Baby Animals
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NatureAnimal Groups
Grouping animals is the first big step in biology, and a few members break the tidy picture on purpose. Below: the classification and its exceptions.
Choose your difficulty
Pick a level to start playing. You can switch at any time.
How to play
Read the animal, then tap the group it belongs to.
Tip: your progress and best score are saved in this browser only.
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NatureWhat you are actually practice
Sorting animals into groups is the first big move in biology, and it is easier than it looks because the features that decide each group are physical and visible. Fur, feathers and gills do most of the work.
The interesting cases are the ones that break the tidy picture. Whales and dolphins live in water but breathe air and feed their young, so they are mammals. A spider is not an insect. These are exactly the questions worth practising.
How the game works
You are shown an animal and four possible groups. Tap the right one. A wrong pick reveals the answer at once.
Easy uses the animals nobody argues about. Medium widens the pool. Hard uses the full list, including the exceptions that trip people up.
The links worth knowing
Mammals: warm-blooded, hair or fur, and mothers feed their young. A whale, a dolphin and a bat all belong here, even though a whale lives entirely in water and a bat flies.
Birds: feathers, beaks, and eggs with hard shells. A penguin is a bird even though it cannot fly, and an ostrich is a bird even though it cannot fly either.
Fish: gills and fins, living entirely in water. A salmon, a goldfish and a shark are all fish.
Amphibians: live part of their lives in water and part on land, and their skin stays wet. A frog, a toad and a salamander.
Reptiles: scales and dry skin, and most of them lay eggs on land. A snake, a turtle and a crocodile.
Insects: six legs, three body parts and usually wings. A butterfly, a beetle, a bee and an ant.
Arachnids: eight legs and two body parts. A spider is an arachnid, not an insect.
How to get faster
Ask what the animal does in water. If it breathes air, it is not a fish, however oceanic it looks. If it has feathers, it is a bird, however badly it flies. The two exceptions people miss most often are the whale and the penguin.
A note on naming
Common names are not the same as the scientific grouping. A sea turtle really is a reptile, and a flying squirrel really is a mammal, however inconveniently they are named. The science follows the features, not the label.