Looking at this mod release forum one thing struck me as strange; pretty much all the mods are in one way or another complete overhauls, seeking to either rebalance the game, add an entirely new setting, or even on the smaller scale add quite a big mechanic or civilization that would change the way you play by quite a lot.
This mod does not have as an goal to in any way rehaul or change the setting of Dwarf Fortress, but instead strives to add things that should be compatible with pretty much any setting, as long as not all real-life lifeforms have been completely replaced by new fantastic ones. So this is a mod adding real-life animals and plants.
This mod currently adds 39 "full-size" animals, 35 vermin, 8 trees, 3 "grasses", 7 crop-plants, and 2 plantable fungi, all found in real life. I've tried my best to add flavor to each one, so hercules beetle men can grapple with their horns, you can weave baskets out of blue whale baleen, and sun bears do indeed eat bees and grubs if they have the chance to.
Big Creatures:
Moon Bear: Basically a black bear found in tropical areas.
Sun Bear: A smaller mostly insectivorous bear found in the tropics.
Spectacled Bear: Another bear.
Blue Whale: By far the biggest creatures, shadowing even giant sperm and humpback whales. For this reason, however, there are no giant blue whales. Blue whales have baleen that can be weaved into baskets, acting as food containers.
Humpback Whale: Smaller than the blue whale, but my no means a small creature, nearly twice the size of a sperm whale. Humpback whales have weave-able baleen as well.
Blue-necked Ostrich: Another species of ostrich, with a blue neck.
Takin: A somewhat rare bovid the size of an elk. They have a valuable yellow coat.
Dhole: A pack-hunting canine with a wide distribution-range. They emit whistling noises.
Giant Anteater: A medium-sized ant-eating mammal found in most tropical biomes. It has a long grab-able tongue.
Spider Crab: A really big spindly crab that can be found roaming temperate oceans.
Coconut Crab: A crab-like crustacean that can be found on beaches in the tropics.
King Crab: A faux crab that roams arctic oceans in packs. They are much smaller than the spider crab, but in total may give just as much food.
Snow Fox: A small carnivore found on the tundra. Their fur is really soft and valuable.
Desert Iguana: An iguana (lizard) found in deserts.
Rhinoceros Iguana: A big, fat, stocky iguana (the size of a cat) found in rocky deserts, tropical shrub-lands and dry tropical forests.
Marine Iguana: An amphibious iguana, found in large groups wherever the water is warm and salty.
Onager: A wild equine, smaller than both a donkey and a horse, but almost as fast as the latter. They are found in a wide range of biomes.
White Ibis: A bird known for its trash-eating bin-drinking habits. In Dwarf Fortress however they are satisfied with just rummaging through your food stockpiles and guzzling your booze.
Scarlet Ibis: A much more well-behaved ibis, notable mostly for its color. Both of these live in tropical wetlands.
Arapaima: A huge predatory fish, over twice the size of a dwarf, found in tropical rivers. Being fish, they don't normally venture out on land, but if they ever do, beware!
Arowana: The arapaima's smaller cousin, though still noticeably larger than a dwarf.
Springhare: A small rodent with the relative proportions of a kangaroo. They hop wherever they go.
Olive Ibis: A greenish tropical bird.
Helmeted Hornbill: A black tropical bird. Not to be confused with the non-helmeted hornbill, as these have harvestable casques worth as much as the ivory of an elephant.
Wallaby: Essentially, a smaller kangaroo.
Peccary: A pig look-alike found in tropical biomes.
Plains Zebra: A zebra, found on the plains. They live in large groups.
Mountain Zebra: A zebra, found in the mountains. They live in smaller groups, and are very slightly smaller than their plains-living brethren.
Roadrunner: A small bird and vermin hunter that runs around in dry biomes.
Flying Fox: A fruit-eating bat found in jungles.
White Pelican: A pelican. Large bird, found near both salt- and freshwater. Has this silly-looking bill.
Brown Pelican: Smaller than the white pelican, and found only in ocean biomes.
Boa: A constricor snake, slightly smaller than a dwarf.
Marten: A small carnivorous mammal about the size of a cat. They are found in all kinds of temperate forests.
Sable: A black even rarer marten with highly valueable fur. Found only in taigas.
Paddlefish: Based on the chinese paddlefish, a large temperate river fish with an apetite for your fisherdwarves.
Ring-tailed Lemur: You know these. They arrive in great flocks in tropical forests and in bushlands.
Dugong: A fully aquatic mammal found in tropical salty waters. Curiously, it has extra dense rib bones.
Manatee: Much like the dugong, but found in freshwater rivers in addition to the ocean.
+ Giant and Animal Person variants of all of the above
Vermin:
Salamander: A vermin amphibian that can be found in pools, lakes and swamps. Cookable, of course.
Newt: A vermin amphibian that you can fish from brooks and rivers, to make +Newt Stew+.
Labybug: A tiny spotted carnivorous beetle. Eating giant ladybug meat may or may not be a wise idea.
Hercules Beetle: A large beetle found in the tropics. Male hercules beetles have horns they can use both to gore and wrestle.
