Have you, or anyone you know, ever adopted an animal that's not considered an every day pet?

Anything that isn’t a cat, dog, hamster, horses, various birds and fish, lizards or scorpions…well basically, any animal that is usually not kept as a pet, or rarely ever. Or out of those, any in those families of animals that are usually not pets like…komodo dragons.
Please note that this question does not include animals that are kept for something other than companionship, like cows or pigs that are meant to be killed and eaten.
The animal in questions has to be a friend. Like for example, I met this guy years ago who had a wolf. (90% wolf and 10% Husky, least according to the owner, frankly I really could not tell) Except the city told him he had to get rid of it, because it was too dangerous. (don’t know if he ever did) This was some dude I partied with, went to his house once, the wolf wasn’t mean, but it wasn’t friendly, either, and I admit, I did very little effort to approach him. I’m dead scared of dogs. But he got along with his owner quite fine, as I saw. didn’t know wolves were that small though lol
You hear stories like that often, like some guy who owns a tiger and walks him in town, people having monkeys as pets, once I met a girl who had three pigeons living in her house.
So, got any stories? Ever had a wild animal as a pet? Did you ever rescue one? Or do you know anyone who has? How did all that go?