8mo ago

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.

268 comments

Definitely kangaroos. But they have bad luck as I live in Austria and not Australia.
- Austria!? Well then, G’day mate! Let’s put another shrimp on the barbie
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYZ6_n7Mpb0
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://www.piped.video/watch?v=XYZ6_n7Mpb0
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  Haha, never watched the movie but I might have to now. But she rounds rather Slavic. Here my favorite example of Austrian English!
- I was so amazed at how common they were. I spent a year in Australia and probably saw more kangaroos day by day than I see all wild animals combined day by day here in the UK (excluding birds).
  Hell I grew up in North Wales and may have seen as many kangaroos day by day as I saw sheep here, and that's saying something.
  
  But the kangaroos run away when you try to sneak up behind them

Capybaras are pretty common in the area where I live, and really throughout most of Brazil. Don't get me wrong, we still think they're pretty cute, but I've seen some Americans get really excited about them.
Oh, and the maned wolf. To be fair, I think they're pretty neat too.
- Are capybaras as chill as their reputation suggests, or is that more a feature of cases that are used to captivity? If the memes/images/videos are to be believed, I'd expect to be able to just wander up to one in the wild and have it respond like a well-socialized pet dog.
  
  I’ve hung out with capybaras and can fully verify that they’re chill as fuck. They’re more skittish than a quokka, but as long as you’re chill, the capybara is!
  
  I've only ever heard of one incident with a capybara, when it killed my SO's therapist's dog, but it was supposedly protecting it's cubs, so I would say as chill as a mammal can be
- It is a fox with some long long legs! Neat!
  
  A fox horse! A forse!
- I would be SO EXCITED to see a wild capybara.
  That maned wolf is really cool! I thought they were extinct but I must have them mixed up with some other canine creature. Something with stripes?
  It looks like a long-legged megafox.
  
  You're probably thinking of the thylacine
  
  Thylacine? aka Tasmanian Tiger.
  
  Yep, I was going to say capybaras but also anacondas, although they are hard to spot, but I recall there's one in Butantan Institute, in São Paulo city.
- I went to the Buenos Aires zoo and Iguaçu and that capybaras can just roam freely in the zoo is amazing. And in Iguaçu (or Iguazu), coatis were fun. They’re devious.
  
  I lived in the northeast for a few years in and around college and I was amazed by chipmunks. I had never seen one and was like, “Holy shit, a chipmunk!”
  I’ve been to the Galapagos, Australia, multiple African countries and nothing shocked me like seeing a chipmunk for the first time. Nature shows let you know exotic animals exist but there’s no nature show that’s just like, “Check out this [chipmunk, hedgehog, etc.].”
- That's clearly the abandoned love child of a fox and a wnba player.
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  pretty neat too
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Royalty 🇬🇧
- common animals
  Royalty
  "And here on your left you will see a prime example of the common European prince. No longer afforded a natural habitat, the nation of Britain has built special reserves for these princelings and other royalty, called palaces. On certain days you can observe royals being transported in specially equipped vehicles from one palace to another to encourage mating."
  
  All humans (which afaik includes royals) are animals anyway.
- My ex's family were pissed when I didn't take her to see Buckingham Palace. There is NOTHING there to see. They make it as boring a possible on purpose. It's on a fucking roundabout for cry sake, you'd see more driving past.

I was excited to see squirrels, lightning bugs and a racoon in the US.
When people come to Australia they obviously want to see kangaroos, koalas and platypus and quokka. Koalas are very rare to see in the wild, and a visit to a zoo will score you a sleeping ball on a branch. Kangaroos are frequently roadkill if you go outside the city. Quokka require a long trip to a really remote location. You'll also almost never see a platypus, even the ones at the zoo you might catch a water ripple at best.
But if you're headed to Sydney city, guaranteed you'll spot the almighty and much maligned "bin chicken", our Australian white ibis. Often not quite white from the bins. At night they serenade you with their collective honking from their tree, which can be easily spotted by the masses of white poop underneath. And you'll see fruit bats in the evening. Hopefully not the daytime corpses hanging from electrical cables while they slowly rot, but that's not altogether unlikely either, unfortunately.
- Seeing the flying foxes around Sydney surprised me.
  The bin chickens, I simultaneously felt a little sorry for, and enjoyed watching.
  
