List of The Jungle Book characters

In the Mowgli stories

• Mowgli – the titular protagonist, also referred to as "Man Cub", he is a boy who was raised by wolves, Bagheera, and Baloo.

  Animals

• Bagheera – one of Mowgli's mentors and protector.
• Baloo – one of Mowgli's mentors and his friend. In Kipling's book, he is described as a sleepy old bear who teaches Mowgli the law of the jungle.
• Kaa – Mowgli's wise mentor and friend, though also feared throughout the jungle for his mesmerizing "hunger dance".
• Hathi – the chief of the local elephants and keeper of the Jungle Law.
• Shere Khan – a vicious man-eating Bengal Tiger who is the only recurring animal villain and the archenemy of Mowgli. He is often known as "a chief among tigers" and in multiple adaptations as the one called "The King of Tigers". Despite being born with a crippled leg and derisively nicknamed "Lungri" by his own mother, Shere Khan is ruthless, aggressive, violent, arrogant, self-centered, and sees himself as the rightful lord of the jungle.
• Seeonee Wolf Pack – an Indian wolf pack that Mowgli was raised by.
• * Akela – the chief and leader of the wolf pack.
• * Raksha – also called Mother Wolf, she is Mowgli's adoptive mother.
• * Moti – also called Father Wolf, he is Mowgli's adoptive father. In the animated Disney film adaptation, he is named Rama. In the 2018 adaptation, he is named Vihaan, and in the 1989 anime adaptation, he is named Alexander.
• * Grey Brother – the oldest of Father Wolf and Raksha's cubs. He appears on all Disney adaptions except for 1967's The Jungle Book, 1998's The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story, and 2003's The Jungle Book 2. In the 1989 anime adaptation, Mowgli has two wolf brothers named Akru and Sura.
• * Leela – the granddaughter of Akela.
• Bandar-log – a society of monkeys who are treated as pariahs for their scatterbrained anarchy. They kidnap the very young Mowgli, who is rescued by Bagheera, Baloo, and Kaa.
• Gajjini – Hathi's wife. She is named Winifred in the animated Disney film adaptation.
• Hathi Jr. – Hathi's son and Mowgli's friend.
• Tabaqui – he feeds on scraps from either Shere Khan or the wolves of the Seeonee Pack. In some adaptations, he is a striped hyena. Tabaqui is a servant of Shere Khan as well as Shere Khan's spy and messenger. He is killed by Grey Brother after the Grey Brother interrogates him into admitting both what Shere Khan plans to do and where and then crushes the jackal's back in "Tiger! Tiger!" He is absent from all the Disney adaptions of The Jungle Book except the 1994 live action remake, in which he is a human who works for Boone and 1998's The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story, in which he is portrayed as a spotted hyena, a species only native to Africa in real life.
• Mang – a bat.
• Rama – a large water buffalo that Mowgli herds when living with humans and rides upon during the final confrontation with Shere Khan.
• Mysa – a water buffalo.
• Chil, in earlier editions called Rann – a kite that serves as a messenger. He is depicted as a Brahminy kite in the 1989 anime series.
• Sahi. In later editions, he was called Ikki.
• Tha – the first of the elephants according to Hathi.
• Thuu, in The King's Ankus – a male blind albino cobra, also called White Hood. Mowgli gives him the derisory epithet "Thuu" upon discovering that the supposedly deadly cobra's fangs are in fact withered and dried up from age and disuse. A version of him appeared in the Jungle Cubs episode "The Treasure of Middle Jungle", voiced by Jim Cummings. This version is a giant Indian cobra who guards man's treasure in the Middle Jungle and his fangs drying out remain intact where a shrew exposed that fact to Baloo, Prince Louie, Shere Khan, and Kaa.
• Dholes – a pack of dholes that appear in the story "Red Dog".
• Oo
• Jacala – a large mugger crocodile. In "Red Dog", it is stated that Mowgli broke a knife on Jacala's back during a protracted fight with him.
• Mao – in earlier editions, he was called Mor..
• Won-Tolla – an outlier who warns Mowgli's tribe of the dholes who killed his mate and cubs. Before dying of his wounds during the fight between the dholes and Mowgli's tribe, Won-Tolla slays the dhole leader.
• Chikai
• Phao – son of Phaona and leader of The Free People.
• Phaona – Phao's father and member of The Free People.
• Ferao

