Which animals, other than pets, have you touched/held/stroked?

Do you mean other than my own pets? If the giant iguana or the boa constrictor was somebody else’s pet, does that count?

You may assume pets excludes all, anyones.

Well, then, not (strictly speaking) pets:

cows
goats
a chick
a bat
caterpillars
grasshoppers
a chameleon
garter snakes
tadpoles
a turtle
a few lizards and salamanders
a horseshoe crab
a jellyfish
an injured sparrow
lab mice, rats, guinea pigs, and hamsters
a few children’s zoo animals, such as a deer and a pony
a lizard named Muriel
a donkey named Josephine
a dead frog
and probably more; I seldom pass up special opportunities like that

I skipped the potato bug, though.

The boa constrictor was somebody’s pet, and the giant iguana was part of a nature talk, so they weren’t in the wild, but most people didn’t want to handle them. I had the boa wrapped around my arm.

I also routinely escort spiders outside, and sometimes moths too, with my bare hands when necessary.

King Snake
a few hundred frogs and polliwogs
Green Snake
Garter Snake
Banded Rock Lizard
Skink
Hellbender
Horseshoe Crab
Sting Ray (Grand Cayman)
Lobster
Blue Crab
Bonito
Yellowtail
Barracuda
Pacific Perch
Sheepshead
Black Sea Bass
Ell
Trout (Brown-Brook-Rainbow-Cutthroat)
Pike
Catfish

That’s two for the horseshoe crabs.

I also forgot barnacles, snails, mussels, and clams, all live at the beach.

Giraffe.

I tried petting a goat, but I was only able to make contact with its horns, which it did NOT enjoy.

I tried petting a 1” long moth, but I nearly crushed the poor thing with what I thought was an appropriately gentle touch. HULK learn lesson: don’t pet insex! ;-p

I petted a recumbent pig one time, butt then it farted, so I instantly DEPARTED!

Another time I stroked a mounted horse, and it nibbled my arm. I didn’t know if the nibbling meant appreciation or annoyance, but I assumed the latter and stopped.

A sheep at a shelter. It seemed very appreciative, to the point where I thought the poor thing was starved for affection.
As a result I had 2 thoughts:
I wished I had a farm so that I could at least entertain thoughts about adopting it.
This beast should really look into using a wool conditioner, at least for its head.

Horse-We walked in the dark straight into a corral holding group of draft horses as we were leaving a bonfire. Idk if they were pets or hired help
Cow
Goat
Sheep yeah
Pig
Alpaca
llama
Chicken
Duck
Old McDonald
Sparrow
Red Winger Blackbird
Robin
Chickadees one of my favorites
Batman Happy Halloween
Garter snake
Boa Constrictor
Fox snake
Snapping turtle-It got in my studio and I had to carry it back out to the water.It wasn’t happy.
Nightcrawlers which then made me touch various fish
Mudpuppy-did not love that
Stingrays and horseshoe crabs in a tank—Were they pets or hired help?—
Frogs and toads
Camel and other strange ungulates at a drive thru park in Ohio It tried to chew the weatherstripping off the windows.
Black bear-both LARGE & small
A bunch of different bugs, most of which I didn’t want to touch.
I’ve also touched a lot of shrimp with a fork
That’s all I can remember for now.

My uncle’s chicken.

All most got to pet a bull, cutting through a rural area in Connecticut. I came up to a barbwire fence cutting through to a buddy’s house behind the high school (I didn’t walk all the way around to his house) path was on the other side of the pasture where barbwire fence continued. Gotto the other side and heard a noise as I past through the barbwire, turned around there was a Holstein bull. Apparently he was at the far end of pasture lucky he come full steam.

My most memorable was feeding peanuts to an elephant at the circus when I was five. It had a wet nose like a dog and could pick up single peanuts with the “fingers” at the tip of its trunk. Its breath was warm.

A lot of farm animals, a lot of snakes, praying mantis, frogs/toads, fish, shrimp, crabs, I’ve hand fed squirrels, Alpacas though that is borderline since they belonged to a friend who raised them for money. Not strictly a pet, but it was owned by someone. I think the strangest or rarest animal I have touched/petted/etc was a loggerhead seaturtle. It got attacked by an alligator and lost one of its fins. We rescued it (at work) and gave it to the seaturtle hospital (yes, there is such a thing) and when they went to release it back into the wild, they asked us to come help since we rescued it.

Most farm animals, etc., but the highlight was visiting a wildlife sanctuary in Haines, AK, a couple years ago. We got to touch a wolf and some wolf pups. There was a wolverine, too, but I was still ahhh’ing over the pups and missed him. Moose several times, both at the sanctuary mentioned an animal wildlife conservation center in Portage, AK. I was awed by the velvety feel of the moose’s antlers. I do not like snakes but made myself touch a boa that some wildlife people brought to a presentation at the school I was then teaching at. They also had a tiger, which was amazing to just see, let alone touch. My dog makes me stick to her ears and tummy mostly, tho’, nowadays. Ha

Oh, I forgot, an elephant and once a camel. The camel was at a Renaissance Fair, go figure.

@AlaskaTundrea An elephant? That is awesome!

Axolotl
Bearded dragon
Chinchillas
Crabs
Crayfish
Boa
Dove
Geckos
Guinea pigs
Hamsters
Hermit crabs
Fish
Frogs
Lizards
Mice
Python
Rabbits
Rats
Salamander
Snakes
Tarantula
Toad
Tortoise
Turtles

Not pets. But not necessarily wild either. Part of my job at the Lawrence Hall of Science was animal handling.

Also the usual fare at petting zoos and tide pools.

@raum

“Part of my job at the Lawrence Hall of Science was animal handling.”

Animal handling at my Alma mater, would be a dream job for me.

@raum -Is the axoloti a mudpuppy? It sure looks like one….except pale.
Axoloti questions, get a lot of answers. Is that true?
thanks for your time