WAn exotic pet is a pet which is relatively rare or unusual to keep, or is generally thought of as a wild species rather than as a pet. The definition varies by culture, location, and over time—as animals become firmly enough established in the world of animal fancy, they may no longer be considered exotic.
WForbidden Creatures: Inside the World of Animal Smuggling and Exotic Pets is a 2010 book by Doctor of Philosophy Peter Laufer. It is the second book in his untitled animal trilogy, following The Dangerous World of Butterflies in 2009 and preceding No Animals Were Harmed in 2011. The book explores the lives of those that either own exotic animals or have been captured for illegally smuggling them, with a strong focus on Travis, the chimpanzee who attacked Charla Nash in 2009.
WThe green iguana, also known as the American iguana or the common green iguana, is a large, arboreal, mostly herbivorous species of lizard of the genus Iguana. Usually, this animal is simply called the iguana. The green iguana ranges over a large geographic area; it is native from southern Brazil and Paraguay as far north as Mexico, and has been introduced from South America to Puerto Rico and is very common throughout the island, where it is colloquially known as gallina de palo and considered an invasive species; in the United States, feral populations also exist in South Florida, Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Green iguanas have also successfully colonised the island of Anguilla, arriving on the island in 1995 after rafting across the Caribbean from Guadeloupe, where they were introduced.
WHippopotamuses are an introduced species in Colombia. Four hippopotamuses were kept by Pablo Escobar in the late 1970s, and upon his death in 1993 they were allowed to wander his unattended estate. By 2019 their population had grown to approximately one hundred individuals, causing concerns they may harm the native flora and fauna in the area.
WMessi is a pet cougar, model and Internet celebrity, owned by Russian couple Alexandr and Mariya Dmitriev. Messi was adopted in 2016 from a local petting zoo. They live with Messi in a two-storey house on a large plot of land in Penza, Russia. In 2017, the Dmitrievs started an Instagram account and a YouTube channel for Messi, which became very popular by 2018 and continues to grow in subscribers.
WThe Ravachol parrot lived in Pontevedra, Spain, between 1891 and 1913. It was the pet of the pharmacist Perfecto Feijoo. It became one of the symbols of the city.
WThe screamers are three South American bird species placed in family Anhimidae. They were thought to be related to the Galliformes because of similar bills, but are more related to ducks, and most closely related to the magpie goose. The clade is exceptional within the living birds in lacking uncinate processes of ribs. The three species are, the horned screamer, the southern screamer or crested screamer and the northern screamer or black-necked screamer.
WWolves are sometimes kept as exotic pets, and in some rarer occasions, as working animals. Although closely related to domesticated dogs, wolves do not show the same tractability as dogs in living alongside humans, and generally, a greater amount of effort is required in order to obtain the same amount of reliability. Wolves also need much more space than dogs, about 25 to 40 square kilometres so they can exercise.