This page includes all animals that start with the letter K 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 kagu to kudu, read extraordinary facts about animals beginning with the letter K.
K
Kagu
Kai Ken
Kaka
Kakapo
Kakariki
Kakawahie
Kaki
Kalahari Lion
Kalahari Red Goat
Kalij Pheasant
Kaluga
Kaluga Sturgeon
Kamehameha Butterfly
Kamori Goat
Kanchil
Kangal Shepard Dog
Kangaroo
Kangaroo Island dunnart
Kangaroo Island echidna
Kangaroo Island emu
Kangaroo Island kangaroo
Kangaroo Island Koala
Kangaroo Mouse
Kangaroo Rat
Kankuamo marquezi
Kaokoveld Sand lizard
Kaokoveld Slender Mongoose
Kapenta
Kapuas Mud Snake
Karoo chat
Karoo korhaan
Karoo lark
Karoo prinia
Karoo rock elephant shrew (Elephantulus pilicaudus)
Karoo girdled lizard (Cordylus vittifer)
Karoo korhaan
Karoo sand snake (Pseudaspis cana)
Karoo Thrush
Katipo Spider
Katydid
Kaua’i ‘Ō‘ō
Kauaʻi cave wolf spider
Kauaʻi ʻakialoa
Kauaʻi nukupuʻu
Kauaʻi thrush
Kauri snail
Kawekaweau
Kea
Keagle
Keel Billed Toucan
Keelback
Kempholey night frog
Kemp’s spiny mouse
Keeshond
Keijia
Kelp Greenling
Kelso Jerusalem cricket
Kemp’s ridley
Kentucky Warbler
Kerama deer
Kermadec storm petrel
Kermode Bear
Kern Plateau salamander
Kern River rainbow trout
Kerodon
Kestrel
Keta Salmon
Key Deer
Keyhole Cichlid
Khao Manee
Khapra Beetle
Kiang
Kihansi spray toad
Kiko Goat
Kilimanjaro Mouse Shrew
Kilimanjaro shrew
Killdeer
Killer Clown Ball Python
Killer Whale
Killifish
Kinabalu Giant Earthworm
Kinabalu Giant Red Leech
Kinder Goat
King baboon spider
King Cobra
King colobus
King Crab
King Eider
King Mackerel
King Penguin
King Quail
King Rat Snake
King Salmon
King Shepherd
King Snake
King Vulture
Kingbird
Kingfisher
Kingklip
Kinkajou
Kipunji
Kirtland’s Snake
Kishu
Kissing Bug
Kissing Gourami
Kit Fox
Kite
Kitefin Shark
Kitti’s hog-nosed bat
Kittiwake
Kiwi
Kiyi
Klipspringer
Knifefish
Knight Anole
Koala
Kodiak Bear
Kodkod
Koi
Kokako
Kokanee Salmon
Komodo Dragon
Komondor
Kongamato
Kooikerhondje
Kookaburra
Koolie
Korean Jindo
Kori Bustard
Kouprey
Kowari
Krait
Kribensis
Krill
Kudu
Kudzu Bug
Kulan
Kultarr
Kusimanse
Kuvasz
Please see our Animal A-Z list for animals that start with different letters.
Animal Names That Start With K
Read on for an overview of each of the animals listed above that begin with the letter K.
Kagu
The Kagu is an unusual bird from New Caledonia, an island in the Pacific, East of Australia. It’s blue-grey, about 55cm long, and has long, orange legs. This bird might be the only member of its order.
Fun Fact: Kagus can fly, but barely. They prefer to walk around on the ground, foraging for insects.
Kai Ken
The Kai Ken is a medium-sized dog breed from Japan. It’s got a boxy stance with a curled tail and small, stiff ears. This breed is known to be brave and intelligent and was originally bred to hunt in rocky terrain.
Fun Fact: This is a very rare breed, even in Japan, and is one of only six Japanese breeds protected by the national dog breed recordkeeping body, Nippo.
Kākā
The kākā is one of New Zealand’s endemic parrot species. It’s about 45cm long and looks like a darker version of the Kea but spends more time in the trees. They’re brown in the face and head but darker and greenish in the rest of their plumage.
Fun Fact: This species of parrot relies heavily on honeydew, secreted by scale insects, especially when breeding. Competition for this resource with introduced wasp species might be causing it trouble.
Kākāpō
The Kākāpō is an unusual ground parrot species endemic to New Zealand. They have wide faces, which gives them the nickname “Owl parrot” and are mostly green with a yellow tinge. They grow to around 65cm long and make an echoing boom during mating season.
Fun Fact: This parrot species lives for up to 100 years, making it one of the longest-living bird species known.
kākāriki
The kākārikis are three members of a genus of New Zealand parakeets that are typically green with red face and rump markings. They’re the most common species of parakeet in the genus.
Fun Fact: Their name means “Small parrot”, the prefix Kaka- being commonly used for parrot species on the island.
Kākāwahie
The Kākāwahie is a recently-extinct species of honeycreeper from New Zealand. They were around 15cm long, and the males were almost entirely scarlet red.
Fun Fact: This fast little bird was unable to outrun the tide of extinction faced on the island. Introduced predators and diseases as well as habitat loss resulted in its disappearance sometime around the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Kakī
Thekakī is the local name for the black stilt, a wading bird from New Zealand. It’s black with a long, straight beak and orange legs.
Fun Fact: This species is clawing itself back from the brink, with a population decline to just 32 adults by 1984. It’s now estimated to contain around 150 in the wild, with a number still in captivity and being reintroduced every year.
Kalahari Lion
The Kalahari lion is a subspecies of African lion found in Southern and Eastern Africa. This subspecies commonly has a darker mane, and some have no mane at all. They’re also prone to producing a white morph, as seen in South Africa.
Fun Fact: A Kalahari lion holds the contention for heaviest wild lion ever recorded. It was shot as a livestock killer and weighed 360kg.
Kalahari Red
The Kalahari Red is a goat species from South Africa. It’s a bulky animal with a rounded face, wide nose, and more or less solid red fur. Males have swept-back horns and long beards.
Fun Fact: This breed of goat is very hardy against pests and parasites and its red coat helps to protect it from the scorching sun.
