A new animal every day

This was Monday’s animal. Every day has its own page.

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Monday 19 October 2026

A pale orange basket star on a pink-crusted rock in green water, its arms forking into countless fine, curled tips.
Photo: Veronika Kovacova · CC BY 4.0 · iNaturalist

Picked by voters

Basket star

It holds up its branching, hook-covered arms in the current like a basket, then passes the tiny animals it catches along to its mouth.

Lives in
Rocky reefRocky seabeds with strong currents in the north-east Atlantic, from Norway and Iceland to the British Isles
More about the basket starScientific name, size and Red List status
Scientific name
Gorgonocephalus caputmedusae
Size
Can exceed 50 cm across, arms included
IUCN Red List
Not evaluated

The IUCN Red List has assessed 175,909 species. This one has not been assessed yet. What this means

Fact source: University Museum of Bergen

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This week

Every animal so far
  1. Mon 19Basket starViewing
  2. Tue 20Alpaca
  3. Wed 21Sociable weaver
  4. Thu 22Gumboot chiton
  5. Fri 23Cape dwarf chameleonToday
  6. Sat 24Tomorrow’s animalin 57 min
  7. Sun 25

Why Animall

People can’t care about animals they have never heard of.

Scientists still discover thousands of new animal species every year, while many others are disappearing because of habitat loss and climate change. Some die out before anyone has described them.

10,000+

new animal species are described every year.

University of Arizona, 2025

86%

of species on Earth, and 91% in the ocean, have not been described yet.

Mora et al., 2011

73%

average drop in monitored wildlife populations between 1970 and 2020.

WWF Living Planet Report, 2024