Mr Skämtkvist, I presume?

 

Credit: Musée zoologique de la ville Strasbourg

In 1961, a truly bizarre biology book appeared in Germany, “Bau und Leben der Rhinogradentia” by one Harald Stümpke. It was translated to English in 1967 as “The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades” and is still considered to be something of a classic. 

While the book is apparently written in a dry, scholarly style (I never read it, although I might perhaps have seen it in some library), it´s actually an elaborate spoof. A Swedish reader would have discovered this immediately, since the setting of the book is a Pacific archipelago supposedly discovered by Einar Pettersson-Skämtkvist during World War II. Yes, “skämt” means “joke” in Swedish, “Skämtkvist” clearly not being a real name. 

The archipelago is named Hi-yi-yi and its unique fauna of so-called snouters was destroyed together with the islands by a nearby American nuclear test, which also killed all scientists studying the weird animals, including the unfortunate Stümpke. His illustrator Gerolf Steiner saved his manuscript, however, and published the research. In reality, Steiner is of course the real author…

Personally, I´m not *that* much of a phylogeny nerd to really appreciate the joke, but as already indicated, the book´s bizarre claims about non-existent animals are made with an entirely straight face, complete with evolutionary diagrams, Greek and Latin explainers, and what not. It´s therefore popular among science aficionados who are into “speculative biology”, artistic endeavors or (perhaps) April Fool´s jokes. I´m not sure if it can really fool anyone, though (I wouldn´t have been tricked by it even as a child).

Links below to sites discussing this remarkable thought-experiment…

The Snouters or Rhinogradentians

The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades

Rhinogradentia