Animals & Nature
Animals & Nature gathers 161 emoji on EmojiSelect: the mammals, birds, sea creatures, reptiles, bugs, plants and flowers that bring messages to life. It follows the Unicode subcategory layout — mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, marine life, bugs, flowers and other plants — so every creature has a predictable place, and our browse page mirrors that order exactly.
About this category
This category has a distinctive property: its emoji rarely mean only what they depict. A goat is not always a goat, a snake is not always a snake, and the peach almost never means fruit. Animals and plants are among the most metaphorical emoji in the entire set, and that gap between literal picture and conversational meaning is exactly what our per-emoji pages document — along with the regional differences that make 🐐 a compliment in one community and an insult in another.
The 161 entries here follow the Unicode subcategory order on our browse page — mammals first, then birds, amphibians, reptiles, marine life, bugs, flowers and other plants — and every creature's page adds its symbolic meanings, related combos and the kaomoji that pair with it.
161 Emoji8 subcategories
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Popular emoji
161 Emoji
Browse by subcategory
8 subcategories · 161 Emoji in this category
Go deeper: People & Body
Mammals
Showing 60 / 66 Emoji
Birds
22 Emoji
Marine animals
18 Emoji
Bugs
17 Emoji
Other plants
17 Emoji
Flowers
12 Emoji
Reptiles
8 Emoji
Amphibians
1 Emoji
Why it matters
People reach for this category in three situations: literal talk (a vet appointment, a hike, a garden), metaphor (calling someone a 🦊 or describing a mood as 🦋), and decoration, where flowers and leaves frame a message the way ink drawings once framed letters. The category also keeps expanding — the beaver 🦫 arrived in Emoji 13.0 (2020), the goose 🪿 in Emoji 15.0 (2022) — so checking the newest additions is a quick way to surprise a conversation partner.
Highlights
Mammals and pets: 🐶🐱🐴 are the most-copied animals, with the dog and cat families offering face variants.
Birds and sea life: 🦅🐠🐙 carry strong symbolic meanings — freedom, abundance, mystery — beyond the literal.
Flowers: 🌹💐🌸🌻 anchor romance, celebration and condolence messages alike.
Insects and small creatures: 🐝🦋🐌 carry persistence, change and calm — and the butterfly doubles as the standard metaphor for nervous excitement.
How people use them
Inviting someone on a walk in the park: 🌳 plus a 🐕.
Describing a beautiful morning: 🌅 and 🐦.
Congratulating a sharp colleague: 🦅 or 🐐, carefully — know your audience.
Sending sympathy: 🕊️ or a single 🥀.