This page includes all animals that start with the letter I that we plan to cover on Fact Animal. As we publish new content, each of these animals will be linked to their dedicated profile fact pages.
From Ibex to Isopod, read extraordinary facts about animals beginning with the letter I.
I
Ibadan Malimbe
Iberian Frog
Iberian Lynx
Ibex
Ibis
Ibiza Wall Lizard
Ibizan Hound
Icefish
Iceland Gull
Icelandic Sheepdog
Ice Cream Cone Worm
Iguaca
Iguana
Iiwi
Ili Pika
Img Boa Constrictor
Immortal Jellyfish
Impala
Imperial Eagle
Imperial Moth
imperial Pigeon
Inagua Woodstar
Inca Dove
Inca Tern
Inchworm
Indian Bullfrog
Indian Cobra
Indian Elephant
Indian Flying Fox
Indian Giant Squirrel
Indian Jackal
Indian Palm Squirrel
Indian Python
Indian Red Scorpion
Indian Rhinoceros
Indian Star Tortoise
Indianmeal Moth
Indigo Bunting
Indigo Snake
Indochinese Tiger
Indri
Inland Taipan
Insect
Io Moth
Iridescent Shark
Iriomote Cat
Irish Elk
Irish Setter
Irish Terrier
Irish Wolfhound
Irrawaddy Dolphin
Irukandji Jellyfish
Isabelline Wheatear
Isopod
Ivory Gull
Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Ivy Bee
Izu Thrush
Please see our Animal A-Z list for animals that start with different letters.
Animal Names That Start With I
Read on for an overview of each of the animals listed above that begin with the letter I.
Ibadan Malimbe
The Ibadan Malimbe is an exceptionally rare and pretty little weaver bird found only in Nigeria. It’s a passerine, with a black body and a red head and throat.
Fun Fact: There are only around 2500 of these birds left in the world, nesting on the few trees found growing in farmland, and conservationists are rushing to learn more about them.
Iberian Frog
The Iberian frog is a true frog found only in Spain and Portugal. It’s usually around 5cm long, usually olive to reddish brown with a ridge running through its eye to its back end.
Fun Fact: This is a very fast frog, hard to catch, and will escape quickly into the water when it perceives a threat.
Iberian Lynx
The Iberian lynx is a highly elusive predatory cat and one of the smallest of the four lynx species. It has short, spotted fur, and a short tail, and is about 85 cm long.
Fun Fact: This cat is a rabbit-hunting specialist, getting more than 75% of its diet from the European rabbits, which makes it prone to decline in regions where rabbit populations drop.
Ibex
Ibex are goats with long, recurved horns that reach back over their heads. Some grow to over a metre tall and 120 kg, and they’re found all over the Old World.
Fun Fact: The impressive horns of an ibex are present when it’s born and never seem to stop growing throughout its life, demonstrating its longevity and therefore value as a mate.
Ibis
Ibises are any of 29 extant species of wading birds from the family Threskiornithidae. This is a subfamily, characterised by elongated and downward-curving beaks, and long, slender legs. They range from white to black, with multiple colour varieties in between.
Fun Fact: Ibises were revered in multiple ancient cultures including Ancient Egypt, where excavations revealed 1.5 million mummified Ibis remains.
Ibiza Wall Lizard
The Ibiza wall lizard is a pretty little wall lizard native to the Balearic islands of Ibiza and Formentera. They’re about 7cm long, quite stocky, and can be green, grey, blue or brown.
Fun Fact: The Ibiza Preservation project is working against the potential decline of this species by building lizard sanctuaries and smart traps to study and protect the species against invasive threats like introduced snake species.
Ibizan Hound
The Ibizan hound is a lanky, slender and agile domestic dog breed with large, upright ears and white and tan or white and red colouration. They usually weigh no more than 30 kg but are relatively strong dogs.
Fun Fact: This breed was originally bred on Ibiza to catch rabbits, and is an intelligent and fast-moving dog.
Ice Cream Cone Worm
The Ice Cream Cone Worm, or trumpet worm, is a polychaete family of worms from marine environments all over the world. They’re named for building protective tubes out of sand in the shape of a cone.
Fun Fact: These worms also have digging bristles on their faces, helping them burrow into the sand. Half of the sand they pass through eventually comes out the other end of the worm.
Icefishes
Icefishes, sometimes called noodlefishes, are a small family of bony marine, brackish, or freshwater fish from Eastern Asia. They’re slender and almost see-through, growing to no more than around 22cm long in the largest species.
