COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by a new coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Since the first confirmed COVID-19 case, it has spread as a pandemic globally in a short time, Results ing in a contagion with numerous deaths. To accelerate research on COVID-19 systematically, a variety of laboratory animals have been investigated, indicating that non-human primates, mice, Syrian hamsters, ferrets, and domestic cats support replication of SARS-CoV-2. Among them, some animals present different degrees of pathological changes and clinical symptoms in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. COVID-19 animal models would be of great significance to study the mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 transmission ad pathogenesis, as well as testing drugs and vaccines. This is a summary of the preparation of COVID-19 animal models in the past 6 months. We investigated the characteristics and scope of each animal model to provide a theoretical reference for future optimization and selection of COVID-19 animal models for specific purposes.