Ask Lemmy

This goes back to around 2000. Snake hunting in the Everglades middle of the night, my friend and I saw a black panther. I know, I know, impossible, Florida doesn't have them etc etc etc. we both saw it clear as in a zoo in the floodlights of his truck. 100% big cat, 100% black.

A bobcat. It casually sauntered through the neigborhood and hung out at a local park. I watched it for about five minutes from about 30 feet away.

In the wild? Bald Eagle.

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

Tanuki

I saw my first Praying Mantis yesterday.

Not super rare, but a wolverine

If we're including captive animals, the one that stands out the most to me is a Chaco Owl. It's not considered endangered yet, but it's only found in one particular area of the world, at the borders of Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina.

In the wild, I've come across porcupines on a few occasions, and I almost had a fisher cat run up my leg. I didn't know we even had them in my state, so I was very freaked out as to what this long, furry thing coming at me was. I wish I had maintained my composure so I could have gotten a better look at it, but it's also the kind of thing in glad we figured out what each other was before I was in biting range!

No idea. But if I were to randomly guess, I'd say it was a bison during their endangered days.

Quokka on Rottnest Island (Western Australia)?

Followed by trying to stop fuckwits from playing "quokka soccer". 🤭

Not sure how rare they are, but I've seen wild crested caracaras a few times.

Red squirrel

Probably my cat. There's only one of her.

Polar Bear this year in Southern Greenland

I saw a big white owl. It looks like as tall as a toddler. Then it flew away before I can even react.

I remember seeing a Liger at the zoo when I was kid.

Orcas, maybe?

I don't even know what the rarest animal I would have seen in person is, considering many zoos and aquariums have endangered species in their care and I like going to them. I went to the Sacramento zoo over this last weekend, too.

In the wild, though? Could either be orcas or grizzly bears.

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.

That really bad taxidermy lion that was / is a meme.

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.

Desert tortoise, and an old one at that. Was bigger than a basketball.

Little blue heron. Not so much rare but very rarely seen here.

When I was a kid, on a trip to Paris, I went to the zoo, and the highlight of the whole trip was seeing an Aldabra giant tortoise (listed as vulnerable by IUCN). Now, even when this was 1990, I was still like "ooooooo cool turt". I didn't expect the buddy to jump around and munch pizza. Just a tortoise doing tortoise things slowly.

(The other highlight of the trip was seeing a public Minitel terminal. Holy shit guys, we were only mildly approaching that level in Finland.)

Hmm, I am not sure I've seen anything rare, though we do have some animals in Florida that I don't think are everywhere, have seen wild manatees and alligators, those enormous Sandhill Cranes and pink spoonbills, lots of lizards and snakes.

The animal I have personally seen, but most rarely though, is a fox. Have only seen one wild fox in my over 50 years.

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)

African penguins maybe? They're endangered. I took my partner to feed them at an aviary.

I feel like I've seen a black rhino before, maybe at the San Diego zoo as a kid or something. Those are critically endangered, all but one subspecies extinct.

Not sure how rare they are, but it was rare for me

https://wildsafebc.com/species/rattlesnake/

Giant Millipede and Armoured Millipede. Not the rarest but you will never seen one without going into the forest.

Giant hornet. Easily 4 inches long. I have no idea what it was doing in California.

Saw a lynx cross the road ahead of us in the Yukon.

Probably wild camels in central Australia or a platypus when I was young.

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.

Probably a sea turtle. Was snorkelling in Malaysia, completely obsessed with the coral and all of the fishes, when this massive turtle just cruises by. Held my breath for as long as I could to swim next to it, not too close but just wanting to be in its presence, it was so calm and majestic as it headed out into the deeper ocean