coolest animal you have seen in the wild

I've seen 3 black panthers. I wish I had a camera with me. What is also cool is twra swears we do not have them...

 

White tip reef shark, sea turtle, sea otter
Black bear, bald eagle, bobcat

 

We searched a camel convoy in Afghanistan:

 

The coolest wild animal I've ever seen was an ocelot. I had to look it up to identify it. Big body and tiny head.

Lesser sightings:
Manatees
Porpoises
Elk herds
White tail deer herds
Mule deer herds
A bald eagle that I didn't realize was wild. I got way too close.
Hawks and falcons hunt around here, but they're still cool.
Some kind of poisonous green viper I almost stepped on.
Rattlesnakes
Tarantulas
Desert tortoise (pretty rare)
Bobcats
Javelinas
Horny toads

 

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About 30 minutes ago, when coming home from work, wife saw a coyote in the subdivision. We are on the north side of Atlanta and they are everywhere ... a lot of big (some red tail) hawks here too.

For me, saw a tiger, and a cobra in the wild in RVN and a bunch of stuff when I was working in Africa & Australia.

Oh, saw an alligator on side on the road in FL and stopped to see it and it was . f a s t ... and many snakes where I grew up in WV ...
.

 

saw a bunch of flying fish when i was in roatan. other than that just some wolves and moose.

 

Pretty sure that's Griz #610 + her three cubs. I saw the foursome twice this year in GTNP, pretty well known bunch around here. Nice shot!

 

Bigfoot on a backroad........elk in parkfield along with bobcat, and a wild boar.

Reindeer grazing with cows and zebra near hearst castle.

Mountain lion at work

Seen other stuffs, but those listed above strike me as pretty cool.

 

Giraffes are very cool. Just to watch them move around so graciously is very interesting.

 

Not only does TN say you don't have them, history says it. Never been a documented case of a black panther (puma, mountain lion). Jaguars and leopards can and do have the recessive gene that produces a totally black coat. This from Wiki:

HideCougar

There are no authenticated cases of truly melanistic cougars (pumas). Melanistic cougars have never been photographed or shot in the wild and none has ever been bred. Unconfirmed sightings, known as the "North American black panther", are currently attributed to errors in species identification by non-experts, and by the memetic exaggeration of size. Black panthers in the American Southeast feature prominently in Choctaw folklore where, along with the owl, they are often thought to symbolize Death.


Here's the whole article.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_panther

 

Peregrin falcon doign it's hover and dive maneuver in an urban area. Freaking rocket almost too fast to track.

Flying fish off Calatlina island, also a large pod of dolphin.

Saw humpback whales bubble-netting and breaching at long distance near Cambria, CA. Also dolphins surfing there.

In Belize diving, white tip sharks (there one second, gone the next), a pair of eagle rays (amazing, felt like I was in space 80 ft underwater, so graceful), and a freaking hammerhead shark about 40 ft above us. That got my attention big time. Various moray eels while diving various places.
Eagle rays, not my pic:



Black bears in Kings Canyon and Yosemite, one was a cub/juvenile tearing apart a log that was fun to watch, but I was nervous about a mom being nearby...

But one of my all-time favoraites was a great gray owl in the Bighorn Plateau near Mt. Whitney. It was late dusk, and suddenly we were aware of something big zipping by our camp about 5 ft off the ground. It was hard to make out at first, but we could tell it was a huge owl after a few passes. The area we were in was pocked with rodent holes--a buffet for the owl.

This is what they look like if you are really lucky


Pete's boat story reminds me of the time I was sailing down the CA coast with some friends, and we anchored at the Farallon islands, about 15 miles outside Golden Gate. We were rowing an Avon dinghy into a cove with high walls on either side covered by sea lions. At one point I guess we were too close, and a few hundred sea lions all dove off the cliffs and under our dinghy, including some bulls the size of cars. I've never rowed so fast in my life. And I think I pooped a little.

 

Seen multiple hedge hogs while I serving in Iraqi. Didn’tknow they live there!!! Would have been good information before I arrived. XD

 

Dolphins!

Anybody can go see them in a show which I've done, but me and my friends went out on a charter boat in Panama City. One of my friends was family with the boat owner so they took us on an amazing tour unlike the norm. Anyway took us out and we fed wild Dolphins, got out and swam with them, they were amazing! One of my friends even took underwater pics of them. At first I was afraid to feed them, but they were so gentle. Then they started showing off jumping and after we took off they would ride the waves from behind the boat. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

 

Saw a bald eagle circling above at jackson hole. It. Was. Huuuuge!!! Another time heading back from idaho we saw a pack of wolves running across a clearing on the east side of the teton pass. That was incredible. I dive a lot w sharks, coolest of which are bulls. Seen a lot of amazing creatures while diving. Best experience was last fall in Montauk, NY when a dolphin pod of 200+ came right up to th boat for about 5 minutes. If there is a way to share the video I will...

 

They are absolutely the coolest mammals to see in their own element. I felt the same way, they were just s curious of us as we were of them.

 

A whale breached while I was fishing in the gulf right near the shore. Crazy shit

I also saw a bear walking down the road in Montana

 

Probably the coolest animal I have seen was a 2.5ft long gila monster. It was stupid huge.