It has always amused me that the tourists to the US that I’ve spoken to are often very excited to see raccoons, and disappointed if they don’t see them before they leave.
Some others I’ve noticed on the east coast of the US are blue jays and cardinals. Boy, do people get excited about those if they’ve never seen them before! Very pretty birds of course, just very easy to get used to and see as uninteresting as well.
Definitely kangaroos. But they have bad luck as I live in Austria and not Australia.
Austria!? Well then, G’day mate! Let’s put another shrimp on the barbie
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Haha, never watched the movie but I might have to now. But she rounds rather Slavic. Here my favorite example of Austrian English!
Manm both Dumb and Dumber movies are great imo
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I was so amazed at how common they were. I spent a year in Australia and probably saw more kangaroos day by day than I see all wild animals combined day by day here in the UK (excluding birds).
Hell I grew up in North Wales and may have seen as many kangaroos day by day as I saw sheep here, and that’s saying something.
But the kangaroos run away when you try to sneak up behind them
Capybaras are pretty common in the area where I live, and really throughout most of Brazil. Don’t get me wrong, we still think they’re pretty cute, but I’ve seen some Americans get really excited about them.
Oh, and the maned wolf. To be fair, I think they’re pretty neat too.
Are capybaras as chill as their reputation suggests, or is that more a feature of cases that are used to captivity? If the memes/images/videos are to be believed, I’d expect to be able to just wander up to one in the wild and have it respond like a well-socialized pet dog.
I’ve hung out with capybaras and can fully verify that they’re chill as fuck. They’re more skittish than a quokka, but as long as you’re chill, the capybara is!
Quokkas win as far as cutest and chillest animals to bless this planet. Quokkas should be everyone’s spirit animal.
Fun fact. When in danger, Quokka parents drop their little quokka babies from their pouch as a distraction so the parents can get away.
I’ve only ever heard of one incident with a capybara, when it killed my SO’s therapist’s dog, but it was supposedly protecting it’s cubs, so I would say as chill as a mammal can be
It is a fox with some long long legs! Neat!
A fox horse! A forse!
I went to the Buenos Aires zoo and Iguaçu and that capybaras can just roam freely in the zoo is amazing. And in Iguaçu (or Iguazu), coatis were fun. They’re devious.
I lived in the northeast for a few years in and around college and I was amazed by chipmunks. I had never seen one and was like, “Holy shit, a chipmunk!”
I’ve been to the Galapagos, Australia, multiple African countries and nothing shocked me like seeing a chipmunk for the first time. Nature shows let you know exotic animals exist but there’s no nature show that’s just like, “Check out this [chipmunk, hedgehog, etc.].”
Seeing a chipmunk was the same for me. And goddamn are they cute, I had no idea they were so small and precious. Alvin and the chipmunks are monstrosities by comparison.
I would be SO EXCITED to see a wild capybara.
That maned wolf is really cool! I thought they were extinct but I must have them mixed up with some other canine creature. Something with stripes?
It looks like a long-legged megafox.
You’re probably thinking of the thylacine
Ah, thank you! Yes, the Tasmanian wolf.
Fingers crossed that it isn’t actually extinct. Unconfirmed sightings have been going up recently. My head canon is that a government agency is covering it up so they can bounce back without tourist destroying the ecosystem just to see “the last one”.
Thylacine? aka Tasmanian Tiger.
Yep, I was going to say capybaras but also anacondas, although they are hard to spot, but I recall there’s one in Butantan Institute, in São Paulo city.
That’s clearly the abandoned love child of a fox and a wnba player.
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Royalty 🇬🇧
common animals
Royalty
“And here on your left you will see a prime example of the common European prince. No longer afforded a natural habitat, the nation of Britain has built special reserves for these princelings and other royalty, called palaces. On certain days you can observe royals being transported in specially equipped vehicles from one palace to another to encourage mating.”
All humans (which afaik includes royals) are animals anyway.
My ex’s family were pissed when I didn’t take her to see Buckingham Palace. There is NOTHING there to see. They make it as boring a possible on purpose. It’s on a fucking roundabout for cry sake, you’d see more driving past.
I was excited to see squirrels, lightning bugs and a racoon in the US.
When people come to Australia they obviously want to see kangaroos, koalas and platypus and quokka. Koalas are very rare to see in the wild, and a visit to a zoo will score you a sleeping ball on a branch. Kangaroos are frequently roadkill if you go outside the city. Quokka require a long trip to a really remote location. You’ll also almost never see a platypus, even the ones at the zoo you might catch a water ripple at best.
But if you’re headed to Sydney city, guaranteed you’ll spot the almighty and much maligned “bin chicken”, our Australian white ibis. Often not quite white from the bins. At night they serenade you with their collective honking from their tree, which can be easily spotted by the masses of white poop underneath. And you’ll see fruit bats in the evening. Hopefully not the daytime corpses hanging from electrical cables while they slowly rot, but that’s not altogether unlikely either, unfortunately.
