
I thought of calling this post “Noah’s Ark”, except that there are more than two of each animal. I’m talking about collections of animal clipart, videos, and sounds to use in all kinds of classroom projects.
These collections came together as I was working on The Animals Game, but I decided to include them in this separate post because they are such valuable resources for all grade levels. As a bonus, download a set of printable picture dominoes using 13 of the animals from the clipart collection, a set of crocodilian resources, and pictures of a platypus nest with eggs.
Which Animals Are Included?
The clipart collection has all the animals from The Animals Game, plus some extras that appeared in the supporting book, What I Like Best About Animals. The following list is in alphabetical order:
- Alligator Bear Beetle
- Camel (dromedary and bactrian)
- Chameleon Cow Crab Deer
- Dolphin Eagle Earthworm
- Echidna (two different animals)
- Fish Frog Jellyfish
- Kangaroo (standing and hopping)
- Lion Octopus (two different animals)
- Ostrich (standing and running)
- Penguin (three different types)
- Platypus Rabbit Snake
- Spider Swan Turtle (tortoise,
snapping turtle, and sea turtle) - Wolf Zebra
There are at least four versions of each animal clip: a png and a jpg version about 600 pixels wide, and a png and a jpg very small version around 100 pixels wide. In some cases, there are three instead of two sizes. I’m including the png versions because they have a transparent background. Depending on what applications you use, these may be easier put on a solid color background or into a scene.

Other Clip Art
Although it’s mostly a collection of animal clip art, the collection also includes a folder of JPEG images, all the same size, with original art illustrating various animal characteristics. These are intended for use as flash cards or other activities about sorting animals. Other miscellaneous clip art includes several different stage backgrounds, button art, a water splash, and a set of little computer cartoons.
The water splash is a good example of why it’s nice to have clip art with a transparent background. I used it originally as a splash coming up from where a dolphin had just leaped out of the water. Just to see what else I could do with the splash, I turned it upside down and, by layering several copies with various blending settings, made a quite realistic waterfall. I used PhotoShop®, but you can get the same effect in any graphics application that supports layers.

There is more animal clip art, including a crocodile, caiman, and platypus nest, in the bonus downloads described below.
Clip Art Usage
Most of the animal clip art came from public domain images, so no attribution is required, although a few images do ask for attribution. I request attribution for my original art, mainly so that people will find my website. A PDF is included with the collection that alerts you to the few images for which you should include attribution info, which you can easily copy and paste.
Animals Video Collection
This collection includes one short video on each of the animals listed above, plus extras in three cases: separate videos for dromedary and bactrian camels, spearate videos for a male lion and female lions with cubs, and separate videos for land turtles (including tortoises), freshwater turtles, and sea turtles. There are some unusual animals, such as the echidna and platypus, and unusual viewpoints, such as watching a spider spin a web or an earthworm moving along.

Most of these videos are a combination of several very short clips. My goal was to pack in as much information as possible about the animal’s behavior and typical appearance into one or two minutes. That meant combining clips as short as five seconds, with a one minute clip being the longest. If you have a student doing a project on a specific animal, you can use the included sources PDF to locate the original videos, which may be much longer and include more information.
Video Usage
Many of the animal movies include portions of public domain videos from Pixabay.com, definitely the first place to search for videos. I also used segments from videos posted to Flickr and YouTube, making certain their Creative Commons licenses allowed sharing and modification. Most are attribution and share alike licenses, though a few also have a non-commercial use restriction.
Animal Sounds Collection
I stumbled across a library of public domain animal sounds on the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service website. As you’ve no doubt found out, many of the resources we all use from government sites are disappearing, and during the shutdown many sites could not be maintained. I fear that many resources won’t come back any time soon, or maybe not at all, since there are higher priorities. So I went ahead and downloaded all of these nature sounds, and edited a few that had a lot of motor and other distracting ambient noises.

This collection includes all kinds of hard-to-find sounds to use in classroom projects, including woodpeckers tapping, alligators bellowing (yikes!) and whales spouting. There also are sounds that are less exotic, but just as valuable becauise they can be used as ambient soundtracks to set an outdoor scene, like birds singing or spring peeper frogs in full chorus.
Each sound is in .mp3 format, and many also have a .wav version. For the three sounds I edited, I exported .mp3, .wav, and.ogg versions.
I also divided the collection into folders of bird sounds (lots!), mammals, and one folder for reptiles and amphibians. An added key to this collection replicates information on the web page, including terms of use.
Bonus Animals Resources
Extra Monotreme Stuff
While researching The Animals Game videos, I became fascinated with the platypus and the echidna, the only mammals who lay eggs. The eggs, though, are much smaller in proportion to the animals than the eggs of reptiles or birds. Few have seen either of these strange animals hatching. I did find one video of each monotreme and have given you both links below.
With a far smaller food supply, the tiny babies that hatch are far less mature than baby reptiles, who can live on their own right out of the shell. They’re even less developed than newly-hatched, almost featherless bird babies. But they behave like mammal babies, and immediately start lapping milk that oozes from their mother’s skin.

In case you do a project on the platypus, I’ve also prepared clip art of a platypus nest, complete with two eggs, and of a platypus with its nest, that you can download. The original graphic (from Wikimedia Commons) says it is a replica. The dry leaves from which the nest was made certainly look like real dried leaves. My guess is, they mean it’s a photo of a real nest, that is preserved in the Italian museum that uploaded the photo.
Extra Crocodilian Stuff
After finishing the update to The Animals Game, which includes an alligator, I tackled Mayan Jungle Adventure, which includes a caiman. I wasn’t clear on the relationship between alligators, crocodiles, and caimans, but wanted to know more, and my research turned up some extra resources for you.

