It has always amused me that the tourists to the US that I’ve spoken to are often very excited to see raccoons, and disappointed if they don’t see them before they leave.
Some others I’ve noticed on the east coast of the US are blue jays and cardinals. Boy, do people get excited about those if they’ve never seen them before! Very pretty birds of course, just very easy to get used to and see as uninteresting as well.
See the thing is i’m not worldly enough to know what common animals in my country are uncommon in other countries. I mean there’s some mallards here and there, the ones with the green head just like the meme, are those exotic and surprising? Oh, my old hometown has swans. They’re surprisingly aggressive.
What i will say though is that i definitely feel that way about architecture. I quite like the winding medieval back alley leading to a church built in 980 (as in the year), it’s cool; but Americans will have a spiritual experience over it because no building in the US is that old.