Pictionary Animals
Forty animals with genuinely different shapes. Animals are the best Pictionary category for beginners because a bad drawing of an octopus is still recognisably an octopus.
Tip: keep this page open on a phone and pass it around.
Pictionary Animals — full list (37 words)
Easy (35)
- fish
- elephant
- giraffe
- penguin
- kangaroo
- hedgehog
- dolphin
- squirrel
- reindeer
- rhinoceros
- hippopotamus
- crocodile
- flamingo
- zebra
- leopard
- cheetah
- wolf
- fox
- bear
- owl
- eagle
- parrot
- turtle
- crab
- lobster
- shark
- whale
- seahorse
- starfish
- snail
- spider
- bee
- ant
- camel
- llama
Medium (2)
- octopus
- peacock
Get the animals pack
All 40 animal words as printable cards, grouped easy to hard.
No spam. One or two emails a month, unsubscribe anytime.
How to play
- Start with the easy outlines: fish, snake, elephant, butterfly. Save the octopus and lobster for later rounds.
- Draw the most distinctive feature first — the trunk, the hump, the shell. It anchors the guess.
- For kids, animals are the easiest category. For adults, add a rule that you cannot draw the whole animal, only a zoomed-in detail.
- No writing the animal's name in another language to cheat. We have seen it attempted.
FAQ
What animals are easy to draw for Pictionary?
Fish, snake, elephant, turtle, butterfly and starfish — all have one or two distinctive features that anchor the drawing.
What animals are hard to draw?
Anything without a strong silhouette: seahorse, starfish, hedgehog, ant. They need detail before the guess lands.
Are animals good Pictionary words for kids?
They are the best category. Children recognise animals instantly and the drawings do not need to be accurate.
How many animal words are there here?
Forty, from household pets to deep-sea creatures, so you can play several rounds without repeats.