While not that “Rare”, and not even a specific species, I’m going to be trying my hardest to find Ticks next year, I’ve been wanting to see them for a while and just haven’t had any luck…
Ice Crawlers (Grylloblattidae), a weird kind of insect that lives on glacial and snowy mountains, considering those are at a huge risk of disappearing all together due to climate change, I really want to see them in case they’re wiped out. (Of course, I’m not making it easy on myself and going to areas where they’re well documented, I want to try to find some of the populations not on iNat yet)
Camel Spiders (Solifugae), there’s been a surprising amount of them uploaded around me, so I would love to finally find some of them, even if they’re not easily identifiable
Western Rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus), everyone around me seems to have stories of finding these guys, including my family in our own yard, but I haven’t had any luck. Going to keep my eyes peeled because it’s really a beautiful species and it would make my whole year.
Mountain Goat (Oreamnos americanus), these aren’t even that uncommon over here I’ve just somehow never seen them
lol very true. One of mine is the mudsnake, which is a moderately common but extremely secretive and difficult to find aquatic species. After long hours of driving through swamp roads at night in search of one, I finally found one sitting in the open on a trail in horrible conditions. Another is the pygmy rattlesnake which is extremely abundant in many parts of its range, but for some reason I just could not find one until this guy crossed my path a week ago. And then what would have been the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, a roadkill (this is kinda gory btw if anyone has a problem with that) Brook’s kingsnake. Excuse the snake bias, but I am a herper
I don’t know that this really applies, in that I wouldn’t expect to see one in my garden and I cannot say that I have tried to seek one out, but I would very much like to see a coatí which are also called chiic here. I have only seen them in rescue settings.
I suspect if I went to Cuxtal more often and without noisier family members (whom I love dearly) I could see one.
I would happily donate all the ticks I might encounter for the rest of my life to anyone who wants them. (I apparently stepped in a nest last summer on one of my wanderings and only discovered this while I was on the train home. I kept imagining phantom baby ticks crawling on me for days afterwards.)
You might check with any dog-owning friends – I’m sure they’d be willing to let you search their four-legged companions for hitchhikers.
There are some quite interesting ones, such as possibly this one, that are quite host specific. In this case feeding mostly on these tortoises, attaching themselves in the ‘hinge’ of the shell.
I’ve always struggled with ticks, for good practical reasons! But I’ve actively tried to learn more and like them so as not to be picky or choosy. Knowing about some of the more interesting ones, that also have no interest in us, has helped : )
I’ve heard people talk about how they stand on the ends of plants, waving their front legs around and following you to grab on, and how they’ve accidentally stumbled into grass that has millions of babies in it, I’ve read studies about people using them to gauge how populous larger vertebrates are in an area.
You could also call it biased because I’ve never had to deal with them being an inconvenience, the only time I’ve seen one was over 10 years ago when I had no interest in nature. Though it also helps that tick borne diseases are extremely rare where I live, I feel safer seeking them out when there isn’t a high risk of contracting life altering diseases.
I’d be happy to take them! I already plan to check out some trails with supposed hot-spots at their entrances, having a bunch magically teleported to me so they’re not someone else’s problem would be a dream.
I don’t like ticks, but they are definitely fascinating. I even chose what I thought was a particularly striking tick as an observation of the day.
I’ve never been followed by a tick, but I’ve seen them “questing”. They’ll often reach their legs out when you breathe on them, supposedly because they get activated by carbon dioxide (don’t know if this is true).
I had been wanting to see an ichneumonid wasp in the genus Gelis ever since I mis-identified a similar wasp as belonging to that genus.
At the beginning of fall, I noticed a small red insect crawling on the wall of our house, and I recognized it almost immediately.
The observation hasn’t been confirmed by anyone, but it definitely looks like a gelis wasp.
Since a lot of people are posting species they haven’t yet seen, I want to add the very obscure and rare animal taxon Loricifera. I don‘t know if I‘ll ever see one, but I really would like to.
I was followed by ticks for the first time this year - it depends on the species. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/210894375 is one that actively seeks out hosts - it can smell humans up to 10m and then follow them for 100m. As far as I’m concerned, it turned our orchid hunting trip into a bit of a nightmare, we were finding ticks everywhere on us, like one in our group had one jump down from her head at dinner that night
I also got the questionable honor of being mentioned in a 2024 scientific paper about the spread of Hyalomma by human activity - I’m apparently “case 1” of a human importing live ticks to Austria by car, before 2024 the suspected path north for them was hitchhiking on birds instead.
Mine is the Indian paradise flycatcher. From the beginning of my birding journey, this bird was my favorite. Yet I kinda thought I would never see it. So imagine my surprise when one sits right in front of me, in the middle of a garden! To be fair, it was in a bird sanctuary. But it was mostly known for it’s boating. The garden was nearly empty. But that was where most birds were present! Don’t laugh, but this is the photo I got:
I don’t really have a very particular species that I have seen after dreaming of seeing yet, but here’s a few that I have seen:
I was very lucky to be able to finally travel to see my dad’s side of the family a few years ago, and while walking somewhere I happened to notice a threadsnake of some kind crossing our path! I had never seen one before or since, and it was very interesting to see just how small their little faces are . My mom didn’t even believe it was a snake at first.
During that same trip we visited an “abandoned” park facility and, while walking around and looking around for fauna, and saw what was likely a Blue-Headed Tree Agama in a tree. I ran to tell my dad « j’ai vu une tête-bleue! »
The reason I got so exited was that my dad had always told me stories about these lizards (tête-bleues) and how they were viewed in local superstition, and I had finally seen one for myself! (I unfortunately couldn’t snap a picture).
Lastly, since learning about them I had wanted to see a Giant Leopard Moth, and at a summer camp in Minnesota I found one on a walking path. The poor thing was dying, but I’m glad I was able to see one.
