Yaussy does admit that his method of highlighting especially bizarre animals may not be all that different than that of the panda-promoting World Wildlife Fund, a frequent target of his playful admonishment. The panda is the federation's "flagship species," he explains, which it uses with other charismatic creatures to promulgate the idea that saving the rainforest will, by extension, also save these beautiful animals. Whereas the WWF is "putting on the pretty face, I'm trying to pull in the 10-year-old boy in all of us to say, 'That's so cool!'" he remarks. At the end of the day, his hope is that "by saving the habitat, you'll save everything—the pretty things, the ugly things."
Stokes doesn't subscribe to that tidy idea entirely. Recent research has shown that the habitat of one highly endangered species rarely overlaps with that of another, he says. But he doesn't discount the usefulness of a central species for the purposes of education. The Stag Beetle Project, for instance, which is headed by the London Wildlife Trust, has helped raise awareness—and sterling pounds—for a large, fierce-looking insect.
By and large, he says, communities that can rally around one particular species, whether it's a monkey or a mollusk, do a better job adopting policies to protect biodiversity in general. But the key, he notes, is to be aware of our natural preference for some animals' appearance over others.
"This matters because people are going to increasingly be making the decision about what species survive and what don't," Stokes says. "So we want to be able to make sure that we make educated decisions."