Not sure how rare they are, but I’ve seen wild crested caracaras a few times.
Desert tortoise, and an old one at that. Was bigger than a basketball.
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.
Might not fit in this thread but here goes.
My family used to have a cabin that was at a lake several hours out in the mountains and pretty isolated except for a few rich people who lived up there. Place was, and I shit you not, infested with Sasquatches.
Every 4th of July I would go up there to watch the rich people light off their fireworks and immediately after, I had found a logging trail that a large group of them would gather with their babies and all. I think to watch the fireworks. They’d let me get a little bit closer every year until my family sold the cabin. The last time I went there I took a couple friends and they chased us out of the forest until a car’s headlights scared them off… That’s also the most scared I’ve ever been.
For obvious reasons I don’t want to share the location of this lake…
Not super rare, but a wolverine
Quokka on Rottnest Island (Western Australia)?
Followed by trying to stop fuckwits from playing “quokka soccer”. 🤭
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.
Probably a California Condor at the San Diego Zoo.
They have them in the wild at Pinnacles National Park. Had maybe five or six flying about 60 feet over my head at one point during a hike. Amazing birds. Would recommend.
And yeah, probably the rarest animal I have seen as well. Though we had a Lawrence’s Goldfinch in our yard regularly in an area where they are extremely unlikely to be seen. Different kind of rare I guess.
Jealous that you’ve seen them in the wild!
Kemps Ripley sea turtles
In my area,
Pheasants and peacocks
Giant Millipede and Armoured Millipede. Not the rarest but you will never seen one without going into the forest.
Used to have a bush about 5 feet from my bedroom window that Cardinals would nest in.
Probably wild camels in central Australia or a platypus when I was young.
Saw a lynx cross the road ahead of us in the Yukon.
I saw a big white owl. It looks like as tall as a toddler. Then it flew away before I can even react.
