Animals in Tarot Cards: What, Where, and Why
Animals in Tarot decks are there for a reason -- they symbolize vital knowledge.
Animals have always been part of Tarot’s visual language, because Tarot has always borrowed from the larger symbolic world humans already understood: religion, folklore, heraldry, bestiaries, and everyday nature.
Long before modern guidebooks, readers learned the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith (or RWS) cards through image memory. Animals made those images instantly legible. A lion could signal courage or power. A dog might suggest loyalty or instinct. A horse implies a sense of action and forward motion. In that sense, animal symbolism in Tarot is both decorative and functional.
Modern life can often feel disconnected from nature, so some of these symbols need a little more explanation than they once did -- that's what we're here for! This article will go over some of the most common animal archetypes in RWS decks (which are also found in many of the modern decks inspired by that tradition).
Animals in the RWS Tarot
Dog
Cards: The Fool, The Moon, Ten of Coins
Dogs in Tarot often point to loyalty, companionship, and instincts that can protect and warn us. In The Fool, the white dog can read as both a playful ally and an intuitive alarm system, nudging the traveler to stay aware while stepping into the unknown. In The Moon, a domesticated dog appears beside the wolf, creating a tension between civilization and wilderness. Our more feral instincts aren't always totally right, but they are worth listening to.
Lion
Cards: Strength, The Wheel of Fortune, The World, Two of Cups
Lions generally represent courage, sovereignty, and life-force power. In the famous Rider-Waite deck, the beings pulling The Chariot are technically sphinxes (part woman, part lion), but they represent a similar sense of taking action on our own behalf. In Strength, the lion’s meaning is clear: it's personal mastery, guiding our raw instincts rather than suppressing them. In The Wheel of Fortune and The World, the lion appears on the lower right of the outer frame, signaling a cosmic, archetypal level of force -- less personal, more universal.
The housecat also has a presence in Tarot. It only appears on one card of a typical RWS deck (unless you're using our Medieval Cat or Cat's Eye decks!). The black cat at the feet of the Queen of Wands suggests independence, intuition, and sovereign self-possession. Any cat owner can confirm the accuracy of that!
Bird
Cards: The Wheel of Fortune, The World, Ace of Cups, Page of Swords, Knight of Swords, Queen of Swords, King of Swords, Nine of Coins
Birds in Tarot often indicate perspective, spirit, communication, and higher mind. In The Wheel of Fortune and The World, the eagle form is placed on the top right of the frame, implying elevated vision and a higher spiritual vantage point.
Birds are also some of the most frequent animal actors in the Minor Arcana, appearing in the Ace of Cups, Nine of Coins, and the Court cards of the Swords suit. There's additional wing imagery on the Two of Cups and the Knight of Cups. These perpetuate the themes introduced in the Major Arcana, communicating spirituality and mental growth.
Bull
Cards: The Wheel of Fortune, The World, King of Coins
The bull is the last animal archetype featured in The Wheel of Fortune and The World, taking its place on the lower left of the framing art. (The final, upper left symbol is a human, if you were curious.) It symbolizes stability, endurance, and material potency.
Horse
Cards: Death, The Sun, Knight of Wands, Knight of Cups, Knight of Swords, Knight of Coins, Six of Wands
Horses in Tarot represent movement, drive, and the way power gets directed. In Death, a white horse carries a skeleton (symbol of transformation) with solemn inevitability -- ready or not, change is here. In The Sun, the horse becomes pure vitality and a less menacing (but no less awe-inspiring) strength.
These themes of motion and action continue on the Knights (and the Six of Wands). Each Knight’s horse moves in a way reflective of their suit:
- Knight of Wands: ignition, boldness, risk
- Knight of Cups: emotional quests, idealism, symbolic devotion
- Knight of Swords: velocity, decisiveness, possible overdrive
- Knight of Coins: consistency, methodical choices, stamina
Across all Knights, the horse's posture mirrors each suit’s style of action -- aggressive, thoughtful, hasty, or strategic. In the Six of Wands, the horse is public victory made visible: disciplined motion rewarded by recognition.
Crayfish
Card: The Moon
The crayfish (often read as lobster) emerging from water in The Moon symbolizes something ancient surfacing from the unconscious. It’s vulnerable and armored all at once: soft interior, hard shell. This coordinates with the Wolf/Dog pairing from earlier, reminding us of the natural contradictions of being a "civilized animal."
Goat
Cards: The Emperor, Queen of Coins
The ram's heads on The Emperor's throne refer to authority, ambition, and tenacity. It's also no surprise that this is the associated Tarot card with Aries, the Ram of the zodiac.
Other Notable Animal Appearances
A rabbit darts into frame on the Queen of Coins, showing off the fertility and abundance that can be earned through responsible stewardship, which is a frequent theme of Coins cards.
Moving on from mammals, lizard and salamander imagery in the Wands Court cards signals fire, adaptability, and regenerative will. These creatures are linked to heat and transformation, fitting the suit’s creative urgency. There are additional reptilian motifs on the Seven of Cups and The Wheel of Fortune, where snakelike forms contribute to the card’s dream-like, uncertain atmosphere.
Fish connect to expressive and intuitive fluidity, so it makes sense that they appear several times in the emotive suit of Cups. Their presence supports the poetic currents that flow beneath the surface of our lives, allowing us to swim into emotional depth alongside them.
Butterflies (and butterfly-like motifs) suggest transformation through perspective shifts and mental evolution. In the Swords Court cards, they soften the suit’s reputation for harshness by showing how liberating it can be to cut ourselves free of unnecessary weight.
Alternate Mainstream Tarot Traditions: Marseille & Visconti
Across major traditions, animal symbolism persists -- but the emphasis shifts. Earlier Tarot deck types, like the Tarot de Marseille or Cary-Yale Visconti, have minimal art on the numbered Minor Arcana cards, so there are fewer featured animals. That said, most of the Major Arcana still have their archetypal symbols, like The Fool with its dog or Strength with its lion.
So yes, many motifs are “the same” at the archetype level -- power, instinct, fertility, transcendence -- but the Rider-Waite-Smith stands out for how clearly it stages those meanings in readable scenes, especially regarding the Minor Arcana. That innovation from illustrator Pamela Colman Smith has been wildly influential for other deck creators in the generations since.
Tarot’s animal language works because humans still read nature as meaningful. We continue to learn through the more-than-human world. That hasn’t changed! Modern deck culture has actually expanded on that tradition. Contemporary decks inspired by the Rider-Waite and older traditions often amplify animal symbolism even further, giving readers new takes on ancient divinatory methods.
If you want to gain insight from that living tradition (and check out some gorgeous artwork), try a FREE 3-Card Tarot reading with one of our animal-forward decks like the Spiritsong Tarot or Crow Tarot.
