Animals That Start With W: 25 Animals From Wallaby to Wren

Wallaby

Wallaby is an informal name for the many kangaroo relatives that are smaller than kangaroos and wallaroos. Wallabies live in Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, in habitats from rainforest to rocky hills. Red-necked wallabies have been introduced to several other countries, and wild colonies live in New Zealand, England, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man and France.

Walrus

The walrus is a huge, whiskered marine mammal of the Arctic, and adult Pacific males can weigh more than 2,000 kg (4,400 lb). Both males and females have tusks, which are long canine teeth that can reach 1 m (3.3 ft). Walruses use them to haul themselves out onto the ice, which gave them their scientific name Odobenus, “tooth-walker”. The species is listed as Vulnerable.

Wandering albatross

The wandering albatross, also called the snowy albatross, has the longest wingspan of any living bird: up to 3.7 m (12 ft), with an average of about 3.1 m (10 ft). It spends most of its life gliding over the Southern Ocean with hardly a flap of its wings, and some birds circle the globe three times in a single year. It is listed as Vulnerable.

Warthog

The common warthog is a wild pig of the grasslands and savannas of Africa south of the Sahara. It often kneels on hardened, padded wrists to graze short grass and dig up roots. Its “warts” are thick bumps of skin on the face that protect it during fights, and both sexes carry curved tusks. When it runs, it holds its thin tail straight up like a flag.

Wasp

Wasps are a huge group of insects, and most species are solitary hunters or parasites rather than the familiar striped social wasps. Social wasps such as yellowjackets build paper nests from chewed wood fiber. Wasps matter in nature because they kill vast numbers of caterpillars and other insects, and some, like fig wasps, pollinate plants. See how they differ from bees in bee vs wasp.

Water buffalo

The water buffalo is a large domestic cattle relative with wide, swept-back horns, kept across South and Southeast Asia and in parts of Europe, Africa and South America. River buffalo were probably domesticated in western India about 6,300 years ago, and swamp buffalo separately in Southeast Asia. Buffalo milk is used for mozzarella in Italy. Its wild ancestor, the wild water buffalo, is Endangered.

Water vole

The water vole is a chubby, chestnut-brown rodent that lives in burrows along rivers, canals and ponds across Europe and western Asia. It is the “Ratty” of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 book The Wind in the Willows, although it is a vole, not a rat. In Britain it has declined sharply, partly because of hunting by escaped American mink.

Weasel

The least weasel is the smallest member of the order Carnivora, the group that includes cats, dogs and bears. Females weigh only 29–117 g (1–4 oz). It lives across Europe, northern Asia and North America and is slim enough to chase voles and mice into their own tunnels. In snowy northern areas its brown coat turns white in winter.

Weaver

Weavers, or weaverbirds, are small, sparrow-like birds of Africa and Asia. Males of many species weave elaborate hanging nests from strips of grass, tying real knots. The sociable weaver of the Kalahari region in southern Africa goes further: whole colonies build one giant thatched nest with many separate chambers, perhaps the most impressive structure made by any bird.

Wels catfish

The wels catfish is one of the largest freshwater fish in Europe and western Asia. Most adults are 1.3–1.6 m (4.3–5.2 ft) long, but rare giants exceed 2.5 m (8.2 ft). It has been introduced to rivers in France, Spain and Italy. In 2012, researchers in southern France filmed wels catfish lunging out of the water to grab pigeons at the river’s edge.

Western gorilla

The western gorilla lives in the rainforests and swamp forests of west-central Africa, from Nigeria and Cameroon to Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. It is the second-largest living primate after the eastern gorilla. There are two subspecies, the western lowland gorilla and the rare Cross River gorilla, and the species is listed as Critically Endangered.

Whale shark

The whale shark is the largest fish in the world. The biggest reliably recorded was 18.8 m (61.7 ft) long, though most are much smaller. Despite its size, it is a gentle filter feeder that swims through warm seas worldwide with its huge mouth open, sieving out plankton and small fish. It is listed as Endangered.

