biology

Ugly Animal Preservation Society

Ugly Animal Preservation Society is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ugly Animal Preservation Society rather than just read about it. In short: The Ugly Animal Preservation Society is a comedy night with a conservation twist founded in Great Britain by biologist, writer and TV presenter Simon Watt to raise the profile of animal species which lack traditional aesthetically appealing characteristics. In part it is based on the belief that conservation of charismatic megafauna like pandas attracts disproportionate amounts of funding that could be better spent…

Ugly Animal Preservation Society — illustration

Key takeaways

Ugly Animal Preservation Society belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ugly Animal Preservation Society to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ugly Animal Preservation Society from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Ugly Animal Preservation Society is a comedy night with a conservation twist founded in Great Britain by biologist, writer and TV presenter Simon Watt to raise the profile of animal species which lack traditional aesthetically appealing characteristics. In part it is based on the belief that conservation of charismatic megafauna like pandas attracts disproportionate amounts of funding that could be better spent elsewhere. The organisation aims to protect less attractive animals such as the proboscis monkey which also face threats. The first show was held in London in October 2012, with additional events elsewhere including at the 2013 Brighton Science Festival. Simon Makin found the Brighton event "a completely unique evening's entertainment, with plenty of knowledge nuggets thrown in amongst the giggles"., the Cheltenham Science Festival, the Edinburgh Science Festival, the Green Man Festival in Wales, the Winchester Science Festival, The British Science Festival, Bristol Big Green Week and other events and festivals around the country. Simon comperes each evening where between six and eight comedians each have ten minutes to champion a different ugly endangered species. At the end of each evening the audience votes to elect one of the species. Previous performers have included Ellie Taylor, Helen Arney, Dan Schreiber, Sarah Bennetto, Suzi Ruffell, Steve Cross, Dean Burnett and Iszi Lawrence. Current ugly animal mascots include: for London, the proboscis monkey; for Cambridge, forms of endangered sea slug; for Bristol and Cheltenham, the three toed sloth; for Winchester, the Titicaca water frog; for Brighton, the naked mole-rat and for Newcastle the dugong. Promachoteuthis sulcus, championed by Jennifer Harrison, was elected to be the Edinburgh mascot. Jennifer referred to it as the "gob faced squid" because of its disturbingly human-like mouth. This name has since been adopted as the common name for the species. In September 2013 the Ugly Animal Preservation Society teamed up with the National Science and Engineering Competition to create some online educational resources including eleven election style videos allowing people world wide to vote for what should become the general mascot for the society. The campaign gained international press coverage and was supported online by tweets from many celebrities including Stephen Fry, Liz Bonnin and Simon Pegg. Votes were counted by monitoring the number of likes on each of the election videos. The winning animal, declared the ugliest animal on Earth, championed by Paul Foot and the official mascot of the society is the blobfish.

References

External links Ugly Animal Preservation Society Simon Watt Archived 2013-10-14 at the Wayback Machine at Ready, Steady, Science! Interview with Watt, New Scientist

Illustrations

Logo of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ugly Animal Preservation Society

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ugly Animal Preservation Society claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ugly Animal Preservation Society before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ugly Animal Preservation Society ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ugly Animal Preservation Society

In research: Ugly Animal Preservation Society appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ugly Animal Preservation Society in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ugly Animal Preservation Society is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Animal conservation organizations, British comedy, Endangered species, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ugly Animal Preservation Society outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ugly Animal Preservation Society in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ugly Animal Preservation Society means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ugly Animal Preservation Society out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ugly Animal Preservation Society in simple terms?

Why does Ugly Animal Preservation Society matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ugly Animal Preservation Society?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ugly Animal Preservation Society.