pixabay.com
In fact, there are some specimen out there whose faces only a mother could love. Or maybe not even that.
My favorite example of all time is the blobfish:
By Inosipmax (Own work) 1
This harmless deep sea fish with the scientific name of Psychrolutes marcidus lives, of course, in the deep waters of Australia’s coast. It doesn’t look quite as ugly while still In the water, but a beauty contest would still not be recommendable.
Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, the purple frog, is ugly even outside of the water.
By Karthickbala at ta.wikipedia 2
This relatively newly discovered frog lives underground and only comes outside to mate. Understandable, I’d say.
Did any of you watch the animated children’s show “Kim Possible” while growing up? Remember Rufus, the cute, pink naked mole-rat? Yes?
Uploaded by Jedimentat44 on flickr 3
Why would Ron want to carry around one of those is beyond me. At best, it looks like a penis that chose to run away. They are interesting for cancer research, as they almost never develop cancer. Scientists even assumed they can’t get it at all, until the first case of cancer was confirmed in 2016.
In many cases, albino animals look prettier than their “normal” counterparts. I mean, look at this peacock:
pixabay.com
Beautiful!
Well, in case of Xenopus laevis which usually looks like this:
By Shields R (2011) 4
The albino version looks almost terrifying:
I, KENPEI 5
I couldn’t find a picture (which I am allowed to use) that shows the whole glory that an albino Xenopus actually is. They’re used for research so I’ve seen them up close and personal. They look like naked, wrinkly old people.
Oh, and did you know? If you pee on one of those frogs, you can see if you’re pregnant!
But even the ugliest animals need some love. For this, the Ugly Animal Preservation Society exists. So no matter how ugly you are, there will always be someone to love you.
Attributions for pictures not from pixabay.com:
1 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
2 CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4278399
3 http://www.flickr.com/photos/jedimentat/7557258168/sizes/o/in/photostream/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25045157
4 Shields R (2011) Breaking the Hybrid–Species Barrier. PLoS Biol 9(11): e1001201. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001201, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21977152
5 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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Picture taken from pixabay.com