Red Dead Redemption 2 has 16 Legendary Animal Locations. Finding and killing 5 Legendary Animals is required for 100% Completion. They are also needed to complete all Animals in the Compendium but are NOT required to earn the trophies and achievements “Skin Deep” and “Zoologist” (study and skin every type of animal). This is because the animals can potentially be missed if they die but you forgot to skin them so for the trophies they are not necessary. If a legendary animals has been killed (even by a random NPC or predator) it will disappear from the game and never respawn.
The Legendary Animals are special versions that drop Legendary Pelts. These Pelts are unique and can be crafted into special clothing items at Trappers. If you lose the Legendary Pelt it will automatically be transported to the Trapper so there’s no way to miss out on the reward.
Also, skinning a Legendary Animal automatically completes the “study” requirement for the compendium. And regardless of how you kill them, they always drop the Legendary Pelt. So you can easily pump them full with shotgun slugs in Dead Eye mode without it affecting the skin quality.
In Chapter 2, Hosea takes you to hunt for a Legendary Bear. Later into the mission you get the choice to back out or keep hunting it. If you back out you can still return later to find it. Hosea also gives you the Legendary Animals map, but it’s incomplete and not very accurate. We’ll go through them on the in-game map.
Legendary Animals Map
This is the map given to you by Hosea in Chapter 2. You can find it in the Satchel (hold 
) under Documents > Maps > Legendary Animal Map.
How to Find Legendary Animals
Ride to the locations shown on the maps below. When you get close enough, a legendary animal icon will appear on the map. They look like drawings of the animal but with a “crown” icon over their head. The crown means it’s legendary. Upon entering the area it has to show you the following clue in the top left corner or else the legendary animal won’t spawn:
“You have entered Legendary Animal Territory. Hunt this Legendary Animal by finding and inspecting clues”. It must show you this clue, this is super important! Otherwise you’re just wasting your time. If this clue doesn’t show in top left corner, create a campsite via your item wheel, sleep, ride away, and return to the animal symbol until it shows you this note. If it says something about the area “being too busy” do the exact same (sleep at camp, ride away and return). This usually clears up whatever activity is blocking the animal from spawning.
Now you must press 
+ 
(Left Stick + Right Stick) and look for yellow clues around the area. These are at random locations within the animals spawn radius so you may have to roam the area a bit.
There are usually 3 sets of yellow clues to investigate and then a trail to follow to the animal. Use Deadeye and mark it with 
/ 
and shoot a full clip at it.
Legendary Animal Locations
#1 – Legendary Bharati Grizzly Bear
#2 – Legendary Moose
#3 – Legendary Beaver
#4 – Legendary Boar
#5 – Legendary Alligator
#6 – Legendary Fox
#7 – Legendary Coyote
#8 – Legendary Big Horn Ram
#9 – Legendary Elk
#10 – Legendary Wolf
#11 – Legendary White Bison
#12 – Legendary Buck
#13 – Legendary Tatanka Bison
#14 – Legendary Pronghorn
#15 – Legendary Cougar
#16 – Legendary Panther “Giaguaro”
Spawns only after you’ve completed 9 Master Hunter Challenges (Pause Menu – Progress – Challenges). It then spawns in the area “Bolder Blade” south of Rhodes.
That’s all the Legendary Animals in Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2)! For more guides check out our full Red Dead Redemption 2 Wiki & Strategy Guide.
I have the official guide and Giaguaro is the last rank of the Master Hunter challenges, so you have to complete all the other ones for him to spawn
Nice thanks, that explains it.
Will update in the guide and add the animal image later on.
What do I need to do to unlock the Alligator? ‘m in the location on the map, nothing
I’m having the same problem 2 days now I’ve tried
Apparently, I heard you have to complete chapter 4. I’m on chapter 4 now I’ll return with an update if it’s true and will share info with PowerPyx so he can add a note to the guide
Can the legendary animals respawn after you have successfully hunted them?
No, they spawn only once. After that they are gone for good.
