New Zealand animals word search
A tuatara, a wētā, a fur seal on the rocks and a possum where it should not be. Twenty animals of Aotearoa, native and introduced, in a fourteen by fourteen grid.
- Deer
- Dolphin
- Eel
- Ferret
- Frog
- Fur seal
- Gecko
- Hedgehog
- Kea
- Kiwi
- Long-tailed bat
- Possum
- Rabbit
- Sea lion
- Skink
- Snail
- Stoat
- Trout
- Tuatara
- Wētā
This is the same puzzle as on the printable sheet. Every word you find turns green and is crossed off the list.
Make your own versionNZ animals
Name
| T | B | R | P | N | N | K | T | H | A | I | M | L | A |
| L | O | N | G | T | A | I | L | E | D | B | A | T | K |
| W | E | H | F | T | B | W | K | D | N | L | O | I | K |
| D | E | E | R | B | T | I | L | G | A | T | F | F | E |
| S | F | T | A | T | M | M | N | E | I | U | F | E | E |
| V | X | R | A | U | N | T | S | H | L | A | U | E | I |
| G | D | T | S | F | U | R | E | O | I | T | T | I | M |
| C | B | S | H | C | U | U | T | G | E | A | O | R | L |
| N | O | N | E | F | M | E | T | R | F | R | O | G | N |
| P | T | A | S | A | T | N | R | E | O | A | E | O | A |
| T | O | I | T | U | L | E | G | E | C | K | O | N | E |
| R | P | L | O | G | F | I | O | S | K | I | N | K | L |
| N | E | R | A | B | L | D | O | L | P | H | I | N | B |
| E | T | L | T | O | G | O | C | N | E | E | N | I | B |
Find these words
- Deer
- Dolphin
- Eel
- Ferret
- Frog
- Fur seal
- Gecko
- Hedgehog
- Kea
- Kiwi
- Long-tailed bat
- Possum
- Rabbit
- Sea lion
- Skink
- Snail
- Stoat
- Trout
- Tuatara
- Wētā
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NZ animals
Give it a try: drag a line across the letters.
All words found!
About this word search
Before people arrived, the only land mammals in Aotearoa were bats. Birds, lizards and insects filled the gaps, which is why a wētā can grow so big and a tuatara still lives here, the last of a line of reptiles that goes back to the age of the dinosaurs. Possums, stoats, ferrets, rabbits and hedgehogs came later with settlers, and that mix of native and introduced animals is what this sheet is about.
The grid is fourteen by fourteen and the words run across, down and diagonally, never backwards. Long-tailed bat is the giant at thirteen letters and reads as LONGTAILEDBAT, with no space or hyphen. Eel and kea have only three letters each and are easy to miss, so look for the double E of eel and the K of kea, which also starts kiwi. Wētā sits in the grid as plain WETA without the macrons.
Once the words are found, sort them into two lists: animals that were here before people and animals that arrived with them. It makes a good start to a talk about why kiwi need trap lines and why a stoat is not welcome in the bush.
Ways to use this word search
In the classroom
Print it as a task for early finishers, or to open a lesson on this topic. With the QR code on the sheet, students check their own answers.
At home and on the go
Pack a few printed sheets for the car, the ferry or the bach. A pen is all you need, no screen required.
Play together
Print the sheet twice and race each other. Whoever finds all the words first wins. Or play it online and see who is fastest.
Try it in Spanish too
The same theme also exists in Spanish, French, German and Italian, each with its own word list in that language. Handy if you are learning a language: you already know the topic, now just the words.
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