Who loves animals? Most of us have an affection for cats, dogs, otters, horses, deer, elephants, owls, and many others. Now, you can study animals with these Zoology courses. Not just cute furry ones, but also insects, worms, sea sponges, and spiders. Learn how they live, grow, and reproduce.

In this Best Courses Guide (BCG), we’ve selected the best zoology courses for you from our catalog. We’ve collated ratings and reviews from Class Central and course providers to narrow down the best choices.

And if you’re interested in other aspects of the natural world, take a look at our BCGs for Biology, Cell Biology, Botany, Ecology, and Genetics.

Click on the shortcuts for more details:

• Top Picks
• BCG Stats
• Why You Should Trust Us
• How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Here are our top picks

BCG Stats

• 5 courses are free or free-to-audit and 1 is paid
• 1 course offers a certificate of completion
• The most featured provider is YouTube with 4 courses

Best General Zoology Course

The highest-rated zoology course is Zoologia by the University of Naples Federico II, in Italian. Are you interested in becoming a biologist, naturalist, or life scientist? Learn about:

• Interactions between hundreds of animal species in various communities and ecosystems
• Animal knowledge, evolution, behavior, reproductive systems, and ecological roles
• Concrete examples to evoke emotional and scientific understanding of nature

“This is possibly one of the best university level course[s] I have ever taken, both in person and online…” – Maria B.

Best Short Zoology Course

In Zoology, with CrashCourse’s signature fast-paced style including plenty of video clips and animations, Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant will teach you about:

• What animals are and how they eat
• Diversity of shapes and sizes, parasites, animal brains
• The senses: sight, hearing, and others
• Reproduction, animals working together, phylogenetics, what makes a species
• Frontiers in Zoology

“Amazing! Couldn’t wish for a more enthusiastic lecturer. I learned so much. Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant is unbelievably great. Thanks for this course!” –  Kit Zonk.

Also Great Zoology Course (in Progress)

Dave Farina (Professor Dave Explains) has released a series of free playlists about the sciences, featuring a wealth of images, definitions, and charts. More videos about Zoology are being uploaded regularly. You will learn:

• What animals are
• Constructing cladograms, major divisions of Kingdom Animalia, and the origin of animal life
• Stages of animal development
• Animal phyla: Porifera, Cnidaria, Placozoa, Ctenophora, Xenacoelomorpha, Nephrozoa, Spiralia, and Lophotrochozoa
• More phyla: Platyhelminthes, Gastrotricha, Cycliophora, Orthonectida, Dicyemida, Chaetognatha, Gnathostomulida, Micrognathozoa, Rotifera, Mollusca and Annelida

“Great content to understand the material, however there should be more than 12 modules…” – Eric Peck. Since this review was written, many more videos have been added to the playlist, and we still haven’t got to Phylum Chordata.

Best Entomology Course

I’ve always been fascinated by insects, and was delighted to see Bugs 101: Insect-Human Interactions has joined the wonderful selection of natural history courses created by the University of Alberta and covers a wide range of insect-related material. Learn about:

• What is an insect? Insect traits, growth, and major physiological systems
• Locomotion and strength: running, swimming, and flying
• Insect decomposers and vegetarians, pollination, beekeeping, insects and disease
• Sustainable human-insect interactions, conservation, and insects in human culture

Other popular University of Alberta courses include Mountains 101 (featured in our Geology BCG), Dino 101: Dinosaur Paleobiology, and Astro 101: Black Holes (in our Astronomy BCG).

“In three words: take this course. A lot of thought clearly went into it. …” – Michelle V.

Best Animals Flashcards Course

If you need some help to memorize all kinds of zoology facts, Studying Animals Flashcards may be useful. As well as the flashcards themselves, learn how to use them for effective memorization. Flashcard sets include:

• Animals from many biomes including arctic, desert, various forests, grasslands, oceans, freshwater, etc
• Animal phyla, invertebrates, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, scavengers, invasive animals, warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals
• Aquatic animals anatomy, fishing techniques, bony fish and sea animals
• Asexual reproduction, endangered and extinct species, farm and zoo animals, apes and birds
• Collective nouns for animals and zoology terms

Best NEET Prep Course in Hindi

If you want to apply for medical studies in India, you may need to pass the NEET exam. Medhavi NEET 2022/23: Zoology by Seep Pahuja goes deep into zoology issues, targeted at students who plan to take the NEET exam. You will learn about:

• Animal tissues
• Biomolecules, chemical coordination and integration
• Digestion and absorption, breathing and exchange of gases
• Body fluids, circulation, excretion
• Neural control and coordination, locomotion and movement

“Scoring maximum number in zoology because of you mam thank you so much” – swatijha3118, YouTube learner.

Seep Pahuja also has two other zoology playlists on the Unacademy NEET channel as well as her own channel:

• NEET Live Daily 3.0: Zoology | NEET 2022 | Seep Pahuja (64 hours, 855K views)
• Manthan | Zoology | Seep Pahuja (90 hours, 600K views)
• Seep Pahuja Channel (466K subscribers)

Also Great NEET Prep Course in Hindi

Zoology : UMEED 2.0 | NEET 2022 covers all the chapters of zoology including previous year questions. You will learn about:

• Cockroaches
• Animal tissues, digestion, absorption, excretory products, breathing, gas exchange, and circulation
• Biomolecules, chemical coordination, and biotechnology
• Locomotion, neural control, reproduction, and evolution
• Human health and disease
• Animal kingdom and animal husbandry

“He is such a nice and patient teacher!!!!” – sanskritisharma4134, YouTube learner.

Why You Should Trust Us

Class Central, a Tripadvisor for online education, has helped 60 million learners find their next course. We’ve been combing through online education for more than a decade to aggregate a catalog of 200,000 online courses and 200,000 reviews written by our users. And we’re online learners ourselves: combined, the Class Central team has completed over 400 online courses, including online degrees.

I’ve personally completed over 150 online courses in a variety of subjects.

How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Trying to find “the best” can be daunting, even for those of us who live and breathe online courses. Here’s how I approached this task.

First, I combed through Class Central’s Catalog and other sites to find a variety of free and paid open courses, with and without certificates. You don’t need to enroll in a university to learn about zoology.

I looked for recognized institutions and experienced instructors, and examined courses that covered a range of topics. I extracted information from course syllabi and reviews, and compiled their ratings, using the Class Central database as well as available course provider ratings. I watched some course videos to sample courses I hadn’t already taken.

I defined the scope for these recommendations and chose a range of top courses.

Ultimately, I used a combination of data and my own judgment to make these picks. I’m confident these recommendations will be a reliable way to learn about zoology.