Pigs are definitely up there on the list. One of the old farmers near my grandfather was eaten by his pigs one early morning. I bottle raised seven babies to huge monsters. They were delicious.
Rats – I’ve been bitten by mama rats more times than I can count. Those teeth are razor sharp.
A baby tiger in South Carolina – he was too interested in his bottle to care who was holding him.
I touched, or rather was touched by, a Portuguese Man O’ War while boogie-boarding at Bellows Beach on Oahu when I lived there as a lad. It was pretty damn painful, but luckily the life guard stand had meat tenderizer to put on it.
The other would be the elephant I rode as a kid at a circus. I would never ride one now having seen videos of what they are capable of. But then I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
An 18-foot crocodile, in Jamaica. We were on a tour cruise thingie going up the Black River, and the tour operators would chum the crocs with raw chicken. They’re territorial, so the tour folk knew where they’d be hanging out. The crocs would come right up to the boat and take the chicken right from the feeder’s hand. I touched the back of a really big lady croc they’d nicknamed Harriet. She felt bumpy.
Sting ray while diving [that is a classic =) lots of people have played with them] orca at an aquarium [friend used to work there, and it was behind the scenes when I was meeting him for dinner, I wanted to introduce the 16 lb lobster they had in a tank to a pound of butter, but they wouldn’t let me :D] my pissed off rooster Cogburn [he hated everybody except our roomie - if I wanted to go outside when he was out of the pen I had to take a broom and play chicken hockey to get to my car.] and an assortment of snakes, including a 6 foot albino boa and a coral snake. They both got re-homed with a zoo when I had to move and the new place wouldn’t allow my snakes, or my mexican brown tarantulas 
My ex-GF. After that, probably the elephant, then the alligator.
Great White Shark/Crocodile/Lion/Cheetah/Black Mamba, take your pick
Is there a story behind touching the Great White Shark? If so, I’d like to hear it. The lion and the cheetah would be interesting too.
Thanks. 
I had a caiman for a pet when I was young. I also had quite a few piranha.The caiman bit my finger once. He was very quick. He also nailed my cats paw.
Not much - my granddad had a line fishing boat, sometimes Great Whites would get pulled as bycatch. They’re legally protected, so we let them go. Not the biggest buggers, a couple metres at most, very snappy, but not actually as dangerous as the fish we were actually trying to catch. I’ve seen fingers taken off by those.
Those were both in captivity. Cheetahs can be quite tame, actually. There’s an encounter/rehabilitation centre not far from where I live, where we often take overseas visitors to meet the cheetahs. The lion, well, it was sedated…being moved to a vet’s for eye surgery, I happened to be at the same vet to pick up a friend who worked there, and it looked like too good a chance to pass up. I’ve seen them before, in game parks, but to touch one! Helps that I knew the staff, of course.
I’ve had a friend cut his finger pretty badly from the tamer, Southern California version of the barracuda. I’ve had bonito and halibut both bite my finger. The bonito was on accident, while the halibut was on a dare. Lots of blood involved but not too bad. Although, I’ve had my thumb infected from a bass tooth that broke off in it.
Elephant at the zoo.
I physically ran into a bear in the wild.
Yeah, I petted a trained cheetah at a ranch in Namibia where the owner had a trained lion and a cheetah that were used in movies. I’ve also touched an elephant. Supposedly he was tame, but I couldn’t tell if my guide was kidding or not.
I grew up on a farm in Georgia. As a kid, I used to capture all sorts of dangerous critters, including:
Timber Rattlesnake
Pygmy Rattlesnake
Copperhead
Water Moccasin
Black Widow spider
Brown Recluse spider
Scorpion (unknown variety)
(And yes, I knew how to properly identify all of those, even as a kid. Well, except the scorpion, obviously.)
None of them are typically deadly if they bite, but they can cause a lot of pain and a lot of tissue damage.
Also have handled a hammerhead shark on a fishing trip (true hammerhead, not a shovel nose), but it was a juvenile. And stingrays, of course, but I don’t think of them as being especially dangerous.
A sting ray. I stepped on it and it got me back.
Worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life.
A rabid bat.
Hmmm, I’ve touched quite a few critters which COULD have been dangerous (humans included), but I guess I’ll go with the bat I once grabbed.
I was 12 or so and coming home with a friend one night, saw this little dark thing hanging on her gate, and reached out to grab it, thinking it was “awww, a cute little bird!” Wrong…it was a hairy, leathery little BAT, which squeaked and flew off, leaving me dancing around squealing and shaking my hand like it was on fire. :eek:
Given their propensity to carry rabies, probably the most actually dangerous.
I also had a coral snake rush across a country road in front of my bike and get caught in the front wheel…I raised my legs WAY up over the handlebars and prayed it would slither out before I toppled over…it did, but DID brush my leg at once point.
Worst petting zoo ever.
Like Radegast I patted a rhinocerous once – friend of a friend worked at the zoo. He was quite gentle, but we were warned not to put our arms between him and the wall because he could crush it to kindling without noticing. We were also shown the back room where they bring the lions in for the night, and were about a foot and a half away (on the other side of the bars), but we didn’t touch them. The kid had just turned two and they were eyeing her as a possible appetizer, which made me a little nervous.
–Cliffy
Smallish lion, full-sized rhino. Also a cheetah, but I don’t think I’d consider that dangerous. My mom has the best story though. Many years ago she was a teacher at a school somewhere in the middle of nowhere. One day one of her pupils brought her a smallish green snake. Obviously it was a “test teacher’s nerve” type of thing, so she decides she has to show that he can’t scare her. She thinks, “Well, he’s touching it, so it can’t be dangerous”. She takes it from him, lets it curl around her arm, pets it, coos “nice snakey” and so on, and eventually hands it back. Later in the staff room she’s telling the story, and the biology teacher freaks out. Turns out the thing was a boomslang - a very docile snake that hardly ever bites, but if it does it’s a deadly neurotoxin for which there is NO antivenom.