All animal emoji, grouped the way you look for them
Most animals come in two drawings. The face versions ( ) are round, front-facing heads that work like stickers. The full-body versions ( ) show the animal standing side-on and read more like a description: โwalking the โ, not โcute โ.
Pets and farm animals sit together at the top of the grid, then the wild mammals ( ), the birds ( ), reptiles and dinosaurs ( ), sea life ( ) and finally bugs ( ). The nine cat faces ( ) are smileys drawn as a cat, so they carry emotion the way ordinary faces do.
Animal emoji meanings in texts and on TikTok
Several animals have a second life as slang. means GOAT, the greatest of all time. calls someone two-faced, a snitch, a ruthless operator. is โbutterfliesโ (a crush), a lone wolf, someone sly or simply attractive. is the old โbut thatโs none of my businessโ meme, and is used by Beyoncรฉโs fans, the Beyhive.
From a girl or a guy, a soft animal like or mostly signals cuteness or affection, often as a nickname: for a big cuddly boyfriend, for someone small and sweet. The three wise monkeys work as reactions: โI canโt lookโ or shy embarrassment, โIโm not listeningโ, โoops, I said too muchโ.
Cute animal emoji and text symbols
For a cute bio or caption, stick to round faces and pastel colours: , finished with or . Baby animals have their own characters: hatching, and for chicks.
If a site strips emoji, animals can be written with plain text: kaomoji such as เธ
^โข๏ปโข^เธ
(cat), สโขแดฅโขส (bear) or (ใปโใป) (bird) are built from ordinary letters and survive anywhere.
Newer animal emoji and how they are built
Some animals are not single characters but sequences glued with an invisible joiner: black cat is , polar bear is , black bird is , phoenix is and service dog is . On an older phone they fall apart into the two pieces, which is why a friend may see โโ where you sent a phoenix.
Recent additions include bison, mammoth, beaver, dodo and beetle (Emoji 13.0, 2020), moose, donkey, goose and jellyfish (Emoji 15.0, 2022), and orca (Emoji 17.0, 2025), which older devices may still show as an empty box.
Symbols
145Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Farm animals
Wild animals
Birds
Reptiles, legends and dinosaurs
Sea life
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyAnimal Emoji combos
14Worth knowing
- All twelve Chinese zodiac animals exist as full-body emoji: .
- come from a 17th-century carving of three monkeys at the Tลshล-gลซ shrine in Nikkล, Japan.
- unicorn arrived in 2015, two years before the real animals giraffe and zebra (2017).
- phoenix has no code point of its own: it is a bird and a fire joined together, added in Emoji 15.1 (2023).
Questions people ask
6How do I copy and paste animal emoji?
Tap or click any animal in the grid above and it is copied; paste it with CtrlV or a long press. The same characters work on iPhone, Android, WhatsApp and Instagram.
What do animal emoji mean from a girl or a guy?
Usually affection or a nickname: read as cute and cuddly. Watch the slang ones: means fake, a snitch, the greatest of all time, butterflies of a crush.
What are cute animal emoji?
The round face emoji are the cutest: , especially paired with or .
How many animal emoji are there?
About 140 if you count mammals, birds, reptiles, sea life, bugs and the cat faces, and new ones arrive with almost every yearly emoji release.
Why does my friend see two emoji instead of one animal?
Animals like are two emoji joined by an invisible character. Phones that don't know the combination show the parts side by side.
Are there animal text symbols without emoji?
Yes: kaomoji such as เธ โข๏ปโขเธ (cat) and สโขแดฅโขส (bear) are made from ordinary letters and display everywhere.
