Expert: Jonathan Wright - 5/23/2005

Question
My daughter is 8yrs. old and is doing a report on France, one of the questions she needs to answer is to identify animals typically found there.  Can you help? Thank you.

Answer
Dear Sheryl

Thanks for your question. I have looked up a few websites, but the bulk of my information came from a library book: ‘France' by Bob Gibbons. This is one of the Travellers' Nature Guides, published by Oxford University Press in 2003. It is based around different locations, but I have made a list of the named animals, according to how they are classified. Please note that there are thousands of species of animals living in France, but I have made a list of those emphasised by the book and websites I studied. Some of the animals I have listed occur in Corsica and I don't know if they also occur in France, even though they feature in the library book. I'm sorry if this makes the list confusing.The term 'animals typically found there' is a bit confusing. Did your daughter want to know about animals which are common in France (and some other countries) or animals unique to France? I have compiled a list of animals found in France and I hope this is what is required. Please note that some of these animals are much commoner than others and that some animals stay hidden and may be hard to see, even though they can be quite abundant.  
   
http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/DF_florafauna.shtml http://www.hekmats.com/france.htm and http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/reallywild/features/holiday_guide/france.shtml have basic information about animals from France.

France has few large mammals. These include red deer, roe deer, ibex, chamois and wild boar, as well as common seals and common dolphins. Other mammals include the polecat, crested porcupine, Alpine marmot, weasel, pine and beech martens, muskrat, water vole, brown and mountain hares, wolf, coypu, red squirrel, snow vole, European wildcat, European beaver, genet, European otter, northern lynx, red fox, common and garden dormice, water, common, pygmy and pygmy white-toothed shrews and European badger. Bats include the Brandt's, pond, Nathusius's, Savi's and common pipistrelle, noctule, Daubenton's, grey and brown long-eared, greater and Mediterranean horseshoe, Leisler's, Geoffroy's, whiskered, Natterer's, Bechstein's, greater mouse-eared, European free-tailed, serotine, barbastelle, northern and parti-coloured bats. There are small populations of brown bears and lynx high in the Pyrenees and the Pyrenean desman is very rare.

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=59&story_id=13632&... gives details of the decline of minks in France.

France has an abundance of bird life. Many species of migrating birds, including ducks, geese, and thrushes, spend their winters in France. I have placed most of the following birds in alphabetic order, based on their common names. French birds include the alpine accentor, avocet, bee-eater, bittern, little bittern, bluethroat, brambling, cirl, Ortolan, rock and snow buntings, little bustard, honey and common buzzards, capercaillie, red-billed and Alpine choughs, coot, great cormorant, spotted crake, common crane, common crossbill, great spottd cuckoo, curlew, stone curlew, dipper, great northern, red- and black-throated divers, turtle, rock and stock doves, white-headed and ferruginous ducks, dunlin, spotted, white-tailed sea, short-toed, booted and golden eagles, little, great white and cattle egrets, eider, Eleonora's falcon, fieldfare, snow and citril finches, firecrest, greater flamingo, pied flycatcher, fulmar, gadwall, gannet, garganey, bean, red-breasted, white-fronted, greylag and Brent geese, black- and bar-tailed godwit, goldeneye, goosander, goshawk, little, great crested and black-necked grebes, greenshank, hazel grouse, guillemot, Mediterranean, slender-billed, black-headed, yellow-legged, lesser and great black-backed and little gulls, Montagu's, marsh and hen harriers, hawfinch, Squacco, grey, night and purple herons, hobby, hoopoe, jackdaw, common and lesser kestrels, kingfisher, black and red kites, kittiwake, knot, lammergeier,  lapwing, crested and short-toed larks, linnet, mallard, house, sand and crag martins, red-breasted merganser, merlin, nightingale, nightjar, nutcracker, golden oriole, osprey, ring ouzel, tawny, Tengmalm's, eagle, pygmy, long-eared, scops and short-eared owls,  oystercatcher, rock partridge, peregrine, storm petrel, pintail, tawny, water, tree and rock pipits, grey, golden, Kentish, little ringed and ringed plovers, pochard, red-crested pochard, collared pratincole, ptarmigan, puffin, water rail, raven, razorbill, redpoll, common and spotted redshanks, black redstart,  redwing, bearded reedling, roller, sanderling, pin-tailed sandgrouse, purple, wood, green, common and curlew sandpipers, common and velvet scoters, serin, shag, Manx, Yelkouan and Cory's shearwaters, shelduck, shoveler, red-backed, great grey and woodchat shrikes, skuas, skylark, smew, snipe, jack snipe, rock sparrow, sparrowhawk, spoonbill, black-winged stilt, Temminck's stint, stonechat, black and white storks, red-rumped and common swallows,  purple swamp-hen, Bewick's and whooper swans, pallid, common and alpine swifts, teal, Arctic, whiskered, little, Sandwich, common, whiskered and black terns, rock and blue rock thrushes, crested and penduline tits, short-toed and common treecreepers, turnstone, griffon and Egyptian vultures, blue-headed, grey and yellow wagtails, wallcreeper, marsh, wood, great reed, sedge, reed, Cetti's, melodious, grasshopper, fan-tailed, Icterine, subalpine, Bonelli's, Orphean, Savi's, moustached, subalpine, Dartford, yellow-browed and Sardinian warblers, northern and black-eared wheatears, whimbrel, whinchat, common and lesser whitethroats, wigeon, woodlark and the great-, lesser- and middle-spotted, green, white-backed, grey-headed and black woodpeckers and wryneck. The black vulture has been reintroduced into France. Rare species include the lesser kestrel, Richard's pipit, red-breasted flycatcher, yellow-browed warbler, corncrake, little bustard, Audoin's gull and Corsican nuthatch.

