With a duck-ish head, a body shaped like a chicken, and a pointy beak to match, the American Coot looks like the most impractical mash-up of birds—and that’s just in the water. On land, you can see another part of its wacky appearance: those feet. The bird’s long, yellow-green toes have two to three fleshy lobes that are attached to its tall, sturdy legs. The oversize, bizarre-looking feet are so striking that a vivid shot of them (above) featured in this year’s 探花精选 Photography Awards Top 100 gallery made a splash when it was recently posted on Instagram. Amid the flurry of “likes” and comments, some followers likened the coot’s feet to those of a dinosaur or even an alien. While its shape might look strange to the human eye, the curious configuration of the coot's foot makes the bird adept at getting around both on water and on land, unlike most other waterfowl. Comparable to webbing on a duck's foot, the palmate toes help a coot push through the...