The claim
A photo of a brightly colored bird with at least eight legs makes users amazed, but also doubts their eyesight.
Our conclusion
This is a real photo of an African Jacana, which can walk on water even on the thinnest vegetation with its long legs and extremely long, slender toes and claws. In this picture, a male is carrying four chicks under his wings so that their legs and toes hang down. The photo was taken by wildlife photographer Charl Stols.
A photo of a bird with eight legs (we're not sure - is it eight? Or nine?) was posted on the Birds Facebook page. As you scroll through, you might think for a moment, “Nice photo,” keep scrolling, but then it starts rattling in the upper room: “What was that...??” - you scroll back and try to see how many legs this bird has. And it is obvious to suspect that this was a somewhat unsuccessful creation of an image AI.
Thankfully the Birds site has added all the information here. So we don't have to start a lengthy fact check, but we can use this information to quickly check that this is actually a photograph of a bird as it was out in the wild.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
African Jacana – Blue-fronted Jacana
As “Birds” writes here, the photo was taken by photographer Charl Stols. He posted this photo on Instagram on March 23, 2020.
“With the arrival of floodwaters on the Chobe River, fields of water lilies and other aquatic plants form, the nesting grounds for the African jacana.
Charl Stols on Instagram
Some of the males are still incubating the eggs, while others are busy caring for the chicks. In this picture, a male is carrying all four chicks under his wings, exposing their long legs and toes. The image was taken during a pangolin photo safari on the Chobe River in Kasane, Botswana.”
So there are a total of five pairs of legs in the photo, and you can see a large part of them.
In addition to their striking coloring, these unusual wading birds can be recognized by their long legs and extremely long, slender toes and claws. This allows them to distribute their weight evenly and even walk across the water on thin and weak floating vegetation, writes Birdfact .
Nature outshines any AI
Honestly: If we feed an AI our ideas, then it probably wouldn't be a bird with eight or more legs. We might think of letting a weasel fly through the air on a woodpecker. But there is already a real photo of it ( HERE ).
Even though we are now very challenged when it comes to recognizing or anticipating AI-generated images, nature likes to trick us here or there.
Conclusion
The photo is real. It is a photo of the African Jacana, in German: Blue-fronted Jacana . In this particular case it is a male who carries his offspring with him under his feathers. The long legs and toes allow the little ones to dangle out from underneath.
The photo was taken by wildlife photographer Charl Stols in Botswana.
Source:
Charl Stols/Instagram , birdfact.com , ebird.org , zootierliste.de
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