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People are freaking out because they can’t tell if the animal in viral video is a bird or a rabbit

Is that fur or feathers?

Tod Perry
08.20.19
via Imgur

Every few years there's something that goes mega viral because people can't decide what it is.

There was the famous "is it blue and black, or white and gold" dress?

There was the audio recording that said either "yanny" or "Laurel."

Now people are scratching their heads and arguing whether the animal in a viral video is a bird or a rabbit. It all started when Imgur user Horseonbike shared a video of someone petting an animal with black fur (or feathers).

RELATED: Bizarre optical illusion has people either seeing a car door or the beach

This thing that has most people confused is the positioning of the "ears" of the rabbit or the "beak" of the bird.

The video started a heated debate on Twitter.

The image is very similar to the ambiguous sketch psychologist Joseph Jastrow created in 1899 to to demonstrate the power of suggestion.

via Wikimedia Commons

In one study, the image was shown to children around Easter and they tended to see the image as a rabbit. But when children were shown the image around October, more saw it as a duck.

RELATED: This freaky sketch is a mind-bending example of the power of suggestion

The image is an example of how we internally project our life experiences and assumptions onto ambiguous visual stimuli.

So what type of animal is in the video?

It's a corvidae or a member of the family of birds which includes crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers


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