Fun Fact: Females have no scales at all on their bodies, maintaining juvenile characteristics. Males only have a few, themselves.
Iceland Gull
The Iceland gull is a medium-sized gull from the Arctic regions of the northern hemisphere. It grows up to 65 cm long and weighs up to a kilo, and is characteristically gull-like with grey wings and a white head and body.
Fun Fact: Despite the name, this gull is only present in Iceland in the Winter, preferring to breed in Canada and Greenland.
Icelandic Sheepdog
The Icelandic sheepdog is a Nordic spitz breed of domestic dog, originally bred for herding horses and sheep in Iceland. They’re smart and hardy dogs, around 45cm tall and up to 15 kg in weight. They’re usually tan and white.
Fun Fact: This is one of the few breeds of dog that has an archaeological record of its ancient ancestry. They’re the only dogs indigenous to Iceland, having come from dogs brought over by Vikings in the 800s.
Iguaca
The Iguaca, also called the Puerto Rican amazon, is a 30 cm-long green parrot endemic to Puerto Rica. They’re mostly green with blue wingtips and red feathering around the beak.
Fun Fact: This endangered parrot species almost went extinct in 1975, with a low of 13 individuals. Since then, recovery efforts have brought their number back up to 500 or so, with more in captive breeding programs.
Iguana
Iguanas are ancient-looking herbivorous lizards from the tropical regions of the Americas. They can grow up to 2m long and have elongated, whip-like tails. They often have a dewlap under the neck and the dorsal ridge is lined with elongated scales.
Fun Fact: The only remaining marine reptile is an Iguana. Marine iguanas make long dives to feed on algae off the coasts of the Galapagos.
‘I’iwi
The ʻiʻiwi is the commonest of the endemic birds of Hawai’i. it’s a small, red honeycreeper with a downward-curving orange beak and black wings.
Fun Fact: This species has a long history with the native peoples in Hawai’i, once being hunted for its feathers, which were used to make ceremonial cloaks and clothing.
Ili Pika
The Ili pika is a small Chinese mammal resembling a mouse or rabbit, with short, round ears and no tail. They grow to about 20cm long and usually weigh no more than 250 g.
Fun Fact: Pikas are the smallest members of the Lagomorph family, which makes rabbits and hares their closest relatives.
IMG Boa Constrictor
The Increased Melanism Gene (IMG) boa constrictor, is a breed of Colombian boa that can grow up to 4 metres long and is mostly black, often with streaks of colour throughout.
Fun Fact: This beautiful breed gets darker as it ages, sometimes losing all colour entirely after several years.
Immortal Jellyfish
The Immortal jellyfish is a tiny Cnidarian found in marine waters all over the world. They’re named for their ability to return to a juvenile polyp state, essentially ‘restarting’ their lifecycle and going through the motions again.
Fun Fact: It’s not known whether this process can go on indefinitely, but these jellies are the only species known to be able to do it.
Impala
Impalas are medium-sized antelopes from Sub-Saharan Africa. They’re agile, golden-brown, and often sport impressive, ridged horns that extend out and up from their heads. They stand just under a metre tall at the shoulder.
Fun Fact: Impalas have a symbiotic relationship with a bird called the oxpecker. The birds sit on the Impala, picking off ticks and other skin parasites from the Impala.
Imperial eagle
There are two eagles known as Imperial eagles. Until recently, these two large, dark brown eagles were thought to be the same species, but have since been split. They have a 2.2m wingspan and can weigh 4kg.
Fun Fact: The Eastern Imperial eagle has a range that extends into Southeastern Europe and Central Asia. Its close cousin, the Spanish Imperial eagle, is native only to Central and Southern Spain and nearby.
Imperial Moth
Imperial moths are some of the largest lepidopterans in the world. They come in various colours and sizes, up to 18cm across the wings, and some mix of yellow with red, brown, and purple.
Fun Fact: These moths waste no time getting to know one another. Upon emerging from their pupae at sunrise, they will be mating by the same night. Since they have no mouthparts, they need to hurry and won’t live long.
imperial pigeon
The Imperial pigeons are a genus of a very big pigeon, heavy, with a long tail and large mouths. There are 42 species in the genus, most eat fruit and seeds, and most live in Southern and Southeast Asia, New Guinea and Australia.
Fun Fact: These birds are well suited to archipelagos, as they can fly long distances in search of food and hop between islands. It’s not uncommon for one to fly over 30km across water to forage.
