Favorite Obscure Animals?

dzheremi said:

Not really 'cute' in the traditional sense, I guess, but more like mesmerizing and beautiful, here's a tank of baby jellyfish at some aquarium somewhere (uploader doesn't say; looks like he's got a Singaporean-type name -- Alvin Seah -- so maybe there?):

I'm not a big fan of most sea life (I have a bit of aquaphobia or whatever you'd call it due to various traumatic very early childhood events involving pool and ocean settings), but jellyfish have always been absolutely fascinating to me. A cousin of mine got stung by one when she was around 13 or so and I remember feeling bad for her, but also weirdly curious, like "You mean you got to touch it? What did it feel like? Did you touch the bell part? What was the bell like?" She just told me to shut up and it just scraped her back and legs with its stinging tentacles, and that hurt a lot. (I was maybe 8 years old, and probably driving her nuts with all my questions on top of her obvious pain. )

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Kerensa said:

I've never seen one of those before — it looks like a cross between a cat and a ringtail possum!

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Kerensa said:

Here's a ringtail possum, by the way...

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brinny said:

Cute!!!! It DOES look like the Fossa.

(Much much cuter than the opossums here LOL! )

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Kerensa said:

I once rescued two baby ringtail possums that I found in my local park near where I used to live in Melbourne! They were just sitting there on the grass, curled up — they weren't near any trees that they could have fallen out of and there was no sign of their mother, so I have no idea how they got there. I ran home, grabbed a cardboard box and an old towel and my gardening gloves and ran back, hoping no dogs would come through the park in the meantime... The two little possums were still there and as I picked them up with my gloves, they tried to climb up my arms, which would have been lots of fun if this hadn't been a serious situation!! I got them into the box and covered it with the towel, took them home and rang the nearest wildlife rescue centre. Happily, they were able to send someone over within a couple of hours to pick the possums up and take them to a sanctuary. I never found out what happened to them, but I'm sure they would have been well looked after and released back into the wild once they were a little older.

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brinny said:

They must've been traumatized, just lying there out in the open like that.

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Kerensa said:

Well, that's what I figured — and I was definitely praying for them too, I should add!

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Kerensa said:

That reminds me, have we had any koalas in this thread yet??

This happened a few years ago in a wildlife park near Sydney. (Yes, we have Monarch butterflies in Australia too — we often call them Wanderer butterflies, because they introduced themselves to Australia by migrating from overseas!)

Here's a video of the two together: Precious Koala and Butterfly Become Best Friends

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Gracia Singh said:

Tamandua!

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Gracia Singh said:

What are your favorite obscure animals?

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brinny said:

Frilled Necked Lizard

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joshua 1 9 said:

My favorite is the Lemur, although far from obscure because at 55,000 years of age this is the oldest known primate. They are also known for their eyes.

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