The history and significance of national animals
“The tiger is not just a beautiful animal, it is also a symbol of our country’s rich biodiversity and natural heritage.”
These were the words of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when speaking about the national animal of India , the tiger. This statement shows that the country gave more weight to beauty and proximity to nature, to project these traits through the national animal. This raises the obvious question, how to other countries of the world decide their national animal? On what basis is the selection done?
- Is the national animal selected to display a particular message about the country? (strength, beauty, courage)
- Is it decided based on the major religion of the country?
- Is the animal selected just because it is native to that country?
Or are there some other reasons as well?
Symbols have been used by humans for centuries. They are a great way to bring a sense of oneness in the soldiers of an army or people of a nation. Animals and birds have been a part of the symbols for nearly as long as the symbols have existed. For example, the ancient Roman army had a symbol for each legion. These symbols depicted animals like eagles, wolves or bears, to depict traits like strength, speed, ferociousness etc. This trend eventually translated into the modern world as choosing the national animal.
Ironically, the first animal to be selected as the national animal of a country was not even a real animal. It was a unicorn, which was selected as the national animal of Scotland. However, this trend would have to wait for three centuries before taking off. As countries began to gain independence from colonial Britain, among the first things they did was to gain a sense of identity by adopting national flags and animals.
For example, the United States of America became independent in 1776, in 1777 they adopted a national flag, and by 1782 had adopted the bald eagle as their national animal. The bald eagle, which symbolizes freedom, the idea upon which the country’s foundation was laid. One common pattern that is seen in all the countries is that the national animal is either exclusively or majorly found in that particular country, with exceptions being countries that have fictional or extinct animals, like unicorn or dodo. This, of course does not come as a surprise.
Nepal, a country in South Asia, has the cow as its national animal, as it is considered sacred in Hinduism, the major religion of that country. Many countries adopt national animals mainly to raise awareness about their conservation and to promote tourism. For example, the Ganga river dolphin is adopted as the national fish of India, in an attempt to raise awareness about their declining population due to the pollution of the river. Similarly, China has the Giant Panda as its national animal as a conservation attempt.
I analyzed the data for national animals of different countries by using data analysis tools, and then plotted the top ten choices for national animal. The subspecies have been clubbed together under the species name, for example the Asian elephant and the African elephant have been clubbed under the common species — elephant. The results were pretty interesting.
This graph shows that many countries of the world have preferred to choose national animals like lion (21 countries) and eagle (19 countries), which represent courage and strength, characters that were instrumental in the bloody history of mankind. Of the top ten, only parrots are the animals that are not perceived as strong and/or ferocious, which again clearly shows that the main purpose of national animals is to project power and inject hope in the minds of the common man.
The dataset used for this analysis can be downloaded from:
https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/rambomind/countries-and-their-national-animals
Thank you for reading!
