Ask Lemmy

Probably a mole. Not rare in itself, but as they mainly chill in their caves, seeing one by just walking on an official track in a forest is probably relatively rare. The cute fella just stuck his head out, and before I couldn't really react, he apparently already heard me and vanished again.

A wolverine. A kamoshika.

Might not fit in this thread but here goes.

My family used to have a cabin that was at a lake several hours out in the mountains and pretty isolated except for a few rich people who lived up there. Place was, and I shit you not, infested with Sasquatches.

Every 4th of July I would go up there to watch the rich people light off their fireworks and immediately after, I had found a logging trail that a large group of them would gather with their babies and all. I think to watch the fireworks. They'd let me get a little bit closer every year until my family sold the cabin. The last time I went there I took a couple friends and they chased us out of the forest until a car's headlights scared them off... That's also the most scared I've ever been.

For obvious reasons I don't want to share the location of this lake..

This goes back to around 2000. Snake hunting in the Everglades middle of the night, my friend and I saw a black panther. I know, I know, impossible, Florida doesn't have them etc etc etc. we both saw it clear as in a zoo in the floodlights of his truck. 100% big cat, 100% black.

I saw a big white owl. It looks like as tall as a toddler. Then it flew away before I can even react.

Used to have a bush about 5 feet from my bedroom window that Cardinals would nest in.

In my area,

Pheasants and peacocks

I’m big into (responsible) nature tourism and I believe Mountain gorillas are the most rare. Black rhinos are also pretty critically endangered but there’s successful breeding programs at zoos for them so I would think they’re less threatened.

I went to the Galapagos once and some of the islands have some very rare species. But their habitat is protected and isolated so it’s not like endangered species that are threatened by habitat loss or war or whatever.

Probably a California Condor at the San Diego Zoo.

My buddy is an entomologist and one time I tagged along while he went to collect beatles in the highlands. When we got back to the lab one of the specimens I had collected turned out to be a species that was thought to be extinct in the region and hadn't been spotted in a very long time. He was wildly jealous

Not super rare, but a wolverine

Saw a lynx cross the road ahead of us in the Yukon.

Kemps Ripley sea turtles

Quokka on Rottnest Island (Western Australia)?

Followed by trying to stop fuckwits from playing "quokka soccer". 🤭

Orcas, maybe?

I don't even know what the rarest animal I would have seen in person is, considering many zoos and aquariums have endangered species in their care and I like going to them. I went to the Sacramento zoo over this last weekend, too.

In the wild, though? Could either be orcas or grizzly bears.

African penguins maybe? They're endangered. I took my partner to feed them at an aviary.

I feel like I've seen a black rhino before, maybe at the San Diego zoo as a kid or something. Those are critically endangered, all but one subspecies extinct.

Desert tortoise, and an old one at that. Was bigger than a basketball.

Probably wild camels in central Australia or a platypus when I was young.

Giant Millipede and Armoured Millipede. Not the rarest but you will never seen one without going into the forest.

Captive animals, I've seen countless exotic animals. Wild animals are a cooler experience.

A wild black bear in the northern Lower Peninsula.

A loggerhead sea turtle in Calibogue Sound.

A baby Atlantic bottle nose dolphin riding waves at a beach in South Carolina.

I saw a group of 25k redhead ducks together floating on Lake St. Clair in 2022.

Not rare animals, but the sight was. I saw a bull shark eat a sea gull that was floating on the water.

I also saw a dead alligator that was bloating up from rot get stuck on the bow of a boat on the Savannah river. A guy tried to kick it off and his foot went through it and it was the most putrid thing I've ever seen.

Not sure how rare they are, but I've seen wild crested caracaras a few times.

Giant hornet. Easily 4 inches long. I have no idea what it was doing in California.

Not sure how rare they are, but it was rare for me

https://wildsafebc.com/species/rattlesnake/

Hmm, I am not sure I've seen anything rare, though we do have some animals in Florida that I don't think are everywhere, have seen wild manatees and alligators, those enormous Sandhill Cranes and pink spoonbills, lots of lizards and snakes.

The animal I have personally seen, but most rarely though, is a fox. Have only seen one wild fox in my over 50 years.

If we're including captive animals, the one that stands out the most to me is a Chaco Owl. It's not considered endangered yet, but it's only found in one particular area of the world, at the borders of Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina.

In the wild, I've come across porcupines on a few occasions, and I almost had a fisher cat run up my leg. I didn't know we even had them in my state, so I was very freaked out as to what this long, furry thing coming at me was. I wish I had maintained my composure so I could have gotten a better look at it, but it's also the kind of thing in glad we figured out what each other was before I was in biting range!

Probably a sea turtle. Was snorkelling in Malaysia, completely obsessed with the coral and all of the fishes, when this massive turtle just cruises by. Held my breath for as long as I could to swim next to it, not too close but just wanting to be in its presence, it was so calm and majestic as it headed out into the deeper ocean

Red squirrel

I saw my first Praying Mantis yesterday.

Tanuki

A bobcat. It casually sauntered through the neigborhood and hung out at a local park. I watched it for about five minutes from about 30 feet away.

In the wild? Bald Eagle.

No idea. But if I were to randomly guess, I'd say it was a bison during their endangered days.