  The bin chickens are my kin, I'm in the small minority here who appreciate them.
  And yeah, the flying foxes are a surprise for most foreigners. They're also pretty big and often fly low at dusk, so they can be slightly startling too, even though they're just adorable fuzzy harmless nectar drinkers. It's a pity they screech too, it might be easier to reassure non-locals that they're not dangerous.
  People are also often surprised to see all the other Sydney city wildlife and how much of it there is, especially rainbow lorrikeets. Everyone loves the lorrikeets, but people from the northern hemisphere are especially awestruck when they see them. It's understandably almost a little surreal to have such brightly colored parrots hanging out in the middle of a city, if you're someone who comes from a city that is just pigeons and sparrows.
- Sorry about you not seeing the lightning bug.
  Insects are dying out a bit.
  
  Oh no, i got to see them. This was a decade ago, and I was told even then that there used to be many more. I was happy to see any at all though, I had only ever seen them in movies and they almost seemed mythical. They are pretty magical, it's very sad to hear they're almost gone.
- I had to check with my Australian colleagues because I couldn't believe ibis were called bin chickens. They are silent, beautiful here, land on the lawn like angels, peck around awhile then take off in a beautiful cloud of white wings. I thought it was a joke! But they confirmed. Apparently you've developed a subspecies.
- Don't forget the wild cockatoos! Those are a sight. (Source: my ex-step-sister lives in Melbourne.)
  
  Yellow crested cockatoos, galahs etc can be terrorists to trees and shrubs. You can be walking along and on the ground see piles of leaves and little branches and fruit with one bite out of them.
  The cockies have very sharp beaks and will just chomp through anything. This includes aerials, cables or anything else they think looks like fun. Sometimes they will even party in your room
  Do NOT put your finger near one.
  
  Which kind? We've got bunches. The sulphur crested are the most famous, and they are great but can be vandals
- What about crocodiles? Alligators are in most reasonably large retention ponds in Florida. Most places just relocate them once they reach a certain size. They're pretty common. Knew a guy in high school who had a side hustle of removing them from people's swimming pools. They're pretty weird if you're not from a place used to them.
  
  If you want to see a croc, just go walking near the shallow water of the top half of the country's coast. You won't see the croc for long, and it will be the last thing you ever see, but it will be up close and very personal.
  Seriously though, you don't go to see salt water crocodiles in the wild or even go near any body of water on the northern coast. If you can see one with the naked eye in the wild, you're already too close. They're extremely fast, extremely aggressive, and the males get up to 6m / 20ft long and 1000kg / 2200lb. They are very much a zoo only thing.
- Good to know! I'll put the Ibis and fruit bat on my Australia bucket list, along with a Huntsman. Although the latter are so widespread that I've probably already seen some living in America. But I'm guessing the Australian Huntsmen are a bit different from the North American ones.
- It never occurred to me y’all didn’t have squirrels or lightning bugs. Like it makes sense with squirrels, y’all got a dearth of placentals but dang
- First time I landed in Australia on the Gold Coast I followeed a bin chicken for 20 minutes with a camera trying to get the perfect picture like it was some rare exotic bird. I'm sure the locals were sremoveding or openly laughing behind my back, I dont blame them
- How can you speak of the bin chicken and not link to the song?
  
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  link to the song?
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I've seen a vanload of tourists happily taking pictures of sheep on more than one occasion. New Zealand.
- I mean, I grew up in the US by several sheep farms and I would take pics of the critters constantly because they're cute.
- I liked seeing the sheep, but because it reminded me of Yorkshire.
- There's a certain kinship.
- came to say just that
- I spent two months or so travelling around the north and south islands and barely saw any sheep! Far more cows strangely. I didn't feel like I had missed anything and wasn't actively looking gor them, but it was surprising!

