Ugly endangered animals ignored as cute bias harms conservation efforts
June 30, 2025 10:45 AM Subscribe
Ugly endangered animals ignored as cute bias harms conservation efforts. While there are plenty of conservation efforts and community love for cute marsupials like the western ringtail possum, researchers say that pretty privilege is threatening the existence of blood suckers and web weavers.
If you look at bats, they are actually pretty cute and definitely fascinating. Their anatomy is really interesting, and they are neat to watch if they aren’t suddenly in your house. I met a woman once who had bought a vacation home along a river, and she wanted to get rid of the bats until she noticed every neighbor complained about the hellacious mosquitos… which she hadn’t experienced. After that, she focused on finding ways to live with the bats where everyone could thrive (except the mosquitos).
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:41 AM on June 30 [5 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:41 AM on June 30 [5 favorites]
They are not ugly! This is terrible : (
posted by kittens for breakfast at 1:37 PM on June 30 [2 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 1:37 PM on June 30 [2 favorites]
When he died, Darwin was working on a sequel, Survival of the Cutest. However, the manuscript was written in an ugly notebook, and was, unfortunately lost upon his death.
posted by chromecow at 2:06 PM on June 30 [2 favorites]
posted by chromecow at 2:06 PM on June 30 [2 favorites]
I know bugs are important. Take away bugs, ecosystems collapse. But there are certain insects that I wouldn't miss. Eight that I absolutely despise: Mosquitos, chiggers, biting midges, Culicoides, gnats, bed bugs, roaches, and ticks. Fleas, wasps, lice, and flies are irritants and more easily dealt with.
Poisonous insects are nothing compared to those listed, and I think are more easily avoided. Spiders are on our side and are good guys. That doesn't make me jump less when one surprises me, and I seriously avoid black widows, scorpions, or tarantulas when I see them around the house, but they certainly aren't the plagues that the first eight are. If those eight first listed were on the endangered species list, I'm not sure I'd be saddened, but I'm sure the impact of that would not be pleasant either.
There are very few insects I think are attractive, but you gotta admire the way they are adapted to the niches they live in. There are no ugly mammals, birds, or reptiles--unless you count the naked mole rat. But they're probably warm and feel like holding a Sphinx cat. I just want to knit them a sweater and get them glasses with nerdy black frames. Then they'd just look like my weird cousin Albert.
In the world, some 900 thousand different kinds of living insects are known. This representation approximates 80 percent of the world's species.
Most authorities agree that there are more insect species that have not been described (named by science) than there are insect species that have been previously named. Conservative estimates suggest that this figure is 2 million, but estimates extend to 30 million.
probably have the largest biomass of the terrestrial animals. At any time, it is estimated that there are some 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects alive.
Recent figures indicate that there are more than 200 million insects for each human on the planet! A recent article in The New York Times claimed that the world holds 300 pounds of insects for every pound of humans.
RESPECT!
posted by BlueHorse at 2:08 PM on June 30 [1 favorite]
Poisonous insects are nothing compared to those listed, and I think are more easily avoided. Spiders are on our side and are good guys. That doesn't make me jump less when one surprises me, and I seriously avoid black widows, scorpions, or tarantulas when I see them around the house, but they certainly aren't the plagues that the first eight are. If those eight first listed were on the endangered species list, I'm not sure I'd be saddened, but I'm sure the impact of that would not be pleasant either.
There are very few insects I think are attractive, but you gotta admire the way they are adapted to the niches they live in. There are no ugly mammals, birds, or reptiles--unless you count the naked mole rat. But they're probably warm and feel like holding a Sphinx cat. I just want to knit them a sweater and get them glasses with nerdy black frames. Then they'd just look like my weird cousin Albert.
In the world, some 900 thousand different kinds of living insects are known. This representation approximates 80 percent of the world's species.
Most authorities agree that there are more insect species that have not been described (named by science) than there are insect species that have been previously named. Conservative estimates suggest that this figure is 2 million, but estimates extend to 30 million.
probably have the largest biomass of the terrestrial animals. At any time, it is estimated that there are some 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects alive.
Recent figures indicate that there are more than 200 million insects for each human on the planet! A recent article in The New York Times claimed that the world holds 300 pounds of insects for every pound of humans.
RESPECT!
posted by BlueHorse at 2:08 PM on June 30 [1 favorite]
I think bats are cute enough, but I'm guilty of this too - I tend to get pissed at the bugs and plants that constantly bite and poison me as soon as I walk outdoors and touch grass. I try to spray up so they stay away, but sometimes they get squished.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:03 PM on June 30
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:03 PM on June 30
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The dislike for bugs and "creepy" creatures in general seems pretty hard-wired to me. My kids really dislike bugs even though I've been doing as much as I can to convince them that they're not dangerous (I'm in Canada so this is largely true) and don't want to interact with them either if they can help it.
Solutions wise I think campaigners just have to accept this and try to use the cutest creatures in any given habitat as the poster-children for their campaigns.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:28 AM on June 30 [1 favorite]