A new animal every day

Today · Saturday 24 October 2026

A reddish-brown paper wasp with a yellow face, large eyes and curled antennae stands on a cluster of yellow flowers.
Photo: Michael · CC BY 4.0 · iNaturalist

Picked by voters

Northern paper wasp

It recognises other wasps by the markings on their faces, using a brain less than a millionth the size of ours.

Lives in
GardensGardens, fields and woodland edges of eastern North America
More about the northern paper waspScientific name, size and Red List status
Scientific name
Polistes fuscatus
Size
About 2 cm long
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 of Michigan

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This week

Every animal so far
  1. Mon 19Basket star
  2. Tue 20Alpaca
  3. Wed 21Sociable weaver
  4. Thu 22Gumboot chiton
  5. Fri 23Cape dwarf chameleon
  6. Sat 24Northern paper waspToday
  7. Sun 25Tomorrow’s animalin 23 h 36 min

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