#maned wolves aren't wolves - they are their own special and unique brand of canids like they deserve

[adrianastrix]

OMG I LOVE little trash guys from other countries! Especially little guys that look like sad wet dogs, like foxes and coyotes (but racoons, squirrels and such are fair game too). Oh, and corvids. I've never really seen one in real life, either a crow or a raven or anything like them. I live in a hilly part of Southeast Brazil, for reference.

The animals that I barely pay attention to, but make people lose their minds, are capybaras. A couple years ago, you could meet them all the time in a lake close to my university campus (yep, in the lake, not just around it), to the point that the goverment had to sterelize and relocate them. Capybaras are cute, but also big, usually wet/muddy from the neck down; their teeth are much bigger and threatening-looking than you are prepared for and they don't usually cower at the sight of humans. A chill wild animal that will let you get as close as you want to take selfies sounds like paradise. Until you discover that capybaras are usually covered in ticks, of the "they transmit a really serious, potentially lethal, variety of spotted fever to you and your pets" variety.

People are also rabid for our black-tuffted marmosets. They are tiny guys, alarmingly smart, travel in big groups and are a cross of racoons and seagulls, as far as nuisance levels go (fortunately, they rarely get comfortable enough with people to be a common ocurrence, but once they do, prepare yourself to be terrorized to the point of needing animal control). Cute and smol? Yes. Insufferable when they learn to open your windows, raid your pantry and urinate everywhere? Also yes.

Hummingbirds appear a lot here and fight other birds out of their territory, New World black vultures dot the skies when they are clear and eat your chickens and cows, dozens of small parrots wake you up in the mornings with their screams, toucans are hated because they steal and eat domestic birds' eggs, and, of course, gambás (which are slightly different opossums) might always surprise you with a stinky spray if you startle them where they are hidden.

And yet, I love those calico opossums. SUCH little guys. Even when eating my grand-aunt's chickens' eggs.

Sometimes I see some variety of North American Little Guy (opossum, raccoon, etc. ) and I’m like “okay”

BUT THEN I start thinking about how excited somebody from not-North-America would be to see this Guy. Like, would an Australian be excited to see the only marsupial not from their country? Are there raccoons in zoos on the other side of the world that are regarded as unique and exotic creatures? Idk but it’s made me more excited to see Guys in my area.