We resort to nature to get inspired and create beauty, yet not all natural creatures are beautiful. This text is on the ugliest animals on earth.
We often watch a documentary about nature and get paralyzed by the beauty we see on the screen of our TVs. The color combinations of the animals are so fascinating that they make us wonder how much it takes us to produce such combinations. Yet the fact is there are also some animals not that much align with our aesthetic standards. In this article of Tech Trends, you will learn about the ugliest animals on the planet.
Ugliest Animals on Earth; Don’t Get Scared!
Aye Aye
This beast-looking animal called an Aye – aye, is a primate found only in Madagascar. Aye ayes have various unusual attributes, including long, bony, witch-like middle fingers that they use to pry bugs and grubs from tree trunks. This permits them to fill a biological niche, mush like a woodpecker might. They are also nocturnal, just emerging around night time.
Also, aye ayes have incisors that consistently grow, surprising for primates, and huge ears. This elusive primate utilizes percussive foraging to find its food. As it strolls along a branch, the aye aye taps it with its skeletal middle finger. It cups its big ear forward, listening for the echoes coming from the tree.
When it realizes it is over a bug tunnel, it detaches pieces of the tree with its enormous teeth so it can uncover the tunnel and devour the bugs inside. It is not only one of the world′s ugliest animals, but also is considered endangered by the IUCN because of habitat loss and hunting. It has been part of the rundown of the 25 most endangered primates since 2016.
Blobfish
Maybe it’s out of line to judge a fish out of water. However, the blobfish seems to be a ball of slime than a living animal. Blobfish, one of the ugliest animals in the world, live deep in the sea where pressures are incredibly high. The blobfish’s coagulated appearance is a splendid adaptation — its gooey, pudding-like flesh permits it to stay buoyant at depths where gaseous bladders can’t function.
The aesthetically challenged blobfish was once voted as the world’s ugliest creature in an online survey directed by the British-based Ugly Animal Preservation Society, making it the group’s official mascot.
California Condor
One of the world’s rarest birds and North America’s biggest flying land bird, and also one of the ugliest animals on earth, the California condor is graceful when floating high above the canyons and deserts of the American West Coast. Up close, be that as it may, this bird isn’t beautiful. Its bald head is an adaptation for its way of life as a scavenger since a feathered head would become clotted with blood while the bird feeds on large carrion.
Human activities, lead poisoning, and the use of pesticides such as DDT nearly annihilated the California condor populace in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The birds neared the mark of extinction in the late of the 1970s, and just 22 of them remained by 1981.
Researchers began an intensive captive breeding project and gradually reinforced them in wild. Albeit the condor populace is gradually expanding, the species is considered critically endangered by the IUCN, and the total world population is assessed at 518, including both captive and wild birds.
Elephant Seal
Baby elephant seals and female elephant seals are charming looking. Males, in any case, begin growing an enormous nose when they reach sexual maturity, somewhere around three to five years, turning into one of the ugliest animals on the planet.
The tremendous schnoz is fully developed by 7 to 9 years of age, giving the seal the look of its namesake elephant with a monstrous, floppy trunk. Like the proboscis monkey, an elephant seal’s enormous nose plays a role in mating, as it produces loud roars that fend off other males.
Giant Chinese Salamander
The giant Chinese salamander (Andrias davidianus) is not only among the world′s ugliest animals, but the world’s biggest amphibian and can grow up to 2 meters. Endemic to mountain streams and lakes in central China’s Yangtze river basin, this salamander is fully aquatic and can breathe through its skin. Their skin likewise has special receptors that get vibrations in the water to assist them with pinpointing their prey.
It’s likewise critically endangered in the wild because of habitat loss and overcollection, as it’s utilized in traditional Chinese medicine and is additionally considered as a delicacy to eat.
Horseshoe Bat
Like most bug-eating bats — which use echolocation to get their prey — horseshoe bats have a wrapped appearance that looks more like an ear than a face. This adaptation makes them more receptive to sound waves, allowing them to navigate quickly through the air.
The bat is one of the ugliest animals in the world, and gets its name from the shape of its “noseleaves,” the fleshy structure encompassing the bat’s nose. The upper part is pointed, and the lower part is shaped like a horseshoe. The bat utilizes this nose — with its specific size and shape — as a kind of sonar beam to assist it with detecting its surroundings.
Hyena
With a hunching, bear-like gait, these monsters of the savannah are among the ugliest animals on earth, yet they have a sense of humor. At times referred to as “laughing hyenas,” these creatures have calls that are often described as haunting and witch-like.
Albeit known for being scavengers, hyenas purportedly kill 60% to 95% of what they eat. Though they resemble wild dogs, they are more closely related to civets, mongooses, and meerkats.
Marabou Stork
Standing over 5 feet tall with a wingspan of 10 feet, the marabou stork is a scavenger of large carrion, which is why it has a featherless head, a feature earns it a spot in this list of the ugliest animals on the planet. These African birds also eat other birds and have even have even been known to consume flamingos. The marabou stork has some unattractive habits. They poop all around their legs and feet, for example.
This gives their appendages a lovely white appearance and assists them with regulating their body temperature. This stork species likewise stands apart for its gular sac, a long, reddish pouch that hangs from its neck and is utilized to make grunts and other noises during courtship rituals—not for food storage.
Marabou storks aren’t incredibly active; in fact, they are relatively lazy. They stand around much of the time and often pant excessively when they are hot.
