Curated lists

Ways into the encyclopedia that cut across the classification — grouped by what animals do, where they live, or what they mean to people, rather than by descent.

• Animals that changed medicineSpecies whose biology underwrites drugs, diagnostics or the research that produced them.8
• Animals that regenerateSpecies that regrow limbs, organs or whole bodies from fragments.8
• Apex predatorsAnimals with no natural predators of their own as adults.11
• Poles apartAnimals of the Arctic and the Antarctic, and why the two faunas look nothing alike.8
• The deep seaAnimals of the water column and sea floor below the reach of sunlight.7
• Domesticated animalsSpecies reshaped by living alongside us.10
• Extreme survivorsAnimals that persist through conditions lethal to almost everything else.6
• The great apesThe seven living species of the family Hominidae, including our own.7
• The great migrationsJourneys that cross oceans, continents or generations.9
• Living fossilsLineages whose body plan has changed remarkably little over very long spans of time.6
• Record breakersThe largest, fastest, deepest and longest-lived animals known.9
• Venomous animalsSpecies that manufacture toxins and deliver them by bite, sting or spur.10