'Grumpy looking' endangered Blobfish voted world's ugliest animal

The blobfish has been voted the world’s most ugliest animal in an online poll conducted by the Ugly Animal Preservation Society. The ugly animal contest, a partnership with the National Science and Engineering Competition in the United Kingdom, is aimed to encourage “young people to get involved in conservation projects, as well as to help promote animals with faces only a mother could love. More than 3,000 people reportedly contributed to the online poll aimed at raising awareness of unsightly species that play an important role in the ecological web. [caption id=“attachment_110700” align=“alignright” width=“380”]  The blobfish has been voted the world’s most ugliest animal.[/caption] The BBC reports that the blobfish – competing against 11 other “aesthetically-challenged” creatures including pubic lice, the pig-nosed turtle, the proboscis monkey, which has red genitals, a big nose and a pot belly and the unfortunately nicknamed “scrotum frog” – won by almost 10,000 votes. Runner-up was the kakapo, a rare flightless owl-like parrot that lives in New Zealand, and third was the axolotl, a Mexican amphibian also called the “walking fish,” reported AFP. The grumpy looking creature lives off the coast of south-eastern Australia and Tasmania, at depths of between 600 and 1,200m, where atmospheric pressure is several dozen times higher than at sea level. It can grow up to 12 inches long, reports The Telegraph. Its gelatinous body is just slightly more dense than water, and it spends its life “bobbing around” in the depths. It feeds on crabs and lobsters and so suffers a significant threat from fishing trawlers.  Though inedible, they are often caught as bycatch in bottom trawling nets, prompting scientists to fear for their ongoing survival, notes Huffington Post.