Canberra's suspiciously-shaped owl statue has a new baby brother.

The recently installed phallic figure stands 2.4 metres tall on a roundabout in the town of Kikinda in northern Serbia.

It has been drawing ridicule locally and making world news for its striking silhouette.

Since the statue's erection a few weeks ago, it has faced stiff opposition on the town's Facebook page.

"Get this thing out of Serbia. Shame," one user said.

Another wrote that they loved owls, and they loved Kikinda, but labelled the sculpture a "failure".

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However, many residents expressed their admiration for the newest member of the neighbourhood.

"It's so beautiful that foreign journalists took pictures and filmed it," one woman said.

When private parts go public

It's certainly not a world first — that honour goes to Canberra's infamous 'penis owl'.

The statue on Belconnen Way in the city's north was installed in 2011, and is often a target for vandals.

Within one week of its installation, the artist, Bruce Armstrong, said he heard rumours that people thought it looked like a penis when viewed from behind.

On one side it's an owl, but on the other side ... ( ABC News )

The Serbian statue has similarly compromising angles when photographed, with the city taking down one such photo from its Facebook page.

Armstrong's statue has been immortalised online with its own Facebook page.

Armstrong told ABC Canberra in 2016 that he never intended for it to be viewed as anything other than an owl.

The Kikinda owl's creator, Jovan Blat, dismissed the alternate interpretation of his sculpture in a Serbian newspaper.

"I did a stylized sculpture of a male owl with an elongated, tubular body," he told Vecernje Novosti.

"It is clear … that everyone does not understand contemporary art."

Roger that.