reduces the spread of rodent-borne disease — a benefit that extends well beyond the boundaries of protected areas.

## How do servals reproduce and raise their young?
Servals are largely solitary outside the breeding season. Mating is polygynous: a male's territory overlaps those of several females, and encounters are brief. Courtship involves mutual grooming and vocalisation — a high-pitched call used to locate potential mates — before the pair separates after mating. The gestation period is 66 to 77 days, shorter than most medium-sized wild cats.

Litters typically contain two to three kittens, though litters of one to five have been recorded. The mother selects a secluded den site in dense vegetation — often in tall reed beds or among rocks — and gives birth unaided. Kittens are born blind and helpless, their eyes opening at around nine days. They begin eating solid food from around four weeks and are weaned by about five months. The mother teaches hunting skills progressively, initially bringing live prey to the den, then accompanying juveniles on hunts.

Dispersing offspring face the most dangerous period of their lives: young servals must cross unprotected land to establish home ranges, which brings them into contact with roads, human settlements, and trapping. Males disperse farther than females. In the wild, servals live an estimated ten years on average, though individuals have been recorded at 23 years; captive servals average around 22 years. Females can produce up to two litters per year where prey is abundant, giving the species resilience if habitat quality is maintained.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/serval): Serval — wildlife guide.

## What threats does the serval face, and how is it protected?
For the global population, the primary long-term threat is habitat loss — particularly the drainage of wetlands for agriculture and the conversion of savanna grassland to cropland or degraded pasture. Annual burning followed by heavy livestock grazing reduces grass height and small-mammal abundance, directly diminishing both the serval's cover and its prey base. In West and Central Africa, where survey data are thin, localised declines are suspected but poorly quantified.

The exotic pet trade adds a distinct and growing pressure. Demand for serval kittens in North America, the Middle East, and parts of Europe has created a commercial pipeline that is difficult to regulate. While many trade animals are claimed to be captive-bred, enforcement gaps mean that wild-caught individuals and breeding adults enter the supply chain. The serval's appeal as an 'exotic pet' is also the origin of the Savannah cat breed, produced by crossing servals with domestic cats — a practice that further stimulates demand for wild-type servals.

Servals are listed on CITES Appendix II, requiring export permits for all international commercial trade. Hunting for pelts occurs at a low level in several range states. The North African subspecies (L. s. constantinus) is separately assessed as Endangered, with fewer than 250 mature individuals estimated to survive in isolated subpopulations.

Protection within national parks and game reserves across East and Southern Africa provides the most effective safeguard for the species. Wetland conservation — preserving the mosaic of grassland and water that servals depend on — is identified by the IUCN Cat Specialist Group as the single most impactful conservation measure.

## WARN work
WARN does not currently run field projects for the serval, and this guide is offered as free educational content to help people understand this remarkable species. Awareness matters: the clearer the public picture of how habitat loss and the exotic pet trade affect wild cats like the serval, the stronger the support for protecting the grassland and wetland ecosystems on which they depend — ecosystems that shelter many of the species WARN's rescue and conservation partners work with across its partner-network countries.

## Donation hook
Wild cats like the serval thrive when grasslands and wetlands remain intact — the same productive, biodiverse ecosystems that WARN's partners work to protect for endangered species across the tropics. Supporting WARN helps fund the habitat conservation work that benefits wildlife from the smallest rodent to the most charismatic predator.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/serval): Serval — wildlife guide.

## Is a serval a dangerous animal?
Servals are wild animals and, as with all wild cats, can inflict serious injury if cornered, mishandled, or kept in captivity without appropriate facilities. In the wild they are shy and avoid humans; documented attacks on people are extremely rare. They are not considered a significant threat to human safety in areas where they occur naturally.

## Can you keep a serval as a pet?
Keeping a serval as a pet is legal in some US states and a small number of other countries with permits, but it is widely considered irresponsible by wildlife professionals. Servals retain strong wild instincts, require large territories, specialised diets, and can cause serious injury. Their popularity in the exotic pet trade is also a conservation concern because it stimulates demand that can draw on wild-caught animals despite CITES Appendix II restrictions on international trade.

## How fast can a serval run?
Servals are not built for sustained high-speed pursuit like a cheetah. Instead they rely on stealth and a sudden vertical leap of up to 3 metres. They can reach speeds of around 80 km/h (50 mph) in short bursts, but their hunting strategy depends on proximity and the element of surprise rather than a prolonged chase.

## What is the difference between a serval and a cheetah?
Both are spotted African cats, but they are quite different. The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is much larger — up to 65 kg versus the serval's maximum of around 18 kg — has a distinctive teardrop facial marking, and is built for high-speed open-country pursuit. The serval is smaller, has disproportionately large ears and longer legs relative to body size, and hunts primarily by sound in tall grassland and wetland habitats. The two species are not closely related within the cat family.

## How many servals are left in the wild?
No precise global count exists; the IUCN's 2014 assessment noted that no official global population estimate has been produced. Widely cited secondary estimates put the figure at around 50,000 mature individuals across approximately 35 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and the overall population trend is assessed as stable. However, this figure masks regional variation: populations in West and Central Africa are thought to be declining, and the North African subspecies (Leptailurus serval constantinus) has fewer than 250 mature individuals remaining.