Kalij pheasant
The kalij pheasant is a Galliform from the Himalayan forests and thickets. Females are brown, males are bluish with white specks and a red face. They grow to about 60cm long and populations extend down to Western Thailand.
Fun Fact: This species now exists as an introduced population in Hawaii where it was brought as a game bird and is doing quite well
Kaluga
The Kaluga sturgeon, or river beluga, is an enormous freshwater fish from the Amur River basin. This river monster grows to a tonne or more in weight and can reach well over five meters long. It’s been hunted to almost extinction for its caviar.
Fun Fact: This sturgeon spends part of its time in salt water, returning to rivers to breed. These fish are voracious predators of other fish and can live almost 60 years.
Kamehameha Butterfly
The Kamehameha butterfly is a Vanessa species of butterfly native to Hawaii. Like the Admirals, it has mostly orange-brown wings with black and white markings at the edges and tips.
Fun Fact: Despite a reduction in its range, this butterfly species remains prevalent on the four major Hawaiian islands and is one of only two species endemic to Hawaii.
Kamori
The Kamori goat is a popular breed from Pakistan with a blotchy coat of browns and blacks. It’s mostly bred for milk but is very rare and expensive to buy. They have small, curved horns and extremely long ears.
Fun Fact: These goats are prized for their long ears, which in some cases can hang all the way to the floor. Relative to their body size, these might be the longest ears in the world.
Kanchil
The Kanchil, or lesser mouse-deer, is a tiny ungulate from Southeast Asia. It grows up to 2kg in weight and is around 45cm long, and as the name suggests looks like a cross between a deer and a mouse, though is neither.
Fun Fact: This little ungulate has a long history in local folklore as a troublemaker, yet the scientific world has some catching up to do to understand more about it.
Kangal Shepard
The Kangal shepherd is a large guardian dog breed from Turkey. It has a black mask and either brown or grey fur and has been traditionally used to keep wolves away from livestock.
Fun Fact: This breed has been used to reduce human-wildlife conflict in Southern and East Africa, as guardians against cheetahs. Revenge killings of cheetahs by farmers dropped significantly with the success of this dog.
Kangaroo
The Kangaroo is a large macropod from Australia. The largest of them can weigh 90 kg and use their elongated hind feet for locomotion and conflict. They’re grey, with long hare-shaped faces and ears and a long, powerful tail.
Fun Fact: There are four species commonly named kangaroos but no taxonomic distinction between
Kangaroo Island dunnart
The Kangaroo Island dunnart is a small insectivorous marsupial endemic to Kangaroo Island in Australia. It looks like a mouse with a triangular, pointed snout and large, black eyes. They’re about 18cm long, 10cm of which is tail.
Fun Fact: This is a recent discovery to science, only been recorded and described for about 50 years.
Kangaroo Island echidna
The Kangaroo Island echidna is a species of echidna endemic to Kangaroo Island in Australia. It’s spiny, with a long, slender snout and grows to about 45cm long. They eat insects, which they access using powerful front claws.
Fun Fact: These little monotremes live for almost 50 years in the wild.
Kangaroo Island emu
The Kangaroo Island emu was a dwarf emu species native to the island that would have lived in the middle of the forest until it became extinct in around 1827 as a result of human-caused habitat destruction and hunting.
Fun Fact: DNA evidence suggests that this population of the tiny emu was just a subspecies of the much larger mainland emu, having shrunk in size after being isolated on the island around 10,000 years ago.
Kangaroo Island kangaroo
The Kangaroos on Kangaroo Island are a subspecies of the Western Grey kangaroo, isolated from their original population by thousands of years. They’re smaller, stockier and browner than their mainland cousins.
Fun Fact: The island was named after the population of kangaroos that were found there by British explorers, who were so relieved to be eating fresh meat that they named the island in their honour.
Kangaroo Island Koala
The Kangaroo Island koala is a large, introduced koala population, brought to the island in the ‘20s to help support a declining population on the mainland. They’ve grown to be generally heavier than their mainland counterparts.
Fun Fact: By the ‘90s the population had grown too big, so sterilisation work was done to reduce their number. Over 13,000 koalas were treated with contraception or sterilised, making this one of the largest such programs in the world.
Kangaroo Mouse
The really fun-to-say genus Microdipodops contains two species of jumping mice called Kangaroo mice in Nevada. The pale and dark species are named for their fur, which is brown to black, and they grow to about 15cm including a 9cm tail.
Fun Fact: These small rodents are known to both hop and walk bipedally.
Kangaroo Rat
Kangaroo rats are a relative of the kangaroo mice and are small, nocturnal rodents from North America and grow to about 140g. They’re usually golden brown with round ears and large, black eyes.
Fun Fact: These small animals can jump up to 2.75m in a straight line and change direction rapidly.
Kankuamo marquezi
Kankuamo marquezi is a single species of tarantula found in the Sierra Nevada region of Northern Colombia. It’s about 8cm across, dark or black and covered in short hairs.
Fun Fact: The irritating hairs on this tarantula are unlike almost all other types, and look like tiny, straight daggers with barbs on the tips. This is the first spider to have been discovered with this – the seventh – type of urticating hair.
Kaokoveld sand lizard
The Kaokoveld sand lizard is a Namibian species of wall lizard with a 5cm long body. The tail extends almost three times this length behind it, and the body is yellow and spotted.
Fun Fact: These lizards love desert gravel plains but are not very well studied so much about them remains a mystery.
Kaokoveld Slender Mongoose
The Kaokoveld, or Angolan slender mongoose is a black or dark brown mongoose species from Namibia and Angola. It loves dry, rocky areas where there are lots of scorpions and insects to eat and grows to about 30cm long.
Fun Fact: This species sits right in the middle of the food chain, predating upon a range of smaller animals from invertebrates to mammals and in turn providing food for larger predators like eagles.
Kaokoveld Springbok
The Kaokoveld springbok is a beautiful antelope from Southern Africa with ornate horns, a creamy white face and golden brown body and a creamy belly.
Fun Fact: This is the largest of the three subspecies of springbok and has the best-looking horns of the lot.
Kapenta
The Kapenta, or Tanganyika sardine is a small, freshwater herring-like fish from Lake Tanganyika in Zambia and Laka Malawi in Mozambique and Tanzania. They’re related to the much larger Nile Perch, but significantly smaller at around 10cm long.
