family – Page 2 – See Animals Wild

Crocodilians

Crocodilians are a family of species found in the Tropics of the Americas, Africa Asia and Australia. They live in or near water – rivers, lakes, wetlands and even salt water.

Generally, they are apex predators in their ecosystems with no natural predators. Having said this, as with every species, humans hunt them, and in many places this has pushed them close to the brink of extinction.

In the current age, there are 24 species, spread across 3 families and 8 genus. We also have a photo gallery with many ways to filter the crocodilians and this is at the bottom of the page click here to jump to it

So taking the genus in order

Caimenae is the sub-family, sitting below Aligatoridae (Alligatoridae being one of two clades in Crocodilia_. There are 3 genus

Caimen – A line of crocodilians that inhabit central and south America,

Specticaled caymen

Broad-snouted caiman by Tim Sagorski

Yacare caiman paul williams

Melanosuchus The black caimen is the only known living species from this Genus, and is found throughout the Amazon basin

Black caiman by Bernard Dupont

Paleosuchus is a south American group of Caimen

Cuviers dwarf caimen

Smooth-fronted caimen

The only other family below Alligatoridae, is the subfamily of Alligatorinae.

This includes only two species

American Alligator Chinese Aligator

American Alligator

Chinese aligator

Longirostres is the other clade to make up the Crocodilia family. The first sub- family is Crocodylidae

This contains 3 genus with the first being Crocodylus which is the family of true crocodiles.

This includes 14 living species as well as 5 known only from fossils (we will not discuss these fossil specimens in this page)

African nile crocodile

American crocodile

Borneo crocodile

Cuban Crocodile

Fresh water crocodile

Halls new guinea crocodile

Moreletts crocodile, Bernard Dupont

West African crocodile

The second genus is Mecistops which is the slender snouted crocodiles, with only 2 species

Central african slender snouted crocodile

Western slender snouted crocodile

The last (third) genus is Osteolemus

African dwarf crocodile

Osborn dwarf crocodile

The other sub -family is Gavialidae which includes 2 genus includes Gaviolis and Tomistona. Which we will deal with together as each only has one living species.

Gharial

False Gharial

Crocodile gallery – Filter and export

Crocodilians
Species
South America
Reptile

Spectacled caiman

Yacare caiman paul williams

Black caiman

Curviers dwarf caiman CC by SA 4.0

Smooth-fronted caimen

American Alligator

Chinese aligator

African nile crocodile

American crocodile

Borneo crocodile

Cuban Crocodile

Fresh water crocodile

Halls new guinea crocodile

Moreletts crocodile

Mugger crocodile

New guinea crocodile

Orinoco crocodile

Snakes and Lizards

Saltwater crocodile

Siamese crocodile

West african crocodile

Western slender snouted crocodile

Central africa slender snouted crocodile photo credit Leyo CC by SA 3.0

African dwarf crocodile

Osborn dwarf crocodile (Congo Dwarf Crocodile) Photo credit marius Burger CC0

Gharial

false gharial

Ruminenta

These are hoofed grazing or browsing mammals. It includes around 200 living species as well as numerous extinct species. Ruminants are split into 2 rather lopsided families. Trevlotain (which are water Chevrotain) split first. The rest lie in the family Pecora. As such, you will find this family tree lower down the page.

Trevlotain (Chevrotain and Mouse Deer) -Water Chevrotain

Antilocapridae - Pronghorn Antelope

Girafidae - Giraffe

Red deer

Bovini Family - here an African Buffalo

Moschidae - Siberian Musk deer

The first family is Tragulina is an infraorder of even-toed ungulates. It contains just one Genus Tragulidae and this contains just one group of species the Chevrotains and mouse-deer. This is the only Ruminant family, which is not in the Pecora family

Every other part of this family falls in the tribe Pecora

Giraffidae

Once a diverse group that was found through Africa and Asia, there are only 2 species most people would recognize, that survived to the modern age. These are the Giraffe and Okapi, though in actual fact, there are actually 4 different species of giraffe that survive (as well as the 8 subspecies.