Seeing the flying foxes around Sydney surprised me.
The bin chickens, I simultaneously felt a little sorry for, and enjoyed watching.
The bin chickens are my kin, I’m in the small minority here who appreciate them.
And yeah, the flying foxes are a surprise for most foreigners. They’re also pretty big and often fly low at dusk, so they can be slightly startling too, even though they’re just adorable fuzzy harmless nectar drinkers. It’s a pity they screech too, it might be easier to reassure non-locals that they’re not dangerous.
People are also often surprised to see all the other Sydney city wildlife and how much of it there is, especially rainbow lorrikeets. Everyone loves the lorrikeets, but people from the northern hemisphere are especially awestruck when they see them. It’s understandably almost a little surreal to have such brightly colored parrots hanging out in the middle of a city, if you’re someone who comes from a city that is just pigeons and sparrows.
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Pigeons are pretty dope though. They waddle around like they are part of the landscape, and it’s like “bro you can fly why are you walking?”
Sorry about you not seeing the lightning bug.
Insects are dying out a bit.
Oh no, i got to see them. This was a decade ago, and I was told even then that there used to be many more. I was happy to see any at all though, I had only ever seen them in movies and they almost seemed mythical. They are pretty magical, it’s very sad to hear they’re almost gone.
I had to check with my Australian colleagues because I couldn’t believe ibis were called bin chickens. They are silent, beautiful here, land on the lawn like angels, peck around awhile then take off in a beautiful cloud of white wings. I thought it was a joke! But they confirmed. Apparently you’ve developed a subspecies.
Don’t forget the wild cockatoos! Those are a sight. (Source: my ex-step-sister lives in Melbourne.)
Yellow crested cockatoos, galahs etc can be terrorists to trees and shrubs. You can be walking along and on the ground see piles of leaves and little branches and fruit with one bite out of them.
The cockies have very sharp beaks and will just chomp through anything. This includes aerials, cables or anything else they think looks like fun. Sometimes they will even party in your room
Do NOT put your finger near one.
Which kind? We’ve got bunches. The sulphur crested are the most famous, and they are great but can be vandals
Good to know! I’ll put the Ibis and fruit bat on my Australia bucket list, along with a Huntsman. Although the latter are so widespread that I’ve probably already seen some living in America. But I’m guessing the Australian Huntsmen are a bit different from the North American ones.
What about crocodiles? Alligators are in most reasonably large retention ponds in Florida. Most places just relocate them once they reach a certain size. They’re pretty common. Knew a guy in high school who had a side hustle of removing them from people’s swimming pools. They’re pretty weird if you’re not from a place used to them.
If you want to see a croc, just go walking near the shallow water of the top half of the country’s coast. You won’t see the croc for long, and it will be the last thing you ever see, but it will be up close and very personal.
Seriously though, you don’t go to see salt water crocodiles in the wild or even go near any body of water on the northern coast. If you can see one with the naked eye in the wild, you’re already too close. They’re extremely fast, extremely aggressive, and the males get up to 6m / 20ft long and 1000kg / 2200lb. They are very much a zoo only thing.
How can you speak of the bin chicken and not link to the song?
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It never occurred to me y’all didn’t have squirrels or lightning bugs. Like it makes sense with squirrels, y’all got a dearth of placentals but dang
First time I landed in Australia on the Gold Coast I followeed a bin chicken for 20 minutes with a camera trying to get the perfect picture like it was some rare exotic bird. I’m sure the locals were sremoveding or openly laughing behind my back, I dont blame them
I’ve seen a vanload of tourists happily taking pictures of sheep on more than one occasion. New Zealand.
I mean, I grew up in the US by several sheep farms and I would take pics of the critters constantly because they’re cute.
I liked seeing the sheep, but because it reminded me of Yorkshire.
There’s a certain kinship.
came to say just that
I spent two months or so travelling around the north and south islands and barely saw any sheep! Far more cows strangely. I didn’t feel like I had missed anything and wasn’t actively looking gor them, but it was surprising!
San Diego zoo has a racoon exhibit. I thought that was weird.
they probably fell into an empty enclosure one day and the zookeepers just rolled with it and put up a sign
The Audubon zoo in New Orleans has a raccoon exhibit and it’s got a rusted out jalopy for them to play in. And a mouse exhibit where their natural habitat is a spice cabinet. Also, we probably have the only zoo with recipes on the wall next to some exhibits. They’re a relic of a bygone era and I asked the zoologists about it and they were like, “I mean, most of us are vegetarians but we just think it’s funny so we leave them up.” And there’s a fake loup-garou around a corner where you can scare your kids.
In grand New Orleans tradition, it’s also one of the few zoos that sells drinks and sometimes has live music. But it’s still probably one of the top 5 zoos in America for actual science and conservation. I haven’t seen one better besides San Diego and I frequent zoos. So, no one act like the giraffes or gorillas are upset. They get fed better than humans in most of the world and the climate is right up their alley.
