Congratulations everyone! This project has now surpassed 10,000 observations, bettering our understanding of where mammal species occur within Florida! We've recorded observations of numerous listed species, and I hope to see more species uploaded to this project as we move forward. Congratulations on reaching this number!

Remember...this project is for wild mammal observations. Please do not upload observations of your dogs, cats, or zoo animals. You can always mark these captive observations as captive observations also, which puts them in a different category.

Thanks and I can't wait to see what you all are able to find!

• Pete Kleinhenz

What unexpected mammal encounters have you all had in Florida?

For me, one of the craziest mammal interactions occurred at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. I was walking down the boardwalk, admiring the enormous bald cypress trees all around me. I heard some splashing in the water beneath the boardwalk and immediately stopped. I thought that the noise came from an alligator, or maybe a large snake that had been startled.

I was wrong.

Two adult river otters with two young swam out from underneath the boardwalk. They were clearly in play mode and simply swam in circles, squeeked, and dove intermittently. But then a really crazy thing happened: they all climbed up onto the boardwalk!

The entire family came up and stood no more than five feet in front of me. They stopped there, made eye contact with me, and walked slowly away on the boardwalk. I rustled to get my camera out and this movement scared them. They slid into the water and I was only able to get photos of them in the water.

I couldn't believe it!