It has always amused me that the tourists to the US that I’ve spoken to are often very excited to see raccoons, and disappointed if they don’t see them before they leave.
Some others I’ve noticed on the east coast of the US are blue jays and cardinals. Boy, do people get excited about those if they’ve never seen them before! Very pretty birds of course, just very easy to get used to and see as uninteresting as well.
Moose. We get European summer students and seeing one is the highlight of their animal watching when they’re here, apparently.
Personally, I’m more impressed with elk, a bull elk with a full rack is pretty awesome.
Who doesn’t like a full rack.
In UK people come from all over the world to see our royal family of great apes.
I went camping with my cousin and a blue jay came by our campiste, him and his wife are bird watchers and were amazed by it. I was amazed they didn’t have any where they live even though it’s only a few hours from the campsite
In Rural America- “people of Walmart”
Seeing a Wombat in the wild is a dream of mine.
Wait till you get chased by one
Happened to me three times. One in particular was like a little furry tank and did not mind tryingbto bowl us over to get back to his home.
Also koalas, red back spiders, blue ring octopus and great white shark.
Yeaay spiders, I’d really look forward to see the spiders!
We dont have much in the way of animals but we have birds. The Tui is common in suburban gardens here, but they are beautiful and even as a local I still like seeing them. Pukekos are everywhere but for those from the UK/ Europe/ USA they’re prett exotic. Down South, Wekas are absolutely everywhere outside the cities and will walk right into people’s homes - I once experienced coitus interruptus when a Weka jumped up on the bed I was in with a guy.
When I was in South Africa I was super excited to see baboons, locally considered something of a nuisance. And in Queensland, Australia, the first time I saw an Australian white ibis, locally known as a bin chicken, the locals must have been very amused to see me chasing it with a camera getting photos
Pukekos are everywhere but for those from the UK/ Europe/ USA they’re prett exotic.
Canadian here and yeah, when we first saw them we got super excited to get close enough to one a good photo. A week later we realized they are everywhere and everyone hates them.
Same thing happened when I went to Alaska and saw my first bald eagle.
Raccoons are a national treasure and should be recognized as such.
Trash panda > regular panda
Fight me, China
I generally agree, but I’d like to extend it to
red panda > trash panda > regular panda
I can agree to that
China has issued a very strong protest
But it was supressed with tan-
“Individual found dead in his house after typing a comment on a social media. Allegedly he tried to kill himself with 2 shotgun rounds to the head”
Are they charging my family for the bullet?
Them and opossums. They’re our special scavengers
I prefer skunks. Cute, practically harmless, and watching people absolutely flip out when they get spooked by one is a favorite past-time of mine.
I do love our opossums but they are technically an invasive species in a lot of their current range. But they coexist so well with people that it’s hard to mind.
Alligators…not sure if that’s considered “common” or not. We don’t see them on a regular basis depending on your activities. If you fish/kayak a lot, you’ll see them. If you don’t, you generally won’t unless there’s a drought. Then they’ll be in intersections or in your parking lot at work looking for water.
They’re fairly common in Central Florida. Many large retention ponds have them and they just get relocated once they reach a certain size. It was still fun to be standing on a friend’s apartment balcony and spot an alligator laying next to the retention pond.
Relevant username!
God damn Canada Geese.
Also, I’ve seen tourists fascinated by seagulls in Vancouver which surprised me because I thought they were everywhere.
I saw a Canadian Goose exhibit at the Prague zoo and almost died laughing.
I love Canada geese! A family used to nest every year near where i grew up, and during breeding season traffic would halt multiple times a day while the whole family of goslings crossed the road. When in a rush in the spring, everyone knew not to take that road.
I think they are the bane of golfers and sports areas, but if that’s not a concern they are huge, beautiful birds.
They breed multiple times a year and are protected. They take over city parks and make them big piles of goose shit. They get angry and aggressive at people who walk by, making them even more of a nuisance in said parks.
But yeah, I appreciate them as a living being.
I hate Canada Geese. I once stayed in a hotel in Manchester where they would squawk all through the night right outside the window.
Capybaras are pretty common in the area where I live, and really throughout most of Brazil. Don’t get me wrong, we still think they’re pretty cute, but I’ve seen some Americans get really excited about them.
Oh, and the maned wolf. To be fair, I think they’re pretty neat too.
Are capybaras as chill as their reputation suggests, or is that more a feature of cases that are used to captivity? If the memes/images/videos are to be believed, I’d expect to be able to just wander up to one in the wild and have it respond like a well-socialized pet dog.
I’ve only ever heard of one incident with a capybara, when it killed my SO’s therapist’s dog, but it was supposedly protecting it’s cubs, so I would say as chill as a mammal can be
I’ve hung out with capybaras and can fully verify that they’re chill as fuck. They’re more skittish than a quokka, but as long as you’re chill, the capybara is!
Quokkas win as far as cutest and chillest animals to bless this planet. Quokkas should be everyone’s spirit animal.
Fun fact. When in danger, Quokka parents drop their little quokka babies from their pouch as a distraction so the parents can get away.
