This policy explains the decisions behind the numbers and the prose on every species and comparison page. It covers where figures come from, how they are converted for readers, why measurements appear as ranges, what happens when reputable sources disagree, how uncertainty is disclosed, and which kinds of claims are refused outright regardless of how much attention they might attract. It also sets out how often the catalog is revisited.
The standard applied throughout is that a reader should be able to trace any statement back to a published source and understand how confident that source actually was. Where the evidence is strong, the pages say so plainly. Where it is thin, contested or based on a single specimen, the pages say that instead of smoothing it over.
Which sources are used
Figures are drawn from conservation assessment bodies, government fisheries and wildlife agencies, natural history museums, established research institutions and specialist reference databases compiled from the primary literature. Each profile lists the sources consulted for it. Popular articles, aggregator sites, wiki summaries and video descriptions are not used as sources, even when a figure they carry turns out to be correct, because a number without a traceable origin cannot be checked or revised later.
Where a claim appears in a single source and nowhere else, it is treated as provisional and labeled as such. Where it appears across several independent institutional sources, it is treated as established. This distinction matters more for some animals than others. A well-studied coastal shark has decades of consistent measurement behind it, while a deep-water squid may rest on a handful of specimens, some of them damaged before anyone could measure them.
Units and conversion
Measurements are recorded in metric units, because that is how the scientific literature reports them, and converted to feet, inches and pounds for a United States readership. Both forms are shown. Keeping the published value as the stored one prevents a conversion from being layered on another conversion, a process that quietly inflates or deflates a figure a little at each step until the final number no longer matches anything anyone measured.
Converted figures are rounded to a precision that reflects the underlying certainty rather than the arithmetic. A shark whose length is known to within a few inches is not reported to a fraction of an inch, and a whale weight estimated from a stranded animal is rounded to the nearest sensible unit. False precision is a form of overstatement, and it is treated as one.
Ranges rather than single numbers
Animals vary. Sex, age, population, season and feeding condition all move the numbers, and a single figure hides every one of those factors. Measurements are therefore recorded as a minimum, a maximum and, where the literature supports one, a typical value for a mature animal. Reading all three together tells a far more accurate story than any of them alone, particularly for species where mature females and males differ substantially in size.
A typical value is not an average of the range. It reflects what the sources describe as ordinary for a mature adult, which is often much closer to the minimum than to the maximum. Maximum values, by their nature, describe exceptional individuals and should be read as the outer edge of what has been documented rather than as a normal expectation.
Records, maxima and disputed values
Widely reproduced ranges are preferred over sensational maxima. A length that several institutional sources report independently carries more weight than a larger figure that traces back to one uncorroborated account, no matter how often that account has been repeated since. Historical records are treated with particular care, because early measurements were frequently taken on decomposing or stretched specimens, estimated from a boat, or reconstructed from partial remains.
Disputed figures are not silently omitted. Readers meet these claims elsewhere and are better served by an explanation than by a gap. Where a famous number does not survive scrutiny, the profile records that it is disputed, describes why the measurement is doubted, and gives the best-supported figure alongside it. The disagreement itself is often the most informative thing on the page.
No combat framing
The comparison pages exist to make scale and capability legible, not to stage encounters. Nothing on this site predicts the outcome of a meeting between two species, ranks animals by strength or danger, or describes a predator as superior to another. Such framing is unsupported by the evidence, misrepresents how predators actually behave, and pushes readers toward exactly the kind of thinking that makes wild animals seem like opponents rather than animals.
Sensationalism is refused on the same grounds. Profiles avoid attack narratives, danger rankings and the stock vocabulary of monsters and killing machines. Predation is described as ecology, in the terms the sources use. This is a deliberate constraint, and it holds even where a more dramatic framing would be easier to write and more widely shared.
Not published here
- Predicted outcomes of hypothetical encounters between species
- Danger, aggression or lethality rankings
- Attack narratives written for effect
- Superlatives that no cited source supports
- Unverified record claims presented as established fact
Disclosing uncertainty
Uncertainty is stated in the same place as the figure it applies to, not buried at the foot of the page. Notes attached to individual measurements explain how a value was obtained, which population it describes, and where it stops being reliable. Where a measurement method itself is contested, as with burst speeds derived from fishing line payout, the note says so.
Some fields are left empty on purpose. If no institutional source gives a defensible figure for a species, no figure is invented, estimated from a relative, or carried over from a similar animal. An absent value is an honest statement that the measurement has not been established, and it is preferred to a plausible-looking number with nothing behind it.
Independence from commercial interests
Editorial decisions are made on the evidence alone. No figure, profile, ranking of prominence or piece of prose is influenced by advertising, sponsorship, affiliate arrangements or any other commercial consideration, and no organization can pay for coverage, placement or favorable treatment. If any commercial relationship ever exists that a reasonable reader would want to know about, it will be disclosed plainly on the page where it applies.
Citing an institution is not a commercial relationship and creates no obligation in either direction. The organizations referenced across this site have not reviewed its content, have no involvement in producing it, and have not endorsed it in any form. Their material is used because it is published, authoritative and publicly available, and the citations exist so that readers can check this site against them rather than take its word for anything.
Review cycle
Every profile records the date of its last review, and the catalog is worked through on a yearly cycle. Pages move up that queue when a conservation assessment is revised, a protected listing changes, a significant study is published, or a reader report identifies something that needs attention. Reviews cover the narrative as well as the figures, since distribution and threat descriptions age without any number changing.
Confirmed factual errors are corrected as soon as they are verified rather than held for the next scheduled review, since an uncorrected figure keeps misinforming readers for as long as it stands. Where the same value appears on several pages, all of them are amended in the same pass. The corrections policy describes how those changes are recorded and dated, and how a reader can report a problem in the first place.