This is a list of animals that appear in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. In addition, this list encompasses several living creatures that were referred to at some point by Tolkien as being beast-shaped Maiar (angelic beings) rather than proper animals; such cases are annotated.
In Quenya, an Elven tongue devised by Tolkien, the general term for animals as distinct from plants was kelvar.
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list and/or animals:
“I made a list of things I have
to remember and a list
of things I want to forget,
but I see they are the same list.”
—Linda Pastan (b. 1932)
“Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal-passers—all.”
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)
“We know what the animals do, what are the needs of the beaver, the bear, the salmon, and other creatures, because long ago men married them and acquired this knowledge from their animal wives. Today the priests say we lie, but we know better.”
—native American belief, quoted by D. Jenness in “The Carrier Indians of the Bulkley River,” Bulletin no. 133, Bureau of American Ethnology (1943)