I found that caimans (Central and South America) and alligators (North America and China) are more closely related to each other than to crocodiles (tropics of Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia). I was surprised to find that there are both saltwater and freshwater crocodiles, including the familiar Nile crocodile, and about six kinds of caimans.
You can’t tell them apart by their snouts, although the only caiman I had seen before these projects had a very long narrow one. But there are caimans and crocodiles with snouts as wide as the familiar alligator. If you see teeth sticking up as well as hanging down when the reptile has its mouth closed, that’s a crocodile. The other distinguishing features are too difficult to see before you make a very quick retreat. All these scaly, toothy critters belong to branch of reptiles that have been around longer than most of the dinosaurs!

Besides finding these interesting facts, I located a couple of videos online of a black caiman and a leaping crocodile, and have given you those two links. To help you tell all the crocodilians apart, download the crocodilians.zip which has short videos of all three (alligator, caiman, crocodile) and a nice photo of a Nile crocodile I took in the Reptile House of the zoo. Yes, he was behind glass! The download also has photos of caimans and alligators, clip art of all three, and source information.
A Few More Videos
In updating the Mayan Jungle Adventure, I added more videos, so that there were enough for a small video collection. These include: Nile crocodile, caiman, vampire bats, jaguars, cotton-top tamarins, blue macaws, and a Scarlet Ibis on its nest. Some of these are my own videos, others by various videographers also require attribution, and the crocodile video is public domain. The included PDF lists all the sources.

Animal Dominoes
I chose 13 of the animal clip art images and used them to make up a set of printable picture dominoes. There are 91 dominoes, equivalent to a double-12 standard domino set, on four standard letter-size pages in a PDF. There are two versions. One set is a bit larger than standard dominoes, and is meant to be printed, mounted on a stiff backing, and cut apart.
The other version is exactly the size of standard dominoes, and it’s intended that you buy blank heavy plastic dominoes and stick on the animal domino faces. This second version has a link to a site where you can buy the blanks. Also in both PDFs are rules and game pieces for Animal Train, a game I made up based on the classic Mexican Train domino game.
Applications needed: Acrobat Reader, graphics application, multimedia applications capable of playing videos and sounds.
Subject area: Resources.
Level: Author.
Online Resources – Links
Echidna Hatching Video link: CLICK HERE. Video of a tiny echidna hatching from an egg.
Monotremes Video link: CLICK HERE. Video about monotremes, showing echidna and babies, newborn exchidnas lapping milk, playpus hatching, and baby platypuses.
Crocodile Vertical Leap Video link: CLICK HERE. Video of a saltwater crocodile leaping vertically full length to snap at a bait.
Black Caiman Video link: CLICK HERE. National Geographic video about black caimans. I like this short explanation of how wildlife management and conservation efforts also benefit the sport of hunting.
Resources – Downloads
AnimalsClipArtCollection.zip (44.8 MB) Collection of clip art in .jpg and .png formats, including all the animals from The Animals Game (and a few extra), the little computer cartoons, and more. To preview the collection, click here.
AnimalsGameVideoCollection.zip (424 MB) Collection of short videos featuring each of the animals from The Animals Game in .m4v format, compatible with modern web browsers and apps such as Windows Media Player® and Quicktime®.
USFWS_Sounds.zip (35.6 MB) A collection of animal sounds from the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service website. This collection of sounds includes unusual ones such as the sound of a whale spouting, a woodpecker tapping, and an alligator bellowing. Most sounds are in both .wav and .mp3 formats, and a few that I edited are also in .ogg.
Bonus Downloads
AnimalPictureDominoesOriginalSize.pdf (20.1 MB) Animal Picture Dominoes designs to make a set of 91 dominoes (equivalent to a double-12 set) using 13 animals from the Animals Game Clip Art Collection. Includes rules for Animal Train, a game based on the classic domino game Mexican Train. Download this set if you intend to mount domino designs on a stiffening material and cut them apart. Acrobat Reader.
StandardSizedAnimalDominoes.pdf (17.1 MB) Animal Picture Dominoes designs to make a set of 91 dominoes (equivalent to a double-12 set) using 13 animals from the Animals Game Clip Art Collection. Includes rules for Animal Train, a game based on the classic domino game Mexican Train. Download this set if you intend to buy blank dominoes and stick the animal dominoes designs onto them. Acrobat Reader.
Crocodilians.zip (64.7 MB) Photos, videos, and clip art of alligators, caimans, and crocodiles. Clip art is in .jpg and .png format, photos are in .jpg format, and videos in .m4v format will play in modern browsers, Windows Media Player, QuickTime, and most multimedia applications. Source information included.
PlatypusNest.zip (3.1 MB) Clip art of a platypus on its nest and the nest alone, with three eggs. Art is in .jpg and .png formats.
MayanJungleAdventureVideoCollection.zip (121.5 MB) Mayan Jungle Adventure videos from the story including scarlet ibises, tamarins, vampire bats, and all the other animals, plus bonus videos of the tropical pool and waterfall, caimans, jaguars, and a pair of blue macaws. Videos in .m4v format will play in modern browsers, Windows Media Player, QuickTime, and most multimedia applications. Source information included.