There is a strange association in the UK: the Ugly Animal Preservation Society.
The original purpose of the establishment of this association is to hope that everyone can focus on animal protection on some animals that are "not very outstanding in appearance". Because ordinary people are still impressed by cute animals, such as tigers, whales, penguins and seals, these animals with outstanding appearance or cuteness are particularly easy to arouse people's desire to protect.
So in the early 21st century, the British spontaneously formed an organization, aiming to call on people to protect animals not to care too much about the appearance, there are many rare species in nature facing extinction, but it is often ignored because the "value is too low".
In 2013, the British Ugly Animal Society launched a "World's Ugliest Animal" selection campaign in order to make the community pay attention to this issue.
These include:
1. Sulawesi deer dolphin, a four-fanged pig that the indigenous people of Indonesia hunt for this "ugly" pig and make a mask over its head.
2. Cave salamander, the only burrowing chordate living in Europe, is also known as the "hagfish". The cave salamander is an amphibian with a white body, small limbs, and three outer cheeks. Because he lives in a dark environment all year round, he has degraded his eyeballs and his vision is almost zero.
3. Purple frog, this is a "strange and ugly" frog that was only discovered in India in 2003. Purple frogs live underground and only appear for about 2 weeks a year during the rainy season, so they are discovered very late by humans. It is now very rare due to the severe destruction of habitats. The most obvious feature of the purple frog is that it has a pointed and long snout, which is very similar to a pig.
In addition to these strange species, there are dozens of California condors, proboscis monkeys, ghost bats, whale-headed storks, Chinese giant salamanders, etc., which are selected as ugly animals.
3,000 netizens participated in the voting, and the ugliest of them was the strange thing we want to introduce next: the water drop fish - with 795 votes to the top of the list.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > drop fish: the ugliest and saddest</h1>
Let's first look at the shape of the water drop fish:
The droplet fish has a mournful and twisted face, a gelatinous body, and two pairs of not very obvious cheeks.
The official Chinese name of the droplet fish is Psychrolutes marcidus , a species of catfish in the order Catfish that lives only in the waters off Australia at depths of 600–1200 m.
Because of its limited range, its population is sparse, and it is difficult to be found in the deep sea, which is rarely touched by humans.
The pressure of the deep sea where the dripfish is located is tens of times that of the upper sea, so the swim bladder is difficult for the dripfish to exist. Because shallow fish use swim bladders to control their ups and downs, it is no longer applicable in the deep sea.
Therefore, the average density of drip fish is close to the density of seawater, and it is slightly lower than that of seawater, and the overall appearance of gelatinous flesh. This allows them to drift with the sea. Due to the low density, the dripfish lack muscle throughout the body (because the muscle density is too large).
Muscleless droplet fish, most of the body is filled with "water", it looks like a mess of mud squirming in the water, so they have almost no ability to prey, swimming very slowly. The dripping fish eats purely by fate: where it floats, it swallows what is in front of you. They are not picky eaters, from microorganisms to gravel, everything that passes through its mouth will be sucked by it, can it be eaten and put aside - swallow it first.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > water drop fish can not be eaten, why are they still being caught? </h1>
We can see from the body structure of the water drop fish that the meat of this thing is definitely not delicious and will not become human food. However, in recent years, the drip fish has entered people's sight precisely because it is often caught. This thing: What an accident.
Although the dripfish is not a food for humans, it lives in the deep sea and is also the territory of crabs and lobsters. When Australian fishermen catch crabs and lobsters, they often catch the drip fish by mistake – what can be done about this? Because the drip fish swim too slowly, they can't escape the fish.
The fished droplet fish ended up very badly, their gel-like flesh was originally affected by high pressure and should be filled with moisture. However, because the pressure drops sharply after landing, the water in the body of the water droplet fish will seep out of the body, turning into a complete "mud", and then quickly die.
So the drip fish we see are all "soft lying" a lump, and the drip fish in the deep sea should look like this (because the picture information of the deep sea drip fish is too small, we can only look at this one):
Look at it this way: doesn't it seem to be so ugly?
At the 2013 British Science Festival, the dripfish was confirmed to be declared "the ugliest animal in the world" and then became the mascot of the British Ugly Animal Protection Society, making a cute comic image.
We have always believed that those cute pandas, red-crowned cranes, etc. are what we urgently need to protect. The "ugly fame" of the dripping fish has made people realize that in this natural world, there are many strange-looking and not so pleasing creatures.
Whether people like it or not, they are part of nature. After the dripping fish became famous, more and more "ugly" animals attracted people's attention.
"Everyone has grown up like this, let them have a way to live!" Fish is not easy! ”