San Diego zoo has a racoon exhibit. I thought that was weird.
- they probably fell into an empty enclosure one day and the zookeepers just rolled with it and put up a sign
- The Audubon zoo in New Orleans has a raccoon exhibit and it’s got a rusted out jalopy for them to play in. And a mouse exhibit where their natural habitat is a spice cabinet. Also, we probably have the only zoo with recipes on the wall next to some exhibits. They’re a relic of a bygone era and I asked the zoologists about it and they were like, “I mean, most of us are vegetarians but we just think it’s funny so we leave them up.” And there’s a fake loup-garou around a corner where you can scare your kids.
  In grand New Orleans tradition, it’s also one of the few zoos that sells drinks and sometimes has live music. But it’s still probably one of the top 5 zoos in America for actual science and conservation. I haven’t seen one better besides San Diego and I frequent zoos. So, no one act like the giraffes or gorillas are upset. They get fed better than humans in most of the world and the climate is right up their alley.
- Huh really? I have tons of trash pandas around me (central Ohio).
  
  At my house, one figured out how to use my doggy door and kept raiding my kitchen trashcan at night.
  
  Well yeah this (also central Ohio) is their native habitat. I seem to recall Columbus or Cincinnati zoo having a local wildlife section
  Opossums are also everywhere and are probably wildly exotic to people who aren’t used to there just being one marsupial in their garbage can and no others on the continent
  
  The one which lives in my attic just moved out for the summer
- Same at Denver, they are albino though.
- I'm Dutch and a zoo near me has racoons too. But then again they're an invasive species here so it's not as weird.

Back when I worked at Disney, a subset of the Asian guests would get excited and take pictures of squirrels. Are there parts of Asia that don't have many squirrels?
- Japan doesn't generally have squirrels like in the US. I took my wife to DC and we spent a solid 10+ minutes taking photos and videos of squirrels around the mall.
- i’m from australia and i’m always excited to see squirrels… they don’t exist here at all
  
  Want some? Says the Canadian.
  
  I have some friends in Australia and I always send them pictures of squirrels when I see them. Got TONS where I live.
- I felt the opposite when we visited Brazil, they had these little monkeys everywhere like squirrels here but they didn't know what a squirrel was haha, basically they had squirrels with monkey faces instead
- Squirrels are not native in most of Asia.
- We have squirrels in my country but I've never seen one in person to be frank. If you've lived in a heavily populated area your entire life then it's not uncommon you'd be surprised to see common wildlife out and about
  
  Squirrels are extremely common in (most of?) the US, even in cities. There's an albino one that lives in my neighborhood, that one was interesting enough to stop and take a picture of.

Australian white ibises. They're kinda like the Australian equivalent to a raccoon in the US; they eat rubbish and their roosts stink because they tend to congregate in a single tree and then shit everywhere. But they are quite unique looking birds: long beaks, black heads and white plumage. So the tourists find them quite interesting and the locals call them bin chickens.
- I was one of the fascinated tourists taking a million pictures of bin chickens. But, I was at least aware of it... because I remember at the time joking with my wife that the locals were laughing at us basically taking pictures of pigeons/seagulls.
- Ah the Bin Chicken
  
  I have never heard of this before, and now I wonder whether we shouldnt be encouraging more animals to consume our waste.
- It looks like our White Ibis and Wood Storks were crossed.
- They look like the wading birds I liked seeing so much in Spanish rice paddies.
  
  I'm not surprised, I'm pretty sure they're wetland birds too.

Reindeer, the four-legged derp zombies of the animal world.
- I was fucking thinking if we have any, but yeah, driving in the North and having basically stoner deer on the roads is not something all countries have.

I've had kinda an inverse experience of this.
I was on a vacation to Mexico with my family and we decided to visit a local zoo. For the most part it was pretty similar to what we have back home with lions and gorillas but there was one exhibit that was drawing a large crowd so we decided to go see what it was. Once we are able to get a look inside there were just 4 or 5 white tailed deer grazing on some grass. We got a good laugh because back home these things are common to the point of nuisance. I don't speak Spanish but I then started to notice several children pointing and mentioning "Bambi" to their parents and all the commotion made sense

I'll answer the opposite way: in South America we have no crows, so it was by far the most fascinating animal I saw while in England.
- That's wild, I thought crows lived everywhere humans do.

It's not a weird animal but cats. Stray cats are literally everywhere and aren't afraid of people so many will stop to pet them. And on the other hand, when visiting other countries, the lack of street cats does strike me a bit weird.
- Greece? Turkey?
  
