Bird That Looks Like A Nightmare From The Muppets Goes Viral

The existence of the Shoebill often spreads online thanks to the very…peculiar look of the African bird. A video of one Shoebill has once again gone viral on Twitter with the user noting they, like so many before them, can’t believe it’s real. To put it eloquently, they noted their surprise that the bird isn’t actually “something from ‘A muppets f***ing nightmare festival.’” As of this writing the tweet itself has over 13.4k likes online and 3.7k retweets. Check it out for yourself below and marvel at its very startling and Henson-like appearance below.

Shoebill’s native to the middle part of Africa including South Sudan. Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, and others. The species is considered “Vulnerable” and has been on the list since 2004 with less than 10,000 of them left in the wild. Their peculiar bill, which does a lot of the heavy lifting for its Muppet like appearance, has multiple uses in the wild as the San Diego Zoo writes:

“Over 7 inches (19 centimeters) long, and nearly as wide, it is also cavernous inside—and a handy container for fish prey, as well as water to douse its eggs or chicks with, as needed. Oh, and it’s a musical instrument! Shoebills perform bill clapping to drive away interlopers and woo mates; males and females have different tones to their ‘clapping.’”

Those eager to see more of the Muppets, thought seemingly without the presence of a Shoebill, are in luck. The new the short-form series Muppets Now will be coming to Disney+ this summer and is scheduled to begin streaming on July 31st.

The first season of Muppets Now will consist of six episodes. It tells the story of Scooter, who is given the task of delivering and uploading the new Muppets streaming TV series. He’s running late to get the show going, so he will need to overcome any obstacles in his way. As with most other Muppet projects, Muppets Now is going to be packed with guest star surprises, though none of them have been revealed just yet.

A second series for Disney+ titled Muppets Live Another Day was previously reported to be in development but was ultimately scrapped.

(Cover photo by Dionys Moser/McPhoto/ullstein bild via Getty Images)