Most exotic animals seen on the pet trade

Yes, exactly. But Ostrich and Emu are surprisingly common (not surprising, but surprising).

 

My LFS has had some unusual species.

Snowflake Moray eels, banded pipefish, Asian redtail Catfish, Red Bay Snook, unusual natives like the Olive Glassfish and tons and tons of different species of rainbow fish.

Ribbon eels and Epaulette sharks but most fascinating of all when I was younger in my old LFS that closed down a few years ago I saw a RTC (Red tailed catfish), in almost any other country this would be pretty insignificant but in Australia they are very rare and fetch high prices.

 

Emus and Rhea are common in many places, but as have never heard of Ostrich.

 

Also, by a Pet Trade, are we referring to the dangerous Exotic Pet Trade or the general trade which may be selling exotic animals.

 

For some reason I can only find stories about pet chimpanzee maiming their owners but never escaping. However there are many stories of them escaping zoos. I'd find it surprising that they don't escape home menageries but they do escape award winning accredited exhibits. Can anyone explain?

 

Never actually seen or heard of dik-diks being in the private trade, nor any small antelope really. Suni at least used to be. Muntjac are commonplace, though, as are bison and ostrich.

~Thylo

 

Red-tailed Catfish are indeed very rare in Australia and fetch a high price. I have never seen them in any pet stores, only at Sea Life Sunshine Coast when they used to have a full-grown adult.

Snowflake Eels are the species of the moray I see most often in pet stores around here. Ribbon Eels are an 'every so often' species and pop up occasionally. The only other moray species I have seen in the pet trade is Fimbriated Moray Eel (Gymnothorax fimbriatus).

I never get tired of seeing rainbowfish.

 

I've come across a few people who have only 1-3 dik-dik, nothing else. It's been one of the bigger surprises I've seen, actually.

 

Ive also forgotten to mention Potmorygon motoro. (amazon stingrays), they are common all over the world but again they are rare in Australia, juvenile males were going for 500 dollars each (females for 700 AUD) and I have only seen an adult at an expo. I've never seen an adult RTC or other large catfish so I would really like to see them someday (hopefully if I ever get to singapore).

 

Last time I was in a bigger store they had a tank of 2 incher Red-tailed Catfish. I do wonder how many buyers realize how big they get.

No Zebra Moray (Gymnomuraena zebra)?

 

Seeing the catfish in the small tank is apparently enough information for people that "they don't grow bigger".

 

Agreed. I think Oscars (Astronotus ocellatus) face a similar problem.

No I've never seen Zebra Morays. However, after a quick search they are present in the Australian marine hobby.

 

A few other juvenile tank busters ive seen in my local fish stores include an Asian red tail catfish, Gulf Saratoga (jardinii arowana), various Peacock bass species. Staples such as Silver sharks (bala sharks), Clown loaches etc can prove problems for smaller tanks.

The most intresting tank busters are in the coldwater section where all most Australian natives are, I do adknowledge they don't grow nearly as big in someones house as in a public aquarium or in the wild but they can easily outgrow their tank (although some are slow growing). The most intriguing one has to be juvenile Barramundi (Lates calcarifer). Also Murray cod, many species of Tandanus catfish, yellowbelly (golden perch) and silver perch (they don;t get large in captivity though).

In my area (Melbourne) Oscars arent as big of a problem as most stores keep an adult (not for sale) to show how big they get. The new 'thing' people buy are baby frontosa cichlids because people think they are so cute and just like an oscar would they devour anything large enough to fit in their mouth, they also grow quick like an oscar but they are nowhere near as hardy.

I remember the juvenile RTC's only being 200$ each but that was almost 10 years ago (I barely remember it because I was very young).That same store also had Zebra plecos (Hypancistrus zebra) as well as some very large cichlids i can barely remember (most likely Jaguar Guapote and/or Parachromis dovii).

 

Indeed. Quite a few species I can think of have that problem; common plecos, knifefish, arowana, and large cichlids come to mind.

 

I saw giant pandas on a sketchy exotic animal trade website once. It was completely fake. The 15 reviews which I assume were all fake sounded something like this:

• My panda cubs ate the mailman on their way here, so I never got them.
• I'm pretty sure my panda cub is a Filipino man painted black and white.
• My panda cub ate my cat so I had to put him up for adoption, etc.

It cost just $3000 dollars for a pair of baby pandas. That's 0.015% of what zoos have to pay for a pair of pandas.

 

I like it when stores do display tanks to show customers how large the fish they are buying could grow to. One of the local stores has a very large display tank situated on top of their fish racks with fully-grown Silver Arowana, Clown Knifefish, Bala Sharks, Tinfoil Barbs, Flagtail Prochilodus and various freshwater rays. It's incredible to see how big some of the fish species can get!

 

I wish I could see SIlver Arowana,Clown Knifefish and fully grown freshwater rays.
My local fish store also has a display tank (not with oscars) with Tinfoil barbs, banded leporinus, various cichlids, common plecos, clown loaches, bala sharks etc.

 

Funny you mention those, they're staples here in big display tanks.

 

My LFS has a few pairs of Leopoldis with Arowanas in a series of huge like maybe 800 gallon tanks? Seems a little small, but who am I to judge.