Surely you've already heard about Heidi, the opossum in a German zoo who's become famous on the internet by being even uglier than a normal opossum. Maybe you read this article at the Christian Science Monitor, or Heidi's Wikipedia page, or this fan website that has sprung up to collect information on her. Or, you could go to her Facebook page or the website of the Leipzig Zoo, where Heidi resides. I can't think of much to add to that, but we couldn't let this phenomenon go without noting it here.
Jumping on the bandwagon,
-Wombat (No Relation)
Imagine hurrying over to the latrines to relieve yourself and looking down to see this face looking back at you. You might, if you lived in Peru.
I know, that frog is lovely. You think there's no way it could belong on this blog. But hang on a minute.
This is a newly discovered species from Vietnam called the vampire flying frog. The "flying" part is because it can glide from tree to tree, using the unusual amount of webbing between its toes.
The other part of the name has nothing to do with the adorable adult in the picture above. It's based on a feature of the tadpoles that the original paper delicately calls "a pair of keratinized hooks on the lower labium that face away from the mouth." That is, this baby has FANGS:
Just so you know, normally, tadpoles do NOT have fangs. The scientists have no idea what function they serve. You'll be relieved to know that they don't suck blood, since tadpoles are vegetarians. Other than that, it's still a mystery. Maybe frogs are trying to stem the tide of extinction by hopping on the "Twilight" bandwagon?
But, seriously, this is freaky. In my last post we saw a mammal with scales. Now, we've got a tadpole with fangs. Don't these animals read the textbooks???
-Disconcertedly,
Wombat (No Relation)
Is that a dinosaur? A walking pine cone? Some kind of lizard? No, that's a mom and baby pangolin at the Taipei Zoo.
Pangolins have got to be one of the best ugly mammals ever. If you're looking for any kind of conventional beauty, you won't find it here. They start at a pointy little heads, get much fatter in the middle, and end with a long scaly tail. Yes, they're completely covered with scales! No other mammal can boast of that. Here's a better view of one:
And here's an angle on this ground-dwelling, digging creature that you won't see often:
In fact, there's not much chance of seeing a pangolin from any angle - they're noctural and not kept in very many zoos. Pangolins are sometimes called scaly anteaters and used to be classified with my favorite order, the Xenarthra, which includes sloths, anteaters, and armadillos. They have some similarities, such as the long anteater-like tongue, but they're now considered to be in their own family.
The scales are made of keratin, same as your hair and nails. Fortunately for the mom, the baby's scales are soft to start and only harden after they are born.
-Wombat (No Relation)
Thanks for the baby tip to Zooborns, and for the other pictures to Flickr user shakingwave.
There's an excellent slideshow at The Guardian of new species discovered in 2010, quite of a few of which are admirably ugly.
Here's one in particular that we definitely shouldn't have missed. Reports of this long-tailed slug from Borneo at first make it sound kind of cute. It supposedly likes to wrap its long tail around itself while resting. Don't you wish they had taken a picture of that? Doesn't it sound sort of adorable?
That's before you read on and discover that the mating behavior of this slug should probably be featured on my other blog. Courtship involves harpoon-like "love darts" made of calcium carbonate which are used to pierce a mate and inject a hormone. Nasty behavior indeed!
Your shocked and disgusted friend,
-Wombat (No Relation)
UPDATE: To those that are missing it, there are a few writers for this blog. Just because I'm leaving, doesn't mean the others are. Ugly Overload continues. You just won't have my posts on here anymore.
---------------
Hey there Ugly Overloadians. Sadly, I won't be able to update this blog anymore. My schooling is absorbing almost 100% of my time, now. That's not unexpected with the degree I'm working toward, though.
That said, I still maintain a Tumblr blog with neat photos of entomology as well as other little critters I find fascinating. Feel free to find me there, if you are so inclined.
http://jadeneternal.tumblr.com/
Thank you to everyone that encouraged me to start contributing to this blog so long ago. I'm glad you all enjoyed my wonderful pet bugs :)
Also, to keep in theme with Ugly Overload (which is still one of my favorite blogs ever), I'll leave you with some of my newest bug photos:
The spider in these pictures was a gift from my wife. It's an adult female Avicularia versicolor (Antillies pinktoe tarantula). Versies are my favorite animal, hands down. Ironically, as sweet natured as they are, it's the only species of spider ever to bite me in my 14 years of working with bugs– and to top it off it was a baby that bit me.
When I got her, I told my better-half that I wanted a picture of her on my face. Being such a sweet spider, we didn't anticipate any difficulty with this idea. We sat down to do the photo, I put her on my face, and she quickly climbed onto the top of my head. The Mrs. snapped a quick photo before the spider jumped off and onto the floor. When I picked her up, she freaked out, locked her legs, and extended her fangs as if she was ready to bite. I calmly held my hand by her enclosure to let her walk off on her own. It was a ten minute stare down, where one slight move would have caused me to be bitten. Thanks to one of the photos taken, I got to see just how bad a spot I was in, as venom was dripping off her fangs (third photo). After around ten minutes passed, she calmly walked into her enclosure, and I stopped sweating.
After the fact, I had time to figure out what happened. I finally realized it was my shampoo. I'd just taken a shower a few minutes before we went to take the picture. Spiders taste through special receptors in their feet, which means that some chemical in my shampoo caused my little girl to freak out like none-other. Needless to say, I won't be attempting this right out of the shower ever again.
-Jaden
theeternalmusic.com
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.
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