## What do servals sound like?
Servals are surprisingly vocal for a solitary cat. They produce a high-pitched, repetitive call — often described as a drawn-out 'how' or shrill 'chirrup' — primarily used for locating mates. They also growl, hiss, spit, purr, and produce a distinctive 'cough-bark' when alarmed. Their vocal repertoire is broader than that of most cats of similar size.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/anteater): Giant Anteater — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The giant anteater is a large, toothless mammal of Central and South America listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, with populations declining by at least 30% over the past three generations due to habitat loss, fire, and road mortality.

## Introduction
The giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) is the largest of the four living anteater species and one of the most architecturally bizarre mammals on Earth. Stretching up to 2.2 metres from snout tip to tail and weighing as much as 50 kilograms, it has no teeth, the lowest confirmed body temperature of any placental mammal (32.7 °C), and a tongue that can flick in and out up to 150 times per minute to harvest tens of thousands of ants and termites in a single day. Found across savannas, grasslands, and tropical forests from Honduras to northern Argentina, it once ranged across much of the Americas. Today, classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, the giant anteater has vanished from large swathes of its former range, driven out by habitat loss, uncontrolled fire, and collisions with vehicles on Brazil's expanding highway network.

## Takeaway
The giant anteater holds the record for the lowest body temperature of any placental mammal — just 32.7 °C — a metabolic adaptation to its low-calorie, insect-only diet.

## Takeaway
Its tongue, which can reach 60 cm in length and flick up to 150 times per minute, is coated in tiny backward-facing spines and sticky saliva to trap insects.

## Takeaway
The IUCN assessed the species as Vulnerable in 2024 (published in the 2025 Red List), noting a suspected population decline of at least 30% over the last three generations (roughly 21 years) driven by habitat loss and direct mortality.

## Takeaway
Road collisions are a leading cause of death in Brazil, where giant anteaters are among the top species killed on highways; population viability modelling shows road mortality can halve the stochastic growth rate of local populations.

## Takeaway
Females carry a single pup on their back for up to a year, perfectly camouflaging it by aligning the pup's fur pattern with their own markings — an extraordinary example of visual deception.

## Takeaway
The species has been extirpated from most of Central America, including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Belize, where it is now considered the most threatened large mammal in the subregion.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/anteater): Giant Anteater — wildlife guide.

## What is a giant anteater?
The giant anteater belongs to the superorder Xenarthra — the same ancient lineage as armadillos and sloths — and is the sole member of the genus Myrmecophaga. It is unmistakable: a tube-like elongated skull and snout, a shaggy coat patterned in charcoal black and silver-grey, a broad diagonal shoulder stripe, and a magnificent bushy tail that fans out almost as wide as the animal is long. Males are slightly larger than females, typically weighing 33–50 kg compared with 27–47 kg for females. Unlike virtually all other mammals, giant anteaters possess no teeth whatsoever. Instead, the mouth opens to a small circular aperture barely wide enough to admit a pencil, through which the ribbon-like tongue — capable of extending 60 cm beyond the snout — darts in and out at astonishing speed. The animal crushes its prey not with molars but with a muscular, ridged stomach, sometimes assisted by small stones swallowed as gizzard-stones. With a basal metabolic rate only about 34% of that predicted for its body mass, the giant anteater is physiologically built for a lifestyle of slow, energy-careful foraging across vast landscapes.

## Where do giant anteaters live?
Giant anteaters are found across a broad arc of Central and South America, from Honduras and Nicaragua in the north to Bolivia, Paraguay, and northern Argentina in the south. Their stronghold today lies in Brazil, particularly in the Cerrado — the vast tropical savanna that covers roughly a quarter of Brazil's land surface — as well as in the Pantanal wetlands and parts of the Amazon basin. Populations also persist in Colombia's Llanos grasslands and in Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname. The species tolerates a surprisingly wide variety of habitats: open grasslands, dry and moist forests, swamps, mangroves, and even modified agricultural landscapes where prey colonies remain accessible. What the giant anteater cannot tolerate is the destruction of ant and termite mounds at scale or the removal of the scattered shade trees and dense vegetation it uses for resting. Individual animals require large home ranges — studies record territories ranging from 2.7 km² in Brazil's Serra da Canastra National Park to 32.5 km² in Argentina's Iberá wetlands — meaning that landscape connectivity is essential for viable populations. Historically present as far north as Mexico and Guatemala, the giant anteater has been extirpated from most of Central America, including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Belize, and from the southern parts of its South American range.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/anteater): Giant Anteater — wildlife guide.

