Is Anyone *Really* Ugly?

I can imagine that there were some pretty ticked off herpetologists at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.  Here they are, trying to brighten up the dark, bleak, COVID-infested winter by spreading some joy in the form of the birthday of Funzo, the pig-nosed turtle, and what do they get?  Lots of comments about how ugly their beloved little guy is.  It's a good thing turtles can't read.  I'd hate to see one cry.

Actually, they probably knew something like that was going to happen.

There's hardly a zookeeper anywhere who hasn't had the serenity of their day shattered by hearing some jerkface say, "Now that's an ugly looking animal!"  Presumably, the few who have not had this experience work exclusively with pandas, koalas, and sea otters.  This, of course, excludes the visitors who make the ugly animal joke in reference to keepers, all of whom apparently think that they are the first people ever to come up with that brilliant, original quip (See: Ten Things I Never Want To Hear From Zoo Visitors Again).

Some animals, such as warthogs and hyenas, get called ugly a lot.  Other times, I've been surprised.  Sloths.  Capybaras.  Porcupines.  Tamarins. I once almost challenged a man to a duel after he called the Patagonian cavy that I had hand-reared "an ugly little rat-thing."

Even keepers aren't immune to it.  I was unloading a kookaburra at one zoo - it was the first of its species ever displayed there.  Fresh from the airport, I took the crate into quarantine, then let the bird out into holding.  A keeper who was accompanying me appraised the bird as it flew to a perch, then stared back at him.  "That," he declared after a moment of thought, "is the ugliest bird I have ever seen."

Ok, I've also called some of my animals homely before, but usually from a place of affection mingled with realism.  Those have generally been individuals, though, not characteristics of a species.  The truth is, I don't really think that any species is ugly.  And even the ones that don't quite match up to our ideal of aesthetics (say, babirusa) have their own fascinating charm.  Just because something is different (sometimes significantly) from our own standard of beauty doesn't mean it's "ugly."

Which is more than I can say about some of the kids that the parents drag around our zoo and expect us to fawn over.  There.  I said it.