Fun Fact: These fish make up the majority of the biomass of pelagic fish in Lake Malawi and are significant to human and wildlife populations that rely on them.
Kapuas Mud Snake
The Kapuas mud snake is a newly discovered species of Indo-Australian water snake that inhabits marshlands around Borneo in Indonesia. It grows to around 150cm long, is slightly venomous and is named after the Kapuas river.
Fun Fact: This snake changes colour when stressed, as researchers found out when it was discovered in 2006. A very dark individual turned pale when put into a bucket.
Karoo chat
The Karoo Chat is an old-world flycatcher from Southwestern Africa. It grows to about 18cm long and has a dark head and back with a grey belly and dark legs.
Fun Fact: These little birds mate for life and make cute little cup nests under bushes on the ground.
Karoo girdled lizard (Cordylus vittifer)
The Karoo girdled lizard is a medium-sized lizard from Southern Africa whose scientific name translates to “dry” or “barren”, on account of its choice of habitats. It’s dark, often with yellow spots and grows to about 12cm long.
Fun Fact: This species is ovoviviparous, which means that the mother gives birth to live young after holding the eggs inside her to hatch a the end of a year-long gestation.
Karoo korhaan
The Karoo korhaan, or Karoo bustard, is a small bustard from Southern Africa. They’re about 60cm long, grey-brown with a black chin, and mostly eat plant matter but will also consume insects and other small animals.
Fun Fact: In classic bustard fashion, these are exceptionally heavy birds. Despite being so small, they can weigh over 1600g.
Karoo lark
The Karoo lark is a medium-sized lark with a patterned brown plumage and no crest. They dig in sandy regions to feed on insects
Fun Fact: When mating, the male Karoo lark will take off from his perch and show off a 30m high flapping display with dangling legs to attract a female.
Karoo prinia
The Karoo prinia is a small passerine bird from Southern Africa. It grows to no more than 15cm long, has a long tail and is mostly brown with speckled lighter underparts. It inhabits semi-desert and scrub.
Fun Fact: This species shows no sexual dimorphism in colour; both the males and females are relatively dull.
Karoo rock elephant shrew
The Karoo Rock elephant shrew, also known as the Karoo rock sengi, is a new species of elephant shrew, discovered in 2008, and is described from only 17 known specimens from five points in South Africa. It inhabits rocky slopes in mountainous areas.
Fun Fact: This little-known species is endemic to the Nama Karoo, an area rich with unique and rare wildlife and plant species.
Karoo sand snake
The Karoo sand snake is a small and slender snake from Southwestern Africa of around 50cm long, brown with large eyes, a pale belly, and a whip-like tail. They’re fast and agile lizard hunters on hard, stony ground.
Fun Fact: This is a harmless snake to humans, though it is mildly venomous. In much of its range, it’s the most common snake around.
Karoo Thrush
The Karoo thrush is a relative of the Olive thrush found in Southwestern Africa. It grows to 24cm long and is mostly grey with a yellow beak, which sets it apart from the Olive thrush.
Fun Fact: This species was often thought of as a subspecies of the olive thrush but has been granted its own species name, Turdus smithi, after Sir Andrew Smith.
Katipo
The Katipo spider is an endangered widow spider from New Zealand. Like the redback and black widow, it’s bulbous with a red pattern on a black abdomen. Possibly the most dangerous animal to New Zealand, bites are rare and no deaths have been reported since the ‘20s.
Fun Fact: Mating in widow spiders is a notoriously dangerous affair for the smaller males in many species, but not this one. Katipo females don’t appear to be interested in killing their mates.
Katydid
The katydids are a family of long-horned grasshoppers of bush crickets. They’re generally nocturnal and camouflaged, contributing to the deafening racket that comes from the rainforest at night. There are over 8000 species, ranging from 5mm to 13cm long.
Fun Fact: Katydids are found all over the world, but the Amazon basin has around 2000 species alone.
Kaua’i ‘Ō‘ō
The Kauaʻi ʻōʻō was the last remaining member of the family of Hawaiian honeyeaters that went extinct around the turn of the ‘90s. It was perhaps the smallest of the ʻōʻōs, reaching about 20cm long, and would feed on the nectar from lobelias.
Fun Fact: This entire family is now extinct, the first extinction of an entire bird family in more than 500 years.
Kauaʻi cave wolf spider
The Kauaʻi cave wolf spider is an obligate cave spider only known in a small region of lava flow cave in the Hawaiian islands. Only six populations are known, reaching around 2cm long, and looking reddish-brown in colour.
Fun Fact: Like other wolf spiders, this species hunts on foot, but unlike most, it is slow-moving and delicate with its motions. It chooses to ambush prey in the dark without building a web.
Kauaʻi ʻakialoa
The Kaua‘i ‘akialoa is a possibly extinct honeycreeper from Hawaii and perhaps the most specialized of the family with an exceptionally curved beak that’s half as long as its body. They were olive green, or slightly yellow and would feed on nectar.
Fun Fact: As with the rest of the Hawaiian honeycreepers, it’s thought this one is probably extinct. It was last seen in the ‘60s.
Kauri snail
Kauri snails are a genus of large, air-breathing land snails from New Zealand. They’re typically deep green and around 7cm wide. They have a bluish-black foot and live in litter among the woods and shrubland.
Fun Fact: These are carnivorous snails, feeding on insects and earthworms, and using a 2.5cm radula with over 100 teeth on it.
Kawekaweau
The Kawekaweau is a mystery animal from New Zealand, still undiscovered by science. Māori reports of an animal, “About two feet long, and as thick as a man’s wrist; colour brown, striped longitudinally with dull red.” It has yet to be officially described.
Fun Fact: It appears this mystery animal may be an enormous tree gecko, recently extinct. It would have been twice as long and several times heavier than the largest living gecko species.
Kea
The kea is a large parrot from the South Island of New Zealand. It’s 48cm long, olive green with a slender hooked beak, which is used to eat seeds, fruit, and sometimes carrion.
Fun Fact: This terrifying little bird was confirmed to use its sharp, hooked beak to prey on sheep, climbing onto and ripping into the animal to feed on it while it’s still alive. Sheep would often die from the wounds.