## Why is the giant anteater Vulnerable?
The IUCN assessed the giant anteater as Vulnerable (criterion A2cd), with the assessment conducted in May 2024 and published in the 2025 Red List update, reflecting a suspected population decline of at least 30% but less than 50% over three generations, estimated at approximately 21 years. No reliable global population total exists, but the cumulative weight of regional extirpations, fire mortality data, and road-kill surveys points to a species under severe and ongoing pressure. The primary drivers are interlinked. Habitat loss from soy and cattle expansion, particularly across the Cerrado, removes the open foraging grounds and ant-rich soils that anteaters depend upon. Deliberate burning of grasslands and sugar-cane fields is a catastrophic threat: a single 1994 wildfire at Brazil's Emas National Park killed an estimated 340 giant anteaters. Because the animals move slowly and cannot escape fast-moving fires, burn mortality can be devastating in isolated protected areas. Road mortality is the third major threat and is particularly severe in Brazil, where the species consistently ranks among the top mammals killed on highways. A population viability analysis published in Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation found that road mortality can halve the stochastic growth rate of local giant anteater populations. Hunting pressure, though lower than in some other large mammals, persists in parts of Bolivia and the Chaco. Attacks by domestic and feral dogs add localised mortality near human settlements. The species' naturally low reproductive rate — one pup per year, with young remaining dependent for up to ten months — means populations recover slowly from any source of increased mortality.

## How does a giant anteater find and eat its food?
Feeding is the central drama of every giant anteater's day. The animal relies almost entirely on its sense of smell — estimated to be 40 times more acute than a human's — to locate ant and termite colonies beneath soil and inside hard-mound structures. Once a mound is located, the anteater uses the large, curved claws of its forefeet — the third claw alone can reach 10 cm in length — to tear open the outer casing. The claws are so formidable that the animal walks on its knuckles to keep the tips sharp, producing a distinctive gait with the claws folded inward. Having breached the mound, the anteater plunges its snout into the opening and begins working its tongue at up to 150 flicks per minute. The tongue, coated in minute backward-pointing spines and thick, viscous saliva produced by enlarged salivary glands, sweeps insects into the mouth by the thousand. Up to 35,000 ants and termites can be consumed in a single day. The anteater avoids triggering a full defensive response from the colony by spending only 30–40 seconds at each mound — just long enough to gather a profitable meal before the soldier ants and termites can mount a serious attack. It then moves on, allowing the colony to partially recover before returning in future days. This strategy of sustainable extraction means anteaters are rarely destructive in the long-term ecological sense: a carefully managed mound is a larder that keeps refilling.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/anteater): Giant Anteater — wildlife guide.

## How do giant anteaters raise their young?
Giant anteaters reproduce slowly, which is one reason the species struggles to recover from elevated mortality. Females give birth to a single pup after a gestation period of 170–190 days. Birth occurs while the mother stands upright, and the newborn, weighing around 1–2 kg, is immediately capable of climbing onto her back, where it will spend the next several months. The pup's fur pattern is arranged so that when it rides on the mother's back, its own shoulder stripe aligns almost perfectly with hers, providing remarkable camouflage against predators such as pumas and jaguars. The mother nurses the pup for up to six months, and the youngster remains dependent on her for up to ten months after birth. Pup mortality in the first three months is around 50%, attributable largely to predation and the dangers of fire events that the mother cannot outrun while encumbered. Young anteaters do not reach sexual maturity until 2.5–4 years of age, meaning a female may produce only one surviving offspring every two to three years across a wild lifespan of 10–14 years. This slow reproductive pace, entirely normal for a large Xenarthra, makes population recovery from habitat loss or road mortality a generational challenge rather than a short-term bounce-back.

## WARN work
WARN runs active rescue and conservation projects in Brazil and Colombia — two of the giant anteater's most important remaining strongholds. Brazil's Cerrado holds the densest known populations of the species, while Colombia's Llanos grasslands support significant numbers. Public understanding of the threats facing giant anteaters directly supports the case for protecting the open savanna and forest habitats where WARN's in-network partners operate. Even where project work is focused on other species, the landscapes overlap — conserving connected grasslands in Brazil and Colombia benefits giant anteaters alongside every other species sharing those ecosystems.

## Donation hook
Giant anteaters depend on connected stretches of savanna and forest — the same landscapes in Brazil and Colombia where WARN's conservation partners work. Supporting habitat protection in these countries helps secure the open ground that anteaters, and hundreds of other species, need to survive.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/anteater): Giant Anteater — wildlife guide.

## Are giant anteaters dangerous to humans?
Giant anteaters are not aggressive by nature and avoid confrontation, but they are capable of inflicting serious injury when cornered. A threatened anteater will rear onto its hind legs, brace itself with its bushy tail, and slash with its forelimbs. The large forelimb claws — the third claw can reach 10 cm — are strong enough to disembowel a puma or jaguar, and there are documented cases of fatal attacks on humans who trapped or cornered individuals. In normal circumstances, giant anteaters are solitary, shy, and will retreat if given the opportunity.

## How long is a giant anteater's tongue?
The tongue of a giant anteater can extend approximately 60 centimetres (about 24 inches) beyond the tip of the snout, making it among the longest tongues in proportion to skull length of any vertebrate. It is slender — less than about 1.5 cm wide — and covered in backward-facing spines coated in thick, sticky saliva. At peak foraging intensity, the tongue can flick in and out of the mouth up to 150 times per minute.

## What do giant anteaters eat besides ants and termites?
Giant anteaters are highly specialised myrmecophages — insect eaters focused almost exclusively on social insects. Ants and termites make up the overwhelming majority of their diet, supplemented occasionally by soft beetle larvae and other soft-bodied invertebrates found within the same mounds. Unlike many other animals, they do not eat plant matter, fruit, or vertebrates. Their entire anatomy — toothless jaws, elongated snout, reinforced claws, and specialised digestive system — is built around this narrow dietary niche.

