The ugliest baby bird in the world?

I'm familiar with the kea parrot for its bad behavior, but I've never before had the decidedly queasy pleasure of seeing a baby one.

Is it in fact the ugliest baby bird ever, as theorized by news sources from the The Independent to the Daily Mail? I don't know, but this is something I've been meaning to do research on, and it's definitely a start.

-Wombat (No Relation)

WHOA

This is one of those rare cases where I am pretty much struck speechless by the ugliness of an animal, so, just the facts, ma'am:

This is a four day old seriema at Westküstenpark St. Peter-Ording in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

The seriema is supposedly descended from huge, carnivorous, flightless birds that roamed South America 60 million years ago, hacking their prey into bloody chunks with their terrifying beaks. But this one will grow up to eat insects, small animals and even sometimes a side of veggies, so, no worries, except the nightmares you're going to have after seeing this photo.

Thanks (I think ) to The Local.

-Wombat (No Relation)

Your Monday ugdorable

A little baby nine-banded armadillo - definitely the ugliest species of armadillo - drinking out of a hose in Texas, where it's apparently even hotter and drier than usual. Poor little guy!

Thirstily,
Wombat (No Relation)

This is a test

How much do you love ugly animals? Do you go "Awwww!" when you see a picture of a baby vampire bat?

From the Philadelphia Zoo thanks to Zooborns.

Bloodthirstily,
-Wombat (No Relation)

Baby birds at home and abroad

Let's compare some baby birds found in the wild to their domesticated counterparts.

First up is a set of Western scrub-jays, native to western North America, in their natural habitat. This is how I typically imagine baby birds: giant, gaping beaks, skin stretched tightly over bulbous eyes, optional pinhole eye openings, scrawny necks, and transparent skin.

Photo source: the Register-Guard

Also in our wild lineup are some baby finches sporting crinkly yellow beaks and dubious tufts of down:

Photo source: Boing Boing

Now for the creatures we have invited into our own homes. Eastern Rosella parrots are prized for their brightly colored plumage, of which they give no hint early in life:

Photo source: http://www.parrot-bird.com/

Top honors, however, may belong to baby cockatiels, native to Australia but now common household pets throughout the world. Cockatiels are the second most popular companion parrot species (after budgies) and are known for their gentle and sociable natures. This outstanding specimen has been photographed mid-poop:

Photo uploaded by user tamaralynn24

Observe the veiny skull, sealed eyes, wrinkly neck and leg, full crop, arthritic-looking claws, and Chia pet-style down. This is truly the stuff of which dream pets are made.

So who wins the ugliness contest: baby birds in the wild or baby birds at home? Cast your vote in the comments!

Possibly the most horrible ants ever

Wombat normally handles the posts about animals that don't act right, but these are so horrible that I just have to post them. I'd recommend not reading this post before/during/after eating, because you might not for another week. If you still want to continue, I bear no responsibility for the consequences.

Today's ants come from the genus Adetomyrma, more commonly known as "dracula ants". The sort of fill the evolutionary gap between ants and wasps, but it's their dietary habits that make them so disturbing. While the name "dracula ant" makes you think they'd go for blood for dinner, it's not your blood they want. According to Myrmecos Blog,

...ants have a skinny little waist through which their digestive tract must pass. Solid food would lodge in the bottleneck and kill the ant, so the ants can’t eat solids. They can only drink.

Yet, in forgoing solid food ants miss out on all sorts of protein available in the environment. Ants must either give up protein or figure out how to convert solids into drinkable juice. That’s where the larvae come in.

Larvae are made to eat and can handle all manner of food. They consume the solids that the worker ants have brought back to the nest and, after a little digestion, pass the protein back as a liquid. Most ant species have a simple, elegant way to do this: they regurgitate for the adults when prompted. But this direct food-passing behavior only appears in the more recent ant lineages. The ancient subfamily Amblyoponinae- including Adetomyrma- diverged from the rest of the ants over 100 million years ago and couldn’t inherit this sensible way of doing things.

Natural selection is a blind process. Evolution often solves problems with unexpected, rube-goldberg solutions that any reasonable designer would never implement, and the Amblyoponines happened on one of those odd solutions. They found a more morbid way to get at all those larval proteins. The adult ants just chew a hole in the larval skin. The hemolymph oozes out, and the adults take a drink.

