Wildlife Guides · WARN
Sourced guides to endangered wildlife and companion animals — facts, conservation status, habitats and practical ways to help. Search by animal name, explore the A–Z encyclopaedia or compare similar species.
Sourced reference library. Guides cite the IUCN Red List, CITES, BirdLife, WWF and peer-reviewed research where available. Population figures and statuses are listed on each guide.
Filter by animal group, region, IUCN status or topic. Browse animals A–Z · Don't know the name? Start with its features.
Showing 1–20 of 491 guides
Regions are broad browsing categories. A group guide may cover species with different conservation assessments; check its sources for the full context.
Pakistan · Indonesia
Dog
Canis lupus familiaris (Linnaeus, 1758)
One species across every breed — companion, working dog and street dog alike.
Pakistan · Indonesia
Cat
Felis catus (Linnaeus, 1758)
One species across every breed — companion, colony cat and meat-trade rescue alike.
Kenya · Tanzania
Lion
Panthera leo (Linnaeus, 1758)
The only social big cat — Vulnerable, declining, and not a domesticated animal.
Indonesia · Malaysia
Tiger
Panthera tigris (Linnaeus, 1758)
Asia's largest cat — Endangered as a species, Critically Endangered in WARN's range countries.
Indonesia · Malaysia
Bear
Family Ursidae — 8 living species across North America, South America, Europe and Asia
Eight living species — from polar ice to Andean cloud forest, not one Red List badge.
Indonesia · Malaysia
Elephant
Elephantidae — Elephas maximus, Loxodonta africana, Loxodonta cyclotis
Three living species — not one elephant, and not one Red List badge.
All oceans · some rivers (separate WARN river-dolphin guides)
Dolphin
Family Delphinidae — oceanic dolphins including Tursiops truncatus (common bottlenose) and Delphinus delphis (common dolphin)
Oceanic dolphins of the open sea — social, echolocating and not river specialists.
Global oceans
Shark
Selachimorpha (superorder); e.g. great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias (Linnaeus, 1758)
More than 500 species of cartilaginous fish — not one animal, and not one Red List badge.
All oceans from Arctic to Antarctic
Whale
Infraorder Cetacea — ~90 species of baleen and toothed whales
Giants of the deep — baleen filter-feeders and toothed hunters of every ocean.
Central America · South America
Monkey
Infraorder Simiiformes — ~260+ species in families Cebidae, Callitrichidae, Cercopithecidae and others
Tailed primates of forest, savanna and city — intelligent, social and overwhelmingly wild.
Pakistan
Horse
Equus ferus caballus
One subspecies across every breed — companion, sport horse and working cart horse alike.
Northern Hemisphere
Red Fox
Vulpes vulpes
The world's most widespread wild carnivore — equally at home in forests, farmland and city streets.
North America · Europe
Wolf
Canis lupus (Linnaeus, 1758) and related subspecies
The wild ancestor of dogs — pack hunters restored to Yellowstone and still persecuted.
Worldwide except Antarctica
Eagle
Family Accipitridae — ~60 eagle species in genera Aquila, Haliaeetus, Harpia, Pithecophaga and others
The apex raptors of sky and forest — power, vision and cultural reverence on every continent.
Antarctica · Southern Hemisphere
Penguin
Spheniscidae
Flightless seabirds of the southern seas, now squeezed by warming oceans and vanishing ice.
Worldwide
Owl
Strigiformes
Silent-winged night hunters found on almost every continent.
Worldwide
Rabbit
Leporidae (incl. Oryctolagus cuniculus)
The world's most familiar small herbivore, from backyard hutches to threatened wild burrowers.
Worldwide
Deer
Cervidae
The world's antlered ruminants, from common woodland deer to species that survive only in captivity.
Every continent except Australia and Antarctica
Otter
Subfamily Lutrinae — 13 species of aquatic mustelids worldwide
River acrobats and kelp-forest hunters — mustelids built for water on every continent.
Africa · Middle East
Leopard
Panthera pardus (Linnaeus, 1758) and clouded-leopard lineage (Neofelis)
The most adaptable big cat — rosetted hunters from African savanna to Himalayan forest.
A useful guide explains how an animal lives and how we know. Start with its identity, then connect its habitat, behaviour and conservation needs. These checks help you compare sources and avoid confusing an entire group with a single species.
Common names can describe several species or unrelated animals. A panther may mean a leopard, jaguar or Florida panther; a dromedary is a type of camel. Check the scientific name and the scope of the guide before comparing appearance or measurements.