## Why do giant anteaters have such a low body temperature?
At 32.7 °C (90.9 °F), the giant anteater holds the record for the lowest confirmed body temperature of any placental mammal. This is linked to the animal's remarkably low basal metabolic rate, which is roughly 34% of the value predicted for its body size. Xenarthrans — the superorder that includes anteaters, sloths, and armadillos — evolved reduced metabolic rates as an adaptation to diets of low caloric density. For the giant anteater, a diet of ants and termites provides limited calories per gram consumed; a slower metabolic engine reduces the energetic cost of maintaining body functions and makes the diet viable.

## Is the giant anteater endangered?
The giant anteater is classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List (assessed May 2024, published in the 2025 Red List update, criterion A2cd), one category below Endangered. Its global population has declined by at least 30% over roughly 21 years (three generations), and the species has been locally extirpated from most of Central America — including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Belize — and parts of South America. The population trend is listed as decreasing. While not at immediate risk of extinction globally, continued habitat loss in the Cerrado and Pantanal, combined with road mortality and fire events, mean the species could deteriorate further without effective conservation measures.

## How many giant anteaters are left in the wild?
No reliable global census exists for the giant anteater. The IUCN's 2025 Red List assessment (for which the assessment was conducted in May 2024) does not provide a single verified population estimate, instead documenting a minimum 30% decline based on local extirpation records, fire mortality data, and road-kill surveys. The species is considered most secure in Brazil's Cerrado and Pantanal, Colombia's Llanos, and Venezuela's savannas, but even these stronghold populations face ongoing pressure from habitat conversion and road infrastructure expansion.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/echidna): Echidna — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The short-beaked echidna is an egg-laying mammal native to Australia and New Guinea, recognisable by its sharp spines, elongated snout, and extraordinary ability to sense prey through electric fields — making it one of the most evolutionarily ancient and biologically unique mammals alive today.

## Introduction
The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) is one of the world's most extraordinary animals — a mammal that lays eggs, nurses its young through skin pores rather than teats, and detects prey using electroreceptors buried in its leathery snout. Along with the platypus, echidnas are the only surviving members of the order Monotremata, a lineage that branched from all other mammals roughly 166 million years ago. Covered in cream-and-black keratin spines up to 50 mm long, with a compact body weighing 2–7 kg, the echidna looks like a hedgehog crossed with an anteater — yet it is related to neither. Widespread across Australia, Tasmania and the island of New Guinea, this solitary, slow-moving forager is surprisingly resilient, yet faces growing pressure from road traffic, invasive predators, and increasingly severe wildfires.

## Takeaway
Echidnas are monotremes — the only mammals besides the platypus that lay eggs rather than giving birth to live young.

## Takeaway
A baby echidna, called a puggle, hatches after just 10 days and is nursed through patches of skin on the mother's belly rather than teats.

## Takeaway
The short-beaked echidna's snout contains approximately 400 electroreceptors that detect the faint bioelectric fields produced by insects and worms.

## Takeaway
Echidnas can enter true hibernation in cold regions, with body temperatures dropping as low as 4.5 °C and heart rates falling to just four beats per minute.

## Takeaway
Despite a wild lifespan of 14–16 years on average, echidnas may live up to 45 years in the wild under exceptional conditions.

## Takeaway
Road traffic, invasive foxes, cats, and dogs, and intensifying bushfires are the primary modern threats to echidna populations.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/echidna): Echidna — wildlife guide.

## What is an echidna?
The short-beaked echidna is a monotreme — a member of the ancient mammalian order Monotremata, which diverged from all other mammals approximately 166 million years ago. It is one of only five living species of monotremes: four echidnas and the platypus. Unlike all other mammals, monotremes retain the ancestral trait of egg-laying, yet they do produce milk and are fully endothermic, giving them a dual identity that has fascinated biologists since European naturalists first encountered them in the late 18th century. The short-beaked echidna's body is stocky and low-slung, measuring 30 to 45 cm in length and weighing 2 to 7 kg depending on region and season. Its entire back and flanks are studded with spines — modified hairs made of keratin — that can reach 50 mm in length. Between the spines lies a coat of coarse brown or black fur. When threatened, the echidna either rolls into a near-perfect ball of spines or drives its body directly downward into the soil with astonishing speed, leaving only a bristling dome exposed. Its elongated snout has no true mouth opening at the tip — instead, a narrow slit at the end of the beak conceals a long, sticky tongue capable of flicking out at extraordinary speed to lap up termites and ants.

