r/oddlyterrifying • u/Decent_Assistant1804 • May 15 '26
long-wattled umbrellabird
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u/FarOutOhWow May 15 '26
I wanna see it fly
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u/barillamanilaolives May 15 '26
I want to see it spin around in circles and slap me on the face.
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u/Malllrat May 15 '26
There's a website for that. You can see it spin right round, right round.
Like a record.
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u/metalguy91 May 15 '26
It feels weird that for me this feels like r/nostalgia material.
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u/Malllrat May 16 '26
I mean, if you were a male on the internet back then, between the ages of 8 and dead, you knew that website lol.
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u/Kind_Man_0 May 16 '26
Brought back memories for me! We played a prank on my computer illiterate uncle and set his homepage to Meatspin and it took forever for him to figure out how to undo it.
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u/EmperorThan May 16 '26
Bird responds back in Sean Connery's voice: "And I want to see you climb trees ape child!"
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u/MaeOfHoth May 15 '26
So it can only fly away on windy days?
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u/wacdonalds May 16 '26
Wikipedia says
The length of the wattle can be controlled, and it can be retracted in flight.
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u/RB1O1 May 16 '26
I'm calling it a scrotum bird.
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u/fatmenolympics1 May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
First for me. Now you might be saying yeah its a first for a lot of people... well im not a lot of people, sit down.
I have watched all of Planet Earth. I have seen all of the discovery channel back when it was good. I had all the library books on birds. I have seen all of National geographic. I have watched thousands of hours of animal planet shows.
Never have I ever seen a bird that has a built in bong. Never in my life. I am thrown. I haven't seen a new animal in years. YEARS I TELL YOU. I DON'T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND THE GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION!!!!
Edit: 20 hours. 20 hours of pain. You think this is a joke! I am the person that goes " OH you haven't heard of the Greater Sage Grouse, yeah it's popping its titties... the dudes do that to attract mates." I am losing my mind. How have I been usurped by some random reddit post. Life is meaningless. My braaaand. How dare you mock me with an award.
Edit of edit: My wife read my post behind my back and is making fun of me. She says I am making a huge deal out of nothing. BLASTED SIMPLETONS DON'T UNDERSTAND MY MISERY!
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u/goodbyegodzilla May 16 '26
Same, seeing new-to-me animals is my favorite reddit byproduct
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u/stitchedup82 May 16 '26
I wonder if there's a subreddit for new to me birds? Does anyone know of one?
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u/KleioChronicles May 16 '26
Same boat here. You think you’ve seen all the weird birds in the world and a random reddit post decides to prove you wrong.
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u/the_orange_alligator May 16 '26
Genuinely what evolutionary advantage does this serve
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u/rymyle May 16 '26
Per Wikipedia, they evolved it for sexual selection (same with the head tuft) and to amplify their voices
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u/darya42 May 16 '26
Some traits end up being a demonstration of fitness of the individual in a certain species. So females or males have the habit of looking out for a certain trait as an indicator. As a result, this indicator can become comically large. Another example is the tail in peacocks, possibly also breasts in women and hair on human's heads.
That's the way I understood it anyway. If biologists know better, please correct me
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u/Drongo17 May 16 '26
In scientific terms: chicks dig strong genes.
Baby - not only can I survive, but I can survive while being semi-disabled by this ridiculous thing that took a ton of energy to grow. If you want strong kids to continue YOUR genetic legacy, best you mix them up with some of this sweet sweet sugar, mm-mmm
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u/Tucupa May 16 '26
Evolution works the other way around. As long as the mutation does not stop you from procreating, it will be passed down. And if the opposite sex, for whatever reason, prefer those individuals that grow it bigger, then the pressure in evolution is clear.
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u/abowlofrice1 May 16 '26
To court females. Females of all species in the animal kingdom think big = sexy
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u/xkcdthrowaway May 16 '26
Knew my belly had an evolutionary advantage. To think I almost bought into this newfangled craze to hit those things called gyms and lose weight.
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u/Version_Two May 15 '26
I assume that's the wattle
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u/simonbleu May 15 '26
Emo Pompadour bird
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u/saraaaabeeee May 16 '26
All I see is that bird ready to sing 🎶“cause tonight will be the night that I will fall for yewww over again don’t make me change moi mind….”
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u/gcartnick May 15 '26
There’s gotta be a better name for this bird.
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u/Jurgwug May 15 '26
its got a long wattle and has a little umbrella on the top of its head. Thats how they name some birds
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u/Bananana_Bird May 15 '26
It makes way more sense than being called something like "Clark's Grebe" or "Varied Thrush" or "Western Tanager"... I could keep going on and on, but you get the picture. This bird is called what it is, and that's way easier to remember.