  Greece but pretty sure it applies for Turkey too
  
  Tenerife too
- i will pet every cat
- Stray is so mean. I like to call them free cats.
  
  Feline Vagabonds
- I've seen puppies literally thrown into a bin. Y'all got issues with your pet/animal divides
  
  I don't know what happens with dogs (there aren't that many strays) but most street cats were never pets, they've always been free. There is an effort to reduce them that's definitely failing.

Here in Australia, it's drop bears and hoop snakes. People always want to see them... until it's too late.
- A drop bear got my auntie. All they found was her eskie... empty.
  
  Typical. Those drop bears have no respect at all for a person's eskie.
- I've never heard of a hoop snake before, that's awesome.

It's all about the koalas and kangaroos but then they see a cockie or a rosella, hear a possum late at night and shit themselves
- Can confirm. The rosellas were delightful. The Ibis were pretty awesome as well -such a trashy looking bird. Ours at least hides its shame (kiwi).
  
  I have a mate who lives in midwestern us and they utterly lose their shit over the fact we just casually have all these parrots everywhere like nbd.
- Shitting themselves over possums isn’t hyperbole for any non-Australians reading.
  Possums at night sound like a demon crossed with a chainsaw.
  
  Example

Raccoons are a national treasure and should be recognized as such.
- Trash panda > regular panda
  Fight me, China
  
  I generally agree, but I'd like to extend it to
  red panda > trash panda > regular panda
  
  China has issued a very strong protest
- Them and opossums. They’re our special scavengers
  
  I prefer skunks. Cute, practically harmless, and watching people absolutely flip out when they get spooked by one is a favorite past-time of mine.
  
  I do love our opossums but they are technically an invasive species in a lot of their current range. But they coexist so well with people that it's hard to mind.

It's not a native species, but in some German cities, you can see a lot of rose-ringed parakeets. They really stand out between the other local birds, so if you go to places like Cologne or Heidelberg, it's quite likely to spot them, especially since they're so loud. A few months ago, I moved to a city without parakeets and frankly, I miss them a lot.
- Fuckers will scare the shit out of you when they fly 40cm above your head while you're on a bike.
  Just minding your own business and suddenly a giant screetching flock of green will fly above your head from behind

I’m American and I always get a chuckle from the adoration that people have over raccoons as well. I guess they’re cute but they’re also a menace, there’s a reason we call them “trash pandas”.
But I also went to Spain several years back and saw my first hedgehog. And it was even in a hedge! I took probably two dozen photos and the locals thought I was crazy. So I get it.

Here in Florida it is alligators, certainly. We also have remarkable birds, but it's alligators.
- Can confirm, been to Florida several times and I liked seeing the alligators.
  I’m older now and appreciate birds more so perhaps I should come back.
  
  I’m older now and appreciate birds
  This is 100% how it goes.
- I went on an alligator boat in Florida and they were cool sure but the Anhingas hunting and catching fish were cooler, I didn't even know you had those!

Black squirrels. They aren't very many if any at all in the south and when family/friends come to visit it blows their mind seeing them.
- When we first moved to Virginia Beach/Hampton Roads, VA, my mom almost wrecked the car when she saw a group of black squirrels. We're not sure why it's so fun to see them, they're just squirrels that are black, but it's always a treat.
- In DC, the only black squirrels we saw were around the Saudi embassy and we joked about them being robotic spies.
- Plenty of goth squirrels in parts of the Bay Area, California too.
- I saw them in New York! Brilliant!
- In mid to southern Wisconsin it’s your average brown squirrel…but head to the north woods and black squirrels everywhere. I agree with ur family/friends…they’re doubly cute!

Bears ☠️
They actually get dangerously close to them, to pet them and take photos of them and feed them, then these tourists wonder why are they being attacked...
- Pet them? wtf?
  
  I saw a comment on here I think which said that a big problem in parks which have bears is that it's really difficult to design a rubbish bin which is simultaneously too difficult for the smartest bear to open but also easy enough for the dumbest human. These types of anecdotes make me believe that more and more.
  
  Not gonna lie, I'd try if he'd let me get close enough, yeah, probably rabid, but maybe not.

