Every continent has its own extraordinary animals. African elephants roam the savanna, Bengal tigers stalk the mangroves of the Sundarbans, emperor penguins breed in Antarctic blizzards, and jaguars hunt along the Amazon. Click any country on the map below to explore the wildlife of that region.
Click any country to explore its continent's wildlife
North America stretches from the Arctic tundra of northern Canada to the tropical forests of Central America. The continent is home to some of the world's largest remaining wilderness areas, including Alaska's Denali, Yellowstone, and the Canadian Rockies. The reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone in 1995 remains one of the most celebrated conservation stories in history -- a single species reshaped an entire ecosystem.
South America contains the Amazon rainforest -- the single most biodiverse place on Earth. The Amazon basin holds 10% of all species on the planet, including 40,000 plant species, 1,300 bird species, and 3,000 freshwater fish species. The Andes, the world's longest continental mountain range, adds alpine and cloud forest habitats that harbor unique species found nowhere else.
Europe lost most of its megafauna centuries ago, but a remarkable rewilding movement is bringing large predators back. Wolf populations have doubled in the last two decades. European bison, once extinct in the wild, now roam forests in Poland, Romania, and Spain. The continent proves that conservation can reverse even severe declines when given political will and time.
Africa is the last continent where megafauna still roams in large numbers. The Serengeti migration -- 1.5 million wildebeest crossing the Mara River -- is the largest terrestrial animal movement on Earth. Africa's wildlife generates over $29 billion annually in tourism revenue, making conservation not just an ecological imperative but an economic one.
Asia is the largest and most geographically diverse continent, spanning from the frozen tundra of Siberia to the tropical rainforests of Borneo. It harbors some of the most iconic and most endangered species on the planet. The Sundarbans mangrove forest is the only place where tigers swim between islands to hunt. The mountains of central China are the last refuge of the giant panda.
Isolated for 45 million years after separating from Gondwana, Australia evolved an entirely unique set of animals. Over 80% of its mammals, reptiles, and frogs are found nowhere else on Earth. Marsupials replaced placental mammals as the dominant group. The 2019-2020 bushfires killed or displaced an estimated 3 billion vertebrate animals -- one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history.
The coldest, driest, windiest continent on Earth. Winter temperatures drop below -80C. No trees grow here, no land mammals live here year-round, and the continent has no permanent human population. Yet the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica is one of the most productive marine ecosystems on the planet, fueled by nutrient-rich upwelling currents and the massive krill population that supports everything above it.