## Where do echidnas live?
The short-beaked echidna occupies one of the broadest ranges of any Australian native mammal. It is found across virtually the entire continent of Australia, including Tasmania, as well as the coastal lowlands and montane forests of New Guinea. This exceptional geographic spread is matched by an equally impressive ecological flexibility — the species inhabits alpine heathland, temperate eucalyptus forest, tropical rainforest, semi-arid scrubland, and even suburban parks and gardens. The echidna has no fixed burrow; instead, it shelters opportunistically beneath fallen logs, rock outcrops, thick vegetation, and root systems. In cooler mountainous regions such as the Snowy Mountains and Tasmania, individuals enter true hibernation for weeks to months during winter, selecting hibernacula that help them maintain a body temperature of 8–10 °C. In warmer parts of Australia, echidnas remain active year-round but restrict foraging to cooler hours — dawn, dusk, and night — to avoid dangerous overheating. Their upper lethal body temperature is around 34 °C, and they have limited ability to sweat or pant, relying instead on behavioural strategies such as shade-seeking and water bathing. They are powerful diggers and will rapidly excavate themselves into soil or leaf litter when disturbed. Home ranges vary from as little as 50 ha in productive habitats to over 200 ha in arid regions.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/echidna): Echidna — wildlife guide.

## How does the echidna reproduce?
Echidna reproduction is among the most remarkable in the mammal kingdom. Breeding occurs between July and August in most of Australia, when a female may be followed for days by a train of competing males — sometimes called an 'echidna train'. After mating, the female incubates a single leathery egg directly in a temporary pouch that develops on her abdomen. The egg hatches after approximately 10 days, releasing a puggle — a jellybean-sized, blind, hairless infant weighing just 0.3–0.4 g. The puggle has no teat to latch onto; instead, it laps milk secreted directly through enlarged pores on two milk patches inside the pouch. It remains in the pouch for 45 to 55 days, after which its developing spines make pouch life impractical. The mother then deposits the puggle in a dedicated nursery burrow and returns every five to seven days to suckle it. Weaning occurs at roughly seven months. Echidnas have a slow reproductive rate by mammalian standards — females typically breed only once every one to two years, and young are slow to mature. This low reproductive output means populations can recover slowly from localised losses. The average wild lifespan is estimated at 14 to 16 years, though exceptional individuals may reach 45 years in the wild and 50 years in captivity, making echidnas among the longest-lived mammals relative to their body size.

## How does an echidna find its food?
The echidna feeds almost exclusively on ants, termites, earthworms, and other soft-bodied invertebrates. It locates prey using a combination of its acute sense of smell and an extraordinary electric sense. The short-beaked echidna's snout contains approximately 400 electroreceptors — specialised organs that detect the faint bioelectric fields emitted by muscle contractions and nerve impulses in prey animals. (Long-beaked echidnas of the genus Zaglossus possess up to 2,000 such receptors.) When the beak sweeps across soil, leaf litter, or rotting wood, moisture on the snout's surface conducts these electrical signals to the receptors. This form of passive electroreception, shared with the platypus and very few other vertebrates, allows the echidna to locate invisible prey with high precision — particularly useful in dim conditions or underground. Once prey is located, the echidna attacks with its claws, ripping open termite mounds or logs, and deploys a tongue that can extend up to 18 cm beyond the snout tip and flicks in and out up to 100 times per minute. Because echidnas have no teeth, food is ground between spiny pads on the tongue and a keratinous plate on the palate. A single foraging bout may involve investigating hundreds of sites. An adult echidna may consume thousands of insects per night, making the species an important regulator of ant and termite populations in native ecosystems.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/echidna): Echidna — wildlife guide.

## What threats does the echidna face?
Despite its Least Concern status, the short-beaked echidna faces a range of growing threats across its range. Road mortality is one of the most visible causes of death — echidnas move slowly and may wander roadsides while foraging, making them highly vulnerable to vehicles, particularly at night. Introduced predators brought to Australia after European settlement — including red foxes, feral cats, and free-roaming dogs — prey on juveniles and occasionally on weakened adults. The echidna's primary defensive tactic of curling into a spiny ball is effective against native predators but provides little protection against foxes, which can flip or work around the defence. Habitat degradation is a compounding pressure: land clearing for agriculture, urban development, and logging removes the fallen logs, tree stumps, and loose soil that echidnas depend on for shelter, nesting, and foraging. Climate change amplifies all of these threats — hotter summers push echidnas toward dangerous thermal limits, while the dramatically intensified bushfire seasons of recent years, such as the 2019–2020 Black Summer fires, can cause direct mortality and obliterate food resources and shelter across vast landscapes. The Kangaroo Island subspecies (T. a. multiaculeatus) was estimated at only 4,000–6,000 individuals when roughly half its habitat burned in those fires. Long-term monitoring and university-led citizen science tracking programs are helping researchers map population health at scale.

## WARN work
WARN does not currently run field projects for the echidna — its range lies outside WARN's in-network countries — and this guide is offered as free educational content. Public awareness of monotreme biology and the pressures echidnas face from invasive predators and habitat loss helps build the broad conservation literacy that supports wildlife protection everywhere.

## Donation hook
Every wild habitat protected shelters not just iconic megafauna but ancient oddities like the echidna — animals whose survival keeps 166 million years of evolutionary history alive. Supporting WARN's habitat work helps safeguard the ecosystems that creatures like this depend on.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/echidna): Echidna — wildlife guide.

## Is an echidna a mammal or a reptile?
An echidna is definitively a mammal — it is warm-blooded, produces milk, and has fur. What makes it unusual is that it also lays eggs, a trait shared only with the platypus and no other living mammal. This places echidnas in the order Monotremata, an ancient mammalian lineage that split from the ancestors of all other mammals roughly 166 million years ago.

