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I am just curious about what animals from our present day Earth still exist in the grim darkness of the far future. Obviously horses are still around since there are rough riders, but are any other animals specifically mentioned in the lore? Thanks!

Dogs exist and they outrank your average guardsman.

 Coolyo294 wrote:
Dogs exist and they outrank your average guardsman.

But they are known as Canids, and not only do they outrank guardsmen, they also outrank sergeants and some NCOs.

It's mentioned in various books (particularly the Gaunts Ghosts series) that rats, spiders and lice (and their evolved descendants from breeding with the local fauna) are pretty much galaxy wide, having been on board various interplanetary ships over the millennia.

Animals that know how to adapt and live in human settlements have a good chance of having survived so long, so raccoons and pigeons could still be around, at least on Terra. I'd bet on cockroaches too, but I'm not sure if any of these have been actually mentioned in the lore.

With the aquila being on everything, that makes me wonder if eagles still exist somewhere in the Imperium or if it's just a mythical creature at this point...

Tiennos wrote:
With the aquila being on everything, that makes me wonder if eagles still exist somewhere in the Imperium or if it's just a mythical creature at this point...

Inquisitor Coteaz has an 'augmented' Glovodan Eagle, so they still exist in some form.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We know monkeys are long extinct by 30k, as Arkhan Land does a less than perfect recreation of one - "Several scholars argued against the veracity of the archives used by Land, one in particular claiming that monkeys could hang from trees by their tails. Land deemed this ridiculous, Sapien's scorpion-like tail the result of his own theory that monkeys used their tails as lashes and puncturing weapons for delivering venom"

Horses - Plenty of examples of them rough riders of Attila being the one that comes to mind.

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Rough_Rider

And FW did camels for the Tallern Rough Riders too.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
And FW did camels for the Tallern Rough Riders too.

Really? I remember the Mukaali riders, but not camels.

The Canids (according to the Regimental Standard, so you know its true) were made from DNA samples found on Terra. They aren't surviving species- they are lab grown Jurassic Park style approximations of dogs.

Other animals will have diverged tremendously by space travel, genetic seperation and adaptation (in the manner of abhumans) or have been genetically tinkered with by man (no wolves on Fenris).

Curiously, Arkhan Land thinks a chimps tail was a prehensile poison delivery device and builds this into his robot monkey.
Species have not just gone extinct- the records of what animals were like are patchy or missing.

Practically, there's no reason why any animal couldn't be found in 40k in some form, whether genetically engineered or adapted from descendant/xenos beasts.

Pigs, or more precisely boars. Orks think they are awesome.

 Frazzled wrote:
Pigs, or more precisely boars. Orks think they are awesome.

Probably an orkoid (or squig) that convergent evolution has pushed towards a pig form. Pork isn't widely farmed in the Imperium, so it's unlikely that Orks would encounter pigs very often.

Tastyfish wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Pigs, or more precisely boars. Orks think they are awesome.

Probably an orkoid (or squig) that convergent evolution has pushed towards a pig form. Pork isn't widely farmed in the Imperium, so it's unlikely that Orks would encounter pigs very often.

how do you know pork isn't widely farmed? just because it's not mentioned doesn't mean it's not common eneugh. it's not like GW has ever published "the culinary guide to the Imperium of man"

Wolves have survived on Fenris. Granted that's a sometimes different concept. But Fenris wolves have survived.

And some big cats. A liverian of iron snakes has a large Cape of a lepold like animal.

Could be a rive. Could be descended. But it's described like the coat of a large cat, or beast.

Neko, fwlinods, so cars must sirvive in some form.

There's a aqua dwelling humonoid, so at some point humanity must have spliced with a aquatic animal.

 Afrodactyl wrote:
It's mentioned in various books (particularly the Gaunts Ghosts series) that rats, spiders and lice (and their evolved descendants from breeding with the local fauna) are pretty much galaxy wide, having been on board various interplanetary ships over the millennia.

As an aside, 'breeding with the local fauna' isn't viable. Even gene-splicing is dubious, as you're dealing with a completely distinct chromosome and DNA structure where the only common elements would be sheer 1-in-a-million happenstance.
Even if creatures inhabit a similar ecological niche and look vaguely similar, they're still completely divergent genetically. You'd have better luck breeding rats to spiders, there'd be more genetic overlap.

Genetically speaking 40k years is an instant. Some minor evolution but nothing significant.
On Earth, probably only species like rats, cockroaches and the like survived the devastation.

However, we know that humans during the Dark Age of Technology could do whatever they want. I suppose the presence on a galactic level and different planets of horses, wolves, rats and the like is due to terraforming and ecoengineering.
Possibly almost any animal survived somewhere.