Huh really? I have tons of trash pandas around me (central Ohio).
At my house, one figured out how to use my doggy door and kept raiding my kitchen trashcan at night.
Well yeah this (also central Ohio) is their native habitat. I seem to recall Columbus or Cincinnati zoo having a local wildlife section
Opossums are also everywhere and are probably wildly exotic to people who aren’t used to there just being one marsupial in their garbage can and no others on the continent
The one which lives in my attic just moved out for the summer
Same at Denver, they are albino though.
I’m Dutch and a zoo near me has racoons too. But then again they’re an invasive species here so it’s not as weird.
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I mean, an emo cow is just hilarious
Back when I worked at Disney, a subset of the Asian guests would get excited and take pictures of squirrels. Are there parts of Asia that don’t have many squirrels?
Japan doesn’t generally have squirrels like in the US. I took my wife to DC and we spent a solid 10+ minutes taking photos and videos of squirrels around the mall.
i’m from australia and i’m always excited to see squirrels… they don’t exist here at all
Want some? Says the Canadian.
LOL
I have some friends in Australia and I always send them pictures of squirrels when I see them. Got TONS where I live.
I felt the opposite when we visited Brazil, they had these little monkeys everywhere like squirrels here but they didn’t know what a squirrel was haha, basically they had squirrels with monkey faces instead
Squirrels are not native in most of Asia.
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We have squirrels in my country but I’ve never seen one in person to be frank. If you’ve lived in a heavily populated area your entire life then it’s not uncommon you’d be surprised to see common wildlife out and about
Squirrels are extremely common in (most of?) the US, even in cities. There’s an albino one that lives in my neighborhood, that one was interesting enough to stop and take a picture of.
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Reindeer, the four-legged derp zombies of the animal world.
I was fucking thinking if we have any, but yeah, driving in the North and having basically stoner deer on the roads is not something all countries have.
Australian white ibises. They’re kinda like the Australian equivalent to a raccoon in the US; they eat rubbish and their roosts stink because they tend to congregate in a single tree and then shit everywhere. But they are quite unique looking birds: long beaks, black heads and white plumage. So the tourists find them quite interesting and the locals call them bin chickens.
I was one of the fascinated tourists taking a million pictures of bin chickens. But, I was at least aware of it… because I remember at the time joking with my wife that the locals were laughing at us basically taking pictures of pigeons/seagulls.
Ah the Bin Chicken
I have never heard of this before, and now I wonder whether we shouldnt be encouraging more animals to consume our waste.
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It looks like our White Ibis and Wood Storks were crossed.
They look like the wading birds I liked seeing so much in Spanish rice paddies.
I’m not surprised, I’m pretty sure they’re wetland birds too.
It’s not a weird animal but cats. Stray cats are literally everywhere and aren’t afraid of people so many will stop to pet them. And on the other hand, when visiting other countries, the lack of street cats does strike me a bit weird.
Greece? Turkey?
Greece but pretty sure it applies for Turkey too
Tenerife too
i will pet every cat
Stray is so mean. I like to call them free cats.
Feline Vagabonds
I’ve seen puppies literally thrown into a bin. Y’all got issues with your pet/animal divides
I don’t know what happens with dogs (there aren’t that many strays) but most street cats were never pets, they’ve always been free. There is an effort to reduce them that’s definitely failing.
I’ve had kinda an inverse experience of this.
I was on a vacation to Mexico with my family and we decided to visit a local zoo. For the most part it was pretty similar to what we have back home with lions and gorillas but there was one exhibit that was drawing a large crowd so we decided to go see what it was. Once we are able to get a look inside there were just 4 or 5 white tailed deer grazing on some grass. We got a good laugh because back home these things are common to the point of nuisance. I don’t speak Spanish but I then started to notice several children pointing and mentioning “Bambi” to their parents and all the commotion made sense
I’ll answer the opposite way: in South America we have no crows, so it was by far the most fascinating animal I saw while in England.
That’s wild, I thought crows lived everywhere humans do.
Here in Australia, it’s drop bears and hoop snakes. People always want to see them… until it’s too late.
A drop bear got my auntie. All they found was her eskie… empty.
Typical. Those drop bears have no respect at all for a person’s eskie.
Thieves and murderers the lot of em. Just like my great great granddad before he was shipped here.
Some say that the drop bears are the true descendants of the first British convicts sent to Australia
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I’ve never heard of a hoop snake before, that’s awesome.
It’s all about the koalas and kangaroos but then they see a cockie or a rosella, hear a possum late at night and shit themselves
Can confirm. The rosellas were delightful. The Ibis were pretty awesome as well -such a trashy looking bird. Ours at least hides its shame (kiwi).
I have a mate who lives in midwestern us and they utterly lose their shit over the fact we just casually have all these parrots everywhere like nbd.
Shitting themselves over possums isn’t hyperbole for any non-Australians reading.
Possums at night sound like a demon crossed with a chainsaw.
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