I don’t think the least interesting animal would be one we know nothing about because the unknown is inherently interesting. The least interesting animal, in my opinion, would be one that we know enough about, but it doesn’t do anything too unique compared to other animals, and is otherwise very average and uncharismatic.
There is a bird known as the Large-billed Reed Warbler which was once known as the “World’s Least Known Bird.” It’s just a warbler, which looks and acts similar to other similar warblers. But now people know more about the bird, and there are certainly more enigmatic birds.
So the idea is you take an animal you struggle to find anything to talk about it, maybe an expert will chime in who actually knows a lot more about the animal, or at least inspire people to look more into that animal if it is something we truly don’t know much about. The if we talk about the least interesting animal today, it won’t be the least interesting animal tomorrow, and that is kind of the point.
I think the lesson from this is, humanity is so diverse, and apparently the iNat forum is so huge, that it is never difficult to find interest in a given taxon. @lawrence_from_california , you may have asked an impossible question.
But those two specialists would be able to tell you enough about their invertebrates to raise them from bottom place in the Interesting league table.
And species that no one knows anything about are interesting for the potential discoveries that could be made. Who wouldn’t want to be presented with an unknown and challenged to find out what it eats, where it breeds, how long it lives, etc.
I think the difficulty with answering the topic question is that the quality of “interesting” isn’t inherent in the target animal, it’s what a human decides about that animal, and this can change from moment to moment / person to person depending on other factors. The “why” would come from what triggers the chemicals in your brain that give you the feeling of interest - maybe for you dogs, cats and horses feel too ordinary, too much like what everyone always says they like, and maybe you get more enjoyment from being outside of the general crowd (I don’t know?). I take greater interest in things I haven’t seen before, or things I’ve only seen rarely. But, my interest can also be rekindled when I learn something new about something I lost interest in previously, or even just encountering it in a new setting.
Hey, this is the first time I’ve seen a house fly in Delaware! (if it’s winter and I’m really desperate to see another living thing…)
Here’s a Viola with a color mutation, what’s causing that?
Sometimes the level of difficulty of finding something can make it more interesting - whether harder or easier to find, depending on the level of motivation the seeker feels. Someone new may need something easy to spark them. There are so many variables to consider. I’ve been at the tail end of long iNat treks and felt like I was so tired nothing could possibly motivate me to take another photo, and then found a slime mold that I couldn’t pass up. My pictures typically suffer at that stage, but better to have some lesser photos than to miss out on a slime mold!
That’s true. I would consider the California Towhee to be one of the least interesting birds to me. It’s just a drab sparrow, not too charismatic, very common. But it is a common bird to comes to feeders, so if it’s the first bird that comes to your feeder, and it keeps coming back, you’d grow an attachment to it. It might also show up out of its usual range, where it would be a more interesting bird for the people there.
I want to know what factors are you considering? Being humanlike is a non-factor for me, but I don’t even feel like gorillas or orangutans are all that humanlike. Like genetically of course and maybe behaviorally, sure, but I feel like the monkeys that live in cities and steal from tourists feel more humanlike.
I disagree. While a lot of people have animosity towards humans and putting up comparisons with obviously strong animals like beetles, gorillas, etc, Humans are one of the most interesting animals on the planet. Humans muscles are generally suited for endurance and strength, so they can continue chasing after prey, sometimes for miles, until the prey simply cant keep up. Humans are one of if not the only species that has ever truly mastered “throwing”. Throw a rock, a spear, whatever and you are doing something that humans do better than most other species. We are so normalized to what we do every day that we don’t realize that these “mundane” seeming things are truly remarkable in the animal kingdom.
What we cant do in terms of physical ability we make up for in innovation and tools- one of our strongest aspects. I used to be part of the group that didnt like humans in general but I have since changed because we are ecosystem engineers and vital to hundreds of thousands if not millions of species worldwide. If everyone decided to stop prescribed burns tomorrow, many grassland and other fire adapted species would almost certainly go extinct after a certain time. Almost every species that has “house” in its name would decline in population drastically, and many endangered species, while we did originally cause them to decline, would almost certainly end up going extinct without conservation efforts to stave off invasive species.
I think humans are fascinating and one of the most interesting species on the planet. Not because I am one, but because we do have a place in the animal kingdom, most people have just forgotten.
I do not think I would be able to name a single least interesting animal. Every species has at least one thing that is interesting about its biology, even if its mundane. Sure there might be hundreds of different rodent species with almost the same life histories and looks- but I think the very fact that they all have the same life history, having evolved multiple times, or even just being the ancestral norm, is fundamentally interesting to me.
Or, take the genus Rattus. 72 species, all of wich look very similar; and yet, three of these species have become global pests, while many others remain narrow endemics and habitat specialists.
As to the global pests:
25,000 observations of Brown Rat
11,799 observations of Black Rat
95 observations of Polynesian Rat
But at the other end of the spectrum:
0 observations of Moss-forest Rat
1 observation of Koopman’s Peleng Island Rat
2 observations of Vogelkop Mountain Rat
In fact, only 34 of the 72 Rattus species have any observations at all.