#till is a sunfish but a baby sunfish

[alalnsted]

[animalids]

Do you have a favorite animal? Or a few absolute favorites?

Oh boy, get ready, this is gonna be long! Thanks for giving me a reason to just list my favorites! Also, just assume any domestic breed/species is on the list, I love them all, I’ve just highlighted a few that I love a bit more than the rest

Arthropods:

Solifuges - I love all solifuges, but if I had to pick a favorite species it would probably be Metasolpuga picta. They’re big and colorful and day-active. Also really fond of Rhagodidae because they’re just so distinctive!

Tarantulas - Same deal, I love them all (though Poecilotheria scares me a little ;n;). Some of my favorites are Hapalopus and Ceratogyrus, both of which I personally own right now.

Huntsman spiders - My dream pet is Heteropoda lunula and it will probably be the death of me haha

Ticks - If I see people hating an entire species for just living, I immediately fall in love with that species and will defend it till I die. Hate the tick’s bite, don’t hate the tick itself - it’s just an animal surviving the only way it knows how to.

Mosquitoes - Same deal. They’re also exceptionally beautiful.

Serolid isopods - Just... just look them up. Trust me, they won’t disappoint.

Tachinid flies - Especially the spiky ‘hedgehog’ flies and especially Tachina grossa whose Danish name is ‘Harald the Giant Fly’ after zoologist Harald Thamdrup whose student was studying them.

Mammals:

Horses - I’ve never seen a horse I didn’t love. Some of my favorite breeds are Welsh Mountain Ponies, Jutland Horses, Frederiksborgers, Kladrubers,  

Painted wolf - They’re just so photogenic and charismatic

Cats - Have you ever seen a cat? They’re so full of love

Bactrian camels - All camels are great but domestic Bactrians are just so cute and fluffy. They’re honestly my dream pet, and I’m already reading up on their husbandry all the time.

Bovines - All of them. Bison, cattle, gaur, buffalo, yak... Also non-bovines that look like bovines, such as muskoxen and wildebeest.

Moose - They’re so beautiful and look like something straight out of the ice age.

Pigs - They’re so beautiful! Domestic pigs and wild pigs alike. Especially babirusas.

Honestly just artiodactyls in general - Off the top of my pinterest head, these are some of my faves: Takin, serows, tahr, bharal, domestic goats and sheep, okapis, saolas, reindeer, roe deer, marsh deer, Père David’s deer, saiga, lechwe, nilgai, eland, oryx

Baboons - They scare me but I also think they’re beautiful. I can see why early travellers described them as a mix of monkey and dog.

Cuscus - yeah, they look like that

Tree shrew - Grandpa

Birds:

Pheasants - Especially ring-necks. They were everywhere around my childhood home and just make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Turkeys - They’re just beautiful

Peacocks - Chaos incarnate

Chickens - They’re so diverse and good pets! Can you tell by now I love galliform birds?

Pigeons - All of them, but especially feral pigeons and collared doves.

Reptiles:

Slow worms - I have very fond memories of catching these deceptively fast lizards as a kid :’)

Corn snakes - Yet another one of my dream pets. Those morphs!! And they have such a sweet temperament

Phrynocephalus mystaceus - It’s just a really cool agama

Xenodermus javanicus - It’s just a really cool snake

Dwarf caimans - they are baby

Amphibians:

Caecilians - I’m honestly not that interested in amphibians, but caecilians are the exception. They’re so weird, their taxonomy is messy, they look like earthworms but have a skeleton, and their life cycle is a mystery!

Fish:

Sunfish - I don’t like the post that was going around a year or two back about how sunfish have survived by being useless - they’re amazing animals and surprisingly intelligent

Koi fish - Pretty, intelligent, lots of colors, domestic. What’s not to love?

Danish golden trout (guldørred) - A cross between two trout subspecies that was first developed in Denmark. Obligated to mention it because it’s the only fish breed my country has created :’)

Eels - All of them. I’ve never seen an eel I didn’t like.

Non-arthropod invertebrates:

Worms - Annelids are so fascinating! Earthworms, marine worms, parasites, free-living species... they’re so diverse! I have no idea how worm scientists tell species apart. Nematodes (which are actually ecdysozoans, not annelids) are especially mysterious to me. Scale worms are really cool.

Snails and slugs - They’re so cute with their little eye stalks and cute defenseless bodies. I want to protect them all. I have a bunch of Achatina fulica and I love them.

Clams - The most overlooked molluscs and least respected animals we use.

Tardigrades - They look like the love child of a bear and a velvet worm, with a vacuum cleaner for a face.