Animal crossword puzzle
Twelve animals, from the farm to the ocean, hiding behind twelve clues. Every answer crosses another, so each animal you name helps you spell the next one.
Curated by 
Esme Rook
·
Updated October 2026
Play it right here
12 clues to solve: 5 across and 7 down. Tap a square and type; tap it again to switch between across and down. Solved words lock in green.
Across
- 1. Animal you can ride; it wears horseshoes (5)
- 4. Big cat with orange fur and black stripes (5)
- 7. Green jumper that croaks and starts life as a tadpole (4)
- 10. The largest land animal, with a trunk and big ears (8)
- 11. Big furry animal that sleeps through the winter (4)
Down
- 2. Bird that hoots and hunts at night (3)
- 3. Long reptile with no legs (5)
- 5. Long-eared animal that hops and loves carrots (6)
- 6. It swings through the trees and loves bananas (6)
- 7. Bushy-tailed animal with a reputation for being clever (3)
- 8. Farm animal that gives us wool (5)
- 9. The biggest animal in the ocean (5)
What kind of animals are in it?
Everyday ones: pets, farm animals, forest animals and one giant from the sea. No trick species and no Latin names, so the clues read like riddles rather than a biology quiz. The giant is the WHALE, the biggest animal in the ocean, and the farm sends the HORSE and the SHEEP that gives us wool.
Eight letters at the top, three at the bottom
The longest answer is eight letters and the shortest is three, which makes those short words the sneaky ones: fewer letters means fewer crossings to help you. ELEPHANT is the long one, and it sits in the middle of everything, crossing MONKEY, SHEEP, WHALE and RABBIT. OWL and FOX are the three-letter pair, and each of them touches only one other word. A good plan is to write ELEPHANT first, since a clue about a trunk and big ears gives it away, and then let its letters feed the four answers hanging from it. The green jumper that croaks leads to FROG, which hands you the F of FOX.
Gentle enough for young solvers
This is the gentlest crossword on the site along with the easy crossword. A young solver who can spell the animals will get through it with a little patience, and the crossings act as a built-in spell check: if two answers fight over a square, one of them is wrong. Children who finish and want more can try the zoo animals word search or the farm animals word search.
One sheet for the puzzle, one for the key
The puzzle PDF is one clean sheet: the numbered grid on top, the across and down clues below. The answer key is a separate PDF, so you can hand out the puzzle and keep the completed grid to yourself. Both are free, from the buttons above.
Same theme, different puzzle: Zoo animals word search