Keagle
The Keagle is an Australian breed of domestic dog resulting from a Beagle and a King Charles spaniel. The product is a large-eyed, floppy-eared family pet that’s like a beagle without the obsessive hunting drive.
Fun Fact: The beagle has one of the most developed senses of smell of any dog, only matched by the Basset and bloodhound. Mixing in some Spaniels appears to have diluted some of the obsessive sniffing that comes with this.
Keel-Billed Toucan
The Keel-billed toucan is an incredibly colourful bird from Latin America. It’s half a metre long including a huge and brightly painted beak of reds, greens and oranges. It has a yellow throat, black plumage and a red rump.
Fun Fact: Despite being from a separate lineage entirely, toucans have evolved to fill a similar niche as hornbills in the rest of the world. They have a similar diet and similarly exaggerated beaks as a result.
Keelback
The keelbacks are a genus of roughly 30 species of colubrid snake from Southeast Asia. Some species are able to collect toxins from toads they eat and secrete them in their saliva, making them one of the few ‘poisonous’ snakes.
Fun Fact: Like the boomslang in Africa, the venom of these snakes has been dangerously underestimated and there have been confirmed fatalities as a result of a keelback’s haemorrhagic venom.
Kempholey night frog
The Kempholey night frog is a species of robust frog from India. It’s small and brown, around 2.5cm long, and lives in wet forest landscapes.
Fun Fact: This tiny frog is one of the smallest known in India and makes up one of more than 30 species of night frogs in the country.
Kemp’s spiny mouse
Kemp’s spiny mouse is an African Murid from Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania. They’re golden brown, pretty mouselike, and like a lizard shedding its tail, they can slough off bits of skin when caught, in order to escape.
Fun Fact: This species is one of two known mammals capable of regenerating lost skin tissue. Instead of scar tissue forming, they can regrow skin tissue with hair follicles, sweat glands and full networks of blood vessels.
Keeshond
The Keeshond is a medium-sized spitz breed with a big fluffy coat and an eye mark of black fur. They’re popular in The Netherlands, having traditionally spent a lot of time on Dutch barges.
Fun Fact: The characteristic mask on this breed is known as its spectacles, and is said to draw attention to the animal’s intelligence.
Keijia
The Keijia are a genus of tangle-web spiders found worldwide, usually bright yellow with a touch of black mottling and no more than 2cm long.
Fun Fact: The Keijia genus is now defunct, being replaced with Platnickina as a replacement name since 2014.
Kelp Greenling
The Kelp greenling is a species of greenling fish from the Eastern Pacific. They grow to a maximum of about 60cm long and around 2kg in weight and they’re orange-brown with blue-white specks or spots.
Fun Fact: These fish grow up fast, reaching almost full size in the first three years and then slowing down and living long, 25-year lives as adults.
Kelso Jerusalem cricket
Kelso Jerusalem crickets are large orthopterans found in the Kelso duns in the US. They’re flightless, and little-known animals, found in spider burrows, feeding on the young spiders.
Fun Fact: Jerusalem crickets are not true crickets, and instead make up two genera in the family of close relatives of crickets. They’re also called potato bugs.
Kemp’s ridley turtle
The Kemp’s ridley sea turtle is a tiny, endangered sea turtle from the Gulf of Mexico. They have pale, creamy yellow skin and a dark, grey-brown shell with horizontal stripes.
Fun Fact: These are the smallest sea turtles in the world, growing up to around 60cm in length and living for up to 30 years.
Kentucky Warbler
The Kentucky warbler is a very smart little bird, mostly yellow with an olive-green back, pink legs and black masking around its face. It’s about 13cm long and forages for insects in the forest understory.
Fun Fact: These clever insectivores will watch raiding ants for the invertebrates that get flushed out before swooping down and stealing the kill from the ants.
Kerama deer
The Kerama deer are native only to the Kerama islands off the coast of Japan and are a very small subspecies of Sika deer, weighing up to 75kg. They’re darker than the mainland relatives, with smaller antlers.
Fun Fact: This species was reduced to just 135 animals in the ‘90s and is now slowly making a comeback after strict protections were put in place.
Kermadec storm petrel
The Kermadec storm petrels are a group of birds from the Kermadec Islands in the South Pacific. They are grey above with dark-grey flight feathers and tail and white underneath.
Fun Fact: These birds evaded deeper understanding for more than 100 years, the population only known from a few washed-up corpses or shot at sea. Only in 2006 was a breeding colony discovered.
Kermode Bear
The Kermode bear, or spirit bear, is an American black bear subspecies from British Columbia. Most look like other black bears, but between 100 and 500 of them are white.
Fun Fact: As you’d expect, a white bear holds a significant place in local oral tradition. They’re also better at hunting salmon that have not evolved to fear white bears and are too busy looking for black and brown ones.
Kern Plateau salamander
The Kern Plateau salamander is a long, slender salamander from a very small patch of pine and fir forests in California. It’s orange-brown with a body that looks longer than it needs to be and bulging, froggy eyes.
Fun Fact: This salamander uses the gecko defence, whereby it releases its tail which wriggles distractingly in the face of a threat. The tail can grow back after being used.
Kern River rainbow trout
The Kern River rainbow trout is endemic to the Kern River area in California. It’s a very pretty fish with iridescent greens, a red lateral line and a green-yellow belly.
Fun Fact: The Kern River rainbow trout is a very small subspecies of the rainbow trout found only in this location and yet is one of three subspecies in the Kern River.
Kerodon
Kerodon is a genus of South American rock cavies from the semiarid regions of Brazil. These are 1kg cavies that look a bit like rock hyraxes and grow up to 40cm long.
Fun Fact: These animals are relatives of the common pet guinea pig and share their name but are more closely related to the capybaras.
Kestrel
Kestrels are small and agile falcons that grow to around 30cm long and are well known for hovering above fields looking for mice and other small prey.
Fun Fact: Kestrels in the US and Australia are sometimes called sparrowhawks, but are members of the true falcon genus: Falco.
Keta Salmon
The Keta salmon is a migratory Pacific salmon species also known as the dog salmon or chum salmon. It has a deep body and is silvery-blue when in the ocean but changes colour to a darker olive green when returning to the river.
Fun Fact: This species has the longest natural range of any Pacific salmon species. They are found in the ocean from Japan to California.
