You’d enjoy these things, we had some in an aquarium for a month or so before they died. (Of old age, I think.)
They don’t like very clear water but prefer it a bit murky. They also come to the top and splash water around occasionally. Very cool little animals that have been around just about forever. Their breeding is also weird, with one set of eggs laid immediately after they mature and another set of eggs laid later in life. The first set of eggs hatches immediately while the second set sinks to the bottom and requires drying and rehydration before they hatch. I think some of them may also be hermaphroditic.
Once, in Indonesia, I saw a Pangolin, what a thing!
And once, in Peru, a bird landed right in front of me on the trail we were walking (we were far behind the group), it was so beautiful, but I’m no bird watcher so had no hope of identifying it. It had two long blue tail feathers that hung way down, it was quite large and had white on it’s back, as I recall. It was really a spectacular creature and it landed right before me, stopped me dead in my tracks, remained a moment or two, squawked and took flight again. Awesome!
Hmmm. While I’ve seen plenty of exotic animals on farms and in zoos, I haven’t seen anything too terribly exotic out in the wild.
I saw a marmot once, those things are like living fuzzy slippers. I’ve also seen wild porcupine, raccoon families, coyote, fox, bobcats, deer (a herd lived practically in our backyard for a year, we saw the mother get huge with pregnancy and she had two babies, then one of them appeared one day with a broken leg, and we never saw him again after that :(), bear, rattlesnakes, possum, turkeys, elk, parrots, and a pig.
Probably the scariest was the wild pig, it was friggin’ HUGE and looked really pissed off.
The most beautiful was the coyote, who I saw along the edge of a new development being built south of Burlington Vermont. It looked just like a wolf except really slender and tall and it’s fur was grey and white with definite shades of lavender and blue.
The coolest was when I saw a pair of hawks fight a third hawk, about a hundred feet up in the air. They would circle and attack each other and scream bloody murder. The weirdest was watching them fall as they struggled, then they’d break it up and fly around for another go at it.
Can’t think of any other interesting ones at the moment.
very cool lil crusteceans, i’ve kept them myself, you can get the egg kits at wally-world (if your wally world has a pet section), they take about 2-3 days to hatch in 75 degree (f) water, and live for 30-90 days, they are cannibilistic, so keep 'em well fed with their supplied food pellets, or you’ll end up with one or two really big ones (about dime to nickel size)
When I was younger my family would go sailing every summer along the west coast of BC. One of my favorite things was when were were at a marina to check out the minnows and all of the creatures that lived around the docks. One day I saw a sea slug I had never seen one before. It was so beautiful and so different from anything else I had seen.
in the link the one I saw was similar to the feathery looking one
[QUOTE=MacTech]
very cool lil crusteceans, i’ve kept them myself, you can get the egg kits at wally-world (if your wally world has a pet section), they take about 2-3 days to hatch in 75 degree (f) water, and live for 30-90 days, they are cannibilistic, so keep 'em well fed with their supplied food pellets, or you’ll end up with one or two really big ones (about dime to nickel size)
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Thanks for the info. I knew they were fierce little beasties but had no idea about the cannibalism. We fed them a mixture of live yeast in water and they seemed to do well on it.
As a kid once I was wading through some waist-high grass in a field. I came within about 5 inches of a large spiderweb slung across some of the blades of grass. In the middle of the web was a quarter-sized spider with crazy black and neon yellow patterns. I’d never seen a spider like that before, and was pretty glad I didn’t walk into it.
An enormous armadillo crossed through the intersection in front of my car when I was in San Diego. I called the Zoo and they said that apparently there had been some pet 'dillos (?!) set free in SoCal over the last decade.
The most amazing animals I’ve seen up close and personal have been moose in Yellowstone. Those guys are huge!
I’ll go with that. One I came across in Alberta saw me coming from over a mile away, and I gradually slowed down as he just stood in the road watching me, with an “I’ll move when I feel like it” attitude. I was happy to go along with that idea.