Reptiles are relatively rare in France and the only venomous reptile in France is the adder. Other French reptiles include the Hermann's tortoise, European and pond terrapins, Montpellier, western whip, Montpellier, Aesculapian, grass, ladder and smooth snakes, Orsini's viper, Turkish, Moorish and the European leaf-toed geckos, slow-worm and the sand, wall, common, green, ocellated and Spanish psammodromus lizards. Amphibians include the Tyrrhenian painted, stripeless and common tree, Iberian water, pool, parsley, marsh, agile, painted, edible, common and moor frogs, marbled, palmate, alpine, smooth and crested newts, Pyrenean brook and fire salamanders and the common, natterjack, western spadefoot, midwife, yellow-bellied and green toads. The Corsican salamander and Corsican brook salamanders are endemic to Corsica.

Fish include seahorses, pipefishes, mullets, eels, carps, pikes, Atlantic salmon, sea bream, rainbow wrasse, painted comber, grouper, brown trout and tench.

Insects include butterflies (Cleopatra, grayling, brown argus, two-tailed pasha, meadow brown, mountain clouded yellow, large heath, false ringlet, hedge brown, sooty, Larche and water ringlet, wall, gatekeeper, lesser purple emperor, common and scarce swallowtail, silver-spotted skipper, orange tip, brimstone, Idas, Adonis, common and chalkhill blue, Duke of Burgundy, white-letter and purple hairstreak, large copper, map, lesser purple emperor, large tortoiseshell, Camberwell beauty, marbled, wood, peak and rock white, dark green, shepherd, Queen of Spain and pearl-bordered fritillary, grizzled, large grizzled, chequered and marbled skippers and clouded Apollo butterflies), moths (Mother Shipton, forester, emperor, hummnigbird hawkmoth, Clifden nonpareil, latticed heath, chimney sweep, burnet and lobster moths), dragonflies (Norfolk, southern and hairy hawker, orange and orange-spotted emerald, banded demoiselle, four-spotted and scarce chaser, common, red and white-faced darter, golden-ringed, black-tailed and keeled skimmer and lesser emperor dragonflies), damselflies (emerald, small red, variable, orange, scarce emerald and small blue-tailed damselflies), beetles (red cardinal, bloody-nosed, musk, rove, tiger, ground, glow-worm, rose and bee chafer, stag, lesser stag, longhorn, water and minotaur beetles), lacewings, velvet ants, bee-killer, bee-wolves, soldier flies, sand, ruby-tailed, digging ground-hoppers, caddisflies, mayflies, hoverflies, needle-flies, shield-bugs, conopid flies, hornets, solitary bees, ichneumons, field, mole and wood crickets, bog, zizi, great green, Roesel's and grey bush-crickets and large marsh, long-winged and short-winged conehead, woodland, mottled and blue-flashing grasshoppers.

Other invertebrates include the wasp, tarantula and water spiders, scorpions, crayfishes, spiny and common lobsters, medicinal leech, ragworms, lugworms, white-lipped snail, fan mussel, sea fan and red coral.

I have spent a few hours compiling this list and I hope this is useful. When I was eight years old, I knew a few obscure aniamls, but I don't know if your daughter just wanted a list of well known animals, or even just a list of mammals.

I wish you and your daughter all the best.

Jonathan