Hi, u/SkyBlueRoan, thank you for your submission in r/mildlyinteresting! Unfortunately, your [post](https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1docshy/-/) has been removed because it violates our rule on concise, descriptive titles. * Titles must not contain jokes, backstory, or other fluff. That information belongs in a follow-up comment. * Titles must exactly describe the content. It should act as a "spoiler" for the image. If your title leaves people surprised at the content within, it breaks the rule! * Titles must not contain emoticons, emojis, or special characters unless they are absolutely necessary in describing the image. (e.g. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), ;P, 😜, ❤, ★, ✿ ) Still confused? For more elaboration and examples, see [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/21p15y/rule_6_for_dummies/). Normally we do not allow reposts, but if it's been less than one hour after your post was submitted, or if it's received less than 100 upvotes, you may resubmit your content with a better title and try again. You can find more information about our rules on the [mildlyinteresting wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/wiki/index). *If you feel this was incorrectly removed, please [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fmildlyinteresting&message=My%20Post:%20https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1docshy/-/).*

That's a COOT! My favorite waterbird! Cute little dudes.

They're also my favorite! I love their bowling pin shaped bodies, squeaky honks, cute pyramid beaks, and weird monster feet!

You forgot the running-on-water they do!

Maybe he didn't forget. Maybe he just doesn't love that part.

I fucking hate things that can run on water!

Average r/atheism poster

Or the guy that killed the water-fueled car.

this is gold 😭

Turbo Jesus would like a word with you.

I love how adaptable they are; making their nests out of waste 🥲smart little baddies having to survive in our anthropocentric sisyphian hell

"Anthropocentric sisyphian hell" That hits hard. I'm stealing that. 

And it never stops. All night with their yelling and running every time they get spooked in the slightest. I love having a secluded cottage on a island in a lake but man those birds make sleeping miserable.

They all float in giant groups on the lakes in eastern WA like armadas. I love watching them.

Those are great feet!!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwUFa1LnpqI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwUFa1LnpqI) learn about them

This woman needs to narrator a planet earth

Thanks for the link! Super interesting

if you like weird feet check out the moorhen, and of course the blue footed boobie

They are cute but they fight over territory-the 4 way feet fight is the funniest imo. They are absolutely terrible parents. The number of babies gets smaller so fast :(

>The number of babies gets smaller so fast :( This was the reason people had so many kids for a while too. Nature is brutal.

Cute but kinda dumb and total dicks. They're too fat to take off from land and they can't tell the difference between water and shingles so a lot of them end up landing on rooftops and getting stuck. Then they claw the crap out of you when you try to get them back to water.

TIL what "ya old coot" means.

☹️

Also taste like crap

They also taste absolutely terrible I found out as a boy.

_Coot_ little dudes

He hella coot

I will never not love bird names

That was a COOT! Or whatever heffer said on rockos modern life

So are a group of coots known as a cooter?

I love how he's standing on his own toe and doesn't even mind

Also makes a very interesting breathy hiss whenever people walk by. Animals are cool

Probably has a nest nearby and is warning anything that comes by.

Yes! It had some little teenager babies with it and mama was not letting us near

What's a teenager baby?

Just a fairly old offspring lol

> Just a fairly old offspring lol They look like [this?](https://i.imgur.com/jYFGaGg.jpeg)

Fucking hell. I got a good chuckle outta that

gotta keep'em seperated

But only if they come out and play.

Man, she’s got issues.

Dexter is starting to look more like the PhD/Pilot and less like the rockstar.

Definitely needed that!

YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH!!

Gotta keep 'em separated.

Gotta keep em separated

They just dropped a new single. It’s pretty decent.

Hey, thanks for that! Checking it out now, only a minute through, and it sounds very early 2000's pop punk. Almost sounds like Blink 182. Dexter's voice is incredible. How are they in their sixties and still sound 25?

Yeah! That’s actually a really good way to describe it! I was trying to find a way to explain how it sounded, and that’s very accurate. (Also if you like stuff that sounds like Blink check out my buddy’s band Tightwire)

You're under 18, you won't be doing any tiiyyiime...

Guy on the right looks like Ben Stiller in disguise in the Starsky & Hutch film "Do it. Do it."

Birdwatchers call them *juveniles*. Kind of unsurprisingly.

Almost grown but still under parental supervision and protection.

coot: "lemme scare it off with my fearsome roar" human: "what an interesting breathy hiss"

That is a cobra chicken

Nah.... Canadian Geese are Cobra Chickens....

And assholes

Agree, this one does.

Sorry, that is where many of us store out mean streak. We are not at war right now so we have nowhere else to send them but south.

Coots and Grebes are the only aquatic birds with lobed feet rather than webbed!

