Giant and gentle, cute and close-up, Florida's animal adventures are wild, wondrous, and completely unique.

Throughout Florida, you find a plethora of natural and man-made attractions filled with opportunities to see animals. Here are four one-of-a-kind animal adventures you just have to see.

Wildly Giant
The Space Coast offers more than 250 square miles of protected wildlife refuges with spectacular landscapes and a rich diversity of rare and endangered plants and animals.

A 72-mile stretch of the Space Coast is host to thousands of nesting turtles each year from May through August. It's the largest sea turtle nest area in the United States where more than 6,000 endangered and threatened loggerhead, green, and leatherback turtles lay their eggs.

You and your family can see the nesting turtles on a guided evening tour of the Space Coast beaches, including several beaches that are part of the Florida State Parks system. These one-of-a-kind small group tours offer a unique opportunity to learn more about how sea turtles live and what dangers are now facing them.

Wildly Gentle
The Manatee Observation and Education Center is a waterfront wildlife observation and nature education center located on Florida's east coast in downtown Fort Pierce. The center lies just west of the Atlantic Ocean and overlooks both a saltwater estuary and a freshwater creek that's been a long-time resting spot for the endangered Florida manatee.

The opportunity to watch wild Florida manatees is the center's main attraction, and you can see them there year-round, if they happen to be resting or swimming in nearby Moore's Creek. Inside the center, you'll find a replica of a natural Florida spring, offering a unique inside view of one of the most important habitats.

You can also take a stroll through the Center's butterfly garden where red, yellow, and purple flowers attract beautiful butterflies. And nearby, you may find more breath-taking wildlife, including bottlenose dolphins, mullets, brown pelicans, and terns.

Wildly Close-Up
Lion Country Safari, a drive-through park, was the first cageless zoo in the country. Today it's home to more than 800 animals of eighty species. Among the more notable species on display at the park are lions, white rhino, chimpanzees, zebra, and giraffe.

The drive-through portion of the park, featuring 1,300 free roaming animals, is divided into seven areas that mimic regions of Africa, India and South America. There's an incredible variety of animals in the Las Pampas area, you'll drive past tapirs, in the Serengeti Plains there's ostriches and in the Gorongosa Reserve, you're likely to find a pride of sleeping lions.

Safari World, the walk-through entertainment area of the park, offers a petting zoo, carousel, pontoon boat tours, paddle boat rides, aviaries, a squirrel monkey exhibit, a giraffe-feeding exhibit, a large Ferris wheel, and much more.

Wildly Cute
Most people wouldn't consider our furry feline companions to be wildlife, but there's no doubt that the cats at Key West's Hemingway Home and Museum are one of Florida's most beloved animal attractions.

The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum is home to more than sixty cats, many of whom are polydactyl, which means they have extra toes on their feet (they look as if they have thumbs on their paw). Some of the Hemingway Home's cats are descendents of a six-toed cat given to Ernest Hemingway by a ship's captain.

Every cat has a name, and most of them are named for famous actors, writers, poets, and even historical events. You're likely to find Charlie Chan, a black and white mustachioed kitty, sitting under a Banyan tree, a calico named Emily Dickinson lounging by the guest house, and Archibald MacLeish snoozing on the covers of Hemingway's very own bed.

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