Talk:List of national animals

Angola
Angola's National animal is the Sable Antelope...

Loaty Boavida (talk) 22:01, 25 January 2021 (UTC)Loaty Boavida
 * Excellent! They are fantastic creatures. What's your reliable source providing evidence of this? WP:RS has more information. --Yamla (talk) 22:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Pretty random and unorganized list
What is the definition of a "National animal"? Not only does this include countries that clearly are NOT Nations (England's "nationality" is british, not English)it also wildly mixes heraldry with recognized or legally designated animals the governments of some nations actually call their national animal.

That is a pretty awful mess. There needs to be a standard what counts as national animal (I think there is already a list of animals in heraldry, so throw them out or correct them to the adequate real animal) and then the list needs to be cleared out! --5.146.47.175 (talk) 19:59, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Pruning down
This list, like many similar ones (of "national flowers", "national birds" and whatnot) has long suffered from massive amounts of listcruft, due to entirely unclear inclusion criteria.

I propose to reduce this to just those countries where there's clear sourcing that an animal has explicitly been named "national animal" by the authorities through a legislative or administrative act (comparable to the way the bald-headed eagle has been official in the US), or where government sources explicitly list an animal as such. This does not countries where an animal is merely featured on a flag or coat of arms etc. There also seem to be several instances (e.g. Afghanistan, Greece) where an item has been added with fake sourcing to pages like worldatlas.com, which do not in fact mention those animals at all (and which I would hardly count as a reliable source even if they did). Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:14, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Excellent. This is an excellent plan and will result in a much more consistent list. --Yamla (talk) 11:58, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. I will add my support to restricting entries in the article to those that have been designated as such by official bodies. Loopy30 (talk) 23:27, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Are there countries that don't have a national animal? I thought every country has one (such as how the spotted hyena is the national animal of Gambia, for example)? Redstoneprime (talk) 16:09, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Of course there are countries that don't have national animals. Just like there are countries that don't have national teacups, national haircuts or national bowel diseases. Why would anybody expect any country would bother to adopt such a thing? Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:20, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

That's true. Also, can I asky why the national animals for Gambia, Lebanon and Indonesia were removed even though I included a source? And just about every source I've checked say that the Spotted hyena is a the national animal of Gambia, Striped hyena for Lebanon and Komodo dragon for Indonesia. Redstoneprime (talk) 21:18, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
 * (As you know, I didn't remove your additions.) Your source failed WP:RS and did not indicate the animals were officially designated as a national animal. For example, this source makes no claim that Gambia has officially designated the spotted hyena as the national animal. Even if it did, we'd want a much better source than someone's blog. --Yamla (talk) 21:28, 7 March 2021 (UTC)


 * That source, einfon.com, is extremely poor quality – amateur-run, without any editorial oversight, basically not much more than a wiki. You need to avoid these kinds of list publications, which all too often work from the same faulty premise as you yourself did, of assuming that every country must have some national animal, and therefore include the next best thing regardless of reliability of information, proliferating half-truths and misunderstandings. If Gambia has designated something as its national animal – and, personally, I have no reason to assume either that it did or that it didn't – it should be possible to find an unambiguous statement to that effect from Gambia's own authorities. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:44, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Understood. Howver, I do think Lebanons national animal as the striped hyena should be included, as several sources (including news sites) say that the striped hyena is the national animal of Lebanon. The "Wildlife of Lebanon" page on this very site also mentions that the striped hyena is Lebanon's national animal. Redstoneprime (talk) 16:47, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * News sites are also not very good for this. They tend to copy indiscriminately from just these kinds of list publications, and those lists – be they in books or in websites – typically come without any clear documentation of their sources or inclusion criteria. If we're going to restrict this list to officially designated animals, then of course we must scrutinize any source we use to see if it follows inclusion criteria compatible with ours. If it contains "unofficial" animals, mere heraldic animals or whatever other things have sometimes been called "national animals" by some people, then it will be simply irrelevant for us. You'll need to find something substantially better than what we've seen so far. (Needless to say, another Wikipedia article such as Wildlife of Lebanon is entirely irrelevant as a source; the statement there has itself been unsourced for years.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:25, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Eagle, national animal of Armenia
Hello. I don't know, if It is true, but I have read, that national animal of Armenia is eagle. I don't know, if It is true, but if is It true please, could You add to this list Eagle, as a national symbol of Armenia? Thank You. Cassa342 (talk) 19:05, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You'll need to track down a reliable source, one that matches WP:RS. Let us know if you have any questions. --Yamla (talk) 20:08, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Country missing
Why is Spain not included? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GoldenChannels (talk • contribs) 13:29, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Nobody has tracked down the official national animal and provided a reliable citation. --Yamla (talk) 13:32, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

The Republic of China is not included either, this is a terrible list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:4316:40:5810:6DE3:6328:6402 (talk) 13:19, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You forgot to include a reliable source. --Yamla (talk) 13:21, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

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Hungary? And other countries
As I was watching the list, I realised that a lots of countries like Hungary were missing. So I would like to know why? 2A02:AB88:1D01:9100:544B:C7C4:D414:A2E5 (talk) 18:39, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Nobody has added them. You are free to do so, so long as you cite (WP:CITE) the additions from a reliable source (WP:RS). --Yamla (talk) 18:54, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Astronomical amount of misinformation
A national animal is defined if and only if the Government explicitly states the animal as such. Right now, this list is extremely arbitrary and as a consequence most animals listed are not in actuality national animals. This article is one of the exceptions to the secondary-source Wikipedia rule, instead all information here should be backed by primary-sources.