Understand camels and dromedariesRange describes where an animal occurs; habitat describes the environments it uses. A country label does not mean it lives everywhere in that country. Diet, movement and social life add context: compare how orangutans use trees with how gorillas move and forage.
Compare orangutans and gorillasAn extinction-risk category, a population estimate and a population trend answer different questions. Check the species or population assessed, the assessment date and the survey method. A broad guide to turtles or elephants may include several assessments; a small population is not itself a complete risk assessment.
Read the IUCN Red List explainerA common name can be misleading: jellyfish and starfish are invertebrates, not fish. For size or speed claims, look for units, age, sex and whether a value is a typical range or a measured maximum. Follow the reference instead of assuming that a repeated number is reliable.
Explore endangered species, habitats, animal names and conservation questions.
Dedicated letter encyclopaedia — Aardvark, Axolotl, Aye-aye and the other A guides.
Open guide →Dedicated letter encyclopaedia — Naked Mole-Rat, Narwhal, Nautilus and the other N guides.
Open guide →Kennel-club groups, size, working roles and village dogs — not a popularity ranking.
Open guide →FIFe categories, coat, household lists and moggies — not a popularity ranking.
Open guide →Understand extinction risk, evidence and conservation priorities.
Open guide →A crawlable collection of the species closest to extinction.
Open guide →Species affected by poaching, illegal trade and exotic-pet demand.
Open guide →Orangutans, elephants, pangolins, slow lorises and more Asian species.
Open guide →Animal groups, habitats, lists and classification — curated routes into the library.
Popular animal questions
Concise, sourced answers connected to the deeper WARN species guides and conservation explainers.
Donating
Effective help includes donating to vetted field programmes (anti-poaching, habitat protection, rescue triage), avoiding products linked to wildlife trade, choosing certified sustainable commodities and advocating for stronger enforcement — not sharing viral content alone. Helping endangered animals effectively means directing resources to measurable field outcomes — anti-poaching patrols, habitat protection, veterinary triage for seized wildlife — not sharing viral content alone.
Conservation
The IUCN Red List is the global standard for assessing extinction risk. Expert groups assign each species a category from Least Concern to Extinct based on population size, decline rate and range. The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species is the authoritative inventory of extinction risk for plants, fungi and animals worldwide.
Conservation
CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) regulates cross-border trade in wild plants and animals. Appendix I species cannot be commercially traded; Appendix II species need legal-origin permits. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is an international treaty signed by more than 180 countries.
Trafficking
Pangolins are widely cited as the most trafficked mammal. Parrots, elephants (for ivory), big cats, turtles, reptiles and primates are also among the highest-volume illegal wildlife trades. Trafficking patterns vary by region: pangolins and songbirds in Asia, parrots and jaguars in Latin America, ivory and bushmeat in Africa.
Habitat
Habitat loss is the destruction, fragmentation or degradation of the places where wild species live, feed and breed — through deforestation, urban sprawl, agriculture, dams and pollution. It is a leading driver of extinction worldwide. Habitat loss removes forest, wetland and grassland through deforestation, agriculture, urban sprawl, dams and pollution.
Habitat
Rainforests store carbon, regulate regional rainfall, harbour roughly half of known terrestrial species and support indigenous communities. Tropical deforestation releases greenhouse gases and drives orangutan, tiger and pangolin declines. Tropical rainforests transpire moisture feeding regional rainfall — Amazon, Congo and Southeast Asian forests act as planetary air conditioners.
Conservation
Tigers are Endangered on the IUCN Red List — fewer than 4,000 remain in the wild. Habitat loss, poaching for skins and body parts, and conflict with people as forests shrink are the main drivers. All surviving subspecies are threatened.
Wildlife
All three orangutan species are Critically Endangered, mainly because of palm-oil-driven deforestation, illegal logging and the pet trade, which kills mothers to capture infants. Orangutans are Asia’s only great apes — Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli species all hold Critically Endangered status on the IUCN Red List.
Understanding an animal is a useful first step towards helping it. These guides cover wild species, broader animal groups and companion animals, connecting questions about behaviour and biology with conservation and welfare concerns.
When a guide links to a WARN appeal, read its purpose and funding information before giving. A guide is educational content; a confirmed grant, payment or measured result belongs in the public grant register.
Check the evidence
Follow the guide’s references and check when, where and how a claim was established.
Choose appropriate help
Match the animal’s needs to qualified local expertise and responsible care.
Read the funding record
Distinguish proposed support from an approved grant, a payment or a reported result.
Choose an appeal whose purpose matches the animals you want to help. Read its recipient-selection status and funding terms before donating, or share reliable information to help others learn.