Key Deer
The Key deer is a subspecies of white-tailed deer from the Florida Keys. It’s smaller than any other subspecies at only 75cm tall and up to 35kg and has reddish-brown to grey fur.
Fun Fact: These deer are very used to human presence, having little to no fear, and happily cohabiting on the islands.
Keyhole Cichlid
The Keyhole Cichlid is native to the clear, coastal creeks and tributaries from Venezuela to French Guyana. It’s a small, tan-coloured fish with a black spot on its upper flank. This species is popular in aquariums for being cute and hardy.
Fun Fact: It’s said this fish can change colour when startled, becoming blotchy and hiding in rocks and logs.
Khao Manee
The Khao Manee, or diamond eye cat, is an ancient Asian cat breed from Thailand. They are bred to be clean white, and some have blue or dichromatic eye colouration.
Fun Fact: This might be the rarest breed of cat in the world, once owned by Siam royals, now fetching very high prices from cat fanatics.
Khapra Beetle
The Khapra beetle, or cabinet beetle, is a tiny, hairy brown beetle originating from Southeast Asia but now found worldwide. It grows to only 3mm long and prefers hot, dry conditions.
Fun Fact: This beetle is considered one of the 100 invasive species worldwide. This is a very hardy beetle that can go without food for a long time and can make people sick when consumed along with grains or other dry goods infested with it.
Kiang
The Kiang is the largest of the wild asses. It looks a lot like a regular ass, only bigger. Males can reach 400kg and stand over 2m tall, and both males and females are dark grey to reddish brown on top and lighter underneath.
Fun Fact: These are very curious animals, and early accounts of them from explorers in Tibet talk of how they approach very close to investigate travellers.
Kihansi spray toad
The Kihansi spray toad is a small toad species endemic to Tanzania. Large females reach around 3cm long and they have yellow-brown skin. These toads only exist in captivity now, after having been declared extinct in the wild.
Fun Fact: Unlike most toads, this species gives birth to live young, rather than laying eggs. The name comes from the water spray from moving rivers that the toad relied upon to survive.
Kiko
The Kiko is a domestic breed of goat from New Zealand bred for a fast rate of growth and general toughness. They have beautiful wide, spiralled horns and can be anywhere from black to golden brown and white.
Fun Fact: This is a relatively new breed from the ‘90s, created from breeding random feral goat females with males from Angli-Nubian stock
Kilimanjaro Mouse Shrew
The Kilimanjaro mouse shrew is a shrew from the genus Myosorex found around Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. African mouse shrews are a little-known shrew genus that prefers montane or Afro-temperate habitats.
Fun Fact: The Kilimanjaro shrew is one of many such shrews trapped by a slim temperature tolerance at a specific altitude on the mountain.
Kilimanjaro Shrew
The Kilimanjaro shrew is a small rodent in the shrew family, of the genus Crocidura, found in Kenya and Tanzania. It’s a member of the white-toothed shrews, a diverse group of African rodents.
Fun Fact: Despite being a tiny and unrepresented group of mammals the genus Crocidura contains more mammal species than any other genus at 180.
Killdeer
The Killdeer is a large American plover species, not known to harm deer at all, but instead named after the anti-deer hate speech it sounds like it’s shouting. It’s almost 30cm long, plover-shaped, and inhabits coastal wetlands, beach habitats, and coastal fields from northern South America up to Alaska.
Fun Fact: Early life for this species is a challenge, and more than half of the eggs are predated upon before hatching. Young Killdeer are born ready to rock and can walk almost immediately.
Killer Clown Ball Python
The world of ball python morphs is one of puns and odd fusions. The Killer Clown is a lemon-yellow morph with pretty brown patterning, created by blending super pastel and clown morphs.
Fun Fact: Ball python morphs like this are so common because of the sheer number of breeders on the topic. This species is easy to work with and docile, so breeding them is a common hobby.
Killer Whale
The Killer Whale, or Orca, is the largest dolphin species and possibly the world’s only true apex predator. Orcas are enormous animals, weighing up to four tonnes, and live in oceans worldwide, killing sharks, seals, whales and fish for food.
Fun Fact: Orcas have a complex vocal language and an enormous prefrontal cortex, suggesting that they are one of the most intelligent animals on the planet.
Killifish
The Killifish are an order of bony fish found in fresh or brackish waters in the Americas and are usually no more than 5cm long, but can reach 15cm in some species.
Fun Fact: These are hard to killifish, and are adapted to ephemeral waters in which their habitat dries up periodically. The eggs of most killifish can survive periods of partial dehydration.
Kinabalu Giant Earthworm
The Kinabalu Giant Earthworm is a 70 cm long annelid worm. It is grey-bluish and lives in burrows in the soft soils in the Bornean forests, around 3,000 m above sea level.
Fun Fact: You’d think an earthworm this massive would have little to fear, but unfortunately, the Kinabalu giant red leech is equally huge and feeds on this animal.
Kinabalu Giant Red Leech
The Kinabalu giant red leech is a terrifying and bright red leech from Borneo that grows up to 50cm long and feeds on giant earthworms found in the same region.
Fun Fact: These leeches are true land leeches, and will engage in gripping chases with their chosen prey, the giant Kinabalu earthworm, which they will chase into burrows and consume.
Kinder
The Kinder is a domestic breed of American goat from Washington. It’s a mix between American pygmy goats and Nubians and is usually dark to black with a sturdy body of around 50 to 60kg.
Fun Fact: While bred in the US, this is essentially a tropical goad breed so it will mate and reproduce all year round.
King baboon spider
The King baboon spider is a rusty brown African tarantula that can grow up to 20cm long. These are large and aggressive Old-World tarantulas with a painful bite but are not medically significant.
Fun Fact: This is one of the few tarantulas that will hiss at you in self-defence. By rubbing their back legs together, they can create a scary sound to ward off predators.
King Cobra
The King cobra is a highly venomous elapid snake from Asia. It’s extremely long, with olive green scales and black and white bands across it. As with other “King” snakes, this one routinely eats other snakes.
Fun Fact: This species is not a true cobra, and occupies a different genus. It is, however, the longest venomous snake, at up to 6 meters long, and still just as dangerous.
