What's the most amazing species you've had the pleasure of seeing in the wild?
Mammals, rare ferns, slime moulds, don’t care.. whatever made you smile or gape in awe at wonder and beauty nature.
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Armadillo. It was actually alive and not just smashed in the road. I had seen hundreds of smashed ones in my life but never a live one.
Humpback Whales on a whale watching trip off the coast of California. Amazing, beautiful, and graceful mammals.
I haven’t seen anything exotic, but I saw a line of six deer running single-file directly at me in the woods. When they saw me, they took a sharp right turn down a hill and over a dropoff out of sight. Absolutely beautiful.
I ate one of them.
I like slime moulds. If you wanted the number one contender for alien life on earth slime moulds are it.
Buffalo in Yellowstone National Park
As a young kid, my mother grew dill weed for “canning” small cucumbers = “pickles”. One summer I noticed a bunch of funny looking caterpillars eating the dill weed. Being a nature lover enthusiast, I collected about 6 of them and along with a good supply of weed, put them into a secure arriated jar. Waited.
Several days later, 6 Chrysalidese or chrysalises, formed. About 10 days later I awoke one morning to witness something totally unexpected, especially in my mid-west Minnesotan area.
6 beautiful gorgeous “Black Swallowtail” butterflies had emerged. Perfect, radient, drop dead gorgeous winged flowers in motion!! And they were thirsty. I fed them with dissolved sugar water, coaxing a few with a toothpick that extended their tubular probosis out to sip the sweetness offered. Two days later, I set them all free, to search for their own nectarial splendor and sustenance. I’ll always remember those spectacular “worms” turned into Glorious Angelic entities.
I suppose, that is why “metamorphosis” of the butterfly can be parallelled to the Souls of Man. We are all like worms, injesting all incoming, and then dream for a while, yet, to transform into something quite wonderous and beautiful. An unanswered prayer. Look out all U worms, you ain’t seen nothing yet!! Hey, it happens!!
Manta rays. They really are very gentle, inquisitive creatures and use that stinger only for self-defence.
One time I saw a Pikachu..very shocking..
A kanga hopped in front of a car I was in in the outback of NSW. There was a joey in her pouch.
Kangaroos are very big with humongous feet. O-O
I held a koala once, though it wasn’t nearly as amazing as I expected.
A Republican…. No, seriously.
Hard to believe they will soon be extinct…
It wasn’t in the wild, per se, but there is a wildlife preserve here in Ohio called The Wilds that is home to many different species of animals from all over the world. The last time I visited, I got to see several of the Prewalski’s horses while they were in a fairly energetic mood. They were beautiful.
This is one of my favorite encounters.
Manatees.
And I found a pink squid thing in the ocean once, clearly dying. It released hot pink dye, I have never been able to identify the species but it had a beautiful color.
The huge crocs! They are everywhere up here, not even safe to get near the edge of the water much less into it! Also water buffalos, is pretty scary when they pop out of the bush, and I love the roos and wallabys. When I have been in the desert regions, it always astounded me to see camels wandering about and I love emus too. Have to mention the big goannas and the wild dolphin that comes into Tin Can Bay everyday. Australia is full of amazing critters.
This past September in Yellowstone, I saw a grey wolf for the first time. It was amazing. I also so grizzlies, buffalo, coyote, elk, moose and squirrel.
A pod of Orcas in Turnagain Arm outside of Anchorage while hiking and or a moose chowing down in a marsh about 100 miles south of Fairbanks while doing some wild life shoots.
A herd of elk knee-deep in an arm of the Queets River, with their backs to me. I was walking in the river naked (it was REALLY hot) and when I first came around the bend and saw them, all their great big round butts scared the living daylights out of me because I thought they were a big party of bears.
I’m a biologist, so it would be difficult to list everything here. A start:
Black-tipped sharks
Three-toed sloth (very, very cool animal!)
Liguus tree snails
Mountain lion
Green iguanas
Rock iguanas
Brown bears
Grizzly bears (whoa, they are BIG!)
Tapir (one knocked my dad over when he went to bathe in the Rio Carrao)
Anaconda
Paku
Buffalo
Pronghorn Antelopes (just lovely!)
Mexican Freetail Bats (flying at sunset in Key West, also very cool)
Banana slugs
Many, many different hummingbirds in Ecuador
Alpaca
French Angel Fish
Giant Sequoias
Various really cool mushrooms
Salamanders
Sirens
An Amorphophallus in full bloom
And so many other critters and plants.
Snorkeling in crystal clear cool waters off Pearson Island while chasing and being chased by around 20 Australian Sealions. Ecstasy!
Collecting camera traps in tropical lowland Bolivia and walking into a cathedral like opening in vine thicket forest, which I suddenly realised was dotted with agitated saddle-backed Tamarins…some with young, some close, some far…I felt like I had walked into a Jim Henson movie. Full on…
Like Darwin…where to stop? Nature gives so much….
@Darwin: And exactly where did you see the mythological creatures?
I’m pretty sure she was talking about the Sirens : )
Were you out on the ocean when you saw those?
Haha, wow. I haven’t thought about that place in years. :) <—Grew up in FL.
Sirens are gross. Gross lttle eely bastards.
@asmonet: lived in FL for 13 years. And I think sirens are cool but not good pets because they are so hard to keep IN the tank .
@Darwin: What a coincidence, I lived in Florida for thirteen years, I moved a few weeks before I turned thirteen. :)
@asmonet: I take offence to that comment! I am not gross! I am complicated
Oh, siren, you and your jelly (which looks suspiciously like an egg) are beautiful and complex.
@asmonet: Why, thank you my friend. This is my temporary exterior – I am too lazy to find a more suitable replacement at the moment.
I came face to face with a ten point buck in a clearing once, and it was in the fall during the rut season. Bucks in rut are dangerous animals. We stood there, staring at each other, my heart racing a mile a minute. I knew that if I turned and ran, he would run me down and trample me. So I did the only thing I could think of, I spread my arms out wide; making myself look bigger, started jumping up and down and screamed as loud as I could, as threatening as I could muster. He just stared at me, and then he ran off, disappearing into the underbrush.
@evelyns_pet_zebra That’s how I deal with it when there are bears on my front porch. I’ll probably end up getting mauled some day, but… so far, so good!
@MacBean if I had to deal with bears on my front porch, I’d get a pet gorilla to throw them off!
@evelyns_pet_zebra – Bears on the front porch sure beats bears in your tent (or the dining hall – true story).
@Darwin—More true stories: Bears just outside your tent are a bit scary, though! Pretty much anything just outside your tent can be awful, especially when you aren’t sure what it is. Though if it’s a skunk, you might prefer to remain ignorant. Learned that one the hard way.
@MacBean – Bears in the dininghall is actually more of a great annoyance than anything else. No breakfast, and then all that cleaning!
And actually one of the scariest moments I have ever had (followed by a huge sigh of relief) was when I was camping alone in a state park and at about 2 am heard this horrible shuffling, heavy breathing, and grunting, followed by something pushing on my tent and some odd squeaking, as if something was wearing leather armor. It sounded like Big Foot, a bear and Yog Soggoth all in one.
It turned out to be….
….an armadillo.
And this thread comes full circle with another mention of armadillos (which I love)! How excellent. :D
Most amazing? Hmm, interesting question which I find myself struggling for the “right” way to answer. Maybe Orcas.
Animal: a thirty foot sponge off the coast of Caicos.
Vegetable: the sequoias in and around Yosemite National Park.
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