In my area,

Pheasants and peacocks

I’m big into (responsible) nature tourism and I believe Mountain gorillas are the most rare. Black rhinos are also pretty critically endangered but there’s successful breeding programs at zoos for them so I would think they’re less threatened.

I went to the Galapagos once and some of the islands have some very rare species. But their habitat is protected and isolated so it’s not like endangered species that are threatened by habitat loss or war or whatever.

Probably a California Condor at the San Diego Zoo.

My buddy is an entomologist and one time I tagged along while he went to collect beatles in the highlands. When we got back to the lab one of the specimens I had collected turned out to be a species that was thought to be extinct in the region and hadn’t been spotted in a very long time. He was wildly jealous

Not super rare, but a wolverine

Saw a lynx cross the road ahead of us in the Yukon.

Kemps Ripley sea turtles

Quokka on Rottnest Island (Western Australia)?

Followed by trying to stop fuckwits from playing “quokka soccer”. 🤭

Orcas, maybe?

I don’t even know what the rarest animal I would have seen in person is, considering many zoos and aquariums have endangered species in their care and I like going to them. I went to the Sacramento zoo over this last weekend, too.

In the wild, though? Could either be orcas or grizzly bears.

African penguins maybe? They’re endangered. I took my partner to feed them at an aviary.

I feel like I’ve seen a black rhino before, maybe at the San Diego zoo as a kid or something. Those are critically endangered, all but one subspecies extinct.

Probably wild camels in central Australia or a platypus when I was young.

Not sure how rare they are, but I’ve seen wild crested caracaras a few times.

Giant Millipede and Armoured Millipede. Not the rarest but you will never seen one without going into the forest.

If we’re including captive animals, the one that stands out the most to me is a Chaco Owl. It’s not considered endangered yet, but it’s only found in one particular area of the world, at the borders of Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina.

In the wild, I’ve come across porcupines on a few occasions, and I almost had a fisher cat run up my leg. I didn’t know we even had them in my state, so I was very freaked out as to what this long, furry thing coming at me was. I wish I had maintained my composure so I could have gotten a better look at it, but it’s also the kind of thing in glad we figured out what each other was before I was in biting range!

Desert tortoise, and an old one at that. Was bigger than a basketball.