14
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The following 12 animals are hidden in this word search puzzle. Each of them gives a letter, which is needed for the 13th animal.

  • Elephant
  • Anaconda
  • Eagle
  • Rattlesnake
  • Vulture
  • Owl
  • Reindeer
  • Mongoose
  • Serpent
  • Boa Constrictor
  • Hedgehog
  • Buzzard

Some hints where to look for the missing letter:

  1. For the mammals, it's in the heart
  2. For the raptors, it's where the claws are
  3. For the snakes, it's at the tail
    A N O M E H E K A N S O S L
    I E P G M P E N T P E L W B
    R O O S E R D E P O O T P N
    O V N U R I O E S E A T A R
    T M U T B E R N O N D O G H
    C P N L S U P E C R E E T H
    I E A H T B Z U A S L E G D
    R A E T M O V Z N G S A P R
    T S N O C A R U A S E N U R
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1 Answer 1

13
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The 13th animal is a

hippopotamus

In the grid, in orange, the mammals can be found using

a horse jump pattern as in chess. The letters in the hearth of the eight letter horse jump are the ones we need.

The raptors, marked in purple

are in a V-shape, as in flight. The letters at the bottom of the V-shape, the claws of the vultures are the ones we need

The snakes, marked in green

follow a snake pattern through the grid. The letters we need are at the tail of the snake patterns

This gives the following letters (in order the animals are given)

AOSHMPOPPITU

This is an anagram for

HIPPOPOTAMUS

The full grid:

enter image description here

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2
  • 9
    $\begingroup$ Very good! However, the anagram is not needed: Rot13(whfg ernq gur 12 yrggref va gur tevq sebz yrsg gb evtug). Do you have any feedback (too difficult/easy, too much hints/too few etc) by any change? It's my first serious puzzle, so I would love to get some feedback :) $\endgroup$
    – Lezzup
    Commented Jun 18, 2023 at 18:46
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ @Lezzup. I liked the twist in the word search with different ways of hiding the different types of animals. After figuring out how it worked, it was not too hard anymore. I don't think I would have found the final animal without the hints. You might have kept it a bit vaguer, but I think it was fine as it was now. All in all I liked your puzzle $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 19, 2023 at 17:35

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