If you saw a flock of sheep, and only one of them was black, which one would you look at?

Traditionally, the term black sheep comes with negative connotations, pariah, outcast, reject,

but in the literal sense, the black sheep is eye-catching. The black sheep forces us to question

a generalization as basic as sheep are white.

And so if we zoom out and think of entire species as sheep and groups of species as flocks,

then the black sheep, biology's rebels, the exceptions of the animal kingdom,

those black sheep species can make us reassess.

Bears are a group of species, a flock in our metaphor, that we view as vicious predators, typically.

So, of course, the panda bear, a cuddly herbivore, is the black sheep in that flock, and we want to

talk about them. Salamanders are a group of species that we normally think of as tiny,

and so the five-foot-long Japanese giant salamander is a hot topic, right?

Snakes are a group of species that we normally think of as ground dwellers,

and so the paradise flying snake is one that you just got to hear about. I'm not saying that these are the

only interesting animals. Absolutely not. Every single species on earth deserves their own

episode and the prototypical versions of animals are very diverse and very exciting, but today is an

outlier day. Today I want to talk about the black sheep of the parrot family, an animal who

breaks all the parrot rules and even breaks some bird rules. Black sheep actually isn't a strong

enough metaphor here. This animal is more like a zebra who got lost and ended up in the sheep pen.

The cockapoe.

Strigops Habroptilla.

I'm Mackin.

This is species.

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