Metazooa

About Metazooa

Metazooa comes from Trainwreck Labs, the small studio of game designer Abe Train, who earlier made the country guessing game Globle. It launched at the end of July 2023 as part of his line of daily educational games, and it has since had a plant sister game, Metaflora, and even live outdoor versions held in parks.

The name plays on Metazoa, the scientific name for the animal kingdom. Each day there is one mystery animal. When you guess, say, a carpenter ant, the game tells you the most specific group your guess shares with the answer. If the answer is a tarantula, you learn that both are arthropods; guess a scorpion next and you find they are both arachnids. Your guesses build a branching tree on screen, and the answer sits somewhere under the deepest branch you have reached.

The classifications follow the NCBI taxonomy, which sometimes differs from what you might read on Wikipedia. One example the game's FAQ points out: there is no reptile class. Lizards, snakes, crocodiles and birds all sit together in Sauropsida, because crocodiles are closer to birds than to lizards. Learning these quirks is part of getting better.

Metazooa suits anyone curious about animals, from biology students to people who just like nature documentaries. You do not need to know Latin names; common names work, and every game teaches you a little about how animals are related.

How to play Metazooa

1. Open metazooa.com and press Enter the zoo to start today's game.
2. Type the common name of any animal and pick it from the list.
3. See where your guess joins the answer's branch on the tree: phylum, class, order, family and so on.
4. Use the deepest shared group to choose your next guess inside that group.
5. Keep narrowing until you name the mystery animal, within 20 guesses.

Tips

• Open with very different animals, such as a mammal, a bird, a fish and an insect, to find the right branch quickly.
• Once you know the class, guess one animal from each big order you can think of before going deeper.
• Remember the game uses the NCBI taxonomy: birds and reptiles share one group, Sauropsida.
• Answers lean towards well-known animals, so favour familiar species over obscure ones.
• If you finish early, try Metaflora, the plant version from the same studio.

Questions