White rhinoceros

The white rhinoceros is the largest of the five living rhino species. It has a wide, square upper lip for grazing grass, unlike the hooked lip of the black rhino. The southern white rhino recovered from near extinction, but the northern white rhino is down to two females, Najin and Fatu, who live in Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy. The species is listed as Near Threatened.

White stork

The white stork is a large black-and-white bird with a red bill and legs that nests on rooftops, chimneys and poles across much of Europe. It soars on rising warm air and cannot cross wide seas easily, so it migrates to Africa via the Strait of Gibraltar or the Bosphorus. Adults are almost silent and greet each other by loudly clattering their bills.

White-tailed deer

The white-tailed deer lives from southern Canada through the United States and Central America to as far south as Peru. When alarmed, it raises its tail to flash the bright white underside as it bounds away, a signal to other deer. It has also been introduced to New Zealand and parts of Europe and the Caribbean.

Whooping crane

The whooping crane is the tallest North American bird, standing up to about 1.5 m (5 ft). Hunting and habitat loss left only 21 wild birds by 1941. Decades of protection have raised the total to just over 830 birds in 2025, most of them migrating between Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada and the Texas coast. It is listed as Endangered.

Wild boar

The wild boar is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, native to Europe, Asia and North Africa. Females and young live in groups called sounders, and the piglets have pale stripes that help hide them. It is one of the most widespread land mammals, and introduced or feral pigs now cause problems in the Americas and Australia.

Wildebeest

Wildebeest, also called gnus, are large antelopes of the African plains with a heavy head, shaggy mane and curved horns. There are two species, the blue and the black wildebeest. The blue wildebeest numbers about 1.5 million, and on the Serengeti and Masai Mara in Tanzania and Kenya huge herds follow the rains each year in the Great Migration.

Wolf

The gray wolf is the largest wild member of the dog family and once ranged across almost all of the Northern Hemisphere. Wolves live in packs that are usually a breeding pair and their offspring, and they hunt deer, elk, moose and other large prey together. After centuries of persecution, wolves have returned to many parts of Europe and the western United States.

Wolverine

The wolverine is the largest land-dwelling member of the weasel family, with males usually weighing 11–18 kg (24–40 lb). It lives in the tundra, mountains and northern forests of North America, Scandinavia and Russia. Wolverines are famous for their strength and stamina, traveling long distances through deep snow and scavenging frozen carcasses with powerful jaws.

Wombat

Wombats are stocky, burrowing marsupials of Australia, with three living species that weigh about 20–35 kg (44–77 lb). They are best known for their cube-shaped droppings, which they leave on rocks and logs to mark territory. The study of how a wombat makes them won the 2019 Ig Nobel Prize for Physics.

Wood frog

The wood frog is a brown frog of North American forests, recognized by a dark mask across its eyes. It is the only North American frog found north of the Arctic Circle, and it survives the winter by freezing: ice forms in its body and its heart stops beating. In spring it thaws out and soon begins calling from snowmelt pools.

Woodpecker

Woodpeckers are birds that chisel into wood with strong, pointed bills, with about 240 species. They live on every continent except Australia and Antarctica, and are also absent from New Guinea, New Zealand and Madagascar. They drill to reach insect larvae and dig nest holes, and they drum loudly on trees to claim territory. A long, sticky tongue helps them pull insects out of tunnels.

Woolly mammoth

The woolly mammoth was an extinct elephant relative with a shaggy coat and long, curving tusks that roamed the cold grasslands of northern Europe, Asia and North America during the last ice age. Most mammoths disappeared about 10,000 years ago, but a small population survived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until about 4,000 years ago.

Wren

Wrens are tiny brown songbirds that often cock their short tails upright. Of about 97 species, all live in the Americas except one, the Eurasian wren, which is common across Europe and much of Asia. Although it weighs only about 10 g (0.35 oz), the Eurasian wren has a remarkably loud song of rapid trills, and it is one of Britain’s most widespread birds.