Inagua Woodstar
The Inagua woodstar, or lyre-tailed hummingbird is a small hummingbird from the Bahamas. It grows to about 8cm long, and males have iridescent green plumage with a reddish-purple throat. They have long, forked tails and a slender beak.
Fun Fact: The song of this bird isn’t yet available in common databases online, and is only described in writing as sounding like “wet, squeaky shoes”.
Inca dove
The Inca, or Mexican, dove is a small, grey dove from Costa Rica to the American Southwest. It grows to about 20cm long, is slender, and is covered in grey-brown feathers that have a darker outline, giving it a scaled appearance.
Fun Fact: This bird’s name may be an unintentional case of foreshadowing as it has never occurred in any of the lands formally inhabited by Incas, but is slowly expanding toward them.
Inca tern
The Inca tern is a dazzling South American tern species with a dark, slate-grey body, black head and wingtips, and a bright red beak and legs. They also sport a moustache-like pair of white feathers that extend to each side of their face.
Fun Fact: These birds flock together when feeding, with as many as 5000 birds all gathering around a source of prey.
Inchworm
Inchworms are the larval stage of the geometer moths. This huge family within Lepidoptera contains over 20,000 species. Their larvae are characterised by their locomotion, pulling up their back ends into a loop with their front, then extending themselves out again to move forward.
Fun Fact: The Latin name for this family comes from the idea that the caterpillars are measuring (meter) the earth (geo) as they walk along, inch by inch.
Indian bullfrog
The Indian bullfrog is a large frog, up to 17cm long. Both males and females are normally brownish green but males turn yellow in the breeding season and show off bright blue inflatable cheeks used as vocal sacs.
Fun Fact: These frogs have been used to great effect to reduce mosquito larvae in water bodies, greatly controlling their populations and protecting communities.
Indian Cobra
The Indian, or spectacled, cobra is one of the most iconic animals from the Indian subcontinent. These are relatively small cobras, usually no more than 1.5m long, but have a large and impressive hood with a distinctive, spectacled pattern on it.
Fun Fact: This species is one of the top four snakes in India responsible for the most deaths by snake bite.
Indian Elephant
The Indian elephant is a large subspecies of Asian elephant, with males growing up to 3.2m tall at the shoulder and weighing over 5 tonnes. Females are significantly smaller, at 2.5m, but still weigh over 4 tonnes. They’re native to mainland Asia.
Fun Fact: These massive animals are more closely related to woolly mammoths than their African counterparts.
Indian flying fox
The Indian flying fox, or greater Indian fruit bat, is a “flying fox” species of bat from the Indian subcontinent. These enormous bats are golden brown and fox-like in appearance, though often upside-down. They have dark, leathery wings that wrap around them as they roost.
Fun Fact: This species is one of the largest bats in the world and the largest in India. They have a wingspan of up to 1.5 m and can weigh 1.6 kg.
Indian Giant Squirrel
The Indian giant squirrel is an incredibly multi-coloured and huge tree squirrel from India. It’s got a body length of around 50cm and a tail of the same length and has a contrasting two or three-tone pattern of browns, reds and tans.
Fun Fact: This is an upper-canopy specialist, rarely if ever coming to the ground and typically roosting above 11m.
Indian jackal
The Indian, or Himalayan, jackal is a subspecies of the golden jackal native to the Indian subcontinent. It has intermixed fur with black and white on its back, ears and tail, and orange-brown legs and belly. Adults are a metre long and half a metre tall.
Fun Fact: This subspecies has been seen forming mutually beneficial relationships with tigers, who will tolerate the jackal sharing their kill in exchange for being alerted to possible prey.
Indian palm squirrel
The Indian palm squirrel is a chipmunk-like rodent from India and Sri Lanka. It has small, triangular ears, and a grey-brown body with white stripes down a darker back.
Fun Fact: This species is one of the few squirrels that doesn’t hibernate.
Indian python
The Indian python is an enormous nonvenomous constrictor from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It has dappled forest colouration, mixing browns and yellows on a cream background, and is similar in appearance to the Burmese python, but lighter.
Fun Fact: This is one of the largest snakes in the world. The heaviest specimen was 52 kg and the longest was 3.6 m.
Indian Red Scorpion
The Indian red scorpion is a highly venomous arachnid from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka. It’s 5cm to 9cm long, mostly orange, with a thick tail that becomes reddish brown toward the sting. This species eats invertebrates and the occasional lizard.