The living Giraffe species are:

KeMassai giraffe david Sluka

Southern giraffe 2 subspecies

Reticulated giraffe

Norther giraffe 4 subspecies

It should be noted that the IUCN does not recognize the multiple species, however, the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF), together with its partner Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), has performed the first-ever comprehensive DNA sampling and analysis (genomic, nuclear and mitochondrial) of all major natural populations of giraffe throughout their range in Africa. As a result, the layout of the species and subspecies that I have given has been recognized.

Please note that the general news below is all of the news about all species of giraffe. To see any posts about Okapi, visit the Okapi page by clicking on it above.

If you want to return to the Ruminants family page click here

Are we allowing the silent extinction of giraffes

Tim
November 13, 2020

Giraffe survival is in danger: according to the giraffe conservation Foundation giraffe numbers have fallen from 140000 and 80000 in the last 20-years. Yet other organisations suggest that the current number of wild giraffes is only 68000. How can we possibly let such a unique looking animal disappear from the world. Giraffes are a common …...

Tim
September 1, 2020

The current wild population of giraffes is around 68,000 and has fallen by 40% in the last 35 years. For perspective, that means that there are roughly four elephants for every giraffe (and Elephants have been listed as endangered on the appendix 1 of the cites list back in 1976). It is clear that this …...

Tim
December 12, 2024

The skeleton above is the closest we can get to a real mammoth, as a result of their extinction. However, it is not the only missing large species – indeed, the elephant family alone, is thought to have around 30 extinct members. Aside from these, there are 2 known extinct species of the woolly rhino, …...

Tim
May 22, 2022

West African lions are heavily endangered with just 400 members remaining. While the west African population of the Asiatic lion is less at risk than the Gir forest population – being spread over 4 unconnected sites, it would be impossible for an epidemic to wipe out the whole population, or indeed some sort of freak …...

Tim
August 8, 2020

Between the sudden loss of virtually all tourists, and the removal of game rangers and wildlife guides, there has been an alarming spike in the amount of poaching that has been going on in Mozambique (among other destinations). One of the problems with covid-19 is it has essentially ended much of the formal economy. For a …...

Tim
June 24, 2020

Humans have rather a lot of meanings, including heavy petting between lovers.

Tim
February 5, 2020

Pablo Escobar was an extraordinarily successful drug Kingpin in Colombia, because of the standards law enforcement in Colombia he was able to demonstrate his well through extravagant spending without worrying if he would be challenged.

Tim
December 22, 2019

Drought hit animals too, and in this instance a Drought in Zimbabwe has hit hwange national park so hard that the animals have started to die in large numbers. While the number of tourists that come to Zimbabwe have fallen dramatically since Mugabe started doing his more destructive policies, these fall in tourists has started …...

Tim
March 11, 2018

Image by John Blythe We spent a month volunteering at Umhloti Lodge about 20 miles from Kruger. This is a nature reserve, and although none of the big five live here permanently, there are certainly visiting Leopards. However at the centre of the reserve is a Chimpanzee sanctuary (the location of the Animal Planet series …...

Antilocapridae – and its only survivor, the Pronghorn antelope

The Antilocapridae are a family of artiodactyls found in North America. The closest relation to this family is the Girrafidae family from Africa. Although this family is made up of 13 genera (and while you can count it in various ways, there are roughly 70 species that are extinct – many in the long past, but a few pushed to extinction since Europeans settled several hundred years ago).

The only species that has survived from this family is the Pronghorn antelope. Given this situation, I will treat this page as the Pronghorn antelope page, as well as the for the Antilocapridae – artiodactyls endemic to North America. 10 of these former genera were lost at the end of the ice age. Unfortunately, while the last 3 other genera (Capromeryx, Stockoceros and Tetrameryx) survived until humans arrived, but we killed them off.

