The beastly good knowledge game

For 2 to 6 players aged 10 years and up

Did you know that a giraffe can grow more than 5 meters high, and the
Yacare Caiman only weighs about 60 kilogrammes. But how long is the polar
bear’s tail? And where do the saddleback toads actually live?
Players will come across these and many other questions while playing
FAUNA. But to be honest: You can’t know everything, since the game deals
with 360 land animals, aquatics and animals that live in the air. For this rea-
son, you will also get points if your answer is a little off the mark. But watch
out! If you gamble with your guess piece, you can lose it pretty quickly!
 Contents
1 game board 1 starting player’s lion
180 animal cards with 360 animals 1 accompanying booklet
1 card box with information on all the animals
42 guess pieces in the 6 players’ colours in the game
30 black evaluation pieces

Preparation
Place the game board in the middle of the table. Each player gets 7 guess pieces of
his colour and places one of them beside space 1 of the victory track running along the
game board’s border. Place the black evaluation pieces next to the game board.
Insert the animal cards into the card box. It is advisable to fill up the card box com-
pletely even though you will only need 10 to 15 animals for one game of FAUNA.

The player who owns the most exotic pet becomes the starting player of the first
round. He gets the starting player’s lion and the card box.

Starting player’s lion Card box with

animal cards
Evaluation pieces

World map
with land and
marine areas

Score table

Players’ guess
Victory Scales for weight, pieces
track length and tail
length


The animal cards
Animal class
At the start of the game, players decide if they want to
play with the simpler animals (green card margin) or with Name
the more exotic animals (black card margin). You may Scientific name
also mix the two sorts of cards, of course. Put the chosen
cards into the card box.

The upper half of the card shows the information which

the players get before placing their guess pieces:
• Animal class
• Name / Scientific name
• Illustration of animal
• Number of areas in which the animal can be found in
natural surroundings
• Measures that the players can estimate:
- Weight
- Length (head and body, without tail)
- Total length (with tail)
- Height (standing animal)
- Tail length Number of areas and
required measures
This information can be seen when the card is in
the card box.
The lower half of the card shows the animal’s zoological
classification and its required measures:
• Areas in which the animal can be found
in natural surroundings
• World map for the quick search of the
corresponding areas
• Average values of the required measures

During the placement of the guess pieces, the lower half

of the card is covered. It will not be shown until the evalu-
ation when a player takes the card out of the card box.

Aim of the game

Each round, players estimate one animal’s natural habitat
and its measures. In turns, they place their guess pieces Required Required
on the world map or on one of the scales. At the end of a areas and measures
round, they get points for right estimations, while wrongly their position
placed guess pieces do not bring in any points. At the end,
the player with the most victory points wins the game.


 How to play
The play is subdivided into several rounds. One round consists of:

I. Placing the guess pieces

II. Evaluation
III. Change of starting player and new round

I. Placing the guess pieces

All players look at the first animal in the card box and consider where to place their
guess pieces. For this purpose, each player may take the card box in hand. But it is not
allowed to pull out the card.
The starting player begins, and then the other players follow in a clockwise direction.
The player whose turn it is has to place one of his guess pieces on the board – either
on an unoccupied area or on a vacant space of a scale.

Placing a guess piece in an area

A player may place one of his guess pieces in a land or marine area on the game board
provided that there is not one of his own pieces or an opponent’s piece on it yet.
Marine areas are marked by a box round their name.
Attention: They include not only this part of the sea, but also the corresponding is-
lands if these are not especially marked as land areas!

Mississippi, Mexico,
Central America and Guyana are
land areas.

The Caribbean is a marine area

that also comprises all the
islands located in it.

The red player wants to place another one of

his guess pieces in an area. There are already
pieces in the areas Mississippi, Mexico and Rocky
Mountains. For this reason, the red player has to
choose another area for his guess piece.


Placing a guess piece on a scale
A player may place one of his guess pieces on a
vacant space of a scale – that is: provided that there
is no other opponent’s piece or one of his own pieces
already on it.
Attention: Not all of the scales are relevant for all
animals. You can see on the upper half of the animal
card which measures are required.

