Six animals from home — some you've seen on the way to grandparents' house, some are so rare almost nobody has seen them at all.
Vietnam is long and skinny — over 1,600 km from north to south. That gives it cold mountain forests in the north, hot jungle in the middle, and a long warm coast. Many different animals live in those different places.
Each one has a Vietnamese name (the way tiếng Việt(the Vietnamese language) says it) and a more "scientific" English name.
🐃
trâu
Water Buffalo
All over Vietnam · rice fields
Big, slow, kind. Farmers have used trâu to plough rice paddies for over 2,000 years. They love wallowing in mud — it cools them down and keeps the bugs off.
🦔
tê tê
Pangolin
South · forests
A walking pinecone. Tê tê is the only mammal in the world covered in scales. When scared, it rolls into a tight ball — even a tiger can't bite through. Sadly, very rare now.
🦌
sao la
Saola
Centre · Annamite mountains
Called the "Asian unicorn" — only discovered by scientists in 1992. There may be fewer than 100 left in the wild. They live deep in the cloud forests on the border with Laos.
🐒
voọc
Langur
North · limestone hills
A leaf-eating monkey with bright orange babies (the colour fades as they grow up). The Cát Bà voọc is one of the rarest primates on Earth — fewer than 80 still exist.
🐻
gấu chó
Sun Bear
Centre & south · forest
The smallest bear in the world — only the size of a large dog. Gấu chó means "dog bear". They have a yellow patch on their chest that looks like a sunrise.
🐦
chim bói cá
Kingfisher
Rivers & mangroves · everywhere
Bright turquoise and orange — like a flying jewel. Bói cá means "fish-spotter" — they hover, dive head-first into the water, and catch a fish in their beak.
Where they live
North to south — voọc, sao la, tê tê, gấu chó, trâu, bói cá