Yes, these ants cut open their own young and drink their blood. Fortunately, the young seem to have no long-term harm (besides scaring from having their abdomen chewed open), and grow up to continue the cycle.

Enjoy your lunch,

tkrausse

Pictures courtesy of Myrmecos Blog and Cracked.com (NSFW/18+)

Growing up ugly

As I've mentioned before, birds just can't seem to get the hang of the concept that babies are supposed to be cute. Most of them start out horrendously ugly and gradually grow into those lovely, graceful creatures that so many people love.

This picture of three young Black Palm Cockatoos from the Jurong Bird Park in Singapore demonstrates the process - sort of. We've got a three week old baby in the middle with a two month old on the right and a three month old on the left.

But the black palm cockatoo is definitely a bird after our own hearts here at Ugly Overload because although it does get less ugly as it ages, it never entirely grows out of it:


Someone get that poor bird a hairdresser!

Flightlessly,
Wombat (No Relation)


Babies from the Globe and Mail/AFP and adult from Flickr user Puppies are Prozac.

Marine Life Census, Part 2

As promised, I've got another collection of creatures from the census of marine life for you. Let's start with the aptly-named Terrible Claw Lobster, Dinochelus ausubeli. It should be obvious where the name comes from

Next up, we have an as-yet unnamed snail, found on a submarine volcano off Japan.

We also have a jellyfish, Bathykorus bouilloni, that appears to have gotten his appearance from Star Wars, judging from his Vader-like shape.

Next, is the Bearded Fireworm. Those bristles are venomous, causing an "intense burning irritation". Don't touch.

And last up, here's another plankton-sized baby for you, this time for the Slipper Lobster. While he's transparent now, when he grows, he will have a full shell.

Pictures courtesy of National Geographic

The Marine Life Census

Earlier this year, scientists wrapped up a massive, ten-year survey of aquatic life. This survey revealed a large number of new species. As anyone who visits here regularly knows, quite a few of them are not on the attractive side. We start with one that confused the researchers so much on what to call it, that they finally settled on the simple squidworm:

Next up is Venus flytrap anemone. Unlike its counterparts on land, it has stinging tentacles which it uses to trap its prey.

Now, we have a jellyfish, Atolla wyvillei, which has an interesting way of defending from predators. When attacked, the jellyfish lights up to attract a larger creature to eat its attacker.

Today we also have a sea slug, Phyllidia ocellata. As you might guess from the coloration, this guy's poisonous, and probably not a good meal for anyone passing by.

To wrap up the day, here's a newly hatched anglerfish. At this stage in his life, all he can really do is drift around with the plankton.

That wraps up this todays installment from the census. There's plenty more where they came from, and I can probably stretch a few more posts out of it for you.

Pictures courtesy of National Geographic.

Triple threat

Starting off October with three creatures so scary, you should make plans to dress up as them for Halloween. Look at those gaping maws like the mouth of hell, plumage like strips of rotting flesh, and cold, dead eyes! These must be zombie birds, right? Yet the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day claims they are perfectly innocent baby Malay night herons. I'm not sure what to believe.

-Locking the door and drawing the blinds,
Wombat (No Relation)

A couple of followups

Recently our fearless leader posted about the remarkable Titan Arum, also known as the Corpse Flower and remarked that although it is stinky (hence the nickname), it isn't particularly ugly in appearance.

After stumbling across this photo of the same flower about to bloom at the Huntington Gardens in California, I think we may need to reconsider:


The Huntington Gardens takes ugly seriously: this flower has its own blog: Stinky Huntington.

Also, in case you think the baby birds in my previous post are not fair representatives of baby birds the world over, check out these baby blackbirds at a wildlife hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel (from Reuters via The Telegraph):



Respectfully submitted by Wombat (No Relation)

Faces Only a Mother Could Love

It's the time of year - at least where I am in the Eastern US - that we're infested with the most hideous little animals possible: baby birds.

