"Rabbits love getting stroked on their nose," Quintana tweeted with the video.
Rabbits love getting stroked on their nose pic.twitter.com/aYOZGAY6kP
— Dan Quintana (@dsquintana) August 18, 2019
Not sure if rubbing left looking rabbit on the nose
— ꜱᴡᴀᴘɴɪʟ ಠ_ಠ ʙʜᴀᴛɪᴀ (@synbiocs) August 18, 2019
or
an upward looking bird on the head (ears=beak) pic.twitter.com/RxTMwWD7za
The optical illusion came to life, it's official, someone has a magic pen!!! pic.twitter.com/EDX84LTzT8
— Keisha Renee (@Broadwaybandit5) August 20, 2019
— Brainoscience (@brainoscience) August 18, 2019
CNN reported that those who think they see a bird are correct. The original video appears to have been uploaded to Instagram in May 2017 by Paige Davis, a curator of bird training at World Bird Sanctuary in Valley Park, Missouri.
Quintana said he shared the video based on the old rabbit/duck illusion.
"The static bird/rabbit illusion is well-known within psychology and philosophy, so when I saw a video, I thought it would be interesting to share it, " Quintana told CNet in an email.
"I thought it was fairly clear that the video was of a bird... as you can see the translucent nictitating membrane sweep across the eye horizontally (rabbits don't have membranes like this) and the positioning of the 'ears' are a little strange," he said.
Davis became aware of the viral tweet, and said that the bird is a raven named Mischief.
"Mischief is quite the talk on Twitter today! (Video in my story)," she posted Wednesday. "I can assure you that he is in fact a raven. And a talented raven at that!"
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