GTA 6 wildlife: hunting, fishing and the 170+ species now confirmed in Leonida
GTA 6's Leonida keeps getting more alive: after the 30-plus animals identified in the trailers and the Netflix 'Extended Look', Rockstar's Game Informer cover story puts the state's wildlife at more than 170 species — while hunting remains unconfirmed as a system.
A Leonida that feels alive
One week after the Netflix "Extended Look" presentation turned the internet upside down, the inventory of GTA 6's wildlife keeps growing. Two French outlets that have tracked the game since the first trailer — Journal du Geek and Rockstar Mag — have updated their fauna dossiers, and the tally now exceeds 30 animals confirmed across the second trailer, the 70 official screenshots and the 27-minute Netflix showcase (Journal du Geek). The comparison everyone keeps making is Red Dead Redemption 2, whose bestiary remains a benchmark; Rockstar appears to be aiming for a similar density in a modern-day setting (Journal du Geek).
New species from the Netflix showcase
The "Extended Look" and the previews that followed added several species to the list. Manatees, a first for the GTA series, take it easy in the Everglades; rays glide through the ocean; pigeons return for the first time since GTA 4; rats scurry under a vending machine; and seagulls are back — apparently just as aggressive as ever (Rockstar Mag). Rockstar also seems to have gone all-in on dog breeds: a Staff greets Jason early in the presentation, a Labrador appears on Vice City beach, and earlier screenshots already showed a Doberman and an Australian Shepherd (Rockstar Mag). The Famitsu preview even reported a peacock spotted by the roadside during a press session — though without any official visual so far (Rockstar Mag).
One detail deserves a caveat: a TV spot playing inside the game shows bison, rabbits, wild boars and a canary in a forest scene. Rockstar Mag notes that, like the horses in GTA 5's TV ads, the bison might exist only in that commercial — so fans should hold off before adding them to the definitive list (Rockstar Mag).
What is confirmed so far
By the time the second trailer dropped, roughly 30 species had been identified, and the new material pushed the count higher (Rockstar Mag). The categories read like a Florida field guide: marine life (sharks, alligators, sea turtles, dolphins, moray eels, exotic fish), forest dwellers (deer, raccoons, foxes, squirrels, pumas), domestic animals — including a corn snake living in an aquarium in Jason and Lucia's apartment (Journal du Geek) — and a long list of birds from flamingos and herons to crows and wild geese (Journal du Geek). Pumas are shaping up as the main threat in the forests around Mount Kalaga (Journal du Geek).
Hunting and fishing as gameplay
The bestiary is not just decoration. Hunting and fishing were confirmed among the activities shown in the second trailer, and the animals are likely to feed into both — Journal du Geek expects birds to be huntable "as in Red Dead Redemption 2" (Journal du Geek). The Netflix presentation also hints at direct interaction: the Staff seems happy to see Jason, which suggests animals will not be mere ambient objects (Rockstar Mag).
What it means
Every new detail reinforces the pitch Rockstar made in the Extended Look: a Leonida that is denser and more simulated than any previous open world. With the November 19 launch less than three months away, the fauna will probably keep growing with the next marketing beats — and for players, the RDR2-style hunting loop may end up being one of the quieter joys of GTA 6 (Rockstar Newswire).
Update — 2026-08-31
The new screenshots Rockstar released on its official website give the bestiary one of its most striking entries yet. GamesRadar+ devoted an entire piece to a single animal visible in the new images: an iguana, rendered with every scale individually visible, from head to tail, in 4K (GamesRadar+). The outlet's point is the same one fans keep making about the game's animals: there is no obvious gameplay reason for a background lizard to receive that level of detail — but Rockstar's willingness to invest in it is precisely what separates GTA 6 from other open worlds, in the same spirit as Red Dead Redemption 2's famously detailed horses (GamesRadar+). The comparison is notable because the wildlife articles have so far focused on species lists; this one underlines the modeling quality. As always with marketing material, the iguana's exact role in the game — ambient decoration or something more — is not confirmed by Rockstar (GamesRadar+).
Update — 2026-09-29: Rockstar puts 170+ species on the board, and leaves hunting open
Five weeks after the community tally, Rockstar gave its own number. Game Informer's issue 382 cover story, published on September 29, 2026, puts Leonida's wildlife at more than 170 species, relayed the same day by VICE, RockstarINTEL and Insider Gaming: over 60 types of birds and more than 30 land mammals, plus fish and reptiles. For scale, that is about 85% of the "around 200 species of animals, birds and fish" Rockstar sold Red Dead Redemption 2 on in September 2018 (Push Square) — in a game set largely in a city, and well above the 30-plus species identified in the trailers and the Extended Look by the end of August.
The names are now Florida-specific. Michael Kane, Rockstar's vice president of dynamic art, confirms manatees, flamingos, pelicans and alligators in the issue, alongside invasive species — green iguana, cane toad, feral cat and rhesus macaque — plus armadillos, per Rockstar Actu's French summary of the feature. Marine life gets the same treatment: several species of shark, whales, rays, turtles and jellyfish, each with distinct movement and behaviour (Rockstar Actu). RockstarINTEL and Dexerto add that species can be studied and are sorted into three categories — Rare, Discoverable and Legendary — without saying which animal sits where.
The rendering follows the Red Dead inheritance further than the trailers suggested. Rockstar Actu reports iridescence, bioluminescence and translucency effects on some animals, with feathers, hair and fur running on new systems: a coat can get wet, dirty or matted depending on the environment. The same summary notes that the 12 screenshots published with the issue are Full HD (1920×1080) rather than 4K.
Hunting remains the open question, and it is worth being precise about it. The cover story describes no hunting system — no bait, no pelt quality, no carcass value — and the free portion of the feature on the web, which we checked logged out on September 29, stops after two paragraphs, long before the wildlife pages. What the issue does carry is an image: one of the 12 screenshots shows a man with a scoped rifle on his back, sitting on an ATV and watching two deer drink at a forest stream, a reading shared by GTA Intel and GamingBolt (GTA Intel, GamingBolt). Our August line that hunting and fishing were "confirmed" came from press readings of the second trailer and from Australian creator TGG's hands-off preview, which described hunting and fishing in his session — with one specific rule: fish had to be released rather than kept. Rockstar has still never announced a hunting system in a statement of its own, and nothing in issue 382 changes that.
