I grew up with cats, always loved cats. If I saw a cat on the street I'd always say hello (or at least try to).

Last year my girlfriend brought home a rabbit.

Rabbits are fucking cool.

Don't see as many on the street though

Maybe a capybara. Here’s me dying when I met some.

@early_riser@piefed.social @asklemmy@lemmy.worldBoth due to ADHD hyper-fixation and for spiritual/religious reasons, .

Him. I never could have imagined these animals have much personality at all but he did.

I'm a biologist, so all of them. Yes, even cockroaches (they're so cute when eating cookies ❤️), parasites like horsehair worms and Demodex folliculorum, spiders (all of them!), mosquitoes and centipedes.

Red Panda

Magpies (the corvids, not the distantly related assholes in Australia) are so fascinating. They're self-aware (they pass the mirror test) and they're able to plan for future needs (for example, they'll cache food and then hide tools nearby to later break into their cache). They have a huge variety of vocalizations that vary by region, sort of like dialects. They also engage in play just for the fun of it, like sliding down snowy hills and tossing and then catching objects. I could go on and on about magpies, such cool birds.

I've been fascinated by pterosaurs lately. The book Pterosaurs by Mark P Witton is great.

Pterosaurs interest me because of their wing morphology. Instead of having the wing membrane between all the "fingers" like a bat, it's attached to their equivalent of a pinky finger in such a way it can fold up enough that they could use all four limbs to navigate on land. They just have such an interesting body shape that no animal today really has.

They also got much bigger than birds. Like, to the point that I want to write a fantasy book where the premise is that dragons are like ...the only pterosaur that survived extinction. Because it would be cool to have a dragon that's directly not related to modern reptiles, birds, or mammals...but still is speculatively based on a flying animal that did once exist.

It's a bit complicated

With no further qualification, dogs. I've had dogs for most of my life and home just doesn't feel homey without a dog to me.

But my wife and I have a bit of a thing for frogs, they're sort of our unofficial mascot.

I also thought narwhals were cool long before reddit had them baconing at midnight. I think they were kind of when I realized that kids can be smarter than/know things that grownups don't. I don't remember what exactly the context was, but I remember once bringing them up, my mom didn't believe they were real, so I marched my way upstairs to grab the book I read about them in to show her.

I also always liked Coatimundis (Coatis) because they were probably the weirdest animal the fairly small zoo I grew up near had.

And if I had to pick sort of a "spirit animal" for myself, it's probably a raccoon.

Right now it's monkeys. I used to think monkeys were gross and disturbing in an uncanny valley sort of way, so humanlike but not human at the same time.

I agree with you that it’s monkeys. Thats why this image is my profile pic.

It’s a selfie taken of a monkey. IIRC it became a precedent setting case in copyright law, because the owner of the camera tried to claim ownership over the photo. The issue was that you need to actually take the picture to own the it. But the guy didn’t take the photo; the money took the photo. And monkeys cannot own property, under the law. So the image became public domain. Here’s the Wikipedia page on the case

Eric Burdon

Cats of all sizes, owls & corvidae and frogs.

Edit: I forgot to list stag beetles.

Spiders.

Damn I actually didn't think about this a lot...

When I was a kid, my favorite color was green and my favorite animal... I remember it being turtles

Cuz they can just hide from all dangers... they always have a "home"... where they are safe...

Being an immigrant and growing up in an emotionally unstable household... I never felt like I had a "home"

Like... neither in context of country... or in the context of my "home" vs school vs someplace to go to... like the library or a friend's house...

Like... when it's time for school... I'm like ah fuck, this again (cuz of bullies and authoritarian teachers and classwork shit...)

Then when it's time to go home... I'm like: oh no, yesterday we have a whole argument at home and stuff were thrown around and a few bowls and plates were broken, I kinda feel scared

And I don't have any close frienda where I could just go to their place and chill out...

And the outside world felt scary to me to I didn't have like a runaway "base" in the woods or something...

So I kinda liked turtles lol...

Just retreat to inside the shell when there is conflict...

🫠

For some time I also liked monkeys because Curious George... (also mandela effect time: but pretty sure it had a tail didn't it?)

At one point, it was sheeps/goats... because 喜洋洋与灰太郎 (it's a Chinese Cartoon I remember watching as a kid)

Some other animals I liked at some point:

I liked Owls because it was the first nocturnal animal I learned of...

Pandas because I'm from China...

Frogs/Toads... idk why... maybe cuz its amphibious

And now I have a cat... probably the most useful animal... gets rid of mice

The nautilus

I'm a fan of the African Rain Frog

I don't have a favorite animal, but my closed ones started to think I have a thing for deep-sea anglerfish, and they may be right.

I don't know if they're my favorite animal but I want a pet skunk. They're so cute! As for my favorite animal ever, maybe a wooly mammoth.

Birds

Favorite bird? The Corvids, specifically crows and ravens.

Freakishly intelligent and once you befriend them the Murder will stay friendly for generations. My grandparents owned a farm and my grandfather made it a point to be friendly toward the local Murder. By the time I was old enough to ask him why the crows all flocked around him some 30 years had passed. He barely had to do anything. He would put out straw during the mating season and food at other times. The Murder would be your friend too, if they saw you with him.

Elephants! After them~~ everything else~~ is my favorite :)
Edit, never mind: Not everything else, mostly mammals and fishes - and couple danger noodles and creepy-crawlers - but definitely not icky bloodsuckers. Tho leeches are at least prettier while swimming, than those flying disease vectors.

Foxes are cool. Like cat software on dog hardware.

I've had a very shallow interest in hares for some time.

Now someone tell me a terrifying fact about them.

(Moth|serval)s !

Snakes. I was glad to see one be an important character in Zootopia 2 and to see them be kings of the reptiles in Hoppers

I inherited a fish over a year ago and now I’m obsessed with aquatic animals. Aquatic snails are super cool and I’ve started breeding them to resell. Y’know, until next year when I find something cooler. Love that ADHD life

I like chicken mmmm

Lynx - those big cuddly paws