King colobus
The King Colobus is a large black and white colobus monkey species from West Africa. They get to about 10kg in weight and have dark grey fur with a long white tail and lighter highlights.
Fun Fact: These are not as contrasting in their colouration as other black and white colobus species, and can easily be told apart by just having highlighted whiskers and lacking a tail tuft.
King Crab
The King Crabs are a family of large, red crustaceans found in oceans all over the world. The largest of them reaches over 2 meters across and can weigh over 8kg.
Fun Fact: These are not true crabs, and are one of the examples of how many crustaceans turn into crab-shaped animals over time. They’re likely related to hermit crabs, a different line of crustaceans.
King Eider
The King eider is a large and colourful sea duck found all across the cooler regions of the Northern Hemisphere. They grow to 70cm long and weigh as much as 2.2kg. Male breeding plumage is mostly black on the body with a buff-tinged white breast and multicoloured head.
Fun Fact: These ducks can likely live for at least 20 years. The oldest on record was shot almost 19 years after being banded.
King Mackerel
The King mackerel, or kingfish is a large mackerel species from the Atlantic. It grows to about 14kg on average but has been recorded at 40kg. It’s migratory, with an elongated and streamlined body and symmetrical tail.
Fun Fact: A large female king mackerel can release several million eggs in one spawning event, the vast majority of which will get eaten.
King Penguin
The King penguin is a large penguin species from the South Atlantic and South Indian Oceans. It has an orange face and lower beak, a black face with a grey hood and back, and a white belly. They grow to about a metre tall and weigh up to 18kg.
Fun Fact: Groups of King penguin chicks are called a creche and involve enormous, brown, fluffy birds that tend to look very disappointed with something.
King Quail
The ironically-named King quail is the smallest true quail species, originating from China and Southeast Asia and looking almost spherical with a blue-grey plumage and a rusty red belly and rump.
Fun Fact: These little foragers are very tidy birds, said to be excellent at cleaning up in captivity, keeping the bottom of their aviary in pristine condition.
King Rat Snake
The King rat snake is a large but harmless colubrid from Southeast Asia. That is unless you’re another snake. This 2.5m long brown constrictor will feed on even venomous species found in its range.
Fun Fact: This species doesn’t have venom but it does release the contents of its anal glands when bothered, lending to its local nickname that translates to “Stinking goddess”.
King Salmon
The King salmon is the largest species of Pacific salmon, also commonly called the Chinook salmon. They’re native to the North Pacific from Alaska to California but have been introduced elsewhere too. They’re blue-green, red, or purple on the back and head, with silvery sides and grow up to 60kg in weight.
Fun Fact: The males of this salmon species grow a beak and canine teeth during mating season, changing dramatically in their appearance.
King Shepherd
King shepherds are an American breed of giant domestic dog resulting from the mixing of German shepherds and Shiloh shepherds. The results are a large and stocky dog who are loyal and generally calm animals.
Fun Fact: These gentle giants have thick double coats that shed a lot. Owners need special brushes and even dog vacuums to ensure their dogs don’t get tangled.
Kingsnake
The Kingsnakes are a genus of nonvenomous colubrid snakes, named for their habit of killing and eating other snake species. They are medium-sized snakes, ranging from 60cm to 1.5m, and often come in frightening colour patterns mimicking much more dangerous snakes.
Fun Fact: The scarlet kingsnake looks a lot like the deadly coral snake, and its identification can be helped by the rhyme, “Red on yellow kill a fellow, red on black venom lack”, referring to the order of its bands.
King Vulture
The King vulture is a colourful New World vulture from tropical lowland forests reaching from southern Mexico to northern Argentina. Its back is grey and white, but its head is a vibrant mix of oranges, yellows, blues and reds.
Fun Fact: This vulture is the largest of the New World vultures after the two American condor species, with a wingspan of around 2m and standing around 80cm tall.
Kingbird
The Kingbirds are a genus of tyrant flycatchers from the Americas. There are thirteen species, most are grey or slightly yellow and some, like the scissor-tailed flycatcher, have very long tails.
Fun Fact: These are very tough and territorial little birds, aggressively chasing off birds much larger than themselves to defend their hunting grounds.
Kingfisher
Kingfishers are a diverse family of small predatory birds found worldwide. They are well known for being small and spectacularly colourful but are sometimes large and black and white. Many are fish eaters, but others feed on frogs and even small mammals.
Fun Fact: Both the largest and smallest kingfishers are from Africa. The smallest being 10cm long and the largest standing at 46cm.
Kingklip
The kingclip is a species of bottom-dwelling cusk eel from around the Southern African coast. They grow to 1.8 meters long and look like tailless, finless fish.
Fun Fact: The fins on this fish are joined along its body, giving it an eel-like appearance, but it’s not closely related to true eels, and is more closely related to pearlfish.
Kinkajou
Kinkajous, sometimes known as honey bears, are forest-dwelling raccoon relatives from Central and South America. They have prehensile tails that take their total length to about 1.3m. Their fur is olive brown to yellow and they have long, extendable tongues.
Fun Fact: While kinkajous have teeth that resemble other carnivorous animals in their order, they get 90% of their calories from fruits. Their teeth are used to great effect when biting in self-defence.
Kipunji
The Kipunji is a highland mangabey from Tanzania. They’re light to medium-brown and grow to 16kg and are about a metre long.
Fun Fact: These monkeys make some very strange noises, often described as “honk barks” and “Whoop gobbles”.
Kirtland’s Snake
Kirtland’s snake is a nonvenomous colubrid from North America. They’re small and slender, reaching no more than half a meter in length, and grey-brown in colour with dark spots running down the back.
Fun Fact: When upset, unlike other species that like to appear larger, this snake compresses its body into a very thin stick and holds itself rigid.
Kishu
The Kishu is an old Japanese breed of medium-sized dog, bred for boar and deer hunting. It weighs up to 27kg and stands at around half a metre tall. Most of them are white, but there are other colour morphs. They have a stocky body and short, pointed ears.
Fun Fact: Legends around this breed say that it is descended from the highly-revered Honshu wolf, the last remaining Pleistocene wolf that has been extinct since 1905.
Kissing Bug
The kissing bugs are a subfamily of a generally predatory family of true bugs, but the majority of these ones feed on vertebrate blood. They can be up to 2cm long, shield-shaped, and have piercing mouthparts for feeding.
