Top 10 Animals that Could Symbolize Metal Subgenres

The Top Ten
1 Dragon - Power Metal A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that features in the myths of many cultures.

It's almost the official symbol of power metal - found often on album covers and in the lyrics /song titles /band names.

Perfect match!

2 Lion - Death Metal The lion (Panthera leo) is a large cat of the genus Panthera native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body, short, rounded head, round ears, and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult male lions are larger than females and have a prominent mane. It is a social species, forming groups called prides. A lion's pride consists of a few adult males, related females, and cubs. Groups of female lions usually hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates. The lion is an apex and keystone predator; although some lions scavenge when opportunities occur and have been known to hunt humans, the species typically does not actively seek out and prey on humans. ...read more.

Bears, dogs, and others also growl. Also, how about zombies?

Death metal growls are like lion growls.

3 Cheetah - Speed Metal The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is a large cat and native to Africa and central Iran. It is the fastest land animal, estimated to be capable of running at 80 to 128 km/h (50 to 80 mph) with the fastest reliably recorded speeds being 93 and 98 km/h (58 and 61 mph), and as such has several adaptations for speed, including a light build, long thin legs and a long tail. It typically reaches 67–94 cm (26–37 in) at the shoulder, and the head-and-body length is between 1.1 and 1.5 m (3 ft 7 in and 4 ft 11 in). Adults weigh between 21 and 72 kg (46 and 159 lb). Its head is small and rounded, and has a short snout and black tear-like facial streaks. The coat is typically tawny to creamy white or pale ...read more.

Because it's the fastest animal.

4 Goat - Black Metal The goat or domestic goat (Capra hircus) is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (C. aegagrus) of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the animal family Bovidae and the tribe Caprini, meaning it is closely related to the sheep. There are over 300 distinct breeds of goat. It is one of the oldest domesticated species of animal, according to archaeological evidence that its earliest domestication occurred in Iran at 10,000 calibrated calendar years ago.

Goat-herding is an ancient tradition that is still important in places such as Egypt. ...read more.

@Lucretia - yes. It probably comes from folklore where Devil / Satan looks like a goat, usually with horns. To see more about it, check out my list - Top 10 Metal Albums with Satan on the Cover.

Goat heads are often on album covers.

5 Snail - Doom Metal Snail is a common name that is applied most often to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs.

Don't go that fast, please, I am scared!

6 Dog - Thrash Metal The dog or domestic dog (Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris) is a domesticated descendant of the wolf, and is characterized by an upturning tail. The dog is derived from an ancient, extinct wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. The dog was the first species to be domesticated, by hunter–gatherers over 15,000 years ago, before the development of agriculture. Due to their long association with humans, dogs have expanded to a large number of domestic individuals and gained the ability to thrive on a starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other canids. ...read more.

Let the loud barking of the big dogs begin!

7 Panda - Black Metal The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), also known as the panda bear (or simply the panda), is a bear species endemic to China. ...read more.

The original Corpse paint

8 Umbonia Spinosa - Avant-garde Metal
9 Piranha - Neoclassical Metal A piranha or piraña, a member of family Characidae in order Characiformes, is a freshwater fish that inhabits South American rivers, floodplains, lakes and reservoirs.

Piranha is a shredder and can eat you in minutes. Neoclassical metal shredders play hundreds of notes per minute on guitar.

10 Eagle - Heavy Metal Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 60 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just 14 species can be found - 2 in North America, 9 in Central ...read more.
The Contenders
11 Panther - Groove Metal The cougar, also commonly known as the mountain lion, puma, panther, or catamount, is a large felid of the subfamily Felinae native to the Americas.

@christangrant - yes, this was the reason I added it. To me groove metal is Pantera.

Because of Pantera which is Spanish for Panther

12 Liger - Experimental Metal
13 Horse - Heavy metal The horse is an odd-toed, hoofed mammal of the taxonomic family Equidae whose sole major subspecies (Equus ferus caballus) is a domesticate, although wild subspecies have survived into the modern period. All subspecies, including the two extant ones, descend from the Pleistocene Equus ferus. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Eohippus, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral ...read more.

Because gallops are used very often.

14 Jaguar - Technical Death Metal The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus Panthera native to the Americas. With a body length of up to 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in) and a weight of up to 158 kg (348 lb), it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the third largest in the world. Its distinctively marked coat features pale yellow to tan colored fur covered by spots that transition to rosettes on the sides, although a melanistic black coat appears in some individuals. The jaguar's powerful bite allows it to pierce the carapaces of turtles and tortoises, and to employ an unusual killing method: it bites directly through the skull of mammalian prey between the ears to deliver a fatal ...read more.

Less popular than lions but probably stronger and jaguars have a very strong bite.

15 Poodle - Glam Metal The poodle is a group of formal dog breeds, the Standard Poodle, Miniature Poodle and Toy Poodle. The Fédération Cynologique Internationale recognizes four sizes of one breed: standard, medium, miniature, and toy.

Glam Metal is also known as Hair Metal. Not that true metal is "hairless" but you know what I mean.

16 Hyena - Blackened Death Metal Hyenas or hyaenas are any feliform carnivoran mammals of the family Hyaenidae /haɪˈɛnᵻdiː/. With only four extant species, it is the fifth-smallest biological family in the Carnivora, and one of the smallest in the class Mammalia.
17 Snake - Groove Metal Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes. Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs ...read more.

Because of Pantera album cover to The Great Southern Trendkill.

18 Clownfish - Glam Metal Clownfish or anemonefish are fishes from the subfamily Amphiprioninae in the family Pomacentridae. Thirty species are recognized: one in the genus Premnas, while the remaining are in the genus Amphiprion.

No need to explain this one but let's see - they ARE clowns, their outfits are too bright, shiny and colorful compared to the default color of metal (black).

Because they are clowns

19 Mantis Shrimp - Progressive Metal The mantis shrimp, or stomatopod, is a type of marine crustacean of the order Stomatopoda. Most species can grow to around 10 centimetres in length, though a few species reach up to 38 cm.
20 Chameleon - Progressive Metal Chameleons or chamaeleons are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of old world lizards with 202 species described as of June 2015. These species come in a range of colors, and many species have the ability to change colors.
21 Siberian Tiger - Technical Thrash Metal The Siberian tiger, also known as the Amur tiger, is a tiger population inhabiting mainly the Sikhote Alin mountain region with a small population in southwest Primorye Province in the Russian Far East.
22 Eagle - Thrash Metal Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 60 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just 14 species can be found - 2 in North America, 9 in Central and South America, and 3 in Australia. Eagles are not a natural group but denote essentially any kind of bird of prey large enough to hunt sizeable (about 50 cm long or more overall) vertebrates. Eagles are also one of America's national symbols.

Because of Slayers logo

23 Tyrannosaurus - Thrash Metal Tyrannosaurus, meaning "tyrant lizard", from the Ancient Greek tyrannos, "tyrant", and sauros, "lizard" is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur. It also had a tremendous bite force, the strongest of any Dinosaur and living terrestrial animal. Its bite force reached up to 12,800 pounds (roughly 5805 Kilograms).
24 Alligator - Grindcore An alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. The two living species are the American alligator and the Chinese alligator. Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators have long existed since the Oligocene epoch 37 million ...read more.
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