Late December about 3 years ago, about 9 am, Philadelphia, 36th Street between Walnut and Sansom: a *very large * hawk (must have been a red-tailed) perched atop a trelliss over a seating area on the east side of the street, no more than 10 feet or so off the ground. Eating a pigeon. Actually I first saw a man standing under the trellis peering up; when he saw me he said, “Now there’s something you don’t see every day–a bird eating another bird alive.” So I looked at what he was looking at, and there was the hawk, midway through killing the pigeon. Basically he (or she) pulled bits off of it until it stopped flapping, then pulled the head off whole, turned it in his beak like a grape, decided he couldn’t swallow it after all and dropped it, then settled in to eat the rest of the pigeon. I didn’t know hawks swallow bones whole. There have been few other occasions in my life I have so keenly regretted not having a camera with me.
Not to snark all over anyone else’s experiences, but…hawks? banana slugs? Psh. I see hawks driving to work every day.
Lessee…probably a porcupine that I came upon while on a camping trip, and taking a stroll one morning. Never seen one before or since.
Lots of people see lots of black bears, but I’ve only had the privilege a few times. Impressive lookin’ animals.
A grey fox ran into our campsite, grabbed a pack of tortillas off the table, and ran out again. The ranger was impressed, as they are very shy and rarely seen.
Not a particularly unusual animal, since there are lots of foxes where I live, but I saw an unusual speciman. I was just coming into my drive way one day I saw what I thought was a dog on the side of the road.
Looking closer I realised it was a fox, but it was the biggest fox I’d ever seen, the size of a Kelpie, and it was the oddest colour. Most foxes around here are the usual red and black, but this one was sort of mottled grey and fawn like a blue merle collie.
I see Echidnas, Koalas and Kangaroos pretty regularly, but one day I’m pretty sure I saw a Wedge Tailed Eagle fly over, and that was impressive. I’ve seen them before, but having one more or less in my back yard was a thrill.
One day I was in the centre of Melbourne and heard what I was sure was the noise of a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (they make a pretty distinctive noise). Since I was at the top end of Collins Street, I was pretty sure I was having auditory hallucinations, but looking up I saw a couple of Cockies sitting on the tram lines giving the pedestrians cheek. I suppose they were just passing through on their way to somewhere or another.
I have flocks of them live around here, but seeing them right in the city was odd.
Just a couple weeks ago I saw something hard to idenitify immediately - it had to have been a white weasel, since it was definitely smallish but just about weasel-size and weasel-shaped , but frog belly white. It’s possible it was an ermine, since according to the NH fish and game we have ermine and another long-tail weasel that both turn white in November.
Years ago my brother and I were driving home when I noticed a rather large dog on the side of the road. As we got closer to it, and more of it was revealed by the headlights, I started thinking “Man, that’s the widest dog I’ve ever seen. You know, maybe it’s not a dog. maybe it’s a-”
And at that point my brother, who was nearer it began shouting “It’s a bear! It’s a bear!”
The alligator in our backyard in Florida was startling - my mother almost stepped on it (we lived on a canal.)
My SO and I were admiring the house my parents built/sold in the Keys, standing at the edge of (an obviously different) canal when we were attacked by a dinosaur and screamed like a couple of little girls. (We did, not the dinosaur.)
It was a 6 foot long iguana that ran past us and dove into the water.
We were in the St Augustine area at Thanksgiving and went to the St Johns inlet, the fresh water river where manatees spend the winter. We saw about a dozen, with babies! That was cool. They are huge!
Now I live right next to the National Zoo here in DC, and from my apartment I can hear howler monkeys and the lions.
Yup, that’s the one…I’m usually not afraid of spiders but…shudder
That’s the only time I’ve ever seen one. Not sure if they’re very common in my neck of the woods, or if I’ve just been lucky not to run into them.