The Brief: The internet is divided over a video of what could either be a rabbit or a raven. See for yourself and find out the truth!

Bluesquiggle
DEEP DIVE

Is the dress blue and black or white and gold? Is it Yanny or Laurel? Is this a rabbit, a raven, or some kind of new hybrid animal?

The latest question to grasp hold of the internet’s limited attention span is whether this cute little animal is a rabbit or a raven. What do you see? A bunny or a crow?

This video has been going viral on Twitter, with people unsure whether those are rabbit ears or a raven’s beak.

Rabbit Or Raven?

Ready for the truth? This fuzzy lil creature is, in fact, a raven. This white necked raven is named Mischief and lives at the World Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis, Missouri.

Dan Quintana, a researcher in biological psychiatry who played a large part in starting the Twitter debate over what type of animal Mischief is published an analysis of why this question was so hard for many people to answer. The post was in part an allusion to the bird-rabbit illusion popularized by Jospeh Jastrow in 1900.

It seems that Mischief has been up to some mischief, indeed with his uncanny resemblance to a rabbit, at least in that one video. Even before the Rabbit vs. Raven debate started, Mischief had been causing a stir on social media, starring in dozens of videos posted by the World Bird Sanctuary and by Page Davis, the curator of bird training at the organization.

Mischief is an educational ambassador for the World Bird Sanctuary who has starred in a campaign encouraging people to recycle.

He’s also an accomplished painter and his original artwork is occasionally up for sale.

That’s not all…Mischief also talks! As a Corvid, Mischief is highly-skilled at the art of mimicry, even without a split tongue.