let me hear your views
Okapi
Keaton said:
Okapi
Absolutely
Not obscure in the slightest, but the platypus.
It’s a duck-rabbit that huge inhale:
Sleeps 14 hours a day so I imagine finding them is hard.
They’re mammals yet have no nipples so they sweat milk
They lay eggs because screw the natural order
Under UV light they glow a bright turquoise-ish color like Perry the Platypus
They have no stomach
They have no teeth either
They’re super venomous for gits and shiggles
They swim on Hellen Keller mode
Narwhal, sloth bears, binturong, and joro spiders
Duckbilled platypus
Axolotls.
Pallas cats
That one red panda that put their hand in
Also this dude.
Maybe not chinchillas as a whole species, but a calm and friendly chinchilla is just a little Totoro. Chinchillas might be somewhat common as a pet, but sometimes you come across one that’s especially calm and they have major Ghibli vibes. I had one for a while, but it wasn’t tenable to keep him with the rescue cats and dogs coming through my place. I placed him with a 9 year old girl and he held her pinky with his paw when they met. It was the most Totoro thing I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a cat-bus whisk them away.
At my last neighborhood there was a fat tailed gecko that would hang out on the hiking trail near my house. That’s not exactly an uncommon pet either, but it certainly wasn’t a native critter so it was unusual and kind of magical to see around. When people spotted it they would pop it up on rocks to warm it up, which is pretty cool. People helping a non-native lizard warm up because it wasn’t quite used to where it was. Turned out it had escaped from a deaf family on the block. Getting it back home turned into a very Miyazaki style adventure. It was pretty low stakes. The neighbors and I knew roughly where the gecko was, the deaf neighbors were worried about their pet and frustrated by the fact that between us we could only sign a -hehe- handful of words. We had some communication issues that created the illusion of drama, but at the end of the day the gecko got home.
I never found out if it was an African or Iranian or whatever other kind of place gecko because I only know a couple signs, but it was a very Ghibli moment to see that cute lizard with its fat tail reunited with its family.
And then there are pangolins which I have no stories about, but just seem like fantasy creatures.
nudibranch
The axolotl always gives me Ghibli vibes! Its permanent smile and feathery gills look like something straight out of Spirited Away. It’s like a mystical spirit of the water that just happens to exist in real life.
Seahorses
Cuttlefish
Coatimundi
Sea Robins. Want to see a fish crawling on what looks insect legs? They’re modified pectoral fin spines, but it looks like a fish and a bug fused and now it walks on the sea floor
Thorny devils.
Anteater
Vinegaroons