Fun Fact: This is one of the more dangerous species of scorpion, responsible for many human deaths, as its venom is highly toxic. Most victims are children.
Indian Rhinoceros
The Indian rhino is the second-largest species of rhinoceros, weighing over 2 tonnes and spanning an ever-declining range across the Northern part of the Indian subcontinent. It has a single horn on its nose, armoured skin, and warty plates over its shoulders and hind legs.
Fun Fact: While they don’t have tusks, Indian rhinos have a pair of elongated and sharpened lower incisors which are used for fighting along with the powerful horn on top.
Indian Star Tortoise
The Indian Star Tortoise is a pretty, but sadly threatened little tortoise species from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. They can live up to 55 years and display an impressively vibrant yellow and black pattern of stripes on their shell.
Fun Fact: Males and females differ in both size and shape. The males are smaller and have highly concave bellies to fit around the female’s shell.
Indianmeal Moth
The Indianmeal moth, or Indian meal moth, is a species of small moth found on every continent except Antarctica, named for its ability to get into Indian meal or cornmeal as a pest. It’s about a centimetre long and reddish brown.
Fun Fact: The larvae of this moth are particularly tenacious, able to chew through plastic and cardboard containers to get to a food source, which makes them a tricky pest to deal with.
Indigo bunting
The Indigo Bunting is a small, migratory passerine from the Americas, named for the stunning, iridescent blue feathers that the male possesses. They grow to about 12cm long and have robust seed-eating beaks.
Fun Fact: This species migrates mostly at night, using the stars to navigate all across the Gulf of Mexico.
Indigo Snake
Indigo snakes are a genus of large, non-venomous colubrids from the Americas. They’re robustly built with glossy dark scales, usually in a blue-black colour. They’re diurnal and feed mostly on small vertebrates, including other snakes.
Fun Fact: This genus, Drymarchon, means “Lord of the forest” and these snakes have been known to predate upon rattlesnakes.
Indochinese Tiger
The Indochinese tiger is a population of tigers native to Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand. It’s slightly darker and smaller than the Bengal and Siberian tigers, topping out at around 285cm long and 195 kg.
Fun Fact: This tiger population is so rare it’s uncertain how many there are in many countries. Reintroduction programs have been agreed upon between Cambodia and India, so it’s hopeful their numbers will begin to rise.
Indri
The Indri is a peculiar-looking lemur (even by lemur standards): it’s enormous, at up to 15 kg, has thick, black and white fur and the familiar, wide-eyed stare of its suborder is framed by a pair of laterally extended and tufted ears.
Fun Fact: Unlike other lemur species, this one barely has any tail at all but this doesn’t seem to negatively affect its arboreal nature.
Inland Taipan
The Inland taipan is a highly venomous elapid snake from Australia. Despite possibly having the most toxic venom of any reptile, this snake is shy and hesitant to strike. It occupies semiarid regions around Queensland and is olive-green in summer, and brown in winter.
Fun Fact: Aboriginal Australians had been trying to tell settlers about this snake for almost a hundred years before it was finally “discovered” in 1972.
Insect
Insects are a class of arthropods and the largest group in the phylum. Insects are characterised by a hard carbohydrate exoskeleton, a three-part body formation, antennae, and six jointed legs. They are found all over the world, in every biome except deep-water marine (as far as we know).
Fun Fact: Insects make up more than half of all animal species, and entomologists estimate there may be 10,000,000 yet to be discovered.
Io Moth
The Io moth is a very pretty Saturnid moth from North America. It has a 9cm wingspan and while females are uniformly brown, males are paler with vivid eyespots on their rear wings and orange fur down their backs.
Fun Fact: The caterpillars of this moth have a very painful stinging venom that can cause significant discomfort and local irritation when touched, though isn’t dangerous to humans.
Iridescent shark
The Iridescent shark is actually a species of bony fish from the shark catfish family. It’s native to the Mekong and grows up to 1.3m long and 45 kg in weight. While not sharks, they are iridescent, and have a sheen that gives them their name.
Fun Fact: These fish look much more like what they’re called as juveniles, with a more slender and shiny appearance. As they age, they look more like catfish and lose their shine.
Iriomote cat
The Iriomote cat is a leopard cat subspecies, known only to one Japanese island. This cat is said to be dark grey and light brown, with a white spot on each cheek. They grow up to 60cm long and can weigh up to 3.6 kg.