## What is a puggle?
A puggle is the informal name for a baby echidna. After hatching from its leathery egg inside the mother's pouch, the puggle weighs just 0.3–0.4 g, is about the size of a jellybean, blind, and completely hairless. It nurses by lapping milk secreted through skin pores rather than teats, staying in the pouch for 45 to 55 days before being moved to a nursery burrow while it continues to grow.

## Can an echidna hurt you?
Echidnas are not aggressive and rarely bite. Their primary defence is their spines — a startled echidna will rapidly curl into a spiny ball or dig straight into the ground, making handling painful and difficult. The main risk to humans is inadvertently injuring an echidna by trying to pick it up or by driving near one on a road at night.

## How long do echidnas live?
In the wild, echidnas typically live 14 to 16 years, though anecdotal records suggest some individuals may reach 45 years. In captivity, the longest confirmed lifespan is approximately 50 years, making them exceptionally long-lived for an animal of their body size. Their slow metabolism and low heart rate during torpor may contribute to this longevity.

## Do echidnas hibernate?
In cooler parts of their range — particularly Tasmania and alpine regions of south-eastern Australia — echidnas enter true hibernation during winter. Body temperature can fall as low as 4.5 °C and heart rate drops to as few as four beats per minute. In warmer regions, they do not hibernate but may enter shorter periods of torpor or simply adjust their activity to cooler parts of the day.

## Are echidnas endangered?
The short-beaked echidna is classified as Least Concern by the IUCN, and its overall population trend is considered stable, with estimates of possibly 5–50 million individuals in Australia. However, certain subspecies face localised pressures, and threats from invasive predators, road mortality, and intensifying bushfires are real and growing. The three species of long-beaked echidnas found in New Guinea are far more threatened, with most listed as Critically Endangered.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/tasmanian-devil): Tasmanian Devil — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is an Endangered carnivorous marsupial found only in Tasmania, Australia, whose wild population has plummeted by around 80% since the 1990s due to a transmissible facial cancer called Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD).

## Introduction
The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is a stocky, jet-black marsupial and the largest carnivorous marsupial alive today, a title it inherited after the extinction of the thylacine in 1936. Found only on the island of Tasmania off Australia's southern coast, this dog-sized predator and scavenger is as ecologically vital as it is misunderstood. Its bone-crushing jaws — which produce a Bite Force Quotient of 181, the highest of any living mammalian carnivore — allow it to consume prey entirely, bones, fur and all, acting as a powerful clean-up crew across Tasmania's forests and coastlines. Despite its ferocious reputation, the Tasmanian devil is an Endangered species, its population decimated by a rare and horrifying transmissible cancer called Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD). With fewer than 25,000 individuals estimated to remain in the wild, the species stands at a crossroads between adaptation and extinction.

## Takeaway
The Tasmanian devil is classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, with a wild population estimated at fewer than 25,000 mature individuals as of the 2020 assessment.

## Takeaway
Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) — a rare transmissible cancer spread through biting — has driven an estimated 80% population crash since it was first recorded in northeast Tasmania in 1996.

## Takeaway
The species holds the record for the highest Bite Force Quotient (181) of any living mammalian carnivore, allowing it to crush bones that larger predators leave behind.

## Takeaway
Tasmanian devils are critical ecosystem engineers: by consuming carcasses completely, they reduce disease reservoirs and help suppress invasive species such as feral cats.

## Takeaway
A second independent strain of the disease, DFT2, was discovered in southeast Tasmania in 2014, complicating vaccine and immunotherapy research efforts that remain ongoing.

## Takeaway
An insurance population established on mainland Australia and a government-backed conservation programme are the primary safety nets against total extinction.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/tasmanian-devil): Tasmanian Devil — wildlife guide.

## What is a Tasmanian devil?
The Tasmanian devil is a marsupial mammal belonging to the order Dasyuromorphia and family Dasyuridae — a group that also includes quolls, dunnarts, and numbats. Its genus name, Sarcophilus, derives from the Greek for 'flesh lover,' a fitting description for one of nature's most dedicated carnivores. Males typically weigh 8–12 kg with a head-body length of 57–65 cm; females are smaller at 6–8 kg. Both sexes sport coarse black fur, often with a white chest patch, and a thickset neck and head that houses an extraordinary set of jaws. The jaw can open up to 75–80 degrees and exerts an absolute bite force of around 553 Newtons — giving the devil a Bite Force Quotient of 181, the highest recorded for any living mammalian carnivore, exceeding that of lions (112) and tigers (127) when adjusted for body size. This allows it to crush bones that other predators leave behind. Tasmanian devils are predominantly nocturnal and crepuscular, spending their nights roaming up to 16 km in search of food. They are largely solitary but gather at communal feeding sites where they communicate through a cacophony of screeches, growls, and snarls — sounds that earned them their dramatic name from early European settlers.

