This is the World's Ugliest Animal

Juli Weiner





The Ugly Animals Preservation Society, an admirably publicity-savvy environmental protection association, has announced its new mascot, which happens to be, according to popular opinion, the ugliest animal on the planet. Meet the blobfish, a sorry-looking creature of the South Pacific whose "gelatinous body is just slightly more dense than water." Hey there. No need to shake hands.

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Though, according to the BBC, the blobfish beat out its wretched rivals "by almost 10,000 [public] votes," we feel obligated to call attention to a far uglier animal: man.

[Lights dim.]

Man, with his wars and his anthropogenic global warming and his cruelty, is the most wicked of creatures. What blobfish ever wielded a weapon? Abandoned a friend? Betrayed his country? Wasted food while others are starving?

[Single beat on a bongo.]

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Is the blobfish responsible for unjust economic systems? Political dictatorships? Genocide? Terrorism? One might argue that the blobfish never did any of these things, sure, but still, there is no Mozart among blobfish, no Nelson Mandela, no Picasso. Has man's capacity for beauty not overcorrected for its indulgence in ugliness? Nay! Nay, the blobfish says! The blobfish would rather never hear a symphony, never experience art, never know love, if it meant such depths of emotion have equal and opposite inverses. The blobfish merely lacks courage, then; it is man, ugliest of beasts, who lacks humanity.

[Single beat on a bongo.]

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