The pronghorn is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal living in the interior western and central North America. It looks rather like an antelope, and indeed is often referred to as by various names such as the American antelope, prong buck, pronghorn antelope and the prairie antelope. Perhaps to excuse the mistake further, they fill a similar niche in the ecosystem – its similar looks are likely to be as a result of parallel evolution, needing similar skills and shape to survive on the open plains of America, like the open plains of Asia, or Africa.

The pronghorn’s closest living relatives are the giraffe and okapi (Giraffidae). The Antilocapridae is part of the infraorder Pecora, making them distant relatives of giraffids, deers, bovids, and moschids (by clicking on these names you can look at our pages for these related families.

The Pronghorn is the fastest land mammal in the Western Hemisphere, reaching speeds of 88.5 km/h or 55mph. Indeed, it is the existence of this species which initially lead to the idea that the cheetah evolved in north America, and only then spread across Africa, Asia, the middle east and even parts of southern Europe.

There are 5 recognized subspecies of the Pronghorn (scientific name is the Antilocapra americana). These are

Antilocapra americana – pronghorn

- - A. a. americana – Common pronghorn
- - A. a. mexicana – Mexican pronghorn
- - A. a. peninsularis – Baja California pronghorn
- - A. a. sonoriensis – Sonoran pronghorn – this is not considered different enough from mexicana subspecies to justify its own subspecies so all sonoriensis populations should be considered Mexican pronghorn
  - A. a. oregona – Oregon pronghorn – this is not considered different enough from americana so all populations of this subspecies should be considered the common pronghorn

While these subspecies have minor differences in colour, size or location, only 3 are genetically distinct enough to warrent the subspecies level. Indeed, there is much evidence for much genetic mixing between the subspecies happening naturally over time.

2 of the subspecies are considered endangered – The Sonoran pronghorn only has 200-500 (very large interval, which suggests lack of recent data) individuals left, and the Baja California peninsular pronghorn is numbered 150. Only the Mexican population is included in CITES, likely as a result of the USA government being against the listing the the Baja California population being listed. I am unsure where the line is for a species becoming critically endangered, but I would argue that both of these sub-species should be classed this way.

Currently, the total Pronghorn population is thought to number roughly 1,100,000 individuals, so as a while the pronghorn is not currently endangered.

Should there ever be any blogposts on this species it will appear below.

If you want to return to the Ruminants family page click here

Cervidae

Cervidae (the deer family)

Cervidae is the family of deer. It is a close relation of Bovidae, which includes antelopes and giraffe.

There are 2 branches of this family Cervinae (Old World deer) and Capreolinae (New World deer). They will be linked from the images.

The first tribe in Cervini is Munticini

Munticini includes just 2 genus

Genus Elaphodus contains just one species, that of the Tufted deer

Genus Muntiacus contains 12 species, all of the worlds Muntjac species (the moschidae family)

Bornean yellow muntjac

Fea's muntjac

Giant muntjac (large antlered muntjac

Gongshan muntjac

Hairy-fronted or black-fronted muntjac

Leaf muntjac

Southern red muntjac, or malabar red muntjac (also Indian or Malabar muntjac) Many subspecies

Northern red muntjac

Pu hot muntjac

Reeves or chinese muntjac photo credit rufus46

Roosevelt muntjacs - camera trap in xuan luen reserve credit xuan lien reserve

Truong Son muntjac

Sumatran muntjac

The other (2nd) tribe is Cervini (true deers) and includes 7 genus some of these only have a few species so will be dealt with together.

In the first group we will include:

Genus Ruserus (1 species), Genus Panolia (1 species), Genus Elaphurus (1 species), Geuns Dama (2 species) in that order.

barasinghe swamp deer

and now just one genus on each set

Genus Axis

Bawean deer or Kuhl's deer

Calamian deer

Chital, spotted deer, or axis deer

Genus Cervus

Central asian red deer

Thoroids deer

Gens Rusa

Javan rusa 7 subspecies

Philippine deer

Sambar deer

Visayan spotted deer

Capreolinae which is the new world sub-family of deer. This includes 3 tribes of deer

Tribe Capreolini which includes 2 genus

Genus Capreolus (2 species) and Genus Hydropotes (1 species) (pictures in this order)

Also Tribe Alcenini which includes one Genus Alces with just one speices – the elk

I should note, that while the deer below this point may well get their own page in time, for now, they will have a little information added to their title popup.

