Hmmm. This is a hard one. I think that it would be nyads. Those do count as fantasy right? I think I like the ones in rivers best.

Wait a second you didn't say fantasy creature you said fantasy animal. Don't ask me how I missed that because I am not really sure. I don't know which animal I like best. I don't particulary like fantasy animals.

For anyone who might not know:

nymphs can be water spirits or forest spirits,

naiads are usually only water spirits,

sylphs are air/wind spirits,

and sorry, but I have no idea if there is a fire-nymph sort of thing.

• Non-saccharine unicorns. Special shout-outs to Rampant's killer unicorns, to Disc!unicorns, and to The Last Unicorn. (Which is nowhere near as saccharine as it sounds/looks, and comes highly highly recommended.)

• Dragons of all colours, particularly swamp dragons, and I'm fond of the dragons from Temeraire. 

• Discworld vampires, by which I mainly mean Otto <3. Also, Westerfeld's peeps - the books themselves were of indifferent quality, but I thoroughly enjoyed the infodump passages with the explanations of parasites and just how vampires work. Which only goes to show that SW totally missed his calling when he went into fiction writing. He infodumps so much better than he does the actual fiction side of things.

• The Booklings, from The City of Dreaming Books. Adorable, tiny, cyclopean, and they live off reading books. Also, each bookling devotes en's life to the memorisation of one author's entire body of work, and they tend eventually to take on the personality of that author. (This is made even more fun by the fact that they're all named after their authors, and all these names (well, nearly) are anagrams for real famous authors, and their recitations are either direct quotes or parodies, and you get to figure out who everyone is!)

• Well-done elves. If you've just cribbed from Tolkien and ended up with a race of tall, blonde, and arrogant Mary Sues who are Better Than You™, UR DOIN IT WRONG. (Tolkien's elves weren't actually perfect. This is a common misconception. Viz Fëanor, who was a massive jerk. [Yes, he was. He really was. I don't even care how much you love him. Draco Malfoy has fangirls too.]) 

• Time Lords ftw.  

I'll think of more the moment I post this, but that's all for now. 

I also love

*vampires

*mermaids

*fairys

*pegusi or pegasus

and soooo much more.

*witches

*wizards

*ghosts

Again sooo much more!

I also think that the Revisers (Book 8), the Mirror (All), and the cross-breeds (Book 2) from The Sisters Grimm are MUCHO AWESOME-O! I would put everyone else too, but they're technically not animals. Daphneish ftw!!

The only fantasy animals I really don't like are lame-o modern ones, super sparkly happy ones, Mary Sues, mummies, and a few others I can't think of right now that are specific to a certain book. It all kind of depends on who writes them, I guess.