Fun Fact: These bugs get their name from their habit of feeding around the mouths of people. Unfortunately, these ‘kisses’ can spread Chagas disease.
Kissing Gourami
The kissing Gourami, or kissing fish, are a popular family of fishes known for their large lips. They have a boxy body with a head that tapers to a point and terminates with protruding lips covered in little teeth. They’re either greeny-silver or pink in colour.
Fun Fact: These fish have a labyrinth organ that allows them to breathe air by gulping it from the surface.
Kit Fox
The Kitfox is a very sharp-looking little canid from the US and Northern Mexico. It lives in arid environments and is one of the smallest foxes in the world, weighing less than 3kg and has large, furry ears.
Fun Fact: This species is very closely related to the Swift fox, and was considered by some to be the same species. The two hybridise in areas where their ranges overlap.
Kite
Kites are very large raptorial birds from various genera across three Accipitriform subfamilies. There’s no strict taxonomic definition, and this name is given to multiple different species, but they’re usually large, with a wedge, or V-shaped tail.
Fun Fact: Kites have a long history of representation in mythology. In Tagalog history, a kite sent the sea to war with the sky, creating land.
Kitefin Shark
The Kitefin is a small, fairly deep-water benthic shark species found in warm waters worldwide. It grows to about 1.5 meters long and predates upon both smaller and larger prey, using its powerful bite to take chunks out of bigger victims.
Fun Fact: This shark is the largest known vertebrate to produce bioluminescence. It shines light down from its belly, either to illuminate the seafloor or to camouflage itself.
Kitti’s hog-nosed bat
Kitti’s hog-nosed bat is a tiny species of bat with a distinctive nose. It grows to about 3cm long and lives in caves in Southeast Asia. It has large ears and small eyes and is usually grey to reddish brown.
Fun Fact: This is the smallest species of bat and perhaps the smallest mammal known, being shorter than the lightest mammal, the Etruscan shrew.
Kittiwake
Kittiwakes are lovely-looking gulls of about medium size, with grey wings, white bodies and yellow beaks. There are two species: the black-legged and red-legged, both found in North America, while only the red-legged species is found in Europe.
Fun Fact: These relatively small gulls are usually first on the scene when there’s food about and have to fast before they’re chased off by the larger species.
Kiwi
Kiwis are five species of extraordinary flightless birds from New Zealand. They’re plump and round with a long, slender beak and range from 45cm tall to around 25 cm tall in the largest and smallest species, respectively.
Fun Fact: Kiwis are the smallest of the ratites, but they make a terrifying screech to make up for it. They also have the smallest eyes relative to their body mass of any bird.
Kiyi
The Kiyi is a deepwater salmonid fish found in freshwater lakes of North America. It grows to about 25cm long and is silvery pink or purple, with lighter scales on the belly.
Fun Fact: This species has large eyes and a well-developed lateral line. It’s thought they communicate with one another via touch when shrouded in the darkness of the deep waters.
Klipspringer
The Klipspringer is a small, robust antelope with the body of a goat and a cute little triangular head with spiny horns. They’re about a metre long and weigh up to 20kg, but are usually smaller. Their fur is grey to reddish-brown.
Fun Fact: These little guys make enormous dung piles of up to a metre tall. They do this to put a physical mark on the borders of their territories.
Knifefish
The knifefishes are an order of South American freshwater fish known for being able to produce electricity to detect fish. There are many species, most diverse in large river systems and floating meadows.
Fun Fact: The unique method of locomotion found in these fishes allows them to swim backwards as easily as they can swim forwards.
Knight Anole
The Knight anole is a very large anole species from Cuba. They’re primarily arboreal, preferring mangrove, savanna or gardened habitats, and are long, slender, very green lizards of around up to 50cm in length.
Fun Fact: This species is a bold defender of its territory, opening its mouth wide and turning even brighter green in the face of a threat.
Koala
The Koala, or Koala bear, is a grumpy little marsupial from Australia that spends most of its time up in trees. Koalas eat things that most other animals can’t, and they accomplish this with a combination of brute force and stupidity. They’re grey, bear-like, and have fluffy ears and cute black noses.
Fun Fact: Koalas are very dumb animals. They have very small and smooth brains that they barely use and that make up 0.2% of their body weight.
Kob
The kob is a relative of the waterbuck from the savannas of East Africa across equatorial Africa to the West. It looks like a bulky Impala, standing at a mature tall and weighing up to 100kg. It’s golden to reddish brown with a white throat patch.
Fun Fact: Female kob herds can number in the thousands. Migratory herds are led by the females, even when there are males present.
Kodiak Bear
The Kodiak bear is one of the largest bears on Earth, reaching up to twice the size of a grizzly bear. The largest reaches almost 700 kg and stands over 3.4 m tall when bipedal. They are comparable in size to polar bears.
Fun Fact: The Kodiak bear is considered to be even more aggressive than the infamous Grizzly, but being more isolated, conflicts with people are much rarer.
Kodkod
The Kodkod is a small American felid found mostly in Chile. It’s brownish, with dark spots and a round, kitty face. Adults are half a metre long and typically weigh no more than 2.5 kg.
Fun Fact: Like Jaguars, the kodkods exhibit melanism, and a rare, black morph can sometimes be seen.
Koi
Koi are a coloured version of the common carp, traditionally bred in Japan for their intricate patterns. There are now over 100 varieties, popular in outdoor pools all over the world.
Fun Fact: In Japanese, the fish are known as brocaded carp, on account of their delicate and decorative scale patterns, resembling traditional woven fabrics.
Kōkako
The Kōkako is a stunning dark bird from New Zealand with slate-grey plumage and a distinctive blue wattle under the beak. They spent most of their time on the ground, eating fruits, leaves and invertebrates.
Fun Fact: Paired Kōkakos sing an incredible duet for an hour every morning to reinforce their bond before starting the day.
Kokanee Salmon
The Kokanee salmon is a variant of sockeye salmon that doesn’t migrate into the ocean. The largest on record was 5kg and they commonly grow to about 30 cm long
Fun Fact: Whether this is a subspecies or a different species of the sockeye is still a gripping topic of discussion for people with nothing better to do.
