In the software development world, practice makes perfect. Therefore, we should find as many ways to practice programming as possible. With free public APIs, we can practice programming by creating apps that use those APIs.
In this article, we’ll look at some practice project ideas that can use some of those APIs.
Animal APIs
There are several APIs that let us get animal data.
Cat Facts
The Cat Facts API lets us get facts about cats.
No authentication is required. It doesn’t support CORS.
Cats API
Cats API is an API that lets us get cat pictures from Tumblr.
We can use it to get breeds, categories, images, and more.
An API key is required for authentication.
Dogs API
The Dogs API lets us get data from the Stanford Dogs Dataset.
Authentication isn’t required, and we can use it to get data like breeds and pictures.
HTTPCat
The HTTPCat API lets us get cat pictures from the API.
It returns responses with cat pictures with different response status codes.
IUCN Red List API
The IUCN Red List API lets us get data for various kinds of animals.
We can get species data, species category, names, species by country, and more.
Also, we can get threats of different species, habitats of different species, conservation measures, and other habitat data.
Conservation, plant growth, comprehensive groups, and more are also available.
An API token is required to use this API.
Movebank REST API
The Movebank REST API has movement and migration data for animals.
It provides us with endpoints that get us migration data, sensor types, description of entities, even data of sensors, and more.
It’s used to track the movement of animals.
Data access privileges can be controlled per user.
The data is available in CSV or JSON format.
Petfinder
The Petfinder API lets us get animals that are available to the client.
We can get animal types, single animal types, animal breeds, organizations, and more.
This API can be accessed with the client ID and client secret.
A Petfinder account is required.
PlaceGOAT
The PlaceGOAT API lets us get goat images for placeholders in our app.
We can use it to get images with different width and height.
Authentication isn’t required to access the API.
RandomCat
The RandomCat API gives us a URL for a random picture of a cat.
No authentication is required to access this API.
RandomDog
The RandomDog API gives us a URL for a random picture of a dog.
No authentication is required to access this API.
RandomFox
The RandomDog API gives us a URL for a random picture of a fox.
No authentication is required to access this API.
RescueGroups
The RescueGroups API lets us get pet adoption data with its API.
We can get data for various species, events, donations, sponsorships, locations, and more.
Authentication is required to access this API.
Shibe.Online
The Shibe.Online API lets us get a random picture of Shiba Inus, cats, or birds.
Authentication isn’t required to access this API.
Conclusion
There are many APIs we can use to get animal data and pictures.
