I’ve always known that turkeys weren’t the prettiest bird, but now having to draw one, I’m really beginning to feel that this possibly the ugliest creature in the world.
Maybe I have turkey on the brain, but I really can’t think of a worst looking creature.
Prove me wrong, dopers!
What’s your ugliest creature?
And let’s not go for insects as that’s just too easy find disgusting ones!
Slugs. Both the giant banana slugs and the small brown boogerlike ones.
Any kind of parasitic worm. Not only gastrointestinal ones, but also leeches and guinea worms and such.
Hagfish.
Since you eliminated insects, I’ll go for their fellow arthropod, the centipede. And ticks when they get all engorged with blood.
And what are those exotic birds that have blue heads with orange wartlike things on them? Or maybe it’s orange with blue warts, or something. I saw a picture of one in Ranger Rick or something like that when I was maybe 7 or 8. Actually, they aren’t really ugly in a repulsive way like some of the others I’ve listed, just ugly in a goofy-looking way.
There is a cluster (or whatever the group term is) of turkeys in our neighborhood, and from their first visit to our yard, I never thought of them as ugly.
Quite to the contrary, there seems to be something endearing about them. The adults move with an almost studied gait, and they watch over the young very closely.
It’s always a treat when they come by, to feed on the seed we put out for ground feeders.
Driving in Maryland, my wife and I noticed some gorgeous-looking hawks, high in the sky. Turns out they were turkey buzzards that feed on road kill.
Years later I happened to have the binoculars in hand when just down the street I noticed that some kind of bird was feeding on a road-killed squirrel. I put the binocs on it and there it was, a supremely ugly turkey buzzard. Even the way it tore the flesh off the prey made me want to wretch.
From the neck up, yeh, they are SERIOUSLY ugly. But their plumage is gorgeous.
We’ve got some at the barn where I keep my horses – a pewter (looks almost silver), two whites and two pearl grays (which are actually very dark gray with white dots all over them). All of them have BRIGHT red wattles on their cheeks that look from the back like elephant ears, plus a flaming red triangular lobe atop their heads. I can get a good close look at all this whenever I want, just by sitting down near them and waiting for them to come over and peck at my boots.
The voices… the voices are from hell. Besides the chittering screech, which will cut through your skull like a chainsaw at close range, they also have an alarm call that’s like a soprano machine gun firing through metal grates. They do coo sometimes, but mostly they sound ghastly – and they talk A LOT.
Funny, though – they do tend to grow on you. And their eggs are really tasty.
Hey, they were not bred to look pretty, only to taste good.
But coming from Willmar, MN, one of the largest turkey producing towns in the country, there were a lot of farmers who thought a flock of turkeys was a very pretty site. And a lot of workers at the turkey processing plants who thought the same.
Gila Monster I think they’re neat beasties, but I can’t call them pretty.
Cane Toad Don’t forget the gamete froth that they leave everywhere.
Wolverine Okay, perhaps not quite a definition of ugly, but they sure do have a corner on the market of mean.
Sturgeon All the appeal of well, a toothless fish, really.
Echidna The other egg laying mammal.
Opossum Okay, I’ve got a prejudice against non-placental mammals.
Snow Monkeys Either end they’re butt ugly.
Hammerhead Shark I swear it looks more like something that escaped from a B grade horror movie. Especially the teeth, curling up and out of the mouth… ewww. I know it’s common to all sharks, but combined with those eyes… ewww.
African Yellow-winged Bat Perhaps the most extreme of the leaf-nosed bats with a huge nose and ears, makes me think that vampire bats are cute. Well, actually, I think vampire bats are neat anyways, but I’ve been told I’m odd.
Hey! I resemble that remark.
I’ve never seen one in person but by all accounts hoatzins (top of page) are pretty ugly. Apparently they smell bad too. Or how about a naked mole rat?
Yeah, they’re ugly but interesting. Apparently they are the only mammals with a social structure resembling those of some insects like ants and bees. They have one queen in the colony that does all the reproducing and the rest of the rats do all the work like worker bees. They go through their tunnels forwards or backwards, when they go backwards they use their long naked tails to feel their way like blind men with canes.