Fun Fact: This rare and elusive cat was only discovered to science in 1967, and since then researchers have been scrambling to figure out how to keep it alive.
Irish Elk
The Irish elk was an enormous deer genus from Pleistocene Eurasia, discovered in Ireland. Its most recent remains date to around 7000 years ago in Russia, and it would have stood two metres tall at the shoulder with antlers up to 3.5 metres across.
Fun Fact: Despite the name, it’s thought the closest relatives of this giant deer are the fallow deer in the Dama genus.
Irish Setter
The Irish setter is a popular breed of domestic dog, descended from working setter stock, but now more commonly used as a family pet. They’re medium-sized, often with long, red hair, around 70cm tall and live for about 12 years.
Fun Fact: These dogs do well with children and strangers but maintain certain hunting instincts that might cause problems when keeping them around small animals.
Irish Terrier
The Irish terrier is a small and energetic breed of domestic dog with a square head and rectangular body. They’re about 45 cm tall, usually brown to reddish brown with a dignified moustache of muzzle fur.
Fun Fact: This is one of the oldest terrier breeds, and was officially recognised in Dublin in 1879.
Irish Wolfhound
The Irish wolfhound is a formidable breed of domestic dog, revered for its huge size and hunting prowess. It’s a powerful, grey-haired giant of around 55 kg in weight and 80cm tall.
Fun Fact: These dogs have been respected by cultures all over the world for thousands of years, and were given as a gift to the Romans from Ireland as early as 391 AD, where they were used for hunting.
Irrawaddy Dolphin
The Irrawaddy dolphin is a peculiar cetacean from the coastal marine and freshwater systems of Southeast Asia. Unlike most dolphins, it has a blunted, porpoise-like nose, but weighs up to 200kg and grows to almost a metre long.
Fun Fact: This species is not a true river dolphin, and is rather a marine dolphin that has evolved to handle freshwater as well as saltwater.
Irukandji Jellyfish
The Irukandji jellyfish is the name given to several similar jellyfish found in the Northern coastal waters of Australia. They’re tiny but have an excruciating sting that can kill.
Fun Fact: This jellyfish even has stings on its bell, and human symptoms include up to several weeks of constant pain in joints, organs and muscles.
Isabelline Wheatear
The isabelline warbler is a medium-sized tree warbler from Northern and Western Africa. They’re delicate, rather plain-looking birds, with brown upperparts and a larger beak than their Eastern counterparts.
Fun Fact: While these birds are typically found in North Africa, they do sometimes make the hop over to Southern Europe after migrating back up from their Wintering range.
Isopods
Isopods are an order of arthropods and members of the crustacean subphylum. There are over 10,000 known species, just over half are found on land, and are found all over the world.
Fun Fact: There are terrestrial isopods, like woodlice, and aquatic ones, like the 40cm giant deep-water isopod from the depths of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
Ivory gull
The Ivory gull is a beautiful and unique species of small gull from the high Arctic. It has stunning white plumage with black legs and eyes and a grey beak with a yellow tip. It grows to about 45cm long.
Fun Fact: This tough little bird follows polar bears around to scavenge some of their kills, and can survive the harsh Arctic winters without migrating very far at all.
Ivory-billed woodpecker
The Ivory Billed woodpecker is the real-life Woody woodpecker. It’s a large and eccentric woodpecker species from North America. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been seen in the US since 1944 and in Cuba since 1987.
Fun Fact: This would have been the largest woodpecker species in the US, with a wingspan of 76cm and 53 cm in length.
Ivy Bee
The Ivy bee is a plasterer bee from Europe. They superficially resemble honeybees, with black and yellow bands across their abdomen and growing to about 13mm long.
Fun Fact: Unlike honeybees, these are solitary, and nest in clay-sandy soils. They do form aggregations of nests, sometimes with thousands of solitary bees nesting near one another.
Izu Thrush
Izu thrushes are colourful true thrushes from Japan, growing to just over 20cm long. They have a yellow eye ring and black back and tails. Their wings are brown and they have a rusty-red chest.
Fun Fact: This species is endemic to Japan but different populations from different islands show variations in the number of syllables in their calls, showing a form of dialect.
What Other Animals Begin With ‘I’?
That completes our list of animals that begin with the letter I.
Hopefully you’ve learned a few new ones, but are there any that we’re missing in our list that you would like to see covered?
If so, get in touch. Please see our Animal A-Z list for animals that start with different letters.