Whimsical Parade of Banksy Animals Sends Fans on a Giddy Hunt

The first Banksy piece to show up was a mountain goat, spotted by passers-by on a wall near the River Thames. The second work, a pair of elephants, appeared overnight on a house in southwest London. Then came some playful monkeys, a howling wolf, two hungry pelicans and a cat.

For nine straight days, Banksy, the famed and elusive street artist, unveiled a menagerie of animal artworks around the city, a prolific outburst that thrilled Londoners.

For Banksy fans, finding the works became a daily, citywide scavenger hunt.

“It’s like an adventure,” said Daniel Lloyd-Morgan, an artist who sketches live street scenes. “It’s turned into a safari around London.”

Every day since the first one appeared, Mr. Lloyd-Morgan checked social media to figure out the location of each new Banksy and pay it a visit. “This is like a happening,” he said. “So basically I put everything else on hold.”

It was an unusually whimsical outpouring from Banksy, a British artist known for his socially and politically charged street art, which has appeared in New York City, the West Bank, Ukraine and other areas around the world. More recently, he sent an inflatable boat with dummy passengers to surf across a crowd at the Glastonbury Festival in England, a commentary on the plight of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

But what message was Banksy trying to send with the animals scattered across London? That has spurred speculation, even as the works have delighted the residents of the neighborhoods they popped up in.