## Where do Tasmanian devils live?
Tasmanian devils are found exclusively on the island of Tasmania, the southernmost state of Australia, separated from the Australian mainland by the Bass Strait. Fossil and historical evidence suggests they once roamed across the Australian continent, but the arrival of dingoes — which never reached Tasmania — combined with changes in climate and human population pressure likely contributed to their extinction on the mainland around 3,000 years ago. Within Tasmania, they occupy a wide range of habitats: dry sclerophyll forests, coastal heathlands, woodlands, and even the fringes of farmland and peri-urban areas. They show a preference for open country near dense bush, which offers both foraging ground and daytime shelter in hollow logs, dense vegetation, and burrows. Devils are not highly territorial and their home ranges can overlap considerably, covering anywhere from 4 to 20 square kilometres depending on food availability. They also occur on Robbins Island off the northwest Tasmanian coast. A small insurance population has been established on mainland Australia as a safeguard against catastrophic disease-driven extinction in the wild, representing the first time the species has lived on the mainland in millennia.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/tasmanian-devil): Tasmanian Devil — wildlife guide.

## Why is the Tasmanian devil Endangered?
The Tasmanian devil was up-listed from Vulnerable to Endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2008 after Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) triggered population collapses across much of the island. DFTD is one of only a small number of known transmissible cancers in nature — the tumour cells themselves are the infectious agent, spreading when devils bite each other during social interactions and mating. The disease causes large, grotesque tumours to form around the face and neck, eventually preventing the animal from eating, and is fatal in virtually all cases within months of visible symptoms appearing. DFT1, the original strain, was first observed in northeast Tasmania in 1996 and has spread across the majority of the island. A second, independent strain — DFT2 — was discovered in the southeast in 2014, underscoring how vulnerable the species remains. The disease has reduced the overall wild population by approximately 80% since the mid-1990s. Secondary threats include vehicle strikes, persecution by farmers historically concerned about livestock, and habitat modification. Scientists have observed limited natural resistance to DFTD in some populations, sparking cautious optimism, and ongoing vaccine and immunotherapy trials aim to enhance immune response in wild and captive animals.

## How do Tasmanian devils reproduce?
Tasmanian devils reach sexual maturity in their second year and typically breed between February and June, with peak activity in March. Mating is a fierce affair: males compete aggressively for females, and a successful male will guard his mate for days to ensure paternity. After a gestation of just 21 days — typical of marsupials — a female gives birth to 20–30 tiny joeys, each weighing barely 0.18–0.24 grams, roughly the size of a grain of rice. The newborns must make an unaided crawl from the birth canal to the mother's backward-opening pouch, where only four teats await. Only the first four joeys to latch on survive; the rest perish. This brutal reproductive bottleneck means that successful females raise at most four offspring per breeding season. The young remain in the pouch for approximately 100 days, after which they are too large to be contained and instead cling to the mother's back or are left in a den while she forages. Joeys become independent at around nine months of age. Wild devils typically live 5–6 years — a short window further compressed by DFTD, which disproportionately kills adults in their reproductive prime, disrupting population recovery.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/tasmanian-devil): Tasmanian Devil — wildlife guide.

## What role do Tasmanian devils play in their ecosystem?
Tasmanian devils are apex scavengers and opportunistic predators whose ecological role extends far beyond their fearsome reputation. As consummate carrion cleaners — capable of devouring an entire carcass including bones, fur, and organs — they dramatically reduce the build-up of decomposing material that could otherwise harbour disease and attract invasive species such as feral cats and foxes. Studies conducted after localised DFTD-driven devil population declines found increases in feral cat activity, which in turn drove declines in small mammals and ground-nesting birds, illustrating the cascade effects that follow devil loss. Devils also prey on a wide variety of live species: small wallabies, wombats, possums, reptiles, birds, fish, and insects, contributing to the regulation of prey populations. Their scats distribute seeds and nutrients across the landscape. In 2020, 26 disease-free Tasmanian devils were reintroduced to a large fenced sanctuary in the Barrington Tops region of New South Wales — the first time the species has lived on the mainland in thousands of years — partly to restore a functional ecological role. Early results from that programme have shown devils helping to suppress overabundant kangaroo and wallaby numbers, demonstrating their capacity to restore ecosystem balance when given the chance.

## WARN work
WARN does not currently run field projects for the Tasmanian devil — its range is restricted to Tasmania, Australia, which lies outside WARN's current partner network. This guide is offered as free educational content because informed global awareness is one of the most powerful tools in wildlife conservation. Understanding what drives a species to the brink — whether a transmissible cancer, habitat loss, or human conflict — helps build the public will that ultimately funds and sustains protection efforts everywhere.

## Donation hook
Every animal that disappears leaves a gap in the ecosystems that sustain us all. While WARN's current conservation partners operate in its partner-network countries, the funds raised through our appeals support the kind of on-the-ground habitat and wildlife protection that gives threatened species — wherever they live — a fighting chance. If the plight of the Tasmanian devil moves you, consider supporting WARN's habitat work.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/tasmanian-devil): Tasmanian Devil — wildlife guide.

## Is the Tasmanian devil really dangerous to humans?
Tasmanian devils are not considered dangerous to humans under normal circumstances. They are shy and will retreat rather than confront people if given the chance. Their powerful bite is used for crushing bones and during intraspecies competition, not for attacking humans. That said, a cornered or injured devil can bite defensively and should never be handled without expert training.

