Krillion Recorded answers
395 recorded answers
How to approach it
Work the alphabet rather than memory alone. Build a mental list of animal groups with a large inventory of short compound names, then test each candidate against the spelling rule before asking whether it is a genuine animal at all. A useful second pass is to take common prefixes and suffixes from natural history writing and recombine them, since many accepted names are built from a colour or a body part plus a plain second element. Keep a tally as you go so you do not circle back to the same few obvious creatures, and deliberately visit the specialist vocabulary of angling, falconry, entomology and livestock breeding, where the oddest single-word names survive.
Get a hint
Start with the broad families where short, punchy names dominate: birds, fish, insects and small mammals supply far more candidates than large land animals do.
A little more
Many of these names are compound words, so combine a colour, body part or habitat word with a second element and check whether the joined form is a recognised animal name.
One step further
Push past the obvious everyday creatures into regional, dialect and specialist names: game birds, food fish, dog breeds and invertebrates reward a deep vocabulary more than common pets do.
Reveal answers 395
- BrocketDeep Cut85points
- BronzebackDeep Cut85points
- BucketmouthDeep Cut85points
- BuckeyeDeep Cut85points
- BuckfastDeep Cut85points
- BuckhoundDeep Cut85points
- BuckieDeep Cut85points
- BuckjumperDeep Cut85points
- BuckmothDeep Cut85points
- BushbuckDeep Cut85points
- CacklerDeep Cut85points
- CanvasbackDeep Cut85points
- CarpsuckerDeep Cut85points
- CavajackDeep Cut85points
- ChackartDeep Cut85points
- ChameckDeep Cut85points
- CheckerspotDeep Cut85points
- ChickareeDeep Cut85points
- ChickwickDeep Cut85points
- ChubsuckerDeep Cut85points
- ChuckarDeep Cut85points
- ChuckwallaDeep Cut85points
- ClickbeetleDeep Cut85points
- ClockbirdDeep Cut85points
- CockabullyDeep Cut85points
- CockachonDeep Cut85points
- CockadorDeep Cut85points
- CockalierDeep Cut85points
- CockapinDeep Cut85points
- CockatouchDeep Cut85points
- CockchaferDeep Cut85points
- CockeranianDeep Cut85points
- CockerbullDeep Cut85points
- CockfishDeep Cut85points
- CockineseDeep Cut85points
- CockwormDeep Cut85points
- CojackDeep Cut85points
- ComebackDeep Cut85points
- CottonwickDeep Cut85points
- CountneckDeep Cut85points
- CrackerDeep Cut85points
- CuckooshrikeDeep Cut85points
- DabchickDeep Cut85points
- DachsbrackeDeep Cut85points
- DawcockDeep Cut85points
- DiamondbackDeep Cut85points
- DobockerDeep Cut85points
- DockerDeep Cut85points
- DominickerDeep Cut85points
- DottybackDeep Cut85points
Why these answers count
Scoring followed rarity rather than familiarity. The single hundred-point entry, Dickcissel, is a name most solvers never reach, so it stands alone at the top. The large band at eighty-five points is where the puzzle really lives: Ackie, Antpecker, Berrypecker, Blacksmith, Buckeye and Canvasback all sit there, and what unites them is that they are recognisable single words but not the first creatures anyone lists. Names like these are specific enough to be verifiable yet uncommon enough to feel like a discovery, which is exactly the profile the scoring rewards. The lower band at sixty points, forty-eight answers in total, is presumably reserved for the household names that every solver writes down in the first minute. The pattern is clear: the more obscure the corner of the animal kingdom, the more the answer pays, provided the spelling rule is satisfied and the name is genuinely one word.