If lost and went to trapper where will the pelt be found
I died while trying to hunt the Fox due to the bounty hunters killing me and now the fox is shown dead and the pelt from a wolf I killed wouldn’t come off my horse? Any ideas why and if I can get the fur for clothing from the trapper
Is it necessary to find the question mark “?” and interact with it (if so, will You update Your maps?) to start hunting or randomly encounter a legendary animal in the appropriate area?
Is the occurrence of animals in some way dependent on the time of day or progress in the story?
So I was hunting the Legendary Coyote, shot into with two arrows, and it ran away. I was unable to track it down. I open my map and it’s crossed off, which means it’s dead. But I search the area for an hour and couldn’t find it anywhere; no icon on the map showing its corpse.
So this seems glitchy. Make manual saves before hunting. I need to start a new playthrough now 🙁
So I had the legendary bear pelt, I put it on the back of my horse but couldn’t find the trapped, so I left it on the ground in the camp, now it is gone and it’s never coming back, is there any way to get it again, or do they respawn?
They get automatically sent to the trapper. Look there.
I killed the legendary white bison while snagging the Arabian horse and it slid on the ice into the water and is deep in the lake. Any thoughts?
This is really unfortunate, I’ve had the same problems, and regardless of what I tried to do, nothing seemed work. At this point we have to go for a second play through if we ran into these problems (e.g. the drowned White basin) and want to for the skin deep trophy eventually leading to Legend of The West trophy.
Yup happened to me as well. Only thing you can do is reload an earlier save, which is why I save often, or do another play through…
What if I found a legendary animal already dead? in the compendium it is 66% complete without killing. However, I skinned the animal but affects the trophies zoologist?
I Killed the Alligator and got the skin and sold it i then whent to the fence to make the Alligator Tooth Talisman and Saw that i did not get that and i could not loot the alligator when i whent back where is killed it is there Any known way i can get i back?
Sme problem.
I killed the legendary moose and in the compendium it says that I have completed all the three tasks but the progression in still 0%.
Is it normal?
Cheers 🙂
i saw on some other sites people founding out that the legendary animals don’t count towards the zoologist and skin deep trophy
is this true?
I can’t confirm 100% just yet.. But judging off the percentage for the trophy progression, I think this is the case. It didn’t go up after killing legendary animals.
I think the standard versions of the legendary animals count, so the legendary aren’t necessary.
I’ve been avoiding legendary animals to see whether I can get the trophy without them. Will update what I find.
@Naz (i can’t see the reply button)
Thats interesting. thanks for giving an update soon 🙂
This page should be updated. You can very easily lose an animal. They’ll get marked off the map and not updated in the compendium.
hey im on 98.2% but somehow the legendary elk doesn’t show up on my map. what should i do? does this affect zoologist and skin deep trophy?
Nope – The legendary animals does not count towards ‘Skin Deep’ and ‘Zoologist’. 🙂
so i kill a legendary boar , skin him , but it doesn’t appear on the animal list ,,
any idea ?
It should be near the end of the compendium (scroll to the last page of animals compendium). If it’s not registering this sounds like a bug to me. I only skinned it and then it showed up right away in compendium. How to fix this issue I’m not sure, haven’t heard of this before.
Can you catch the bear twice? Because I’ve killed but forgot to skin it????, :(((( I can not find this bear anymore, PLS HELP
Unfortunately no. If an animal died and you didn’t skin it then it’s no longer possible. The legendary animals don’t respawn either.
Noooo 🙁
Hey, guys I REALLY need help here… so I’m getting this game really soon and I need to know if the legendary animals spawn back after completing the game and coming back as john. If not, should I wait until the epilogue to hunt them, or will they not be there then anyway. thanks
They are still in the game after unlocking John as a playable character.
However, if you already killed them with Arthur, they will not appear again. Every Legendary Animal can only be killed once, then it disappears from the game. So they don’t “respawn” but rather they stay in the game at all times until you killed them once.
Here’s the catch with the animals: there are reports that some of them have died in people’s games because NPCs ran over them with their horse, then players could no longer find them because the corpses disappeared after a while (and they didn’t notice the animal died by accident in the first place). This is very rare, but because of this it would be safest to get them at the earliest chance. Personally, I did it after the story without any issues.