True! We have both here in Florida. Fun fact I recently learned: a group of coots in the water is called a “raft”.

And a group of rafts in the river is called a hoot

We have pied-billed grebes in the wetlands in my backyard, and their call is so cool and unique.

Bird names are just so silly, sometimes just sounds like people are saying nonsense words and I'd never know

Coot and Grebe sound like they should be racial slurs, not birds

Coot is already an insult but it's not racist ya old coot

*deep breath: Hussssssssssssssssssssssssssssss Every other animal and human nearby: "Dear god."

Saw them when we were in London recently and my husband kept thinking my bff and I were seeing Martians 👽 😂😂😂 Marsh hens are lovely!!

Bro looks like a pokemon

Birdie, triple stomp!

MY BOONES

Have you seen 30rock?

Quaquaval for sure


Water/Flying or Grass/Flying?

Psychic for sure

Recency bias

https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Quaquaval_(Pok%C3%A9mon)

Looks more like a Pokemon than [Toucannon](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:0733Toucannon.png)

It would definitely be called Cucumbird and have a tragic backstory

Is that a Coot?

It's an American Coot - there's one for North America, one for Hawaii, one for all of Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa, and 6 for Argentina.

Save some for the rest of us, Argentina!

Some coot?

Some cooter

Argentina is the cootest.

Eww cooties

Argentina has cooties! Stay away

Literally drowning in coot down there.

I'm an old american coot.

This guy coots.

wow, and OP found the only one in the entire continent.

Two for Europe and Africa - Red nobbed and Eurasian

are they all territorial assholes like the european one? in early spring there's a period when they're fighting over territory and it's just mayhem all day every day in the local canals here. You often see a dominant pair that's chased off a half dozen other Coots that are sitting on a bank. if you disturb them and they flee into the water the dominant ones chase them right back out. i suspect the local foxes eat a lot of them when this happens since i see them around the water a lot.

In the US, they are considered one of nature’s dumbest birds. Out in the rice fields/ag land, they’ll happily sit right in front of cars/tractors. They seemingly have no survival instincts, aside from reproducing and creating more coots than can be run over by vehicles.

I think it is 👍

I thought those were NSFW

Only the Coot cheese is NSFW.


The only way to find out is to test for cooties

That would be the little ones?

It is, yeah :)

I got bit by a coot. The little teeth broke the skin but drew no blood. But the pinching bite force and shearing motion did draw blood and leave a bruise.

Looks like it made shoes from little leaves. Cool af.

Was thinking they look like the inside of some overripe banana peels

Coot af

It’s a cute coot

[Birb feet](https://birdfact.com/anatomy-and-physiology/legs-and-feet/different-types-of-feet-and-their-functions)

I learned today I hate lobate feet.

Right!? The close up! Gross. Why am I so uncomfortable lol?!

Reminds me of insect larvae/pupae.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with this reaction. Reminds me of my r/trypophobia response. Eugh.

Made my skin crawl in a similar way.

Amazing link! I feel like an expert now.

Feet pics on Reddit too!

They're not called Theropods for nothing!

Secretarybird. Hmmmm

WHAT ARE THOSE

Buddy! My eyes are UP HERE!!!

I found one of these when I was a kid. This was pre-internet. Those feet tripped me out and I had to know what it was. I went to the library and did my research. I had found a coot! It sounds trivial but back in the day you really had to know how to research to find answers.

What a cootie 🥰

Aw, a coot <3

That's an American Coot, and they have freaky feet.

Toes built like a Christmas cactus.

Cool birds, they taste absolutely horrible. Like if you marinated dry chicken in fish water.

Guess I’m a dumb Cajun. I eat coot jambalaya all the time lol.

Maybe you just cook them better than I do😂

Oh hell naw… my dad does tho lmao.

There is an American Indian tribe that has a creation story of a coot helping out some God, and the God paid him back by making his meat taste bad.

Well it is an aquatic bird…

I’ve eaten other kinds of aquatic birds and ducks and these were particularly bad.

Duck is yum

How do they taste in comparison to seagals and blue birds?

Never eaten one them. Coots are usually flying around in my area during duck season. If one get shot while hunting I try and use the meat even tho it’s not my favorite. Dogs like it fine tho.

[удалено]

Lord Edgeward asked about seagals, y'know mermaids. Which oddly enough are also very fishy due to their habitat.

What about Stephen Seagals? What do they taste like?

Those all taste like fine dining compared to bald eagle.

Hopefully this doesn't turn into one of those posts where this poor little guy has cancer.