 Cybtroll wrote:
Genetically speaking 40k years is an instant. Some minor evolution but nothing significant.
On Earth, probably only species like rats, cockroaches and the like survived the devastation.

However, we know that humans during the Dark Age of Technology could do whatever they want. I suppose the presence on a galactic level and different planets of horses, wolves, rats and the like is due to terraforming and ecoengineering.
Possibly almost any animal survived somewhere.

They did spread very far, and did some strange projects. Who knows what's out there or was.

Thry had crazy tech and science so there could be a planet of sentiant bane lade sized spiders with natural laser weaponry out there.

 jhe90 wrote:
Wolves have survived on Fenris. Granted that's a sometimes different concept. But Fenris wolves have survived.

Magnus states that there are no wolves on fenris, heavily suggesting that what we call fenrisian wolves are in fact degenerated human fenrisian. The earliest settlers of Fenris genetically modified themselves to adapt to the environment, playing God with genetics. They never brought wolves in their spaceships, they merely fiddled with themselves and possibly xenobeasts.

The beasts that we call wolves are something else entirely, even though they take that form and tick a few boxes.

Honestly wolves are one of the most likely predators to be introduced, accidently, to a alien enviroment. mostly in the form of ancestors of escaped feral dogs from early settlements

Voss wrote:
As an aside, 'breeding with the local fauna' isn't viable. Even gene-splicing is dubious, as you're dealing with a completely distinct chromosome and DNA structure where the only common elements would be sheer 1-in-a-million happenstance.

Not necessarily the case in 40K, since a lot of worlds with life, including Earth/Terra, were either originally seeded or later monkeyed around with by the Old Ones. It is entirely plausible that the whole DNA->RNA->Amino Acid transcription/translation mechanism and coding might have been an Old One invention, and might be identical across the majority of lifeforms in the 40K galaxy. We don't even know if evolution after the War in Heaven proceeded by true natural selection, or following a plan set in motion by the Old Ones before they disappeared.

 jhe90 wrote:
Wolves have survived on Fenris. Granted that's a sometimes different concept. But Fenris wolves have survived.

And some big cats. A liverian of iron snakes has a large Cape of a lepold like animal.

Could be a rive. Could be descended. But it's described like the coat of a large cat, or beast.

Neko, fwlinods, so cars must sirvive in some form.

There's a aqua dwelling humonoid, so at some point humanity must have spliced with a aquatic animal.

There are no wolves on Fenris.

Horses survived as well.

the no wolves thing could also just be a jab at the spacewolves - not wolves but lapdogs type thing (space corgies isnt it?)

It could be but that wouldn't explain why the native wolves are discounted as well.

BrianDavion wrote:

Tastyfish wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Pigs, or more precisely boars. Orks think they are awesome.

Probably an orkoid (or squig) that convergent evolution has pushed towards a pig form. Pork isn't widely farmed in the Imperium, so it's unlikely that Orks would encounter pigs very often.

how do you know pork isn't widely farmed? just because it's not mentioned doesn't mean it's not common eneugh. it's not like GW has ever published "the culinary guide to the Imperium of man"

There are a fair few foods that have been mentioned, but pork and bacon aren't on the list. And why would you ever go back to pig meat once you've tried salted Grox?

Eisenhorn eats salt pork in Hereticus. Its for breakfast with eggs, so the implication is that its bacon.

 Flinty wrote:
Eisenhorn eats salt pork in Hereticus. Its for breakfast with eggs, so the implication is that its bacon.

Salt pork isn't bacon. It doesn't become bacon regardless of when you eat it or how many eggs are nearby.

Am reading a Gaunt's Ghost anthology, Sabbat Crusade. Chickens (or something close enough) still exists and lays eggs.

"The hatch opened to the smell of eggs. Ana knew they were powdered and stored and might be decades old, and she wondered how Tona managed to get them to smell as if they'd been newly laid."

As to Ana (who is one of the regiment's doctors), I can only assume she had a more privileged life prior to her being drafted into the Guard, otherwise she'd have no idea what fresh eggs smelled like when cooking.

In an earlier story, we find the naval personnel on the troop transport get real food, while the IG (officers and troopers alike) get the synthetic slop. It's minor, but serves to underline the existing caste system when a guest brings a bottle of amasec as a hospitality gift. The hostess approves and when he says he swiped it from a navy wardroom, her reply is, "Even better!"

https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Imperial_Food_and_Drink

I think it's relatively easy to assume that animals like pigs, cows, rabbits, rats still exist in some form. Probably altered by mutation or adaptive evolution, but still.

Horses exist.
Dogs (Canids) exist.
Cats probably too.

Was listening to Eisenhorn today while working and they specifically mention dining on freshly caught “crab” on Cadia?

Nearly certain I recall a pic from 2nd ed of an Inquisitor(?) with a cat or cat type creature beside him.