Here’s my list of somewhat more than 100 favourite critters, past and present.
Badgers
Bald eagles
Bees especially bumblebees
Black bears
Blue Morphos
Boas
Bonobos
Chimpanzees
Orangutans
Gorillas
Cats – every kind especially jaguars and snow leopards
Brachycephalic dogs
Capybaras
Chameleons
Chickens
Cholera vibrio
Cockroaches
Praying mantises
Pseudoscorpions
Tomentose burying beetles
Coyotes
Crinoids
Dodo
Dragonflies
E. coli
Elephants
Falcons
Flagellate protists
Flamingoes
Foxes
Garter snakes
Giant swallowtails
Giant tortoises
Giant water beetles
Giraffes
Great Blue Herons
Harbor seals
Hippos
Horseshoe crabs
Humans
Hummingbirds
Ice worms
Jellyfish
Kakapos
Kiwi birds
Kraits
Ladybugs
Leopard seals
Lesser brown bat
Lobsters
Loons
Luna moths
Maiasaurs
Mammoths
Manta rays
Moles
Monitor lizards
Moose
Morrison creek lampreys
Mountain goats
Musk oxen
Muskrats
Nighthawks
Nudibranchs
Octopus
Plecostemuses
Corydoras
Orcas
Otters
Owls
Passenger pigeon
Pelicans
Penguins
Platypuses
Raccoons
Rattlesnakes
Red winged blackbirds
Rhinos
Rock Hyraxes
Salamanders
Salmon sharks
Salmon
Cuttlefish
Sandpipers
Scorpions
Great white sharks
Sea urchins
Shrews
Skunks
Sloths
Solenedon
Spring Peepers
Stick insects
Swallows
Tapirs
Tardigrades
Tasmanian tiger
Triceratops
Trilobites
Tuataras
Wasps especially parasitic wasps
Whiskey jacks
Wild pigs
Wolf spiders
Wolverines
Wombats
Yangtze river dolphin
Yeast
Hurray for lampreys and yeast! But no pangolins?
Dang! Not only did forget the pangolins, I neglected anteaters.
And what about the Aye-Aye? It was the first illustration in your great-grandmother’s book of animals. It has fingernails, being one of our kin, except for a very long claw on the third fingers of its hands. And I would add any of the extremophiles that live at the black smokers – or in the Yellowstone hot pools, or in the rocks in the Antarctic desert. And what about the pink dolphins in the Amazon?
The AyeAye always creeped me out, candidly. I think I repped extremophiles with the Tardigrade, which can live in space, f’cryeye. The pink dolphins make me sad….