Komodo Dragon
The Komodo dragon is the largest lizard left in the world. It is a formidable predator from the Indonesian island of the same name as well as a few others in the region, can weigh up to 100kg, and reach 3 meters long.
Fun Fact: Like all monitor lizards, Komodo dragons are venomous, something that was only finally settled upon by the scientific community recently.
Komondor
The Komondor, or Hungarian sheepdog is a wonderfully-named scruffy scruffy-looking livestock guardian breed with a long, corded coat. These are large dogs, related to the Ovcharka, and stand more than 75 cm tall.
Fun Fact: The iconic cords in this breed don’t develop until adulthood, and young of up to a year or more will have fluffy, but relatively straight fur.
Kooikerhondje
The Kooikerhondje is a Dutch breed of birding dog originally bred to lure ducks. They’re small, orange and white and Spaniel-like dogs, standing at around 40cm tall and have soft, kind faces.
Fun Fact: This breed is little-known outside of The Netherlands, and almost went extinct after World War 2, before being rescued by a wealthy Baroness.
Kookaburra
The Kookaburras are a genus of tree kingfishers from Australia and New Guinea. There are five species, most are quite large, some reaching almost 50cm long, with thick, strong beaks and hunched shoulders when perched.
Fun Fact: These large kingfishers rarely hunt in the water. They’re predators of frogs, lizards and small mammals on the land.
Koolie
The Koolie is an Australian herding dog breed. They’re said to be silent and upright, come in various solid and also mixed colours, and are tough and agile dogs. They’re said to be highly intelligent and independent.
Fun Fact: This breed is said to be similar to the Australian Cattle dog (from Mad Max 2), only more methodical, calmer and less intense.
Korean Jindo
The Jindo is a Korean dog breed from the island of the same name. They’re a spitz type, around half a metre tall, with an intelligent expression and a double coat.
Fun Fact: This dog has been designated a Korean National Treasure by the heritage preservation system of South Korea.
Kori Bustard
The Kori bustard is a massive African bird that lives a lot like a theropod dinosaur in the desert and savanna of Southern Africa. They have long legs and a ferocious appetite, feeding mostly on invertebrates and seeds but also on mice and similar vertebrates it finds.
Fun Fact: This is the heaviest flying bird in Africa, reaching up to 20 kg; with unconfirmed reports of animals almost twice as heavy as this.
Kouprey
The Kouprey is a forest ox from Southeast Asia, thought to be extinct sometime since its last sighting in 1969. It’s thought to be closely related to the guar and banteng, but was lighter and smaller, at around 2 metres long and 900 kg.
Fun Fact: Males of this species grow a huge dewlap that gets bigger as they age. At maturity, these skin folds get so long they can drag along the ground.
Kowari
The Kowari is a small desert marsupial from central Australia. They’re grey, around 18cm long including a long tail, which has a thick bushy brush of black hair on the end of it.
Fun Fact: Kowaris only have four toes on their back feet.
Krait
Kraits are a genus of frankly rather frightening elapid snakes from Asia. They’re not very large – rarely more than 1.5 meters, but many of the 15 or so species are extraordinarily venomous and typically hunt other snakes at night.
Fun Fact: These are some of the most venomous snakes in the world but they rarely bite. Kraits greatly prefer to flee, and even when captured will be hesitant to inflict damage unless it’s a last resort.
Kribensis
Krivensis is a freshwater cichlid from Nigeria and Cameroon. They grow to around 12cm and have a dark, longitudinal stripe from the mouth to the tail. Males are yellow and black with a red belly, females are duller in colour.
Fun Fact: In the wild, these fish will dig caves under plants, which they will defend, shelter and breed inside.
Krill
Krill are small, shrimp-like marine crustaceans that may be some of the most significant creatures on Earth. They live up to five years and spend their days moving up and down the water column daily.
Fun Fact: Krill are close to the bottom of the food chain, and in the Southern Ocean, one species alone provides almost 400 million tonnes of biomass to larger animals.
Kudu
Kudus are two species of large and medium-sized antelope from the Tragelaphus genus. They are both spiral-horned and have grey fur with vertical white stripes. Greater Kudus can weigh up to 270 kg, and lesser kudus just over 100 kg.
Fun Fact: Despite looking similar, these two are not the closest relatives in the genus and both are more closely related to the Elands than each other.
Kudzu Bug
The Kudzu big, sometimes called the globular stink bug, is a true bug from India and China. It’s commonly found on legumes and is a tawny brown colour, dotted with tiny black spots.
Fun Fact: This species relies heavily on its microbiome, which it passes down to its young by leaving faeces in the form of pellets next to its eggs. The young readily scoff these delicious turd nuggets down, inoculating them with the necessary bacteria to survive.
Kulan
The Kulan is a wild ass subspecies from Central Asia. It’s one of the largest subspecies at over 2.5m long and weighing up to 250 kg. Aside from this, it looks pretty much like your standard ass. It has a pale brown coat with a dark stripe down the back.
Fun Fact: This subspecies is making a comeback from becoming endangered in 2016. Reintroductions have seen it return to Israel, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and their numbers are gradually improving.
Kultarr
The Kultarr is a jerboa-like marsupial from Australia. They prefer open or sandy regions white they feed on spiders, crickets and cockroaches. They have a long tail with a brush tip, and a long, pointed face with large, black eyes. They grow to about 10cm long.
Fun Fact: This small, high-metabolism mammal conserves energy by entering a state of torpor when the temperature drops below 11 °C; a state which can last up to 16 hours.
Kusimanse
The Kusimanse is a tiny 1 kg mongoose species from West Africa. It’s unusual-looking for this family, resembling a weasel with the head of a civet, but is very social, forming groups of up to 20. They’re about 30cm long and eat pretty much any small animal they find.
Fun Fact: These strange animals make fairly unusual pets, bonding closely with the owner and not interacting with any other animals in the house.
Kuvasz
The Kuvasz is a Hungarian livestock guardian dog that is making its way into the household pet niche. They’re large, with a thick white coat, and powerful: reaching 70cm tall and around 50kg in weight.
Fun Fact: This breed got a reputation during Nazi raids in World War 2 for being fierce protectors of their families.
What Other Animals Begin With ‘K’?
That completes our list of animals that begin with the letter K.
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.