Florida man. 🇺🇸

God damn Canada Geese.
Also, I've seen tourists fascinated by seagulls in Vancouver which surprised me because I thought they were everywhere.
- I saw a Canadian Goose exhibit at the Prague zoo and almost died laughing.
- I hate Canada Geese. I once stayed in a hotel in Manchester where they would squawk all through the night right outside the window.
- I love Canada geese! A family used to nest every year near where i grew up, and during breeding season traffic would halt multiple times a day while the whole family of goslings crossed the road. When in a rush in the spring, everyone knew not to take that road.
  I think they are the bane of golfers and sports areas, but if that's not a concern they are huge, beautiful birds.
  
  They breed multiple times a year and are protected. They take over city parks and make them big piles of goose shit. They get angry and aggressive at people who walk by, making them even more of a nuisance in said parks.
  But yeah, I appreciate them as a living being.

Moose (mainland) or Polar bear (Svalbard)
- Also reindeer
- I was gonna say whales. Feels like a lot of tourists go up north to whale safaries.

Cows and monkeys in India

We did a Mexican vacation several years ago and everyone in our tour group would surround and excitedly take pictures of iguanas. The local tour guides would laugh and talk about how that always happens and how they were like squirrels to them.

I'm from the US and I still get excited when I see raccoons. I love those lil guys.
- I read this in Linda Belcher's voice.
- I’m like that with turkeys. They are hilarious weirdos.
  
  They’re terrifying
  
  TURKEYS CAN FLY AND CAN LEAP INTO TREES AND I DID NOT KNOW THAT UNTIL LIVING NEAR A GROUP OF WILD TURKEYS

for australia i think most people would assume kangaroos, and sure people are excited to see them but they’re not quite as common - youre probably only going to see them if it’s intentional
i think common AND excited is probably rosellas - they’re a bright red and blue/green parrot that are kinda eeeeeverywhere
- If I was in Australia I'd be so excited to see wombats. Is also be scared of seeing spiders...
  
  Still not seen a wombat outside of a sanctuary. They come out at night and leave square poos on the paths.
- As a local I smile seeing lorikeets and kookaburras, but rosellas are very rare where I am and I have to do a double take
  
  Where I am the lorikeets and rosellas are often together, like double dating

Kangaroos are the clear winner in my experience, but we've also got possums and various parrots (e.g. sulphur crested cockatoos). Wombats too but they're less common to see.
- Seeing a Wombat in the wild is a dream of mine.
  
  Wait till you get chased by one
  
  Happened to me three times. One in particular was like a little furry tank and did not mind tryingbto bowl us over to get back to his home.
- Also koalas, red back spiders, blue ring octopus and great white shark.
  
  Yeaay spiders, I'd really look forward to see the spiders!

Haggis
- Surprised it's not Nessie

I'm not Japanese but have been living here most of a decade. As no one mentioned anything from that side yet, the Nara Deer are probably the most famous followed by the hotspring monkeys. Tanuki are also something people might want to see, off the top of my head.
My wife was super surprised by all the squirrels in the US and loved taking pictures and videos. She suddenly realized we kept seeing more of them as we walked and, yep, they're everywhere.
She was also super surprised that people just had cattle and horses when we'd be driving where my US family lived (countryside).
- Went to Japan a few months ago. Deer and monkeys, yep.
  What blew me away is how it was done - literally living side by side with the animals. Walking next to a deer or being a foot away from the monkey gave me amazing respect for Japan.
  Where in the states, we either keep them in cages or fenced off, or we treat them like a nuance and if they come too close, respond with hostility (including the American Deer).
  
  That's really not normal here. The deer in Nara have special protections and are super accustomed to humans. They actually were menacing the residents of the area when tourists dried up. The monkeys can be real dicks and aggressive in general. Farmers are always trying to run both off. It's basically the same as the US except I can't just kill dear that come on to my property and eat my crops.

Desert southwest USA here. For us, it’s usually roadrunners, armadillos, and blue tail lizards. Although, the blue tails along with the horny toads are becoming a touch more rare it seems.
- I was 8 years old when I moved to Texas. I've never been more disappointed than the first time I saw a roadrunner. My only frame of reference was Looney Tunes.
  
