Ugly Animals Get Less Love, Research

Tuesday, 10 August 2010 | by Pat's Picks

The New York Times profiles a series of animals that have faces only a mother could love in today’s science section. Scientists say the uglier the animal the less likely people will be inclined to save it. The manatee, for example, only had 14 academic papers written about it over a period of 14 years, whereas the much cuter chimpanzee elicited 1,855. The Times says humans are even more judgmental when we can “analogize between a particular animal body part and our own.” So while an elephant’s trunk might just seem foreign, the bulbous nose of the proboscis monkey will make us recoil in disgust.

Click here for the Times great slide show.