The animal is brown all of the time and not just seasonally, though babies can be born a different color and mature into their brownness. Brown is also the only color the animal normally comes in. With that in mind, here are 10 types of beautiful brown animals:
1. Cedar Waxwing
The brown feathers of the cedar waxwing have a silky sheen that sets the bird apart from other types of brown-feathered birds. A medium-sized bird that’s about six to seven inches long with a nine to 12-inch wingspan, the waxwing has wings of darker brown with black and white stripes, a crest, a black mask, and bright red drops of what looks like wax on its secondary flight feathers. It’s found from Canada down to northwest South America, and its population status is least concern. This bird eats berries and insects. Its larger cousin, the Bohemian waxwing, lives in Canada and northern Eurasia.
2. Western Banded Gecko
These beautiful brown animals are found in the southwestern states of America and the northwest of Mexico. The gecko’s body is light brown and striped with darker brown bands and spots, and the tiny size of the reptile’s scales gives the body a smooth and shiny look. It’s also different from other geckos in that it has eyelids. Around four to six inches long, including its tail, the western banded gecko lives in several types of desert habitats, including chaparral. It’s a nocturnal lizard and comes out to hunt insects and small arthropods at night. Unusually, it also eats juvenile scorpions but is in turn eaten by snakes and carnivores such as coyotes.
3. White-Tailed Deer
Familiarity may breed contempt when it comes to the white-tailed deer, but it’s also true that this deer is one beautiful animal. This graceful deer lives in North, Central, and South America and has been introduced in Europe, the Caribbean, and New Zealand. There are possibly 26 subspecies of this deer, most of which are found in America. The coat of this deer is famously red-brown during the warm months and more grayish brown in the colder months, but what makes it recognizable is the white underside of the tail, which is flashed when the animal runs away. It has a long, elegant head and a white patch at the throat and over its chin. Fawns are born with spots that help hide them in the dappled light of the forest. Since the deer has so many subspecies, its size varies. Bucks, or males, can stand 39 inches at the shoulder and weigh as much as 400 pounds and does can stand 31.5 inches at the shoulder weigh up to 198 pounds. There’s a subspecies in Florida, the Key deer, whose bucks stand only 30 inches tall at the shoulder and weigh between 55 and 75 pounds. Does are smaller. White-tailed bucks are also known for their beautiful antlers, which they shed and regrow every year.
4. Dumeril’s Ground Boa
This non-venomous boa constrictor is native to Madagascar. It grows to about six and a half feet in length, with the females being larger than males. Its beauty comes from the pattern of scales on its body. The ground color of the snake is grayish-brown, and the patches form a row of what looks like brown flower petals from the snake’s head to its tail. The snake’s beauty makes it sought after for a pet. Dumeril’s ground boa has a varied diet of small mammals, lizards, birds, and even other snakes. It may even feed on small primates like lemurs. Due to its calm nature, Dumeril’s boas were popular in snake trade before restrictions were set in place. They do well in captivity, though their large size may be a challenge for a novice snake owner. Pet Dumeril’s thrive on a diet of rats but will stop eating if stressed-out.
5. Hoopoe
There are three species of this oddly beautiful bird with the long, thin, curved beak and spectacular crown of feathers. All species are sort of reddish or sandy brown with lovely black and white bars on the wings, tail, and crest. This coloration serves as camouflage as the bird usually feeds on the ground. Its long bill allows it to probe into the ground for small reptiles and insects. It also eats seeds and berries. Despite this, the hoopoe is a strong flier, and the black and white patterns on its spread wings only add to its attractiveness. Hoopoes are about the size of an American robin and range from 9.8 to 12. 6 inches long and with 17 to 19-inch wingspans. They can weigh between 1.6 and three ounces and are native to Africa, Europe, and Asia.
6. Copperhead
This venomous snake of the American south is also a beauty, with reddish-brown bands or hour-glass shapes on a pale or pinkish-brown ground. It’s a pit viper that seeks its prey with the help of heat-seeking pits in its head. It’s not a large snake and rarely grows much longer than three feet, with males being larger than females. It hunts during the day during the cooler months but waits for the night when the weather turns hot. Its coloration helps camouflage it, and it freezes when it senses danger. People get bitten because they mistakenly step on the snake in sandaled or bare feet. Copperheads love to eat cicadas but will happily eat other insects, arthropods such as spiders and millipedes, and small specimens of such animals as turtles, birds, frogs, and rodents. Another thing that’s interesting about this snake is that sometimes it reproduces without help from a male.
7. Bicolor Commodore
This exceptionally beautiful butterfly is found in southeast Asia. A type of nymphalid, the Commodore has dark brown wings embellished with sunny yellow stripes on the forewings that shade into white stripes on the hind wings. The edges of both the forewings and the hindwings are lined with zigzags, and there is darker marbling on the insides of the forewings. The wingspan of this butterfly is about 3.25 inches, and it can be found at altitudes as high as 8200 feet in Pakistan, India, and Burma. Other than this, scientists don’t know a great deal about how the bicolor commodore lives in the wild.
8. Orizaba Silkmoth
This huge moth has wings that span between 4.5 and 5.25 inches. It has a plump body with brown fur. There are white-edged bands of purplish-brown near the edges of the wings, and the margins of the hindwings are dotted with ringed brown spots. Both pairs of wings have triangular translucent “windows”, and the inner forewings have brown patches edged with white. The Orizaba silkmoth is native to South America but has been found as far north as southern Texas. Though scientists know that the caterpillar is fat and green and has been raised successfully on privets, they’re not sure what its host plant is in the wild. The Orizaba silkmoth has eight subspecies.
9. Cougar
Though it may be tempting to place the lion in this spot for a beautiful brown animal, the cougar has an edge because of its sleeker looks. The cougar is found as far north as the Yukon in Canada and as far south as the South American Andes. This gives a hint to how adaptable this big cat is and how successful it is despite being persecuted for centuries. As of 2021, its conservation status is least concern. The coat of this cat is light brown, though there might be some white on the muzzle and the undersides. Its head is small for its body while its paws are disproportionately large. The forelegs are shorter than the hind legs, whose muscles allow the cat to leap upon the back of its prey, which is often deer. The cougar is between 3.5 and 6.5 feet long and weighs between 150 and 230 pounds. Another thing that makes the cougar successful may be that it’s solitary and has no fixed home.
10. Kodiak Bear
The Kodiak bear is the largest subspecies of the brown bear. It is only smaller than the polar bear and can weigh as much as 1320 pounds while standing four feet four inches tall at the shoulder and stretching eight feet from nose to tail. This bear is only found on the Kodiak Archipelago, and its population seems to be increasing. The Kodiak, like other brown bears, has tiny eyes in a huge round head topped with smallish ears. Its limbs are short for the body but powerful, and it has formidable claws on its front paws that can’t be retracted. Though it usually presents with brown fur, some bears have been known to have blond or black fur. Many people are surprised to learn that brown bears are largely herbivorous and eat grasses, roots, berries, nuts, and bulbs and turn to salmon when they start to run in May. Interestingly, the bears seem to be so fond of elderberries that when they ripen at the same time the salmon are running, they’ll prefer the berries.
Summary of 10 Beautiful Brown Animals
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