  Humans

• Messua – the wife of the richest man of the human village, who decides to adopt the wild Mowgli, believing that, he is their long-lost son, Nathoo. She and her husband are imprisoned after Mowgli is driven out, as he was accused of sorcery, by Buldeo and therefore, are accused of the same themselves for harboring Mowgli. Messua is immensely grateful towards Mowgli, when he comes to free them, and together she and her husband flee to the town of Khaniwara, planning to seek counsel of the English authorities for the injustice they had suffered at the hands of the villagers. Mowgli meets her again years later, finding her widowed, with a new son and decides to leave the jungle once more to live, with her.
• Messua's husband – an unnamed man, the richest man of the village. Upon being falsely imprisoned, by the villagers, he shows nothing, but resentment towards the villagers for taking all of his property and vows to bring severe legal action against the village. When Mowgli finds Messua again after years have passed, he learns that, her husband has died and never got satisfaction as the village was gone, by the time they had returned, with the authorities, having been destroyed, by Mowgli and the animals. In the 1989 anime adaptation, he is named Sanjay.
• Nathoo – the long-lost son of Messua and her husband, who has been snatched, by a tiger. Although Mowgli is never proven to be him, Messua notes he very much resembles Nathoo and therefore, calls him by her missing son's name and Mowgli answers to the name. In the 1942 film, Mowgli is confirmed to be infant Nathoo, and in the 1989 anime adaptation, Nathoo is renamed Keshnu, but is confirmed not to be Mowgli, while in the 1994 Disney live action film, Nathoo is the name of Mowgli's father.
• Buldeo – the elderly chief hunter of Messua's village and only recurring human villain, first appearing in "Tiger! Tiger!". He is boastful, arrogant, greedy and superstitious, and he is furious when Mowgli, who knows what the jungle is really like, contradicts some of his own more fanciful stories about the jungle. He hopes to kill Shere Khan so he can get a substantial reward placed out as a bounty for the tiger's skin, ultimately losing it to Mowgli when Akela drives him away. Frightened by Mowgli's ability to talk to animals and potentially resentful of him taking Shere Khan's hide from him, he returns to the village and accuses Mowgli of being an evil, shapeshifting sorcerer, successfully turning the entire village against the boy and spurring them to drive Mowgli out by throwing stones at him. In the story "Letting in the Jungle", Mowgli finds Buldeo conversing with some charcoal-burners and overhears him explaining that Messua and her husband have been arrested for harboring Mowgli and accused of sorcery themselves and are awaiting Buldeo's return for their execution. Sending his wolf brothers and Bagheera to go and delay Buldeo's return by terrorizing him, Mowgli makes haste to the village and helps Messua and her husband escape, learning from them Buldeo had actually been sent to kill him that morning. Buldeo is last seen finally returning to the village, haggard and thoroughly traumatized, relating his superstitious account to the villagers. He is never seen again, but is mentioned several times and is presumably driven out when the jungle animals, under Mowgli's direction, lay waste to the fields and houses of the village and drive out the populace. In many adaptations such as the 1942 film, 1994 Disney live action film or the deleted draft of the Disney film, he is shown wanting to find the treasure of the Cold Lairs. In the 1989 anime adaptation, he was depicted as a far more malignant character, having considered shipping Mowgli off to the Bombay circus not long after the boy first came to the village, sending his pet cobra after Mowgli in the middle of the night, and being a ringleader in Messua and Sanjay's arrest, doing so as a cover-up for a conspiracy to steal their land and assets. This version of Buldeo appears last during the jungle's siege on the village, being stopped from shooting Mowgli's animal friends when the boy steals his rifle and smashes it on the ground, sending the wicked old man fleeing for his life. In the 2018 adaptation, he was a British hunter called John Lockwood portrayed by Matthew Rhys. Mowgli found that he had killed Bhoot and shot half of Hathi's tusk. During Mowgli's fight with Shere Khan, Lockwood tries to shoot Shere Khan, only for Akela to take the bullet when it was heading towards Mowgli. Lockwood himself was crushed to death by Hathi.
• Mowgli's wife – a woman, who Mowgli fell in love, with and meets his old friends in the jungle. In the 1994 Disney live action film, she is Kitty Brydon, daughter of Colonel Brydon.
• Mowgli's son – the son of Mowgli and his wife.

  Other stories

• Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
• * Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
• * Nag and Nagaina – Nag is the Hindi word for "cobra".
• * Darzee – Darzee means "tailor" in Hindi.
• * Chuchundra – his name is derived from "chuchunder", a term used for his species in India.
• * Karait
• * The Coppersmith
• The White Seal
• * Kotick – "Котик" means "seal" in Russian.
• * Sea Catch ; a poem by Rudyard Kipling uses the word in a Russian-type plural form "see-catchie".
• * Matkah - "матка" is Russian seal-hunter's word for "female seal", from Russian "мать" = "mother".
• * Sea Vitch
• * Sea Cow
• * Burgomaster Gull
• * Limmershin, the Winter Wren
• Toomai of the Elephants
• * Toomai
• * Kala Nag
• Her Majesty's Servants
• * Two-Tails
• * Billy
• * Vixen
• The Undertakers
• * The Jackal
• * The Adjutant.
• * Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut
• * The Gavial – the Mugger's cousin.