## Can Devil Facial Tumour Disease spread to other animals or humans?
No. DFTD is unique to Tasmanian devils and cannot be transmitted to other species, including humans. It spreads exclusively between devils through direct contact — specifically biting, which occurs during mating and feeding competitions. The tumour cells that transfer between individuals are genetically distinct from the host's own cells, making DFTD one of the rarest types of cancer known to science.

## How many Tasmanian devils are left in the wild?
As of the most recent IUCN assessment (2020), fewer than 25,000 mature Tasmanian devils are estimated to remain in the wild in Tasmania. This represents a reduction of approximately 80% from population levels recorded before Devil Facial Tumour Disease emerged in the mid-1990s. Numbers vary significantly by region, with some local populations having been almost entirely wiped out.

## Are there Tasmanian devils on mainland Australia?
Tasmanian devils went extinct on mainland Australia approximately 3,000 years ago, likely due to a combination of factors including the arrival of dingoes, climate shifts, and changes in human land use. In 2020, a rewilding programme reintroduced 26 disease-free individuals to a large fenced sanctuary in New South Wales — the first time the species has lived wild on the mainland in millennia, serving as both an insurance population and an experiment in ecological restoration.

## What is being done to save the Tasmanian devil?
The Australian and Tasmanian governments coordinate a national conservation programme involving captive breeding, disease surveillance, insurance populations, and scientific research. Immunotherapy and vaccine trials are actively exploring ways to stimulate an immune response against DFTD. Some wild populations have also shown signs of partial natural resistance, suggesting that evolution may be playing a slow but measurable role in the species' fight for survival.

## What does a Tasmanian devil eat?
Tasmanian devils are opportunistic carnivores and scavengers. They eat a wide range of prey including wallabies, wombats, rabbits, possums, reptiles, birds, fish, insects, and carrion. Their most distinctive feeding trait is their ability to consume prey entirely — bones, fur, and all — leaving virtually no waste. This thorough consumption is ecologically valuable, as it reduces disease reservoirs and limits food sources for invasive species in the environment.


World Animal Rescue Network (https://worldanimalrescuenetwork.org/wildlife-guides/wallaby): Wallaby — wildlife guide.

## One-line answer
Wallabies are small-to-medium marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea, closely related to kangaroos, with more than 30 species ranging from common and widespread to Near Threatened, Vulnerable or Endangered depending on the species.

## Introduction
Wallabies are medium-to-small marsupials belonging to the family Macropodidae — the same family as kangaroos — and they are among the most recognisable symbols of Australian wildlife. Spread across more than 30 species in genera including Notamacropus, Petrogale, Wallabia, Thylogale, and Onychogalea, wallabies occupy an extraordinary range of habitats, from dense rainforest to sun-scorched rocky escarpments and coastal scrubland. Native to Australia and New Guinea, they have also been introduced to New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Hawaii. Most species are thriving, yet some — such as the Parma wallaby and several rock-wallaby species — face serious pressure from habitat clearance and introduced predators. Understanding wallabies matters: these animals are ecological keystones, shaping vegetation through grazing and serving as prey for a web of native predators and scavengers.

## Takeaway
Wallabies are not a single genetic group but a collective term for more than 30 medium-to-small macropod species across multiple genera.

## Takeaway
Most common species such as the agile wallaby and red-necked wallaby are classified as Least Concern by the IUCN, but several rock-wallabies and hare-wallabies are Near Threatened, Vulnerable or Endangered.

## Takeaway
After a gestation of only 25–30 days, joeys are born the size of a jellybean and spend around nine months developing inside the mother's pouch.

## Takeaway
Female wallabies can suspend a pregnancy mid-development — a process called embryonic diapause — until conditions are right to continue.

## Takeaway
Introduced predators, especially red foxes and feral cats, are the leading conservation threat for vulnerable wallaby species across Australia.

## Takeaway
At slow speeds wallabies use 'pentapedal locomotion', walking on all four limbs plus the tail — generating more forward force with the tail than with any other limb.

## What is a wallaby?
The word 'wallaby' does not describe a single species but rather a loose grouping of small-to-medium macropods that are typically smaller than kangaroos. Wallabies belong to the family Macropodidae — meaning 'big foot' in Greek — and are most closely related to kangaroos, wallaroos, and tree-kangaroos. They sit within several genera: Notamacropus covers the brush wallabies such as the agile wallaby and red-necked wallaby; Petrogale encompasses the rock-wallabies; Wallabia contains the distinctive swamp wallaby; and Lagorchestes, Onychogalea, and Thylogale cover hare-wallabies, nail-tail wallabies, and pademelons respectively. Like all marsupials, wallabies give birth to highly undeveloped young and complete development inside a pouch. Their defining physical traits include powerful elongated hind legs, a strong muscular tail that serves both as a counterbalance during hopping and as a fifth limb during slow locomotion, and compact forelimbs used for feeding and grooming. Adult body weights range from around 4–5 kg in smaller wallaby species such as the tammar wallaby up to 26 kg in a large male red-necked wallaby — a substantial variation that reflects the enormous diversity within the group.