Monkfish
These unappetizing, freaky-looking fish are a common food delicacy. Yet, for quite a long time, people didn’t want to eat the fish since it was so revolting. In the long run, chefs understood that its looks were misleading, and presently it appears on the menus in all sorts of fine restaurants.
With mottled skin, an unsightly overbite, and a bizarre figure, monkfish are undeniably ugly. Furthermore, due to their gigantic heads filled with razor-like teeth, they look mean also. No guide to the world′s ugliest animals is complete without this one.
Naked Mole-Rat
Keeping a vibrant self-image if you’re a bald rodent should be challenging. Yet, it’s anything but an issue for the naked mole-rat, one of the ugliest animals in the world. It’s certainly helpful that they are nearly blind. These creatures live underground in intricate burrow systems and have little need for good eyesight. Their almost hairless bodies are likewise an adaptation for their underground environment.
Shockingly, naked mole-rats are all more closely related to porcupines, chinchillas, and guinea pigs than moles or rats. Additionally, as opposed to their name, they have some hair. Around 100 fine hairs on their bodies that act like whiskers to assist them with feeling what’s around them, and hairs between their toes to help them move soil behind them when making tunnels.
These wrinkly rodents live in large groups (average 70 members; however, up to 295 have been recorded) and have been known to communicate in colony-specific dialects. Their highly social behavior might serve multiple purposes, as they need to huddle together to stay warm — their fur-less, paper-thin skin doesn’t precisely assist them with holding body heat.
Interestingly, naked mole-rats are additionally among the longest living of all rodents given their size — they can live for almost 30 years.
Proboscis Monkey
A human might run for cover with this nose, yet for the proboscis monkey, the bigger the nose, the better. It turns out that nothing turns on a female proboscis monkey more than a big, bulbous nose. Researchers believe that the huge nose affects a male proboscis monkey’s vocalizations, drawing in females and scaring males, yet turning them into one of the ugliest animals on earth.
These curious-looking monkeys are astounding swimmers because of their webbed feet and hands. They love the water, live in trees near streams (they are never in excess of 600 meters, or 0.37 miles, from a stream), and sleep in large groups called bands right on the water’s edge.
Red-Lipped Batfish
The red-lipped batfish gives the impression that it attempted to make up for an unusual body by caking on lipstick. Further exploration should be done to reveal the function of the bright red lips. Yet, a few researchers think it relates to drawing in mates. These odd fish are mostly found around the Galapagos Islands and close to Peru and considered as one of the ugliest animals on the planet.
Strangely, red-lipped batfish are not the most graceful swimmers — they are more suited for “walking” along the sea floor. When they reach adulthood, they use their dorsal fin as fishing lure to draw in prey rather than for swimming.
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Roti Island Snake Necked Turtle
One of the world′s ugliest animals, this odd-looking turtle is endemic to the Indonesian island of Rote. Their necks are long that, dissimilar to other turtles, they’re unable to withdraw their head back into their shell, so they wrap it around the side of their shell instead. With a small area of natural habitat available, combined with heavy targeting for the pet trade, these monstrous turtles are encountering a populace decrease in nature.
Star-Nosed Mole
The star-nosed mole might have the most unusual nose in the animal kingdom. Their odd whiffets are characterized by 22 fleshy appendages that act more like super sensitive fingers than a nose. These snouts are lined with over 25,000-minute sensory receptors that assist the mole with feeling its way through its underground lair.
Those sensory receptors make this mole’s nose one of the most sensitive in the whole animals world. That means the star-nosed mole is an exceptionally viable hunter, although considered as one of the ugliest animals in the world. The outer tentacles probe for a potential meal, and then the inner sensors decide if the prey is edible.
Titicaca Frog
The Titicaca frog (Telmatobius coleus) lives in the high Andes around Lake Titicaca and is known to grow up to 0.5 meters long. It’s otherwise called the ‘scrotum’ frog, which describes its baggy, loose skin that ripples around its body in folds. The name alone procures the Titicaca frog a spot on this rundown of the ugliest animals on earth! It’s thought the folds of skin give the frog additional surface area to get more oxygen from the lake’s water.
Like many creatures on this rundown, the Titicaca frog is endangered because of pollution from mining, collection for eating, and inclusion in a ‘frog juice’ drink believed to be an aphrodisiac.
Vulture
Vultures are scavenging birds of prey who love nothing more than to pick on carcasses of dead animals on African plains. Africa supports 11 vulture species, of which size are restricted to the continent only. Tragically seven of these 11 vulture species are categorized as endangered or critically endangered African animals.
Vultures, though are among the ugliest animals on earth, are affectionately known by nature-lovers worldwide as ‘Nature’s Clean-up Crew. They’re one of the nature’s best scavengers and assist with cleaning the African landscapes like no other.
Warthog
As wild members of the pig family, warthogs have the characteristic pig nose, tusks protruding from their mouths, a wart-like curvature to their faces, and a nappy mane of hair that cascades down their backside. They have two pairs of tusks: the upper tusks emerge from their snouts, making a semi-circle. Their lower tusks are situated at the base of the other set.
Warthogs’ bodies are covered in bristles, and they’re recognized by their lopsidedly enormous heads and those wart-like pads that offer protection. They are one of the ugliest animals in the world. However, these physical characteristics make warthogs well-adapted to their savanna and grassland habitats and the burrows they like to occupy.
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