Of 38 animals we compared, the lion drew the most English Wikipedia views from 2016 to 2025, at 22,116,531. The house mouse, including the laboratory mouse, led research by a wide margin with 646,117 PubMed papers in the same decade. And the mallard duck led real-world records, with 32,838,773 occurrence records in GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
We collected all three numbers for each animal ourselves from free public databases. Side by side, they show three very different ideas of which animals matter: the ones people read about, the ones scientists work on, and the ones people actually see and record.
The three headline findings
- Public favourites are big and charismatic. Lion (22,116,531), tiger (21,612,671), giant panda (16,305,583) and axolotl (16,283,992) top the Wikipedia ranking.
- Science runs on model organisms. After the mouse come zebrafish (37,061 papers), C. elegans roundworms (17,871) and fruit flies (14,601). All four sit in the bottom eight of our list for Wikipedia views.
- The widest gap is the Komodo dragon: 13,829,012 views but only 52 papers, about 265,943 views per paper. The honey badger is next, at 132,920.
Views, papers and records for 38 animals
| Animal | Wikipedia views 2016 to 2025 | PubMed papers 2016 to 2025 | GBIF records (all time) | Views per paper |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lion | 22,116,531 | 1,037 | 20,251 | 21,327 |
| Tiger | 21,612,671 | 599 | 8,311 | 36,081 |
| Giant panda | 16,305,583 | 635 | 300 | 25,678 |
| Axolotl | 16,283,992 | 492 | 1,008 | 33,098 |
| Capybara | 15,222,768 | 169 | 28,601 | 90,076 |
| Tardigrade | 13,842,130 | 560 | 72,332 | 24,718 |
| Komodo dragon | 13,829,012 | 52 | 1,424 | 265,943 |
| Blue whale | 13,546,312 | 172 | 31,603 | 78,758 |
| Platypus | 13,254,818 | 249 | 30,423 | 53,232 |
| Great white shark | 12,409,346 | 120 | 19,476 | 103,411 |
| Pangolin | 12,310,726 | 833 | 5,496 | 14,779 |
| Polar bear | 12,182,352 | 347 | 11,333 | 35,108 |
| Cheetah | 12,041,099 | 359 | 10,361 | 33,541 |
| Red panda | 11,694,955 | 152 | 792 | 76,940 |
| Wolf | 11,664,227 | 2,983 | 263,734 | 3,910 |
| Octopus | 11,388,984 | 1,401 | 296,536 | 8,129 |
| Hippopotamus | 11,112,521 | 189 | 16,865 | 58,796 |
| Koala | 10,187,204 | 493 | 454,760 | 20,664 |
| Bald eagle | 9,036,483 | 152 | 7,288,688 | 59,451 |
| Honey badger | 8,905,673 | 67 | 2,304 | 132,920 |
| Snow leopard | 7,593,056 | 163 | 592 | 46,583 |
| Orca | 7,391,446 | 764 | 42,447 | 9,675 |
| Saltwater crocodile | 7,322,436 | 102 | 108,944 | 71,789 |
| Chimpanzee | 7,239,039 | 2,414 | 7,337 | 2,999 |
| Red fox | 6,966,232 | 988 | 2,066,674 | 7,051 |
| Monarch butterfly | 4,941,884 | 326 | 833,116 | 15,159 |
| House sparrow | 4,654,256 | 388 | 26,306,378 | 11,996 |
| Mallard | 4,362,688 | 779 | 32,838,773 | 5,600 |
| Emperor penguin | 4,122,271 | 74 | 132,294 | 55,706 |
| African bush elephant | 3,279,091 | 329 | 31,426 | 9,967 |
| Cane toad | 3,066,242 | 270 | 118,936 | 11,356 |
| Fruit fly | 2,991,592 | 14,601 | 4,502 | 205 |
| Naked mole-rat | 2,944,519 | 414 | 801 | 7,112 |
| House mouse | 2,758,040 | 646,117 | 254,004 | 4 |
| Western honey bee | 2,081,090 | 4,788 | 1,325,066 | 435 |
| C. elegans (roundworm) | 1,576,498 | 17,871 | 519 | 88 |
| Zebrafish | 1,406,082 | 37,061 | 1,010 | 38 |
| Common bottlenose dolphin | 700,642 | 720 | 195,232 | 973 |
What stands out
The giant panda is the clearest case of an animal people love but rarely record: 16,305,583 Wikipedia views and only 300 GBIF records. The snow leopard (592) and red panda (792) are similar.
Common birds dominate the records. The mallard (32,838,773), house sparrow (26,306,378) and bald eagle (7,288,688) are far ahead of every mammal in our list. The red fox, with 2,066,674 records, is the most-recorded mammal.
The tardigrade punches above its size, with 13,842,130 views. The axolotl is both popular and well studied, with 492 papers in the decade.
How we got these numbers
- Wikipedia views: Wikimedia Pageviews API,
/metrics/pageviews/per-article/en.wikipedia/all-access/user/<article>/monthly/2016010100/2026093000, summed for 2016 to 2025. Groups such as octopus, tardigrade and pangolin use the group article. - Research papers: NCBI E-utilities (esearch) for PubMed,
esearch.fcgi?db=pubmed&term=<query>&rettype=count, publication years 2016 to 2025, title and abstract search on the scientific and common name. Exact queries are in the CSV. The lion query excludes sea lions. The mouse query includes the words mouse and mice, so it counts laboratory mouse research. - Records: GBIF Occurrence API,
/v1/occurrence/search?taxonKey=<key>&limit=0, with the taxon key from/v1/species/match. All-time count, every country, including museum specimens and observations. - Retrieved: 31 October 2026.
- Limitations: GBIF counts reflect where people record wildlife and share the data, not how many animals exist. Papers that use other names are missed, and some counted papers mention an animal only briefly. The 38 animals are a hand-picked mix of popular, studied and common species, not a random sample.