ANIMALS A TO Z part 3 W-Z

ANIMALS A TO Z

Likhith G, Dr. Murali Mohan G

The names of animals! It all started as a game. We wanted a word play for our daily walk. He suggested the game of naming animals with alphabets. Initially we used to tell only 5 to 6 animals with each alphabet. He developed interest in naming more and more animals. First, we searched in youtube with entry ‘animals a to z’. We saw several videos of animal names. He wanted more. So, we started searching google for list of animals in alphabetical order. There are several websites giving the list of animals in alphabetical order with pictures. We made a list covering almost all of those websites. That didn’t stop there. Finally, we started searching Wikipedia for individual lists, like list of snakes, list of birds etc. We finally got an exhaustive list of animals.

We had decided in the beginning itself, to use only those names with single word, and discard those with multiple words. E.g. Fox is included but not Arctic Fox. Spider is included but not “jumping spider”.

We created some exceptions to this rule of “single word”. Surgeon fish, Clown fish, Polar bear, Black Panther, Manta Ray, Sting Ray etc. were already known to him, from movies like Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, Jungle book etc. So they made into the list.

Common animals like Blue Whale, Elephant Seal, Emperor Penguin, German Shepherd, Gila Monster, Guinea Pig, Hammerhead Shark, Komodo Dragon, Tasmanian Devil etc. made into the list, though they are multi-worded. We considered all the names already known to Likhith as “common”.

Some two or three worded animals made into the list as they are National Animals or State animals of India. E.g. Snow leopard is state animal of Himachal Pradesh. Clouded leopard is state animal of Meghalaya. Malabar Giant Squirrel is state animal of Maharashtra. Phayre’s leaf Monkey is state animal of Tripura. Fishing cat is state animal of West Bengal. Butterfly fish is state animal of Lakshadweep. Bengal Tiger, River Dolphin and King Cobra are national animals of India.

Some two-word animals are added as they are native to India. E.g. Bactrian Camel, Barking Deer, Bengal tiger, King Cobra, Bonnet Macaque, Rhesus Macaque, Fishing Cat, Hanuman Langur, Lion Tailed Macaque, Mouse Deer, Nilgiri Blue Robin, Spotted Cat, Star Tortoise etc.

Some two-word animals like Purple Frog are included, as they are exclusively found in India.

Some multi-word animals are included as they are interesting. E.g. Bird of Paradise, Angler Fish, Sun Fish, Bleeding Heart, Flying Squirrel, Frill Necked Lizard, Ulysses Butterfly, Vampire Bat, Vervet Monkey, Worm Snake, X Ray Fish Etc.

All animals with reduplicative words like Aye Aye, BulBul, Cara Cara, Cus Cus etc. are included.

We tried to include almost all common names of animals except few fish. Hundreds of fish have common names, but we included only the common ones. Same applied to dog breeds. There are hundreds of dog breeds. But we used only those which are common in India.

Some animals like Mango, Amazon can be searched, only if you type Mango Bird, Amazon Bird in google. These are rare ones and won’t be displayed by just typing Mango animal or Amazon Animal.

The following photos are our own photos. We clicked them: Ant, Bactrian camel, Bee, Bumble Bee, Butterfly, Camel, Caterpillar, Dragonfly, Duck, Fly, Grasshopper, Honeybee, Hornet, Ladybug, Marmot, Mosquito, Pony, and Spider. All other images are obtained from Google Images. We thank all the sources. Acknowledging each and every photo is not possible. We regret for the same.

As far as possible, we tried to get the Indian animal pictures. So that it would be easy for kids to identify them, in real life. E.g. Lizard. We used the picture common Indian house lizard photo. Indian lion is used for Lion. Indian Elephant and not African elephant is used for Elephant.

This list is based only on common names and not on Scientific names. This list is not complete list of animals. We may have left few animals, knowingly or unknowingly.

This is the result of months of research by us. Despite all the efforts, there may be mistakes. Please suggest the mistakes, if any, so that we can correct.

During the process, Likhith has learnt to search the animal in google images, select a good one, Edit it in Photoshop with correct fitting (Transform) and naming, and saving. Many of the images are created by Likhith in Photoshop. Likhith would feel happy if you message your appreciations.

In part 3 W to Z are included.

Animals starting with W