I haven’t seen any particularly interesting animals in the wild. I’ve caught mahi-mahi aka dorado aka “dolphin” while deep-sea fishing. (I wish the name “dolphin” in reference to this fish was somehow purged from existence. That’s a separate fucking animal! The goddamn fish already has TWO monikers! But I digress.)
It’s a brilliantly colored fish, though not particularly rare. The colors seem to pulsate as it moves through the water. Once it’s out of the water, the color begins to fade away. By the time they’re dead, they are mostly a grayish color.
Outside of an animal preserve or zoo, the most rare animal I’ve stumbled across in the wild was a coral snake, among a cluster of rocks by a stream. My brain kept saying “that’s a king snake…no…wait…red on yellow…red on yellow…RED ON YELLOW! Argh!!!” I stayed to watch it for the minute it was visible, but at the same time I was terrified of being bitten. It was long before the era when we had cellphones, so I never got a photo of it. At that same location on different occasions I found a soft-shelled turtle, and caught a baby alligator snapping turtle (yes, really) that I kept as a pet for a year.
I’ve had a wild short-tailed shrew snuffling around my feet once for a couple of minutes, which while not rare, was rare because it was in broad daylight in my front yard.
Been to the Galapagos Islands twice, so since all the current life there is a few hundred miles from anywhere else, I say they are fairly rare (not counting the wild pigs/horses/donkeys on some of the islands).
Probably the most rare was a baby Galapagos Green Sea Turtle, who apparently hatched late and had to make his way across the beach in broad daylight (usually they make the passage at night, to avoid predators). Baby got a 6-human escort down to the Ocean where he (or she) promptly disappeared, most likely eaten by a seal 20 minutes later (hey, nature is a tough b****).
Along with the Galapagos Tortoise (big) and the Marine Iguana (ugly), and with the Blue-Footed Booby and many others. Really a magical place to see.
I’ve seen a whooping crane in the wild, twice. His name is Nougat and he hangs out in the Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin. He’s joined a flock of sandhill cranes there. He’s tagged and his movements are monitored. That’s how I found out who he was. HUGE bird!
Armadillo galore*; my wife has seen a roadrunner (and constantly goads me about it); at a Lion Country Safari-type establishment, we saw a tapir–I know that doesn’t count, but how often do you get to say “tapir”?
*Saw a dead one, once, obviously killed in traffic, but no marks on it. Some wank had left it on its back with a Bud Light bottle perched in its paws.
I had captured a few yellow bellied legless lizards in the field on the ocean side of LAX airport about 50 years before they were discovered. We actually called them yellow bellied legless lizards as they are called today but had no idea they were not some common reptile to the area. Another reptile that I caught was possibly a rosy boa in the Baldwin hills oil fields but looking back I think it may have been some kind of subspecies as it didn’t really look like the other ones I have seen.
Do fish count ? I caught a jellyfish off my dad’s yacht and was about to take it off the hook and my dad stopped me b/c it could had sting me. It was very weird looking !
I don’t suppose I’ve seen any super-rare animals, but I have seen some that are unusual to me, at least-- and since they haven’t appeared in this thread, I guess I’ill mention them:
Gila Monsters in the Peloncillo Mountains, Arizona.
Numerous coatamundi in various mountain ranges in Arizona.
Desert Bighorn sheep in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, and in Canyonlands National Park and the Kaiporowits Plateau, Utah.
A mountain lion and a lone Whooping Crane at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico.
I’ve seen two bobcats in the wild. One in central PA was no surprise. The other was in Westchester County in NY, I spotted it off the Taconic Parkway at 5AM. No one believed me at first but a week later the newspapers reported bobcat sightings in the area for the first time in years.
I grew up in a city. Years ago I moved to a rural area and worked at night at a business located in an new industrial built where there had previous been fields and forest. One night at the end of the long drive my headlights picked up this huge tall long legged animal. I couldn’t see what it was. The next night I told my coworkers. They said was a deer. Now many years later they regularly graze in my yard which is on their daily route. I still get excited when I see one. Since that first sighting I’ve seen possum, raccoons, and late one night a fisher.
It was about the right size, I think, for a wolverine, and the location (a pass in the Cascade mountains) would have fit. The thing that perplexes me, though, is the fur. I recall it as being large curls, which does not seem quite right for such a beast. And it ran away. Wolverines are assholes; it should have attacked us (the car).
Supposedly, armadillos make good pets. However, they are said to have a powerful, musky smell, as well. I would be surprised to see one in Cape Cod (in the wild), but not shocked. Here are all sorts of pet 'dillo YouTube clips.