Stag Beetle: An almost ubiquitous beetle found in temperate areas. The males have horns.
Starfish: A starfish and a fish-able ocean vermin.
Helmet Crab: A tiny vermin crab that will sometimes pinch bypassing creatures.
Lemming: A tiny rodent found on the tundra. They will try to eat your seeds.
Centipede: A creepy crawly thing found in the dirt. Watch out! Giant centipedes are both large and carnivorous, and have a nasty venomous bite.
Fire Urchin: A colorful ball of spikes found in tropical oceans. If they get close enough to your dwarves, they can sting them, inflicting a burning pain.
Sea Urchin: A more mundane urchin, found in temperate oceans. They are known for their delicious roe organs.
Honeypot Ant: A desert-living ant of which some have bloated abdomens filled with honey. Farm them for it in your own hives or milk their giant versions for the same effect.
Feather Star: A ten-armed creature swimming freely in the ocean. Its arms are covered with feathery strands, that, in case of its giant version, can be sheared off and turned into cloth.
Jerboa: Your average hateable desert rodent vermin. Similar, but not actually related, to the springhare.
Conch: A tropical sea snail with a valuable shell.
Goldcrest: A very tiny bird.
Scarlet-crested Kinglet: Another very tiny bird.
Millipede: Another creepy crawly thing, with even more legs. These are herbivores though, and as such are pretty harmless.
Vampire Bat: A tiny bat with a blood-sucking bite. Fun trivia: they can also run, unlike most other bats!
Spectral Bat: A bigger, carnivorous bat (yet still a vermin). Their giant version might very well have taste for dwarven flesh.
Sea Pineapple: A strange sea-living creature, like a leathery pineapple. They can be caught by your fishers, and apparently taste like "something like iodine". Still eatable though.
Winkle: A tiny sea snail, known for tasting good. Also known as periwinkles, a name not chosen due to similarity with that of a flower.
Whelk: A slightly larger sea snail, but one that is just as edible as the winkle.
Hornet: A stingy stingy vermin with painful venom. They also build nests. Watch out for the giant ones!
Hoverfly: Another striped insect easily confused for a hornet. It is just another harmless fly though, don't let it fool you!
Fig Wasps: A black wasp found only around figs. Interestingly, it does not sting, and are excusively female.
Rock Pigeon: A bird. They fly really fast, were you to encounter their giant variants.
Earwig: A tiny insect with pincers on its tail. The non-vermin kind can pinch with them (ouch!), and they hunt.
Death's Head Moth: A big moth which likes honey.
Comet Moth: A tropical forest moth. Looks hecking cool irl, look it up. They can't eat, by the way.
Luna Moth: A green moth found in temperate biomes. They can't eat, by the way.
Swallowtail: A butterfly of the hardy kind, appearing in deserts and mountain biomes as well as all temperate ones.
Lobster: A crustacean with claws found in temperate oceans.
Bullfinch: Another tiny bird.
Mouse: A tiny vermin found in all temperate biomes.
+ Giant and Animal Person variants of all of the above
Crops (including two fungi):
Chanterelle: A bright yellow fungi that can be found in temperate conifer forests in autumn. They can be eaten raw, cooked, or brewed into chanterelle spirit.
Lingonberry Shrub: A small shrub found in temperate biomes, in the taiga, and on the tundra. It bears berries in summer and autumn that be either eaten raw, cooked, brewed into lingonberry wine, or processed into a barrel of blended lingonberries.
Gooseberry Bush: A bush found in temperate biomes. It bears green berries in summer that can be eaten raw, cooked, or brewed into gooseberry wine.
Blackcurrant Shrub: Another berry-bearing bush found in temperate biomes. Its black berries can be harvested in summer and autumn, and be eaten raw, cooked, or brewed into blackcurrant wine.
Redcurrant Shrub: Another berry-bearing bush found in temperate biomes. Its red berries can be harvested in summer and autumn, and be eaten raw, cooked, or brewed into redcurrant wine.
Peyote: A small round cactus without spines, found in sandy and rocky deserts. They can be planted year-round, but are noticeably slow to grow, allowing for harvest only twice a year. The harvested cacti can be ground into a white powder at a mill or quern, that can then be consumed directly or cooked into further meals. Consuming the powder in any form will send your dwarves on a "mind-altering trip".
Daikon: A big white root harvested in autumn. It can be eaten raw, cooked, or brewed into daikon wine.
Horseradish: A beige root adored for its spicy tinge. It is harvested in autumn and must be cooked to be edible. It can not be brewed.
Penny Bun: A mushroom with a round brown cap that can be found any temperate forest in autumn. They can be eaten raw, cooked, or brewed into penny bun ale.
Trees:
Giant Club: A very tall and vertical cactus, like a finger pointing to the skies. It bears fruit called giant club apples that can be eaten but not brewed.
Prickly Pear: A much less sparse cactus. Its fruits are called tuna, and it can be both eaten and brewed into alcoholic colonche.
Lemon Tree: A short tree with a wide branch radius. Its fruits are called lemons (surprise surprise), and while they can neither be eaten raw nor brewed into alcohol, they can be pressed into lemon juice at a screw press.