  They are basically dinosaurs.
- Everybody loves their first Diamondback.
  
  Sometimes it's also their last diamondback

Prairie dogs along the front range of Colorado, deer in the Colorado mountains...
- I live somewhere where they're common, lived here my whole life, but I still love to watch prairie dogs. They're cute and cool and interesting

Okay, so it isn't animals, but tourists in my parents' town get stoked when they see how big the Monongahela River actually is. They think a nearby creek is the river and we're like, "that's a creek. Drive up the road a bit to see the river."
The same tourists also lose their minds if they see a train filled with coal go by.

I'm from the US but lived in Japan for a while. They have squirrels, but they're not very common. They went nuts when they would see a squirrel. At least where I was (Tohoku).

People are excited to see raccoons. If you've ever had to make major repairs to your property, this makes no sense to you.
People somehow don't even think about hummingbirds. We get ruby throated hummingbirds through here, and they're fascinating. Never had a visitor even mention them.
- hummingbirds. saw 4 at the same time on a feeder once, and they don't even like each other apparently
  
  They can be quite territorial.
- Trash panda!

None! I live in Korea, and the local wildlife was long ago mostly displaced or eaten by the seething mass of humanity. Once upon a time, there were some cool bears and tigers even. There are some nice, big herons still around I suppose. Oh, some tiny deer, too.

Not a tourist, but a girlfriend that grew up in Long Beach, and moved to the East Coast, stopped me dead on the street one day, and asked, "what in the world is THAT‽‽‽" I looked where she was looking and, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, said, "what is what?"
"The furry thing with the tail!"
"You mean the squirrel?"
"That's what they look like in real life‽‽‽"

People everywhere ive been go apeshit over a squirrel.
- I live in an area with grey/brown squirrels. When I went to Ohio for the first time, I was far more excited about seeing a black squirrel than I should have been.
  
  Yes same here. Black ones are becoming more common out here

In the Pacific Northwest I’ve had visitors get really excited to see slugs.
- I go bananas for them

Black bears, mountains southeast USA

Moose. We get European summer students and seeing one is the highlight of their animal watching when they're here, apparently.
Personally, I'm more impressed with elk, a bull elk with a full rack is pretty awesome.
- Who doesn't like a full rack.

Guaras, or Guacamayas, I suppose. Think they're called Macaws in english. They're neat, pretty feathers and all. Shame they're hardly ever visible outside of a zoo, unless you're in the right spot at the right time and you're really paying attention.

Had some people visiting from Columbia. The squirrels absolutely blew their minds.
- Colombia?

It's wild to me that there are wild macaws in northern South America. Granted I haven't seen them in person, but even videos of them look so weird, like a hundred people let their pets out on accident.

Alligators. (I live in South Louisiana, which is a separate country for all intents and purposes.)
- Southern Florida checking in. You're never too far from an alligator farm here.
  
  I'm always amazed at tourists looking at gators at the zoo. Whatever zoo you're at there's probably a river or lake full of them within a couple miles.
  I saw some tourists a while back who thought they were looking at a whole group of albino gators, but they were just covered in bird crap. I had to tell them.

Swans. It's a wonder to me that such an arrogant bird ever became the national pride of Denmark. But tourists freak out about them, thanks to H.C. Andersen.

Koalas
- Are these common nowadays? Thought their environments got burned down.
  
  No, no, they were towed outside the environment!
  
  Are you confessing to something
  
  There are the ones whose habitats were burned down/deforested. Then there are the ones with raging chlamydia infections. Then there are the ones that are overpopulating their habitat.

In Rural America- "people of Walmart"

Peacocks. Where I live (central California) there is a local park that has a flock of wild peacocks. I had a friend visiting from Korea and he was so excited to see them.
- I saw a white one in the wild once (prob albino) and that was a thing of beauty
  
  There is one here too!

Armadillos
- I live in the US but not where they’re common. I’d take note.
  
  Just don't touch them. AFAIK They're one of few species in America that can give you leprosy.
  (Though if, by chance, you do catch leprosy, it is in fact very easily treatable. It's the already-done damage from banging toes and touching fire and things, if you catch it late, that's harder to repair.)

In UK people come from all over the world to see our royal family of great apes.

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