Eastern (asian or siberian) roe deer - it is found in north-eastern Asia. Once thought to be the same species as the European roe it is no longer. It is not threatened and has 2 subspecies

western roe deer (roe deer, or European roe deer) Natively found throughout most of Europe. They are common, (Uk has around half a million)

Water deer (nickname vampire deer) - native to China and Korea (each with its own subspecies), they are classed as vulnerable to extinction . In Korea they are hunted, as their population has exploded since leopards and tigers disappeared) . There are populations outside their natural range, including the UK

Moose or elk - the second largest deer species, found throughout North America, much of Europe and northern parts of Asia, they are classed as least concern (though extinct in various places including the UK

The last tribe is Tribe Odocoileini which includes 7 genus

I will deal with these 7 genus in two blocks

In the first block:

Genus: Blastocerus 1 (species), Hippocamelus 2, Odocoileus 3, Ozotoceros 1, Pudu 2 and Rangifer 1

Marsh deer - the largest deer species of South America, found throughout tropical and sub-tropical areas. They are classed as vulnerable. Both Jaguar and Puma are missing from much of their range, which is allowing this species population to grow out of control.

South Andean deer - an endangered species, restricted to Chile (features on their coat of arms) and Argentina. These two countries are working together, but whether this work will be a success, is still to be seen

Taruca

Mule deer

White-tailed deer

Yucatan brown brocket

Last genus is genus Mazama, the Brocket family. Brocket, any of several small deer constituting the genus Mazama of the family Cervidae, and found from Mexico to South America. Timid browsers, brockets inhabit wooded areas and generally live alone or in pairs.

Amazonian brown brocket

American Red brocket and 7 subspecies

Central American red brocket

Dwarf brocket

Gray brocket and 7 subspecies

If you want to return to the Ruminants family page click here

Musk deer are similar to cervids in many respects and as such are often classified as a subfamily of the Cervidae. However, they are not. They differ in several ways, but particularly, in that both sexes lack antlers (the male has a huge, scimitar-like canine instead; females have smaller canines). They have a single opening to their lacrimal canals, versus 2 in cervids.

To read about the 7 species of Musk deer, click here

Chevrotain and mouse deer or family Tragulidae

Family Tragulidae - Chevrotain and Mouse deer

The Family Tragulidae contains 3 genus. As pages are built for each species they will be accessable by clicking on images below

Genus Hyemoschus Contains just one species the water Chevrotain

Genus Moschiola which are spotted Chevrotain

This is a small even-toed ungulate, found in the forests of India Sri Lanka and Nepal.

There has been little study on these species, so while it is assumed that mid-sized predators would happily take them, it is unclear. An example of the mid-sized predators in this region would be a caracal. Having said this, they appear to be predated just as much, by tigers leopards and dholes.

Currently all 3 species are listed as least concern, though due to significant hunting from humans, it is likely to have a local variability depending on various pressures. It is also a species that relies on forests, which means that in many places habitat loss could be a threat. Having said this, given their size, it should be able to survive in small remaining fragments of habitat that might remain after much of the forest is removed.

sri lanken spotted chevrotain

Yellow spotted chevrotain

and finally Genus Tragulus which is the mouse deer

java mouse-deer

Lesser mouse-deer

Philippine mouse-deer

Vietnam mouse-deers (Tragulus versicolor)

Greater mouse-deer

williamson mouse deer

If you want to return to the Ruminants family page click here

Mouse deer caught on camera trap for the first time in 30 years, long thought extinct

Tim
November 26, 2019

The mouse deer, a small antelope last seen 30 years ago in Vietnam, has been caught on camera trap again. Also known as the Silver-backed Chevrotain, having been seen on the camera trap, more were set up in the same region and they had many separate encounters with the mouse deer. The local knowledge was …...