As of now this article is so bad, that it should be delete until someone reconstructs it again. SpaceEconomist192 ✐  11:44, 21 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree, but for now, I have removed the blatantly bogus entry for Austria. There is not a single reliable, German-language source that lists a “national animal” for Austria. The idea that the Black Eagle, which only occurs in Asia, would be Austria’s “national animal”, just because the Austrian coat of arms features an heraldic eagle which happens to be black is simply not supported by any credible source. —ThorstenNY (talk) 01:37, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The source used was from the consulate Austria-Sri Lanka and they specifically say that the national animal is the Black Eagle. SpaceEconomist192  ✐  11:46, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Which is patently ridiculous. This is the website of an honorary consul, i.e., essentially a random person who volunteered to perform some minor clerical services for Austrian tourists in exchange for being able to call himself “honorary consul.” His website is in horrible and largely nonsensical English. Much of it is filler about purported Austrian culture, which was obviously lifted from the web in the most sloppy way imaginable. Now, as far as the Black Eagle “source” is concerned in this context: What do you think is more likely? That this is just more filler hastily placed there (the background on the Black Eagle — the species — is copied straight from WP) or that Austria actually did specify an Asian bird as its national animal, but there isn’t a single German-language source to back this up? Of course this was made up by whoever made this Sri Lankan website! There is a black-colored heraldic eagle on the Austrian state flag; there is a bird called black eagle in Sri Lanka; bingo, we have a cute story relatable to both countries! This is a prime example of how Wikipedia’s reliance on official-sounding sources can have unintended consequences. —ThorstenNY (talk) 14:39, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Be aware...
Most entries on this list got removed because they used non-reliable sourcing, though it's worth noting that there was still a good change that some of the entries actually listed the correct national animal even though the source was not reliable. I don't know the exact percentage, but its probably a good amount, no more than 50-60% though. I deleted them instead of placing a unreliable source template, because no one would actually replace those sources in the near future and this page averages a fair share of views so the amount of misinformation transmitted would be significant.

Edit: I'm going to add all of the English, Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries back because you can only get good results by searching in the country's respective language, so feel free add others back if you speak any other language. SpaceEconomist192 ✐  00:45, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

England, Wales and Scotland
@Reywas92, as the lead of the article states, «This is a list of countries that have officially designated one or more animals as their national animals.», which is not the case for England, Wales and Scotland. In order for them to be included you need a government website (such as embassies, consulates, ministries, anything that is officially part of the government) or a law, a decree, a regulation or any type of legal framework that states the animal or mythical creature is their official animal.

An animal being the heraldic supporter does not mean they are the national animal. If we decided to include the Welsh Dragon on the list just because it's featured on the flag and/or coat of arms we would also need to add a bunch of other countries, such as Iceland, Portugal, Denmark...when in actuality those animal are not the national animal, so I fail to see why the UK's would be the only exception. SpaceEconomist192 ✐  15:18, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * This makes the article less useful. These have been considered national animals and symbols for hundreds of years, and they shouldn't be excluded just because Parliament hasn't gotten around to passing a law saying so. Being on the flag or coat of arms is not the only criterion but it contributes to there being further discussion of them being called that. List of national birds has a column denoting which birds are not legally designated, and this could have something like that too. I mean, Denmark's national mammal, bird, and butterfly are listed here, but their source simply says the squirrel won a magazine poll, the swan won a radio poll, and the butterfly won a researcher's poll. Maybe they should be included because it's on the Danish Nature Agency's website – but this sure isn't a legal framework! Portugal doesn't have an animal on its insignia so I'm not sure why that's included. I think the list is better when it's more inclusive and even has a notes column that can say when it was designated, that it's unofficial but still recognized, or other details. Reywas92Talk 15:44, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm could be okay with creating another column where it says if the animal is legally the national animal or not, even though this inclusion would be very arbitrary, but putting the United Kingdom together with the others would create a false balance.
 * I meant the Netherlands instead of the Denmark, but either way the only reason I included Denmark it's because the Danish Nature Agency is a board of the Ministry of the Environment. Portugal supposed national animal, the dragon, was listed here and Portugal old coat of arms used to have dragons has heraldic supporters. SpaceEconomist192  ✐  19:28, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I meant the Netherlands instead of the Denmark, but either way the only reason I included Denmark it's because the Danish Nature Agency is a board of the Ministry of the Environment. Portugal supposed national animal, the dragon, was listed here and Portugal old coat of arms used to have dragons has heraldic supporters. SpaceEconomist192  ✐  19:28, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

