Ugliest Birds in the World
Certain Parrots Parrots are not necessarily ugly. Indeed, many are beautiful, with brilliantly colored feathers, but Oscar was different (Oscar is a girl, by the way). She was or is a cockatoo who suffered from beak and feather disease.
Kiwi This bird, the very national symbol of New Zealand, doesn’t look like a bird at all. It is flightless, and its chicken-sized body is covered with what might as well be shaggy brown hair. It is nocturnal and rests in a burrow during the day.
Southern Screamer This ugly bird is native to South America from Brazil down to Argentina. It has a disproportionally tiny head on a goose-sized body, with a minuscule hooked beak. Its feet are huge, and it has long toes for walking around the marshes of its habitat.
Muscovy Duck Even Linnaeus, the renowned taxonomist, didn’t have much good to say about this duck’s looks, even though the domesticated Muscovy duck is much prized because it’s a big, relatively quiet, easy to raise bird whose meat tastes more like beef than poultry.
Shoebill The shoebill’s looks are mostly the fault of its bill, which is huge and resembles a wooden Dutch clog with a hook at the tip. The tip helps the bird dispatch its prey, which includes fish, frogs, lizards, turtles, snails, rodents, and birds smaller than itself.
Great Potoo This gray feathered nocturnal bird of South and Central America and the Caribbean would be perfectly ignorable if not for two things. They are its eyes and its mouth. The huge eyes in the disproportionally large head resemble, at a distance, nothing less than the scary button eyes of Coraline’s Other Mother.
Vultures Vultures are ugly. It does not matter that they are essential or even if they are magnificent like the condor. Their looks and their habits are frightful. Most breeds of vulture have bald heads and necks that make poking around in decaying carcasses less messy.
Hornbills Most breeds of hornbill are ugly to the point that bright colors and interesting patterns on their bills and plumage don’t help much. Found in Asia, Africa, and Melanesia, they have huge, downward curving bills. Some species, such as the great hornbill and the rhinoceros hornbill have a casque on top of the bill.
Hoatzin This prehistoric-looking bird is not only ugly, but it smells bad, which gives it its other names of skunkbird and stinkbird. Found in the swampy or riverine forests of northern South America, this bird has a robust body and a tiny head with a spiky crest, a bare face, and maroon-colored eyes. It gets its “stinkbird” name because of its weird digestive system.
Marabou Stork The marabou stork is so hideous that it looks extraterrestrial. Called the “undertaker bird,” because when viewed from behind its hunched black back and bald head reminded people of a mortician at work, this creature is native to Africa.