A video of an animal having its head scratched is dividing the internet as people can’t decide if it’s a bird or a rabbit.
It’s always entertaining to see social media go into meltdown as a result of optical illusions, though I don’t think this post will cause quite as many arguments as the black and blue or white and gold dress.
The video, shared on Imgur and spread across Twitter, shows a black creature receiving a nice little head massage from an unidentified human.
Check it out:
The video was posted on Twitter with the caption ‘Rabbits love getting stroked on their nose’, immediately placing the expectation of a rabbit into the viewer’s mind.
With that expectation set, at first glance it’s easy to see a rabbit. Seeing someone stroke a rabbit wouldn’t be an unusual sight; they’re pretty common pets. However, as soon as you realise it also looks a bit like a bird, it makes it more difficult to decipher whether you’re looking at a rabbit having its nose scratched or a bird having the back of its head scratched.
What could be the beak of the bird could also be the ears of a rabbit and its dark colour combined with the obstructive stroking hand make it difficult to see whether there’s a little nose twitching away.
The video has been viewed over one million times, with many people responding with their guesses and some simply expressing their distress at the scene.
One Twitter user wrote:
My brain is broken. Is this a crow or a rabbit?!!
Another tweeted:
Wait now I never would see a rabbit by only looking at it, then I saw it, but I keep seeing the crow more… Which is it?
Wait now I never would see a rabbit by only looking at it, then I saw it, but I keep seeing the crow more… Which is it? 🙆
— Marmelo (@haaZiggyDee) August 20, 2019
Though there is a bit of immediate confusion, it only takes a few moments of scrutiny to realise it’s much more likely to be a bird. Its beak is sharp and shiny and I can quite confidently say rabbit’s ears aren’t located one on top of the other.
Lots of Twitter users agree:
This is 100% a crow. There is no rabbit mouth you can see inside the beak (rabbit ears don’t look like that) but I can definitely understand being tricked by it
— Kana ak sia (@Kanasgay) August 20, 2019
this is a crow, a rabbit does not have the ears that are facing each other u can’t fool me https://t.co/7Dtwp5L3Zh
— Amanda del Rosario (@timtamanda__) August 20, 2019
After having determined it’s almost definitely a bird, one of the more difficult mysteries surrounding this video is what kind of bird it actually is. Some social media users have said it’s a crow, others are arguing a raven and one person threw a curveball by suggesting it’s a magpie.
According to Audubon, ravens are larger and have longer middle feathers in their tails, while crows’ tail feathers are all basically the same length. Of course, this doesn’t help us because we can’t see the bird’s tail.
The post on Imgur names the bird as ‘Quoth the Raven’, so that might be our answer, though many Twitter users seem content with labelling the creature simply as a ‘crow/raven’.
I'm with you on that. Kept wondering why I could see someone stroking the back and sides of a crow/raven's head rather than the rabbit mentioned in the caption…
— Val Phillips (@ValPhillips71) August 19, 2019
Both birds actually belong in the same family, so we can cover all the bases and just say it’s most likely a video of someone stroking a bird from the Corvidae family.
So there you have it. That was a fun way to waste time, wasn’t it?
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.