# What's the rarest or most unusual animal you've seen? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 28, 2016, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-rarest-or-most-unusual-animal-youve-seen/758650 "2016-06-28T22:14:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 39
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-rarest-or-most-unusual-animal-youve-seen/758650/39 "2016-06-29T15:45:46Z")
Reading this thread I was having “_déjà vu_ all over again”. Took me a while (my search skills apparently aren’t that good) but I finally found [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8460867#post8460867)from 2007. Quite a few real rarities in that one! **Crotalus** , your wild bog turtle sighting still has me jealous! Repeating it in this thread may be what triggered my dim memory. A number of others are also impressive. I offered (in part): > [@Rarest animal you've seen in the wild?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rarest-animal-youve-seen-in-the-wild/399919/20): > > Once, back in the late 1970’s, I followed an Ivory Billed Woodpecker around the Big Cypress Swamp for about an hour. I had both binoculars and a 35mm camera with 200mm lens, but alas not a speck of film. I would have double-exposed any already used film for such shots. The bird, a male, flew casually from tree to tree, occasionally drumming. I followed, covering perhaps a mile during the encounter. Several times I was within 50 feet of the bird. There was no mistaking its identity. The only similar bird is the Pileated Woodpecker, and I’m quite familiar with them. Finally, I just got bored following the bird. I made my way out to my car, drove like a maniac a dozen miles to a gas station/tourist dive, grabbed a roll of film, threw some bills on the counter, and drove even more maniacally back. Of course, the bird was nowhere to be found. **Colibri** is kind enough to say > [@Rarest animal you've seen in the wild?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rarest-animal-youve-seen-in-the-wild/399919/56): > > You may have me beat. 🙂 Coming from him, that’s quite a statement! But I’m not so sure, as he also said > [@Rarest animal you've seen in the wild?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rarest-animal-youve-seen-in-the-wild/399919/56): > > I worked with the New Zealand Wildlife Service from 1981-1985, and got to see some of the rarest animals in the world during my stint with them. > > My favorite is the [Kakapo](http://www.kakapo.net/en/), or Owl Parrot - a giant, flightless, nocturnal parrot. I worked with an island translocation program for them, and handled about 10% of the world population - which was about 50 in total at the time. > > My own bird, which I was doing a study on, was the [Stitchbird, or Hihi](http://www.tiritirimatangi.org.nz/Fauna/Stitchbird.htm), at that time restricted to a single island, Little Barrier. I estimated the population at that time to be about 5000 birds. > > Other species I’ve seen in the wild include [Takahe](http://www.terranature.org/takahe.htm), [Saddleback,](http://www.terranature.org/saddleback.htm) [Kokako](http://www.terranature.org/kokako.htm), [Little Spotted Kiwi,](http://www.savethekiwi.org.nz/AboutTheBird/TheKiwiFamily/Little_Spotted.htm) and [Tuatara.](http://www.wellingtonzoo.com/animals/animals/reptiles/tuatara.html) \ Several months later I saw an Ivory Billed in flight at a distance, in the same area. Obviously I cannot know if it was the same bird or another, but back in about 1973 there was at least one living representative of the species in Florida. But I just briefly viewed these. New Zealand rarities would be on my ‘bucket list’ and **Colibri** , you didn’t just see them, you worked with them! Too cool. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-rarest-or-most-unusual-animal-youve-seen/758650)._