Animals

Animals are the widest list here, so the clue usually adds a trait: where it lives, what it eats or how it moves. Treat the first word of the clue as a size or habitat hint and test candidates against the crossing letters.

Most of them have 4 / 5 letters. The first letters that occur most often are B, C, S. Each answer links to its own page with more clues.

This list has 72 answers, from 3 to 9 letters; 53% of them have five to seven. In crosswords the category is usually signalled by a short opener such as “small”, “animal”, “male”, so the clue narrows the family before the crossings do. The members that catch solvers out are the rarer ones: LEOPARD (Spotted big cat), BRIT (Tiny whale food) and MARE (Adult female horse).

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