BBC News
By Victoria Gill
image copyrightB.G. THOMSON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
image captionFrogmouths are nocturnal birds, hence the very large eyes, which may have contributed to their popularity
You don t often read the word instagrammable in a scientific paper.
But a recently published study that asked what makes a great bird photo? has officially deemed the frogmouth the most instagrammable of avians.
The result led the researchers to use another term that I have seldom read in an academic study: poetic justice . The frogmouth was once designated the world s most unfortunate-looking bird .
It has now been redeemed by Instagram s millions of animal photography fans.
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.”
BBC News
By Victoria Gill
image copyrightB.G. THOMSON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
image captionFrogmouths are nocturnal birds, hence the very large eyes, which may have contributed to their popularity
You don t often read the word instagrammable in a scientific paper.
But a recently published study that asked what makes a great bird photo? has officially deemed the frogmouth the most instagrammable of avians.
The result led the researchers to use another term that I have seldom read in an academic study: poetic justice . The frogmouth was once designated the world s most unfortunate-looking bird .
It has now been redeemed by Instagram s millions of animal photography fans.
Why is this the 'most instagrammable' bird? yahoo.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from yahoo.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.