Wildlife of the World: A Continent-by-Continent Guide to Animals and Habitats

Life on Earth is not spread evenly. Tropical forests hold more species than the rest of the land combined, a few mountain ranges and islands hold animals found nowhere else, and the oceans hold the largest animals that have ever lived. This guide takes you continent by continent through the world’s wildlife: where animals live, why they live there, how to see them, and what is happening to them.

Choose a continent on the map to open its full guide.

Wildlife of the World

Seven continents, each with its own animals found nowhere else. Pick a continent on the map to meet its most important species, then open its chapter to explore further.

Click a continent to open its page

Preview a continent

The seven continents at a glance

Continent	Defining habitats	Signature animals	Full guide
Africa	Savanna, rainforest, desert, Rift Valley lakes, Madagascar	Elephant, lion, giraffe, gorilla, lemurs	Wildlife of Africa
Asia	Himalaya, monsoon forest, rainforest, steppe, taiga, coral reefs	Tiger, snow leopard, giant panda, orangutans, rhinos	Wildlife of Asia
Europe	Temperate and boreal forest, mountains, Mediterranean, wetlands	Brown bear, wolf, bison, lynx, white stork	Wildlife of Europe
North America	Tundra, boreal forest, prairie, deserts, Central American rainforest	Bison, grizzly and polar bears, wolf, bald eagle, monarch butterfly	Wildlife of North America
South America	Amazon, Pantanal, Andes, Patagonia, Galápagos	Jaguar, giant otter, sloths, macaws, condor	Wildlife of South America
Australia and Oceania	Outback, eucalyptus forest, rainforest, Great Barrier Reef, New Zealand	Kangaroo, koala, platypus, kiwi, birds-of-paradise	Wildlife of Australia and Oceania
Antarctica	Ice sheet, sea ice, Southern Ocean	Penguins, seals, whales, krill	Wildlife of Antarctica

Why wildlife differs between continents

Continents are not the only way scientists divide the living world. Biogeographers, starting with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1876, group the planet into biogeographic realms: large regions whose animals share a common evolutionary history. The eight realms commonly used today are:

Realm	Covers	Characteristic animals
Nearctic	Most of North America	Pronghorn, bison, beavers, prairie dogs
Neotropical	South and Central America, the Caribbean	Sloths, anteaters, New World monkeys, hummingbirds, toucans
Palearctic	Europe, North Africa, northern and central Asia	Deer, wild sheep and goats, brown bears, many songbirds
Afrotropical	Sub-Saharan Africa and Madagascar	Giraffes, hippos, most antelopes, lemurs, turacos
Indomalayan	South and Southeast Asia	Tigers, orangutans, gibbons, hornbills, tree shrews
Australasian	Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand and nearby islands	Marsupials, monotremes, birds-of-paradise, cockatoos
Oceanian	Pacific islands	Island birds, lizards, land snails
Antarctic	Antarctica and the Southern Ocean islands	Penguins, seals, albatrosses

The boundaries between realms often follow deep water or high mountains that animals could not cross. The most famous is the Wallace Line in Indonesia, which separates Asian animals from Australian ones across a narrow strait.

Records of the animal world

Record	Animal	Where it lives
Largest animal ever	Blue whale, up to about 30 m	All oceans
Largest land animal	African savanna elephant, up to about 6 tonnes or more	Africa
Tallest animal	Giraffe, up to about 5.5 m	Africa
Fastest land animal	Cheetah, about 100–110 km/h in short bursts	Africa, with a tiny population in Iran
Fastest animal in a dive	Peregrine falcon, over 300 km/h	Every continent except Antarctica
Longest migration	Arctic tern, tens of thousands of km each year	Arctic to Antarctic
Largest reptile	Saltwater crocodile	Southeast Asia to northern Australia
Largest lizard	Komodo dragon	Indonesia
Largest bird	Common ostrich	Africa
Largest cat	Tiger	Asia
Largest rodent	Capybara	South America

The great migrations

Some of the most extraordinary wildlife events on Earth involve animals moving in huge numbers between seasonal feeding and breeding grounds:

Wildebeest and zebra circling the Serengeti and Maasai Mara (Africa).
Caribou crossing the Arctic tundra of Alaska and Canada (North America).
Grey whales travelling between the Arctic and Mexico’s lagoons (North America).
Monarch butterflies flying to the mountains of central Mexico (North America).
Bar-headed geese crossing the Himalaya and Amur falcons crossing the Arabian Sea (Asia).
Straw-coloured fruit bats gathering in Zambia’s Kasanka National Park (Africa).
Red crabs marching to the sea on Christmas Island (Australia’s Indian Ocean territory).
Humpback whales migrating between polar feeding grounds and tropical calving waters (every ocean).

The state of the world’s wildlife

Wildlife populations are under pressure everywhere. WWF’s Living Planet Report 2024 found that monitored populations of vertebrates have declined by an average of 73 percent since 1970, with the steepest falls in Latin America and the Caribbean and in freshwater habitats. More than 46,000 species assessed on the IUCN Red List are threatened with extinction.

The main drivers are the same on every continent:

Habitat loss and degradation, mainly from agriculture.
Overexploitation, through hunting, fishing and wildlife trade.
Climate change.
Invasive species.
Pollution and disease.

There is also real hope. Protected areas, community conservation, reintroductions and species recovery programmes have brought back mountain gorillas, tigers in India and Nepal, humpback whales, the Iberian lynx, the European bison, bald eagles and many more. Under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed in 2022, countries committed to protect 30 percent of land and sea by 2030.

How to use Wild Chapter

Travellers: each continent guide lists the top parks and the best months to visit, and our Safari & Travel guides cover planning, costs and packing.
Students: our Ecology course explains the science behind these patterns with animated lessons.
Researchers: every continent guide ends with key research stations and data sources, and our animal profiles summarise status, biology and distribution.