In your country, what "common" animals are tourists most excited to see?
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.
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Nothing really. I guess insect enthusiasts will have one or two to find only here in Germany?
We’re relatively small and surrounded by other countries, I would be surprised if any species stays within this border.
When I moved to USA it blew my mind that there's no hedgehogs here naturally, I was so used to having them around I kinda thought they're everywhere. I miss them. Hedgehogs are cool.
Wait wait, are you telling me the US (the Americas?) don't have hedgehogs??
Nope. There used to be some that went extinct millions of years before humans arrived.
There are porcupines though, but I haven't seen them in the wild yet.
Surprisingly, porcupines and hedgehogs are not closely related
That's so interesting! Changes my perspective on an animal that has always felt like a perfectly normal neighbour everywhere I've lived (though seeing them is still kind of a rare thing).
I second hedgehogs for Germany, they're so cute! Also, or squirrels are so different from the US kind, they're just unfortunately a lot shyer, too
Right, I've heard recently in a podcast about Sonic that hedgehogs are seen as exotic animals in the US.
You don't see them very often here either because they are mostly active in the dark, so I'm also happy to see one every time. And so is my dog.
I loved seeing red squirrels when I was in Germany. Coming from the UK where they're super rare, it was really exciting to see them. Not exclusive to Germany I guess but I've seen them more frequently there than anywhere else.