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powlokisdiary · 7 years ago

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The 'ugly bunch' - Does an animals appearance affect it's popularity? *DISCLAIMER * I'm having to remain very open minded and understanding of varying opinions in regards to this post as I genuinely can't think of an animal as being ugly! For starters many if my favourite animals are considered awful lookjng or are unheard of by most. For instance I love Xeno, but my brother thinks she's awful 🤣 And one of my favourite fish is the sarcastic fringehead.... yes it's a real thing btw! 😂 A lighthearted survey undertaken by ZSL of about 1,000, 78% of them had heard of the gruffalo but only 3% had heard of a creature known as the solenodon. Ultimately the survey showed that we had a rather capricious attitude towards certain species. This view has affected numerous things around the world - Vulture conservation for example, a species that is incredibly important for a healthy ecosystem and without them WE would suffer drastically, is often cast aside in favour of something we consider more appealing looking like a panda or tiger (all if which need preserving btw). Another recent study taken by US scientists at the John Hopkins university suggested that people may not be as put iff by ugly animals as you may think. The blobfish was voted as the worlds ugliest animal in a humerous campaign by the ugly animal preservation society, and it later spawned t shirts, artwork and a stand up comedy show. The research shows that people are more willing to help the ugly animals if they were simy marketed in a different way. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all and the US scientists research showed that by altering how we receive something does affect our views on it. So! I decided to do a little survey if my own for this post.... First of all I asked people the basic question: "Does an animals overall appearence affect it's popularity?" (and why they think this). The majority of people answered with yes it does, but the rwasons why were a tad more diverse than I expected. Quite a few said that the cuter fluffy animals would attract more popularity because they look more approachable, friendlier and predictable. One persons response was rather good as I think it explains why we are more erratic with certain species in particular - media. Using their example of a spider; "we generally can't understand, communicate/talk to them. They have multiple eyes and legs so on that note we can't relate further, making us uneasy with it's movements and by it's differences in general (we as humans naturally fear/dislike/feel uneasy by things that are different to us)... so we took note of this and used it in media production, films etc. Our media has further hyped the fear due to no fault of the spiders!" Now tge points they presented I personally agree with! My nan is terrified of snakes and snake like creatures such as moray eels etc and she blames that on a film she saw when she was younger about a cobra. Before this she had never had any negative experiences but the depiction in the film made her scared of them to a point where she struggled to look at photos even. But on a trip to the zoo last year she came face to face (on her own accord) with a gaboon viper. The first time she had been within that close a proximity to a big, venomous snake. After a while of looking at it whilst I spammed this thing with my camera she began to marvel at it's patterns and eventually she said she "wasn't sure why she's been so afraid, it isn't fast and erratic and it's not homing in on me. Instead it's very calm and beautiful to look at. It's nothing like the one in the film was so I don't feel like it's going to get me, sure I still wouldn't go and hold one but I feel a bit silly thinking they were like that". Now I'm sure everyone has their own individual reasons for preferring an animal over another, it's human nature to formulate our own opinions in things for our own reasons. But when the audience was offered a different style of question the answers were very different. One person I purposely posed my original question too (purposely because their ability to think outside the box and offer different perspectives on things) helped me formulate my next question for people. I will elaborate their answer: "I find it strange how people can make an assumption about an animal based on mere appearance alone. Most animals that we as a society shun or fear/have a mass of the population with a phobia of are usually quite soft natured and harmless. Yet most animals that are awed at are rather savage and confrontational in nature." They then asked me to describe 2 animals natures they suggested.... "For example you described the species that is generally feared as one that's naturally not confrontational, very placid when handled, shy, reluctant to attack and makes every effort to avoid people in the wild. But the creature i have witnessed many people in awe at, calling it cute and stating they want one are naturally quite aggressive, will readily bite you, is known as a problem because it raids nests etc. Describing the actual nature of an animal without telling people what it is and you tend to find the feared ones are pucked over the cute fluffly ones. It's very confusing how judgemental humans can be when we judge using appearance. Appearance shouldn't matter if it makes you overlook the genuine qualities of something". By presenting the animals in a different way to people the votes genuinely did flip with the shunned ones being picked more because they sounded nicer. At HQ we have something called the "undesirable 5" - 5 of our animals are considered as being too ugly or too scary compared to the others. Some may surprise you and some are plain obvious! #1) Xeno - She has generally caused the most 'urgh' ir fear stricken reactions out of all our critters. Yet she is the most harmless creature we have and the least likely to attack. They are very shy animals that would much prefer to run and hide than be near you. The mothers are also incredible parents that carry their young on their backs until they can fend for themselves. And Xeno's species are amongst the few arachnids to exhibit social behaviour. Mothers actively communicate with their young and the iffspring reciprocate with her and the siblings. Awwww! #2) Toni - Toni is relatively new here but has still gained a few uneasy responses. Bug hairy spiders generally freak people out it seems. But he's actually really placid, nice to work with and he's not unpredictable with mivements and never shown any aggression. My partner doesn't like spiders and he says he's quite nice! #3) Aida - Shocking! Lol. Aida falls into the 'snakes make people feel uneasy' part. I find the more 'python looking snakes' (sounds daft I know, but people generally think that boa's are pythons because their heads are a similar shape... from that perspective I can see where they are coming from). Aida is a dream to be around, she's so chill and I haven't got a bad thing to say about her, or pythons in general as I find that all I have encountered have been 'friendly to be around'. #4) Steve - you guessed it! But Sir.Steve response is split down the middle. He's a cute kind of scary. Hognoses are stated among snake keepers as being the friendliest snakes, but people are put off still because at the end of the day it is a snake. But they are still adorable because of their faces... the cute nose n all that 😂 #5) Chester - Rooks in general strike up much unappeal with the general public. They are seen as a nuisance by many and people will happily just shoot them without a second thought (Chester will tell you personally about that!). But a surprising response as to why people feel uneased by them is because of their faces! Some say it's the vulture-esque skin around the beaks, but a prominent remark us that they have a rather spooky, skeletal look about them. That twinned with corvid folklore/mythology and the asdociation corvids have to death in general seems to strike up superstitions making them unwelcome. I could go on about how amazing Chester is but I will save that for another time. So there's our unappealing 5! It has continued to intrigue me as to how people can judge based on appearance. It continues to drive us towards forming certain opinions and making decisions about animals and nature in general. Either way we are all entitled to our opinions! But keep in mind that looks can be deceiving, or things look a certain way due to their lifestyles/the ecological niches they fill and it shouldn't make them ugly. Everything is beautiful in it's own way (or at least it is to us at HQ!) www.facebook.com/TheLokiDiary

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