National animals appear on coats of arms, currency, sports kits, and tourism branding. This reference lists the national animal symbol most associated with each country, its scientific name where it is a real species, and whether the designation is official or simply customary.
How it works
A national animal is a species chosen to represent a country’s identity. The designation can be:
- Official — established in law or by a government body.
- Unofficial — widely recognised by custom or used in branding, but not enshrined in law.
- Mythical — a legendary creature such as a dragon or unicorn.
Each entry pairs the common name with the scientific binomial (genus and species) so you can disambiguate names that overlap between countries, for example the many “eagles” and “lions” used across the world.
Recurring species and what they signal
Certain animals appear as national symbols across many countries, but for different cultural reasons:
Lions (Panthera leo) feature on coats of arms and as national symbols for a large number of countries, including England/UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Morocco, and Sri Lanka. The lion rarely lived in most of these countries in recorded history; it entered heraldry through ancient associations with strength, nobility, and royal power borrowed from classical and biblical traditions.
Eagles appear across an enormous range of national symbols, from the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) of the United States to the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) of Mexico and Germany, to the white-tailed eagle and various sea and harpy eagles elsewhere. Eagles are widespread in older heraldic traditions as symbols of authority and vision.
Mythical creatures are used by a small number of countries. Scotland’s national animal is the unicorn (a symbol in Scottish heraldry since the 12th century), Wales uses the red dragon (Y Ddraig Goch), and Bhutan’s national animal is the druk, a thunder dragon. These entries carry “mythical” in the status field.
Endemic species reflect biodiversity and conservation identity. Australia’s kangaroo and emu (both on the coat of arms), New Zealand’s kiwi, India’s Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), and China’s giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) are nationally iconic partly because they are found nowhere else in the world.
Why scientific names matter here
Common names for animals shift by language, region, and era. “Panther” can mean a lion, leopard, or jaguar depending on context; “eagle” could be any of dozens of species. The scientific binomial is unambiguous: Panthera leo is always the African lion, Haliaeetus leucocephalus is always the bald eagle. For trivia, heraldry research, or species-level identification, the scientific name is the reliable anchor.
Tips and notes
Symbol choices reflect culture and history, so they rarely change — but new designations do happen, and some countries name a national bird, mammal, and fish separately. Where a country has several, this list shows the single most commonly cited national animal. For formal use, confirm against the country’s official heraldry or government symbols register.