When each player has placed one guess piece, again, beginning with the starting
player, each player may in turns either place another piece or pass his turn.

Placing other pieces

During his turn, a player places one of his own guess pieces in an unoccupied area or
on a vacant space of a scale. In the course of a round, a player may also place several
pieces on the same scale.

Passing
If a player passes his turn, since he cannot or does not want to place more pieces, the
placing phase of this round is finished for him. He cannot re-enter the placing phase
later in this round.
When all players have passed, the evaluation of this round begins.

II. Evaluation
Pull the animal card completely out of the card box. Analyse first the areas, and then
the scales.

Analysing the areas

As an aid for the evaluation of the areas, you may
Scoring
use the black evaluation pieces. Place a black piece Areas
on each area mentioned in the lower half of the card Number Direct hit Adjacent
in order to show that these areas are correct. After 1 12 points 8 points
the evaluation, you remove the black pieces from the 2 10 points 5 points
game board. 3–4 8 points 4 points
5–8 6 points 2 points
For each guess stone that a player has placed in a 9–16 4 points 1 point
correct area, he gets points. If the animal lives in 16 17+ 3 points
or less areas, pieces that were placed adjacent to the
correct areas also bring in points. Players immediate- Weight / Lengths
ly move their marker up the victory track accordingly. Direct hit Adjacent
7 points 3 points

Scoring table


 The number of points depends on the number of areas in which the animal in question
can be found in natural surroundings.
Example: If an animal lives in 7 areas, a player gets 6 points for his correctly placed
guess piece and 2 points for a piece that he has placed in an adjacent area.

Adjacent areas: Two areas are adjacent, if they either have a common frontier, or
border on each other as land or marine areas.

The land area of the

Rocky Mountains and the
Great Plains are adjacent.

The marine area

Caribbean and the land
area Guyana are adjacent.

After having evaluated the areas, you continue with the evaluation of the scales.

Analysing the scales

For each guess stone that a player has placed on a correct space of one of the scales,
he gets points. He receives points for a direct hit as well as for pieces that he has
placed adjacent to the correct space. Players immediately move their marker up the
victory track accordingly.
On each scale, a player always gets 7 points for a correctly placed guess piece and 3
points for having placed a piece on an adjacent space.

The Grevy’s zebra weighs between 350 and 430 kg.

For this reason, the space between 200 and 500
is correct. Red gets 7 points for his piece. Blue and
green are located on adjacent spaces and also get 3
points each. The green piece on the space 1 to 2 tons
does not bring in any points.


Wrongly placed guess pieces
Players recover their guess pieces that they have placed correctly or at least adjacent.
Wrongly placed guess pieces are placed next to the game board as a stock. Players
may not get them back until later (see below).

III. Change of starting player and new round

If after the evaluation no player has reached or surpassed the necessary number of
points in order to win the game, the starting player’s lion is passed to the next player in
a clockwise direction.
Each player gets back one of his guess pieces from the stock next to the game board,
if there is any.
If a player has now less than 3 guess pieces, he may refill his own stock so that he
has again 3 guess pieces for the following round.

End of the game

The game is over when the first player has reached or surpassed the fixed number of
points at the end of a round:

• In a game of 2 or 3 players: 120 points

• In a game of 4 or 5 players: 100 points
• In a game of 6 players: 80 points

After this last round, the player with the most victory points wins the game.
In the case of a tie, all involved players have won.

Note: The information on the animal

cards is taken from several sources in
the internet and from reference books
about specific zoology. Some sources
may present different measures. For the
information on the cards, we have used
average values of different sources.


© 2008 HUCH & friends
www.huchandfriends.de

Distributor:
Hutter Trade GmbH + Co KG
Bgm.-Landmann-Platz 1-5
D-89312 Günzburg

Author:
Friedemann Friese
Illustration animals:
Peter Braun
Illustration box:
Alexander Jung
Artwork and layout:
Volker A. Maas
Translation:
Birgit Irgang