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.
Kangaroos are the clear winner in my experience, but we’ve also got possums and various parrots (e.g. sulphur crested cockatoos). Wombats too but they’re less common to see.
Seeing a Wombat in the wild is a dream of mine.
Happened to me three times. One in particular was like a little furry tank and did not mind tryingbto bowl us over to get back to his home.
I went camping with my cousin and a blue jay came by our campiste, him and his wife are bird watchers and were amazed by it. I was amazed they didn’t have any where they live even though it’s only a few hours from the campsite
God damn Canada Geese.
Also, I’ve seen tourists fascinated by seagulls in Vancouver which surprised me because I thought they were everywhere.
I love Canada geese! A family used to nest every year near where i grew up, and during breeding season traffic would halt multiple times a day while the whole family of goslings crossed the road. When in a rush in the spring, everyone knew not to take that road.
I think they are the bane of golfers and sports areas, but if that’s not a concern they are huge, beautiful birds.
I saw a Canadian Goose exhibit at the Prague zoo and almost died laughing.
I’m American and I always get a chuckle from the adoration that people have over raccoons as well. I guess they’re cute but they’re also a menace, there’s a reason we call them “trash pandas”.
But I also went to Spain several years back and saw my first hedgehog. And it was even in a hedge! I took probably two dozen photos and the locals thought I was crazy. So I get it.
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
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.
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Black squirrels. They aren’t very many if any at all in the south and when family/friends come to visit it blows their mind seeing them.
In DC, the only black squirrels we saw were around the Saudi embassy and we joked about them being robotic spies.
Black bears, mountains southeast USA
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
Damnit. I googled it. Im from the US. Closest we have to drop bears here are snipes. I’ve been on a few snipe hunts myself.
I’ve never heard of a hoop snake before, that’s awesome.
None! I live in Korea, and the local wildlife was long ago mostly displaced or eaten by the seething mass of humanity. Once upon a time, there were some cool bears and tigers even. There are some nice, big herons still around I suppose. Oh, some tiny deer, 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.
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.
Stray is so mean. I like to call them free cats.
Feline Vagabonds
Greece? Turkey?
Greece but pretty sure it applies for Turkey too
Tenerife too
i will pet every cat
Not a tourist, but a girlfriend that grew up in Long Beach, and moved to the East Coast, stopped me dead on the street one day, and asked, “what in the world is THAT‽‽‽” I looked where she was looking and, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, said, “what is what?”
“The furry thing with the tail!”
“You mean the squirrel?”
“That’s what they look like in real life‽‽‽”
Moose (mainland) or Polar bear (Svalbard)
I was gonna say whales. Feels like a lot of tourists go up north to whale safaries.
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 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
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.
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
Cows and monkeys in India
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