Animals That Start With E: 20 Animals From Eagle to Ermine

Eagle

Eagles are large, powerful birds of prey with hooked bills, strong talons and very sharp eyesight. There are about 68 species, most of them in Europe, Asia and Africa; only two, the bald eagle and the golden eagle, live in the United States and Canada. Among the biggest and strongest are the harpy eagle of Central and South America, the Philippine eagle and Steller’s sea eagle.

Eagle owl

The Eurasian eagle-owl is one of the largest owls in the world: females can measure 75 cm (30 in) long with a wingspan of up to about 1.9 m (6 ft 2 in). It lives in rocky and wooded country across Europe and Asia, recognized by its orange eyes and long ear tufts. Its prey ranges from mice and rats to hares, ducks and even other owls.

Earthworm

Earthworms are segmented worms with no eyes, lungs or legs; they breathe through their moist skin. Instead of a single heart, the common earthworm has five pairs of muscular blood vessels, called aortic arches, that pump its blood. By eating soil and dead leaves, worms mix and enrich the ground, and Charles Darwin’s last book, published in 1881, was all about them.

Earwig

Earwigs are slender brown insects with a pair of pincers at the tail end, used for defense and in courtship. The old belief that they creep into people’s ears to lay eggs is a myth. Female common earwigs are devoted mothers that guard and clean their eggs and stay with the young nymphs after they hatch, behavior that is unusual among insects.

Eastern bluebird

The eastern bluebird is a small thrush of eastern North America; males are bright blue above with a rusty-orange breast. It declined sharply in the 20th century as nesting holes were lost and introduced house sparrows and starlings took over the cavities that remained. Thousands of nest boxes put up by volunteers helped it recover. It is the state bird of New York and Missouri.

Echidna

Echidnas, or spiny anteaters, are one of only two kinds of mammals that lay eggs; the other is the platypus. The short-beaked echidna lives across Australia and New Guinea, while the three long-beaked species live only in New Guinea and are all Critically Endangered. The female lays a single leathery egg into a temporary pouch, and the baby, called a puggle, hatches there.

Eel

True eels are long, snake-like fish. Every European eel is thought to hatch in the Sargasso Sea in the western Atlantic, drift to Europe and North Africa as a transparent, leaf-shaped larva, grow up for years in rivers and lakes, then swim thousands of kilometers back to spawn and die. No one has yet seen them spawning in the wild. The species is Critically Endangered; for how eels differ from snakes, see eel vs snake.

Egret

Egrets are white herons with long legs and dagger-like bills that wade in shallow water to catch fish and frogs. In the late 1800s, huge numbers were killed for their breeding plumes, which decorated fashionable hats, and the outcry helped launch the bird protection movement; the great egret became the symbol of the National Audubon Society. The little egret has spread north into Britain since the 1990s.

Egyptian vulture

The Egyptian vulture is a small, mostly white vulture with a bare yellow face, found in southern Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India. It is one of the few birds that use tools: it cracks open ostrich eggs by throwing stones at them. Poisoning and electrocution on power lines have caused steep declines, and it is listed as Endangered.

Eider

The common eider is a large sea duck of northern coasts in Europe, North America and eastern Siberia. Males are black and white with a pale green patch on the back of the head. Females line their nests with soft down plucked from their breasts, and in places such as Iceland this eiderdown is gathered after the ducklings leave, without harming the birds. It is listed as Near Threatened.

Eland

The common eland of eastern and southern Africa is one of the largest antelopes in the world. Bulls stand about 1.5–1.8 m (4.9–5.9 ft) at the shoulder and can weigh up to about 940 kg (2,070 lb). Adult males make a loud clicking sound with their knees as they walk, and research suggests this helps them advertise their size to rival males.

Electric eel

The electric eel is not a true eel but a knifefish of the Amazon and Orinoco basins in South America. In 2019 scientists split it into three species, and one of them can deliver shocks of up to 860 volts, the strongest known from any animal. It also uses weaker electric pulses to sense its surroundings and find prey in murky water.

Elephant

There are three species of elephant: the African bush elephant, the largest land animal on Earth, the smaller African forest elephant and the Asian elephant. An elephant’s trunk is its nose and upper lip joined together, strong enough to lift heavy logs and delicate enough to pick up a single nut. Pregnancy lasts about 22 months; see how long are elephants pregnant? for details.

Elephant seal

Elephant seals are named for the huge, trunk-like nose of adult males. The southern elephant seal of sub-Antarctic islands is the largest seal and the largest member of the order Carnivora, with bulls weighing 3,000–3,700 kg (6,600–8,200 lb), and it has been recorded diving to 2,388 m (7,835 ft). The northern elephant seal was hunted almost to extinction for its oil in the 1800s but has since recovered on the Pacific coast of North America.

Elephant shrew

Elephant shrews, also called sengis, are small insect-eating mammals of Africa with long, flexible noses. Despite the name, they are not shrews: DNA studies show they are more closely related to elephants and aardvarks. They are very fast runners that dash along cleared trails to escape predators. One species, the Somali sengi, went unrecorded by scientists from 1968 until 2020, when it was rediscovered in Djibouti.

Elk

The elk, or wapiti, is one of the largest members of the deer family, native to North America and parts of Central and East Asia. Males grow huge branching antlers and attract females in fall with loud, whistling bugle calls. In Britain and much of Europe, however, “elk” means the animal Americans call a moose; see moose vs elk for how to tell them apart.

Emperor penguin

The emperor penguin of Antarctica is the tallest and heaviest penguin, measuring about 1–1.2 m (3.3–3.9 ft) from bill to tail and weighing 22–45 kg (49–99 lb). It is the only penguin that breeds during the Antarctic winter. The male keeps the single egg warm on his feet for just over two months while the female feeds at sea, and the birds huddle together to survive the cold. It is listed as Near Threatened.

Emperor tamarin

The emperor tamarin is a small monkey of the rainforests of the southwestern Amazon basin in Peru, Bolivia and Brazil. Its most striking feature is a long, white, drooping mustache, and the species is said to have been named for its resemblance to the German emperor Wilhelm II. It lives in small family groups that move through the trees eating fruit, flowers, nectar and insects.

Emu

The emu is Australia’s tallest native bird, reaching up to about 1.9 m (6 ft 3 in), and it is second in height only to the ostriches. It cannot fly but can sprint at about 48 km/h (30 mph). After the female lays the eggs, the male incubates them for around eight weeks, barely eating or drinking, and then raises the chicks on his own.

Ermine

The ermine, called the stoat in Britain and Ireland and the short-tailed weasel in parts of North America, is a small, slender predator of the weasel family. In snowy regions its brown coat turns white in winter, except for the black tip of the tail. That white winter fur, also called ermine, has long been used to trim ceremonial robes, including those worn in Britain’s House of Lords.