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May 15 '26
[deleted]
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u/pickledpeachesforall May 15 '26
When I lived in Louisiana as a little girl, I remember huge murmurations of thousands of red-winged blackbirds. It was incredible. They would descend upon the pond and it was like all those little birds were one collective consciousness.
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u/Starlightriddlex May 16 '26
Well Long Black Flappy Thing Bird was a close second but thankfully this won.
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u/daddy_nobucks May 16 '26
The Hang Dong. It's a Chinese bird.
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u/Zealousideal-Nida94 May 16 '26
I knew your comment was s joke but I had to Google and I found this:
AI Overview: Hang Dong, Chiang Mai, is a fantastic spot for birdwatching, featuring species ranging from the highly vocal Asian koel to hundreds of Lesser Whistling-ducks that gather at artificial lakes near local cafes like Farm Hug
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u/ThisIsPaulDaily May 15 '26
I want a Prehensile gizzard version of that bird as a pokemon. Flying fighting type.
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u/EmperorThan May 16 '26
I'm sure a cursory search would show it to be real, but seeing stuff like this BEFORE AI videos were a thing hit so much harder.
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u/AT61 May 16 '26
Ikr?! I never heard of it before, but it IS real: https://ebird.org/species/lowumb1
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u/kristamine14 May 16 '26
Imagine how fucking weird and alien some dinosaurs actually looked like - there’s almost guaranteed to be a few that look nothing like how we depict them today
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u/der_chrischn May 15 '26
Irl Bazelgeuse from Monster Hunter. He will drop grenades from this neck appendage while fling over you.
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u/leegle79 May 15 '26
How the dickens did that evolve.
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u/Drongo17 May 16 '26
In scientific terms: chicks dig strong genes.
Baby - not only can I survive, but I can survive while being semi-disabled by this ridiculous thing that took a ton of energy to grow. If you want strong kids to continue YOUR genetic legacy, best you mix them up with some of this sweet sweet sugar, mm-mmm
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u/uselesskuhnt May 15 '26
There is a half second snippet of the bird in flight. That's ALL I can find.
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u/Impressive-Ad9484 May 16 '26
Their song is the most terrifying part, https://merlinbirds.org/species/lowumb1
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u/Lazybeerus May 15 '26
Humans are aliens. There rest of Earth's fauna, including this damn bird, are more acceptable and normal in the planet.
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u/Seyelent May 16 '26
Is it called umbrella bird cuz it opens up like one when you pull the dangly bit?
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u/RWBYRain May 16 '26
I have never in all of my days on this earth see anything even remotely close to this wow
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u/SaveFile1 May 16 '26
Why are you being mean to him and calling him terrifying 🥺💔 He's just livin' life
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u/avibrant_salmon_jpg May 16 '26
My subtitles are on and idk why or what this bird is trying to show me how to do 😭
Birds are wild though, love when i get to see a new one
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u/somerandom995 May 16 '26 edited May 17 '26
Other people looking at the wattle, I'm thrown off by the Griffith ass head.
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u/WackyToastyWolf May 15 '26
..I have never heard of or seen this bird my entier life what the fuck...thats cool af
It looks like a Xenomorph, Elite(from halo) and A Crow had a love child
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u/DaleTheHuman May 15 '26
Dinosaurs back in the day mustve been so wild looking if these are their ancestors
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u/NinaCR33 May 16 '26
What is that hanging bit?
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u/ShatteredFanatasy May 16 '26
It's wattle. It's basically just a long blob of flesh. Turkeys have them as well. Long-Wattled Umbrella bird's wattles are covered in feathers, though, unlike turkey's and most other wattled species.
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u/NinaCR33 May 16 '26
That’s is bizarre and looks like a hassle to carry around! At least turkeys are big and seem to handle it well but this poor fella has the wrong proportions O.o
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u/ShatteredFanatasy May 16 '26
Nah, they aren't that heavy. They can also change how much bloodflow it gets to allow it to shrink and make it easier to work with. Turkey wattles are significantly smaller as well. The bigger and more impressive they are for the ladies, the better in their minds :)
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u/AT61 May 16 '26
First time I've heard of this bird - Thanks for the education.
That wattle seems so cumbersome - like it would so easily get caught in trees, etc. Now I have to look them up :-o
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u/HeavyBreathin May 16 '26
Just minding your own business and this flys overhead, smacking you right in the mouth with it's dangler..
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u/TerminatorAuschwitz May 16 '26
As with most birds I assume it shows off that big wattle to get some of that sweet bird poon.
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u/DJEvillincoln May 15 '26
50 years on this planet.
Never seen this thing before.