https://www.historicenvironment.scot/search-results?q=national+animal — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.81.236.138 (talk) 11:00, 11 July 2022 (UTC) https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_animals — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.81.236.138 (talk) 11:10, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * simple.wikipedia is definitely not a reliable source; see WP:RS. Pretty sure historicenvironment also isn't, though I'm less certain there. --Yamla (talk) 11:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Found that site on the Scottish government website. 194.81.236.138 (talk) 12:35, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * How can you still be here? Pretty positive that you were blocked. SpaceEconomist192  ✐  11:50, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I deleted the block
 * Actually I don't know 194.81.236.138 (talk) 12:33, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Scotland.org 194.81.236.138 (talk) 09:45, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Click this and then click the denied petition [[Special:Contributions/194.81.236.138|194.81.236.138] (talk) 12:15, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I see nothing describing that the Unicorn is the national animal of Scotland. SpaceEconomist192  ✐  06:58, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The petition is for the national animal of the UK, Apparently. 194.81.236.138 (talk) 09:44, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * https://websearch.parliament.uk/?q=national%20animal To make it easier 194.81.236.138 (talk) 12:34, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * If you're talking about the pigeons petition then the excerpt claiming that lions are the national animal of the UK is made the petitioner itself not the Parliament. SpaceEconomist192  ✐  13:35, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry
I am sorry for adding an unreliable source next time i edit i will just add already reliable sources so sorry for the inconvenience Mr. Geography 101 (talk) 19:33, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi! It's fine as you long as you learned what is considered a reliable source. Were you one of the IPs? SpaceEconomist192  ✐  13:23, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 November 2022
There is many more national animals such as: Scotland- Unicorn, Norway- Moose,England- Lion, and many more. 2A02:C7F:C0E:4000:20F0:C993:16A7:3FCE (talk) 11:13, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This is not an edit request. Please reread the instructions, along with WP:RS and WP:CITE. --Yamla (talk) 11:23, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

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Why are some sources labelled as Unreliable?
Some sources have 'better source needed' beneath them such as all of Cambodia's animals listed, why are these aloud to stay? If they're reliable then the text should be removed. Captain.Magimal (talk) 13:20, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Issues with trying to find national animals
The issue is that you have to find obscure information from webpages that may not have been updated and national animals can change, Plus search engines focus more on popular pages then correct pages. More issues is that countries official websites focus on more important information than national animals, thinking that it is either pointless or common place. Captain.Magimal (talk) 10:55, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
 * With a bit of text mining you can find most national animals, instead the main problem is probably the language barrier, some governments only have theirs website in their official language. SpaceEconomist192  ✐

Bhutan
The national animal of Bhutan is the takin, according to the Wikipedia page on the animal itself. Should it be added? Arhanman (talk) 19:23, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Not without a reliable source that meets WP:RS (Wikipedia itself does not). --Yamla (talk) 19:35, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * In the original Page, this link https://books.google.com.tr/books?id=s-L8NUlW_QgC&pg=PA87&redir_esc=y
 * was provided as a resource. Arhanman (talk) 19:37, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * That book cannot make assertations about Bhutan's national animal since it's not a Government body. —  The Blue  Rider  Postal horn icon.svg 19:46, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

uk
That source is not governative and it's hardly reliable 79.50.168.63 (talk) 00:08, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * You did well, people keep putting the UK on this list even though it has no official national animal.  The Blue  Rider  Postal horn icon.svg 01:19, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Laos
Laos doesn’t appear on the list, and I believe its animal is the elephant 90.247.193.239 (talk) 11:28, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * You need to provide a reliable source for this claim. See WP:RS. --Yamla (talk) 11:34, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

anglotopia
reintroduced content sourced to anglotopia.net in this edit. I'm not at all convinced angloptopia is a reliable source as per WP:RS and I'm surprised Jfstudiospaleoart thinks so. I'll remind us all that the information may be true but this is not sufficient. WP:V explains this. I wasn't the editor who removed the content originally, but I don't think it was appropriate for Jfstudiospaleoart to reintroduce it. I therefore propose that content be removed once more. Alternatively, if Jfstudiospaleoart can provide a compelling argument that the website is a reliable source as per WP:RS, obviously the content should stay. --Yamla (talk) 15:06, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Note that this user subsequently introduced entirely uncited material to the article in this edit, which I've partially reverted and warned about. --Yamla (talk) 15:14, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_symbols_of_the_United_Kingdom,_the_Channel_Islands_and_the_Isle_of_Man Jfstudiospaleoart (talk) 15:16, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * my citation is not a reliable source, I'm not sure why thats what I sourced, but you can find the same information on wikipedia's page on UK's national symbols Jfstudiospaleoart (talk) 15:14, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * You must use a reliable source. Other Wikipedia articles don't count and can't be used to source content, see WP:RS. Please remove your reintroduction of the material and please apologise to the user you warned. --Yamla (talk) 15:18, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * yeah, I'll also check this pages [] source Jfstudiospaleoart (talk) 15:25, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks. There may very well be sources that meet WP:RS that you can also use here. Be careful, though. Just because there's a source there, it doesn't necessarily mean it's an appropriate (i.e. reliable) source. --Yamla (talk) 15:26, 25 April 2024 (UTC)