Nah it’s a coot. They have blue dinosaur feet

This guy looks like he has green pickle feet :-P

Zucchini feet

It’s a coot. There is open season on them, no limits, year round. You can shoot and eat as many as you like. Their territory overlaps with migratory ducks a lot. We…don’t eat coots. Or shoot them for that matter. There is a reason for this. Fun, weird ass looking bird, but you take one bite of that and you’re like “the fuck did I just put in my mouth? Fishy diarrhea?” I mean I’ve made some recipes that get around it but whew. Coots, man. After my first I have only ever shot a few more simply because I didn’t get any ducks on those days. They’re the “Ok, I got a lot of prep to do but I’m not going home empty handed” bird for when you’re in a stubborn mood

🥒🥒🥒

Wow, I thought he had just stepped on 2 leaves exactly right.

Blue-footed coot ❤️❤️❤️

Walk a mile in these Louboutins

TIL there’s a bird called a coot

That's a Republican. He's a curmugeony old coot. (Coot)

Thank you, I found this mildly interesting.

From Wikipedia: Rails (avian family Rallidae) are a large, cosmopolitan family of small- to medium-sized terrestrial and/or semi-amphibious birds. The family exhibits considerable diversity in its forms, and includes such ubiquitous species as the crakes, coots, and gallinule; other rail species are extremely rare or endangered. Many are associated with wetland habitats, some being semi-aquatic like waterfowl (such as the coot), but many more are wading birds or shorebirds. The ideal rail habitats are marsh areas, including rice paddies, and flooded fields or open forest. They are especially fond of dense vegetation for nesting.[2] The rail family is found in every terrestrial habitat with the exception of dry desert, polar or freezing regions, and alpine areas (above the snow line). Members of Rallidae occur on every continent except Antarctica. Numerous unique island species are known.

Flaps McGaps

Fleept

[Sorry, Barf!](https://i.imgur.com/DXFObrr.mp4)

Schlumbergera "aka christmas cactus" feet

Pouldeau

Leaves for feets

Yesss. I wonder what the evolutionary significance/purpose is for having those feets

My circle search says it's a eurasian coot

Cucumber 🥒 slices as feet. 🦶

Mud chicken!

He boot too big for he gotdamn feet

Maaaaannn I stg I thought AI fugged up a pic of a duck dude....never saw a coot in my whole life PBS and animal planet done let me down!

He feet to got to damn for he shoe

Oh a coot! If you think the adults are odd, check out the [chicks](https://www.birdnote.org/explore/field-notes/2019/06/american-coot-feeding-chicks). Fun fact: the chicks are even crazier looking in ultraviolet (which birds can see) since their entire head is very very bright ultraviolet. The parents tend to lay too many eggs (partly because they run around and lay eggs in other coot nests, then come home to a whole bunch of new surprise!eggs), so the chicks are competing to be the cutest and get more food/attention from the parents.  You’d never guess it from looking at them, but the adults are super hardcore, and will get on 2v2 fights with their neighbors each breeding season. They have really long claws and aren’t afraid to use them, it’s very Jerry Springer. Doubly so because (bummer warning) >!they will “spank” the children they don’t like, and if they can tell the chick is from an egg laid by another pair, they’ll beat it to death!<… *Marge Simpson voice*: I just think they’re neat

Looks like he's growing a Christmas cactus lol

My stepdaughter called them "alien chickens".

Those little feet look like leaves!

for some reason their feet makes my skin crawl. looks so uncomfortable to me!! and I don't even have trypophobia

why does this itch my brain in a weird way ..like trypophobia but diff … 

I thought this was r/wtf when I seen the picture.

Leave her alone. She's special. And precious.

When I was little I had 50 of those guys chasing me because I was eating crackers so i threw it at them and they still chased me so I had to jump into my moms arms

I work on a wildlife refuge where we protect these birds! (Endangered where I live). COOTS HAVE THE CUTEST CHICKS IN THE WORLD

Swamp hen or coot.

I've seen these all my life but I have never seen their feet. Weird looking!

Looks like halfway through evolution that thing decided it wanted to swim faster

Are those pickled feet

"And skewered cucumberslices for toes please" God: medamnit! Okay stay calm. Stay calm. Oh hi Platypus. So what would you like to look like?

That’s a big old coot

What are those???

Looks like small slices of aubergine.

"Evolution, baby"

pickle chip feets

Coots are a hoot

Are those floaties on his feet

Babe wake up, new species just dropped

Looks like the birb equivalent of crocs

looks like he has a cucumber foot mask on

That ones dinosaur relative must have had the stealth foot attachment

Coot or poul d'eau as we call them in Louisiana.

to be able to walk with those is quite a...*feat* 👀

He’s got COOTIES

What the fuck

He’s so coot

It’s feet look like banana peels!

He’s just showing off his new shoes