Bovidae family (including Aegodontia &Boodontia) or Antelope family tree

Antelope lie in the Bovidae family, and account for around 2/3 of the 135 Bovidae species that exist in the world. It should be noted that deer come from the family Cervidae, which means that despite looking extremely similar, antelope are more closely related to cattle than they are to deer.

There are 91 antelope species in the world with 72 found in Africa, 14 in Asia, with the last 5 found in Eastern Europe.

There are 8 subfamilies in Africa

Bushbuck

2. Reduncinae (Boher reedbuck)

3. Peleinae (grey rhebok)

Hirola

Beisa oryx

Impala

Bates’ Pigmy Antelope

Abbott’s Duiker

1. Subfamily Bovinae

Spiral horned antelopes made up of tribe Tragelaphini: 9 species 4 subspecies.

Bushbuck

common eland

Giant eland (eastern and western subspecies)

2. Subfamily Reduncinae

Rhebok, reedbucks, and waterbucks 8 Species, 11 Subspecies

2. Reduncinae (Boher reedbuck)

3. Subfamily Peleinae:

1 Species

Grey rhebok

4. Subfamily Alcelaphinae

Sassabies, hartebeests, and wildebeests: 6 Species (depending on how you count, it can be anywhere from 6 to 10) , 19 Subspecies

Hirola

Tsessebe, also known as Topi Sasseby and Tiang

Bontebok

Genus Alcelaphus, Hartebeest

Blue wildebeest

Black wildebeest

5. Subfamily Hippotraginae

Grazing antelope: 7 Species, 4 Subspecies

6. Subfamily Aepycerotinae

Impala: 1 Species which is impala, 2 Subspecies

Impala

7. Subfamily Antilopinae

Gazelles, dwarf antelopes

- Tribe Antilopini: 10 Species, 4 Subspecies

Mhorr Gazelle Shankar s

red fronted gazelle

Slender horned gazelle

https://seeanimalswild.com/3-4-5-peleinae-alcelaphinae-hippotraginae/#Soemmerings gazelle

Spekes gazelle

springbok

thomsons gazelle

Tribe Ammodorcadini: 1 Species

dibatag

Tribe Neotragini: 13 Species, 4 Subspecies

Bates’ Pigmy Antelope

8. Subfamily Cephalophinae

Duiker: 17 Species, 7 Subspecies

Grey Duiker or common

Ogilby’s Duiker and subs

Peters’ Duiker and sub

If you want to return to the Ruminants family page click here

Pinniped Family tree

Pinniped family tree

Pinnipeds is the extended seal family. This includes 34 species. Many of these are quite similar, but there are clear families within the clad.

First divide is between seals with external ears and those without.

Earless seals are then divided between northern hemisphere (phosinae) and southern hemisphere (monachinae), while the eared seals are divided between fur seals and sea lions (Otariidae ) and the walrus (only member of Odobenidae).

Earless seals Eared Seals

Southern Hemishpere earless sealsweddell seal, monachinae

Bearded seal

fur seal

Pacific Warus Odobenidae

So Dealing with these families one by one, we will start with the family Moarchinae

This contains the Monarchini genus (which consists of the monks seals), Miroungini (which consists of the Northern and Southern Elephant seal) and finally Lobodontini (which consists of 4 seal species, the Ross seal, Crabeaters seal, and the closely related species the Weddled seal and the Leopard seal)

Moarchinae

Carribean monk seal extinct

Hawaiian monk seal

mediterranean monk seal

northern elephant seal

Crabeater seal

Ross seal

Southern elephant seal

Leopard seal

weddell seal

The other family in earless seals is Phocinae. The bulk of the seals in this group lie in the genus Phocini. Only the Bearded and Hooded seal lie in this group but outside this genus

Phocinae

The other half of the family consists of the eared seals, which consist of fur seals and sea lions (in Otaridae), as well as the walrus in Odebenidae.