I would be SO EXCITED to see a wild capybara.
That maned wolf is really cool! I thought they were extinct but I must have them mixed up with some other canine creature. Something with stripes?
It looks like a long-legged megafox.
You’re probably thinking of the thylacine
Ah, thank you! Yes, the Tasmanian wolf.
Fingers crossed that it isn’t actually extinct. Unconfirmed sightings have been going up recently. My head canon is that a government agency is covering it up so they can bounce back without tourist destroying the ecosystem just to see “the last one”.
Yep, I was going to say capybaras but also anacondas, although they are hard to spot, but I recall there’s one in Butantan Institute, in São Paulo city.
That’s clearly the abandoned love child of a fox and a wnba player.
I went to the Buenos Aires zoo and Iguaçu and that capybaras can just roam freely in the zoo is amazing. And in Iguaçu (or Iguazu), coatis were fun. They’re devious.
I lived in the northeast for a few years in and around college and I was amazed by chipmunks. I had never seen one and was like, “Holy shit, a chipmunk!”
I’ve been to the Galapagos, Australia, multiple African countries and nothing shocked me like seeing a chipmunk for the first time. Nature shows let you know exotic animals exist but there’s no nature show that’s just like, “Check out this [chipmunk, hedgehog, etc.].”
It is a fox with some long long legs! Neat!
A fox horse! A forse!
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Okay, so it isn’t animals, but tourists in my parents’ town get stoked when they see how big the Monongahela River actually is. They think a nearby creek is the river and we’re like, “that’s a creek. Drive up the road a bit to see the river.”
The same tourists also lose their minds if they see a train filled with coal go by.
Armadillos
I live in the US but not where they’re common. I’d take note.
Just don’t touch them. AFAIK They’re one of few species in America that can give you leprosy.
(Though if, by chance, you do catch leprosy, it is in fact very easily treatable. It’s the already-done damage from banging toes and touching fire and things, if you catch it late, that’s harder to repair.)
Nothing really. I guess insect enthusiasts will have one or two to find only here in Germany?
We’re relatively small and surrounded by other countries, I would be surprised if any species stays within this border.
I loved seeing red squirrels when I was in Germany. Coming from the UK where they’re super rare, it was really exciting to see them. Not exclusive to Germany I guess but I’ve seen them more frequently there than anywhere else.
When I moved to USA it blew my mind that there’s no hedgehogs here naturally, I was so used to having them around I kinda thought they’re everywhere. I miss them. Hedgehogs are cool.
Wait wait, are you telling me the US (the Americas?) don’t have hedgehogs??
Nope. There used to be some that went extinct millions of years before humans arrived.
There are porcupines though, but I haven’t seen them in the wild yet.
Surprisingly, porcupines and hedgehogs are not closely related
That’s so interesting! Changes my perspective on an animal that has always felt like a perfectly normal neighbour everywhere I’ve lived (though seeing them is still kind of a rare thing).
I second hedgehogs for Germany, they’re so cute! Also, or squirrels are so different from the US kind, they’re just unfortunately a lot shyer, too
Right, I’ve heard recently in a podcast about Sonic that hedgehogs are seen as exotic animals in the US.
You don’t see them very often here either because they are mostly active in the dark, so I’m also happy to see one every time. And so is my dog.
It’s not a native species, but in some German cities, you can see a lot of rose-ringed parakeets. They really stand out between the other local birds, so if you go to places like Cologne or Heidelberg, it’s quite likely to spot them, especially since they’re so loud. A few months ago, I moved to a city without parakeets and frankly, I miss them a lot.
I’m not Japanese but have been living here most of a decade. As no one mentioned anything from that side yet, the Nara Deer are probably the most famous followed by the hotspring monkeys. Tanuki are also something people might want to see, off the top of my head.
My wife was super surprised by all the squirrels in the US and loved taking pictures and videos. She suddenly realized we kept seeing more of them as we walked and, yep, they’re everywhere.
She was also super surprised that people just had cattle and horses when we’d be driving where my US family lived (countryside).
Went to Japan a few months ago. Deer and monkeys, yep.
What blew me away is how it was done - literally living side by side with the animals. Walking next to a deer or being a foot away from the monkey gave me amazing respect for Japan.
Where in the states, we either keep them in cages or fenced off, or we treat them like a nuance and if they come too close, respond with hostility (including the American Deer).
That’s really not normal here. The deer in Nara have special protections and are super accustomed to humans. They actually were menacing the residents of the area when tourists dried up. The monkeys can be real dicks and aggressive in general. Farmers are always trying to run both off. It’s basically the same as the US except I can’t just kill dear that come on to my property and eat my crops.
my property
Vs
their ancestral grazing lands
If they want to pay my property taxes and feed me, then we can argue that. At the moment, it’s my land (~8000 sqm) on which I pay taxes and on which I grow my own food. However, it’s all a moot point because, at least as of now, I’ve not seen deer on my actual property; it was just meant to contrast how things work in two countries with which I am familiar.
The actual problem around here is wild boar which are not ancestrally doing anything in my neck of the woods but have migrated north due to human-caused climate change.
