Scientists claim to have identified the world s most Instagrammable bird – the strange, scruffy-looking frogmouth (Podargidae) from Asia and Australia.
Researchers in Germany collected 27,621 photos of birds from nine bird-related Instagram accounts, including data on how many likes each photo garnered.
Using an algorithm to analyse their aesthetic appeal , they found photos of frogmouths received the highest number of likes, relative to the posts exposure to the accounts followers.
Often mistaken for an owl, the frogmouth is known for its messy plumage and comical facial expressions, evocative of Beaker from The Muppets.
The frogmouth was given the title of the world s most unfortunate-looking bird in 2004 paper, meaning this new title is a matter of poetic justice, researchers say.
If you had to pick the most “instagrammable bird” in the world, you probably wouldn’t go for the frogmouth (
Podargus strigoides) a nocturnal bird found in Australia and Southeast Asia that is often mistaken for an owl.
But science says otherwise. A study analyzed almost 27,000 photos of birds across Instagram accounts with a combined following of 3.5 million users and found the unassuming frogmouth took the top spot in the ranking.
The Frogmouth. Image credit: Flickr / Rae Allen
“It just does not look like any other bird, with its almost anthropomorphic facial features,” lead researcher Katja Thommes, a psychologist from the University of Konstanz in Germany, told BBC. “And frogmouths are quite rare. Even in our 20,000-image database, it featured only 65 times.”
The study had one goal: to discover “what makes a great bird photo?”
The researchers analyzed close to 30,000 bird photos from nine popular bird photography accounts on Instagram, utilizing an algorithm that compared the photographs that acquired the most “likes,” giving each photo an Image Aesthetic Appeal score in an aim to pinpoint “Instagram’s most aesthetically appealing bird.”
The frogmouth made for an unexpected winner.
“The surprising winner in this ranking is the frogmouth, which seems to be a matter of poetic justice, as this nocturnal bird with very distinct facial features was once designated ‘the world’s most unfortunate-looking bird,’” the study states, referencing a 2004 article from Nature Australia.