So, first the eared seals: these consist of the sea lions and the fur seals. Below is the fur seals

Fur seals

Subantarctic fur seal

Antarctic fur seal

Australasian fur seal

Galápagos fur seal

Guadalupe fur seal

Juan Fernández fur seal

Northern fur seal

South American fur seal

Brown fur seal

Finally, the sea lions

South American sea lion

And lastly Walrus

Odobenidae

Walrus

In many places, these species are relatively easy to find, whether you need to take a boat trip, or merely go for a walk along the right stretch of shore. We are keen to help seal tourism worldwide, do reach out, and we can promote your tourism. You will find a form to fill in at the top of the page, under list your wild place.

Also, there is a plugin on each page, which should show news related to each species.

Dog family tree

The Dog (caninae) family tree

The Dogs also form an incredibly successful family. They have spread to even more so more of the earths surface has a dog living in each area. They has been classified into 2 tribes.

The first tribe is the tribe Canini (true dogs), which is further split into two subtribes. Each sub tribe is in turn split into a number of Genus, which have a number of species each

The first subtribe is Canina which is wolf like Canids, this is in term split into 4 genus which I will take in turn

Canis

First genus is Canis, which is subdivided into 6 species 2 of which have into subspecies.

Dog

European golden jackal

A curious coyote at Laguna Atascosa Wildlife Refuge in South Texas

Red wolf

The second genus is Cuon and only has one member in it. This is found in central south and south east Asia.

Dhole

The next genus is Lupulella, and has two members, both found in Africa

Black backed jackal

Side stripped Jackal

The last Genus in Canis is Lycaon. This only has one member, which is the African wild dog

Wild dog in the Kruger

The second subtribe is Cerdocyonina (south American Dogs). There are 5 genus with living members (South American dogs), with the 6th (Dusicyon) containing 2 extinct species – so we will not mention this agai .

Of the 5 genus with living members, Lycalopex is one of these genus with 6 species. Lycalopex is made up of South American fox species – it should be noted that these so called South American foxes are not foxes. While they look like foxes, they are more closely related to Jackals and wolves.

South American grey fox

The other 4 Genus in this subtribe, with living members each only have one member, so I will deal with these Genus in one go. These Genus are Atelocynus, Cerdocyon, Chrysocyon and Speothos. In the same order, the species that inhabit each of these genus are Short eared-dog, Crab eating fox, Manned wolf and the Bush dog.

Bush dog From the Genus Speothos

Crab eating fox from the genus Cerdocyon

Manned wolf from the Genus Chrysocyon

Short-eared dog from the genus Atelocynus

Then there is a tribe called Vulpina, sub divided into 3 Genus. these are essentially the fox like canines

The Nyctereutes which consist of the Racoon dogs: the common raccoon dog and the Japanese racoon dog.
The Otocyon which consists of the bat eared fox
The Vulpes: Which I will deal with in the next section, separately (below

Raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides)

Japanese raccoon dogs

Bad eared fox

The true fox family is a large extended family of foxes from around the world. They all behave in a similar way, though the habitat in which they live can be very differemt

Finally there is a Genus on its own called Urocyon which consists of grey foxes, of which there ae only 2 surviving members.

Grey fox

Island fox

Big cat family tree

The Cat (felidae) family tree

Lynx family (this is the Eurasian Lynx)

Puma family

Leopard cat family

Domestic cat and family

The Cats form an incredibly successful family. It is true that they are missing from the polar regions, and Australasia, but everywhere that they reached they have been successful, and in many ecosystems they are the undisputed kings

Panthera Family

This family split from hte Felid ancestor 10.8 million years ago. There have been some debate as to whether the two species of clouded leopards should be included in Panthera. On the circular mammal tree (which we are using – look in the species watch tab, or click here)

They are generally included in a subgenus Panthera_Neofilis

Lion - all subspecies

Leopard - all subspecies

Sunda Clouded Leopard