City Dwelling Wildlife You Can Easily Encounter on Your Travels

How often do you ever get to meet animals on a regular basis? Of course, we are not talking about whatever animal you choose to keep as your beloved pet, be it a conventional, tail-wagging golden retriever or a friendly tarantula (so we’ve heard, and we’re doing our best not to be judgemental about it). We’re talking about whatever animals we meet in our day-to-day lives. Most of the time it’s hard to get excited by them. Usually, at best, we’re just sort of used to them (let’s say… pigeons) or, at worst, find them downright frightening (keep the rats and roaches away from us, thank you very much). But hop on the next plane to a remote location, and the common street-dwelling beasts will look like a front-row seat at a new National Geographic documentary. Here are some city creatures you can meet without going to the zoo.

Australia

This monkey-like marsupial looks like a cross between a possum, a kangaroo, and a wingless bat. Native to Australia, the brush-tail possum is highly adaptable. It’s so adaptable, in fact, that it’s pretty used to living in cities and urban areas. Aussies, as well as anyone who visits the Land Down Under, can sometimes see them hopping about in the trees.

Japan

While this type of deer used to be a lot more common in other areas such as Vietnam and the Russian Far East, they are now pretty scarce, if not completely locally extinct in these parts of the world. In Japan, on the other hand, these majestic animals are abundant. The sika deer is religiously sacred, and therefore protected in Japan. If you happen to visit the Japanese city of Nara, you can stroll around a park and stumble upon a deer doing the same!

India

South and Southeastern Asian countries are infamous for their fearless populations of urban monkeys. Monkey species like langurs will wander the city as they do in their own home (as it is, in fact, their home) and do as they please to get what they please. They will not hesitate to take food from you, and will even outright snatch it from your hand if you aren’t careful.

Brazil

Just as you might find a random squirrel in your North American backyard, you are likely to find a marmoset minding its own business in Brazil. They can be found in both forested and human-inhabited areas of this South American country and the locals will probably not give one the time of day the way that a tourist would.