Aspen: A tall gray temperate tree.
Baobab: A magnificent tree found on savannas, growing both tall and wide. Sadly, cutting it down doesn't provide you with any wood. Baobab fruit can be milled into baobab powder, but can also be eaten raw. It can not be brewed.
Quince: A fruit-bearing tree found in most temperate biomes, as well as tropical grasslands. Quince fruit can not be eaten raw nor brewed, but can be cooked.
Fig: A tree that bears delicious figs (fruit). Figs can be eaten raw, cooked, or brewed into fig wine.
Elm: A temperate tree that doesn't mind water.
Grasses (or ground-cover):
Peat Moss: Moss that grows mostly in cold marshes.
Cup Lichen: White lichen found on the taiga, tundra and in temperate conifer forests.
Woodmoss: Pretty standard moss that grows in the biomes above^.
Legacy Changelog (the up to date one is in the download):
(2022-12-03) v3.3: added dugong, manatee, lobster
Fixed various bugs (thanks Mr Crabman and Ralpha!)
Changed object prefixes from "VOLMOD_" to "VVV_"
(preemptively) Updated to DF 50.01
(also 2022-12-03) v3.2: added rock pigeon, earwig, death's head moth, comet moth, luna moth, swallowtail butterfly, ring-tailed lemur
Removed cloudberry
Added MOUNT_EXOTIC to takin
Changed all crops to be plantable year-round
Changed growth-times of some crops
Fixed hoverfly, fig wasp, paddlefish lacking creature classes
Fixed wasp wings
(2020-01-29) v.3.1: added Hornets, Hoverflies, Fig Wasps, Figs, Elms, Boas, Martens, Sables, Paddlefish.
Fixed Baobab fruits, typo breaking Spectral Bat Men.
Updated to DF 47.01
(2019-05-16) v.3.0: added Wallabies, Millipedes, Peccaries, Plains Zebras, Mountain Zebras, Roadrunners, Flying Foxes, Vampire Bats, Spectral Bats, White Pelicans, Brown Pelicans, Sea Pineapples, Winkles, Whelks, Penny Buns.
Fixed Giant Onager juveniles being called "calf/calves" instead of "foal/foals", bug report related to Giant Helmeted Hornbills having HEADBUTT attack defined twice.
Added EVEN-TOED_UNGULATE, CARNIVORE_MAMMAL creature classes to whales respectively bears, Centipede venom, POISONOUS creature class to Centipede and Fire Urchin.
Removed PENETRATE_POWER, TRIGGERABLE_GROUP from centipede.
Changed creature class MOLLUSC to MOLLUSK, to match the spelling used in the description of the snail.
Moved grasses to their own file.
(2019-04-03) v.2.4: added Quinces, Cloudberry Plants, Goldcrests, Scarlet-crested Kinglets, Olive Ibises, Helmeted Hornbills. Fixed Giant Scarlet Ibis being a giant version of White Ibis, White Ibises having feathers on their heads. Added White Ibis and Scarlet Ibis beak coloration, Conch animal classes. All files now have the prefix "vvv" instead of "volmod_real". Saves should still be compatible as long as old raws are deleted as the new ones are added.
(2018-10-31) v.2.3: added Jerboas, Prickly Pears, Peat Moss, Cup Lichen, Woodmoss, Lemon Trees, Aspens, Baobabs, Conches, Daikon, Horseradishes. Fixed Blue Whales and Humpback Whales not swallowing nearby vermin/small fish, Blackcurrant and Redcurrant berry growth being nameless, King Crab Men having 3 sets of (partially branching) pincers instead of just one.
(2018-07-05) v.2.2: added Feather Stars, Arapaimas, Arowanas, Gooseberry Bushes, Blackcurrant Shrubs, Redcurrant Shrubs, Peyotes, Springhares. Added lingonberry process to barrel reaction. Fixed inconsistent giant replete honeypot ant size, snow fox genetic model. Changed the name of starfish men's head arms to avoid confusion.
(2018-06-23) v.2.1: added Sea Urchins, White Ibises, Scarlet Ibises, Honeypot Ants.
(2018-06-15) v.2.0: added Marine Iguanas, Onagers, Centipedes, Fire Urchins, Giant Clubs. Fixed salamanders and newts not having any toes.
(2018-06-08) v.1.2: added Snow Foxes, Desert Iguanas, Rhinoceros Iguanas, Helmet Crabs, Lemmings, Lingonberry Shrubs. Fixed giant coconut crabs being a giant version of spider crabs.
(2018-06-05) v.1.1: added Giant Anteaters, Spider Crabs, Coconut Crabs, King Crabs. Fixed starfish not moving.
(2018-06-04) v.1.0: initial release
This mod is currently on a sparse updating schedule, but suggestions are welcome none the less. They will be prioritized over what random ideas I have, whenever the time comes to put things into the next update. Also, this is my first published mod, so I'd expect some newbie mistakes/bugs.
And last but not least, the download:
https://dffd.bay12games.com/file.php?id=16179