Image Cache: Australia is best known for animals that are needlessly good at murdering things. The country is also home to the tawny frogmouth, an incredibly stupid looking bird.
Browse through the cool photos, animations and diagrams in Gizmodo’s Image Cache here.
Just look at this weirdo:
Because they’re big, nocturnal and tend to eat vermin, frogmouths are often mistaken for owls at night. No doubt, frogmouths find the comparison insulting. But due to their feather colours and bizarre head shape, in daylight they’re more often mistaken for branches. Based on the photo above, it’s quite effective.
I’m pretty sure there’s at least one bird in that tree, but depending on how I look at it there could plausibly be as many as four. Congrats, you flying goofballs, you’ve got my fooled.