Ugliest Animals

Photo credit: Anthony Bannister/Gallo Images/Getty Images

While I was reading about the dreaded Doomsday Scenario that plagues ABC News personnel in their sleep, I spotted this slideshow of the 12 ugliest animals in the world. The warthog, pictured, is number 11, but I don't know if they're shown in any particular order.

When I was in high school, either in Biology or Wildlife Biology (the only science classes I took), I had to write a report on some animal. I chose the aardvark, because I liked the name and had once seen an adorable picture of a baby aardvark that had been born at the San Diego Zoo.

This was in the days before personal computers, before typewriters, and even before quill & ink pens, so I couldn't find enough information on aardvarks to write a long enough report. That's when I switched to Plan B: the warthog.

The caption for the above picture reads, "Warthogs are wild pigs that live in Africa. They use their sharp tusks as weapons to ward off predators. They are also very fast runners." That part about their being fast runners did not appear in my report. The interesting detail I discovered is that warthogs live in abandoned aardvark holes! How perfect is that?

The other thing I noticed is that "objective" sources like the Encyclopedia Britannica described warthogs as, "this hideous beast." How unfair. They have a certain... charm, and they don't look nearly as bad as some of the other specimens in the slideshow.

Neither does the aye-aye, photo number 2. He's not quite cute, but he's got big eyes and teeny little fingers and wild hair like Einstein, sort of. I wouldn't classify him with all the rest of the ugly guys--mostly fish.

Enjoy the slideshow, and if you like, you can let me know in the comments which one has your vote for the Number 1 Ugliest Animal in the World (N1UAW).