American cities are shaped by the immigrants who call them home. Nowhere is this clearer than in Miami, a city Barack Obama called “the capital of Latin America.” With more than six million people living in its towering skyscrapers and sprawling suburbs, Miami might not seem like an ideal wildlife habitat at first glance—but that couldn’t be further from the truth! Miami is actually a melting pot of wild animals from around the globe.

Miami Wild is a wildlife tale that hasn’t been told before: the story of animal immigrants thriving in an American metropolis, overcoming steep odds to create new lives for themselves in a concrete jungle. Some species, like the raccoon, blue land crab, mosquitofish and screech-owl, have called South Florida home for millennia. Countless others are newcomers: peacocks, iguanas, tropical fish, parrots, and even chameleons. Some of these animal imports were accidental — a consequence of more than a century of global trade. Some were intentional — released deliberately to sell or to control other non-natives. Most are somewhere in between, a virtual zoo of creatures flourishing in this subtropical city’s lush parks and waterways.