Fortunately, usually they're well hidden, but last year, a nest of robins rudely took up residence right next to my back patio table. Take a look:



Isn't that enough to spoil your appetite? What is it with baby birds? Every other baby animal is adorable. Even little baby snakes are adorable - if you don't believe me, look at this one:



Come on, even if you're not crazy about snakes, don't you just want to kiss its eensy weensy wittle tiny cheeks? Compare that to those baby birds from an even more horrific angle:



There is one bright side, though, which is that they look like that for a very short time. Here's one of those guys only about a week later, looking like it's ready to fill out its college applications:



By the way, if you see one of these teenage birds flopping around on the ground in your yard, be aware that you probably don't need to "rescue" it. Unless it can't move or is obviously injured, you're just watching its clumsy attempts to learn to fly. Scores of overworked wildlife rehabilitators across the country would appreciate it if you don't catch up perfectly healthy baby birds and call them in a panic when you realize that you don't have a clue what to do.

(P.S. Ahoy! I am Wombat (no relation) and I am honored to be helping carry on the grand tradition of Ugly Overload. You can read my ravings about the ugly behavior (not always entirely safe for work) of our fellow creatures at my blog, where you will learn never to trust a pretty animal face.)

Hairy Armadillo

A couple of observations about the hairy armadillo: 1) I love animals and I love babies, but it took me a couple of seconds to convince myself that a baby hairy armadillo isn't something less than cute. And even now I'm wavering. The longer I stare, the more convincing I need.

Photo source: Baz Ratner via Yahoo!



















2) How have I never heard of these creatures? They're fantastic! These South American armored beasts don't get any better looking with age. It's amazing how you can take an otherwise cute-ish animal (the regular armadillo) and add some bristles and you've got something that would make you recoil if your flashlight beam encountered it in the dead of night.

Photo source: AmericaZoo.com

Vulture Chicks

The American black vulture (Coragyps atratus) is pretty widespread across the New World, though their territory doesn't reach the same northern and southern extremes of its cousin, the turkey vulture. Unlike many other vulture species, these birds usually lay their eggs on the ground (which is probably why you see these two-week-old chicks huddled on the ground). They don't even bother much with making a nest, though sometimes they'll decorate the egg spot with colorful bits of plastic or glass or bottle caps.

I wonder what they used for decor before I started throwing my garbage out my car window...

Thanks for the photo, Clair.

Sibling Abuse

ZooBorns comes through for us again. Behold a silvery-cheeked hornbill chick. This particular bairn can be found at The Central Florida Zoo. It's being raised by the keepers since its older sibling was picking on it.

I had a similar experience with my twin daughters. For the first few months of their lives they shared a crib. But as they became more able and willing to flail their arms, they became a danger to one another, and we had to separate them into their own cribs. It seems that sibling abuse is no respecter of species.

Thanks, Jonathan.

Baby Pigeons?

These are supposedly baby pigeons, but I'm not convinced. Not only do they not look much like pigeons to me, but I don't believe that baby pigeons exist (like carnivorous unicorns or Sasquatch). Can any birders out there ID these for us?

UPDATE: These do appear to be baby pigeons. I never would have guessed.

Photo source: batzunga

Crocodiles Communicate Even Before Hatching

Do all crocodiles hatch looking like their already planning mischief?

They might be. Crocodiles begin chatting to one another, and to their mother, just before they hatch. Researchers assume that it is some sort of communication, signaling that it is time to emerge and begin a long life of immitating a log, ambush hunting, being hunted in turn by over-zealous documentary hosts, and trying not to end up as a pair of boots or luggage.

Photo source: REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang

Baby Announcement

The matamata turtle has been a frequent guest on Ugly Overload. And I am happy to announce the first captive birth (well, breeding and hatching) of this species in the San Diego Zoo (see hatchling below).

The world needs more "it kills, it kills" turtles.

Photo source: AP Photo/Zoological Society of San Diego, Ken Bohn via Yahoo! News

Out of My System

I have to get these two out of my system (both figuratively and literally). I've been holding on to them for a while, trying to find a good excuse to post them. The problem is that they straddle the ugly - cute fence too much for my liking (I live in a very binary world). So here goes. Enjoy an orangutan being rubbed by a cat and the smiling face of a juvenile hedgehog.

Don't hate me, you ugly purists.

Photo source: Knuttz.net

Bad Omen

Kat sent me this article of an aye aye that was born in a zoo in Bristol, UK. This is a very rare occurrence, and is a happy event. These little lemurs have been hunted to near extinction on their native Madagascar. It seems the locals on that island see them as a bad omen.

Come on locals. Stop with the hunting. The only precautions you have to take are not to feed them after midnight, and never, ever get them wet.

Photo source: SF Gate