The Faunalist publishes guides about wild animals, pets and the animals people keep in their yards. Accuracy is the entire value of a site like this, so this page sets out exactly how our guides get researched, who writes them, how we handle mistakes, and what our names on the byline do and do not mean. It applies to every article on the site.
How we research
Every guide starts with the sources, not with the draft. We work from primary and institutional material first: government wildlife agencies, university extension programs, museum and research collections, veterinary bodies and peer reviewed research. Other content sites are not treated as sources, however confidently they state something, because most animal misinformation online spreads by copying.
Each factual claim in a guide has to be traceable to one of those sources. Identification claims, range claims, toxicity claims and anything that could change how a reader treats an animal are checked against at least two independent sources before publishing. Where the sources genuinely disagree, or the answer is unsettled, we say so in the article instead of picking the tidier version.
The sources we use
- Birds: Cornell Lab of Ornithology and All About Birds, the National Audubon Society, state wildlife agencies and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
- Mammals, reptiles and amphibians: state wildlife and natural resources agencies, USGS, university extension wildlife programs and museum herpetology collections.
- Insects, spiders and household pests: university extension entomology departments, the Entomological Society of America, state agriculture departments and the EPA for anything involving treatment.
- Pets and small animals: veterinary bodies and animal welfare organisations including the RSPCA, PDSA and the House Rabbit Society, university veterinary school material and published species nutrition research.
- Poultry and livestock: university extension poultry and animal science programs, USDA material and recognised breed standards.
- Fish: FishBase, state fish and wildlife agencies and university extension aquaculture programs.
Guides link out to the sources they rely on. If a guide makes a claim you want to check, the reference should be in the article itself.
Who writes here
The Faunalist is written by a small editorial team. Each writer owns one subject area and stays in it, because the fastest way to get animal facts wrong is to write about everything.
| Writer | Role | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| Marcus Ellery | Editor and Birds | Birds, backyard birding, bird identification and behavior |
| Owen Caldwell | Mammals, Reptiles and Amphibians | Wild mammals, snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs and track or scat identification |
| Hannah Whitlock | Insects, Spiders and Pest Control | Insects, spiders, butterflies, garden invertebrates and household pest identification |
| Priya Natarajan | Small Pets | Guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, bearded dragons and leopard geckos |
| Tom Ashby | Poultry and Backyard Livestock | Chickens, ducks, turkeys, goats, sheep, pigs and cattle |
| Lena Marsh | Fish and Aquariums | Freshwater aquarium fish, pond fish and North American sport fish |
Pen names, stated plainly
The bylines on this site are pen names. Each one belongs to a real person on our editorial team who writes that subject area, but the names are not their legal names and the portraits on the author pages are illustrations, not photographs. We use pen names for ordinary privacy reasons, and we would rather tell you that on a page like this one than let you assume otherwise.
What that means in practice: we do not claim degrees, licences or job titles that our writers do not hold, and you will not find invented university affiliations or fabricated field credentials anywhere on this site. Where a question needs a professional, whether that is a veterinarian, a licensed pest control operator or a state wildlife officer, the article says so and sends you to one. Our authority claim is limited to what we can actually stand behind: careful sourcing, subject focus and honest uncertainty.
Corrections
Ranges shift, taxonomy changes and sometimes we simply get something wrong. When we learn that a published guide is inaccurate or out of date, we correct the article itself rather than burying a note at the bottom. Substantive corrections that change the answer to the question are noted in the article so readers can see what changed.
If you spot an error, write to [email protected] with the article name and what you found. Reader corrections are checked against our sources and acted on, and they are genuinely welcome.
Advertising and independence
The Faunalist is funded by display advertising and affiliate links, which are explained in full in our advertising and affiliate disclosure. Advertisers and retailers have no input into what we publish or what we recommend. No article is written, changed or held back because of a commercial relationship, and product mentions follow the research rather than the other way around.
Use of AI tools
We use software to help with research, drafting and editing, in the same way any modern publisher does. Nothing goes live unreviewed: a human editor checks the sourcing, the claims and the accuracy of every guide before it is published, and the editorial team is accountable for what appears under its bylines.
Contact
Questions about how we work, corrections, or anything else: [email protected], or through our contact page.