# What exactly is an Exotic mammal



## ChrisEmptage (Jun 2, 2014)

I mean i get that it is an animal that is not from the Uk but I was wondering are any Rodents considered exotic let's take a a gerbil for example it's for Mongolia so because of where it comes from dose this mean it is an exotic. can a exotic pet come from you county of origin or current local like if I lived in Spain and got a Chameleon (they come from Spain look it up) as they come form the county of origin. I suppose I am asking what is an exotic pet?

Thanks


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## vukic (Apr 9, 2010)

Good point, will be interesting to see the responses..


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## Yorkie6013 (Dec 15, 2014)

to me, anything that isnt native to where you are.


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## Badgerroy (Mar 16, 2015)

This Is the exact reason why the whole "let's ban All exotic animals brigade" are a very dangerous uneducated bunch. Anything that's not a cat or dog could and would be considered an exotic pet. Budgies for instance could be considered exotic as could giant land snails. It all comes down to the persons personal opinion.


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## Gryffindor (Jun 24, 2012)

Yeah, it's a very vague and subjective term. I live in Florida but if I got an alligator I'm pretty sure most people would consider it an exotic animal. And I imagine most people would consider a Briton that owns red deer as an exotic owner too. 

I think for most people exotic means unusual, but it goes in different extremes. When I've talked with people that don't know anything about exotic animals a lot of them immediately assumed I was talking about tigers and lions. Other people considered rabbits (3rd most popular pet after cats and dogs in the US and in the UK) to be exotic and anything else that wasn't a cat or dog but I think that's probably mainly because vets use the term for anything that isn't a cat or dog so people are influenced by that.

It used to irritate me that people used exotic 'wrongly' but I've come to realize it's actually a good thing. People are less for exotic bans when it includes their pet budgies/hamsters/tropical fish/lizards/APH etc. 

The people in these discussions that considered the animals they kept to be exotic were almost always much more levelheaded than the people who only considered unusual pets as exotics. I think it's because they're like 'well I'm not interested in those animals anyways so I agree they should be banned because it's not going to affect me in any way'.


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## Fargle (Aug 8, 2013)

It is a very good point, when does "unusual" become "exotic"? I would agree with Gryffindor above, anything outside of peoples "normal" pet interactions could be considered "exotic". You could say to people you keep rabbits/gerbils/hamsters which originally come from far flung places without raising an eyebrow. But say a red fox, or red deer, or red squirrel (in the UK anyway) and it'll get lots of questions. 

I would have originally said anything you don't find in a "standard" pet shop would be exotic, anything you have to go to a specialist shop or direct to breeder. But with [email protected] now selling reptiles and some really fancy fish (I've seen stingrays in one shop) the line is starting to get blurred. I'm sure hamsters were "exotic" when people first started keeping them.


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## Kiel (Aug 20, 2009)

exotic
[ig-zot-ik] 
Spell Syllables
Examples Word Origin
adjective
1.
of foreign origin or character; not native; introduced from abroad, but not fully naturalized or acclimatized:

I take this to mean, in the case of exotic pets, that it is any non native animal that has not been entirely domesticated or is not capable of survival if left in the wild.

To me this would mean things like gerbils, meerkats and co. are 'exotic' while things like rabbits and rats are native.


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## Brisch (Jan 6, 2012)

That being said things can be of exotic origins and be invasive. Therefore introduced from abroad not totally domesticated but not great in the wild but capable to survive by chance. Sorry to smear that line again.


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## GargGecko (Jan 1, 2014)

*Exotic mammal*

I Think exotic, is any animal that is non-native, not domesticated, or not usually kept as a pet. So I think that hamsters and gerbils would not considered exotic as they are fairly common. 
It's very difficult to define though. Take fish for example. I guess gold fish and guppies be considered not exotic because they have been domesticated, so are all other species exotic?


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