Tanuki
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.
I remember seeing a Liger at the zoo when I was kid.
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
You found Pete Best?
Underrated
On a Boy Scout camping trip someone brought in a wolf in a cage, so maybe that. Otherwise it’d have to be the day last spring that a few turkeys decided to show up at the college I go to and peck at one of the doors in the building I was in.
Not super rare, but a wolverine
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.
In the wild? Bald Eagle.
I see them a few times a year in Michigan. They are more common these days.
Had one perch in my yard last summer.
Yeah that’s probably mine too. I didn’t think about them at first because they’re pretty common around here.
They’re pretty common in the rural areas of Florida.
If you like eagles, visit Sitka Alaska. They’re as common as pigeons up there.
(Just bigger, and scarier. Have you seen their claws?)
I’m going next summer!
I was watching a bald eagle fishing yesterday from my window. They must have moved in to the area, bay of quinte in Ontario, which is good news for their numbers.
Wild turkey.
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.
I saw a big white owl. It looks like as tall as a toddler. Then it flew away before I can even react.
In my area,
Pheasants and peacocks
Not sure how rare they are, but it was rare for me
Probably a California Condor at the San Diego Zoo.
They have them in the wild at Pinnacles National Park. Had maybe five or six flying about 60 feet over my head at one point during a hike. Amazing birds. Would recommend.
And yeah, probably the rarest animal I have seen as well. Though we had a Lawrence’s Goldfinch in our yard regularly in an area where they are extremely unlikely to be seen. Different kind of rare I guess.
Jealous that you’ve seen them in the wild!
I once got to meet a Tasmanian Devil baby at a zoo. The zookeeper was carrying him around in a little pouch to keep him comfy while his mom was getting a vet checkup. (The picture is one I found on google because the picture I took is buried in some backup folder from about 6 phones ago)
When I saw them in the wild their faces were covered in tumours. Sure would have been cute without those though. I think our tour guide might have said it was due to intra floral/fauna contamination between species like these who were historically isolated.
A lot of “tumors” seen on wild animals are fungal infections from invasive fungal species brought by humans. It really sucks because fungal infections are very hard for mammalian immune systems to fight without help from antifungal medications.
