This thread will be similar to another that's already out there, but I wanted this one to focus specifically on beauty - are there any animals that you are nonplussed by when you look at pictures on the internet, but you find stunning when you are at the zoo? For me, this happens often with birds. I find the colors in photos are not adequately captured because of the way the light reflects off their feathers. Whenever I used to look at pictures of the blue-crowned motmot, for example, I would think to myself, "Why are they so popular?" They were such a plain-looking bird! Then I saw one in a zoo and was impressed with how pretty they actually are. Anyone else have species like this, where you were impressed by them only AFTER seeing them in person?
Seconded on the okapis. There's something so beautiful about them that just doesn't seem to translate well into photographs. Ever since I saw one in person for the first time they became my favorite animal.
Scarlet ibis for sure! The colours in photographs just never look like the colours of a real ibis. Same to eclectus parrots. For mammals, I immediately think of banteng: they look like quite uninteresting bovines in pictures, but they look stunning in real life! Their fur is so beautiful!
The thing that you can't get from a still picture and that you don't always get from video is the movement of the species. Some seem incapable of grace and elegance - it's just not in the nature of a warthog or giant tortoise: on the other hand some species are always graceful - all the species of bee-eaters that I have seen in flight are wonderful, they are mostly attractively coloured too, but all are so elegant. Another species that I always remember as breathtaking is the fairy blue flycatcher (not a zoo species) which is prettily coloured but very graceful too. Finally there are the species with iridescent colours, where movement causes the colours to shimmer if the light is good. I once saw a male Madame Verreaux's sunbird in the wild, it was wonderful. When this sort of colouring is displayed in courtship it can be breathtaking - two of the most spectacular I have seen in private collections are Cyathopharynx furcifer and Benthochromis tricoti (check them out on YouTube). Alan
The Sumantran tiger has a lovely, vibrant orange coloring that looks nice in photos, but even nicer in person.
