Outrageous! These animals use their noses to walk and their ears to fly!

Not long ago, a shocking news came out from the Chinese Wikipedia: more than 200 Chinese Wikipedia entries on Russian history were originally compiled by a person with only a high school education!

This author played a virtual battle game. In order to increase the advantage of her territory, she made up a bunch of mineral deposits, characters, forces, wars... The author was banned by Wikipedia on June 17, and the literary world lost a great master.

This reminds me of another "literary giant" whose stories not only went beyond his country and spread to the world, but also have been popular for more than 50 years. The field he wrote was zoology: On the other side of the sea, there is a group of animals that walk with their noses.

This guy really didn't write this! | One Piece

The creator of the world of nose-walking beasts

The story of nose-walking animals began in 1945. In Darmstadt, Germany, zoologist and scientific illustrator Gerolf Karl Steiner drew a picture of a monster that walks on its nose as a thank you to his students. He loved the idea and created more and more monsters. Steiner's works were widely welcomed by students and colleagues and became a rare entertainment during the war.

It is no longer known what the first picture looked like, but Steiner later drew many proboscis animals. This is one of them. | Gerolf Karl Steiner

Steiner's imagination grew bigger and bigger. He not only added Latin literary names, taxonomy, embryonic morphology, behavior, and ecology to the rhinoceros beasts, but also added complex anatomical structure diagrams. Finally, he created a world of rhinoceros beasts as complete as "The Lord of the Rings".

Encouraged by his colleagues, he compiled the "world of rhinogradients" into a book, Bau und Leben der Rhinogradentia, which was published by Gustav Fisher Verlag in 1960. The following year, Der Speigel magazine commented on the book: "German professors actually have a sense of humor, which is unimaginable to most Germans."

Books by Nosewalker | Amazon

The "Nose-walking Beast Book" has since become popular, with French, English, Japanese and Italian versions appearing one after another. Fans are all over the world, and have also spread to China. However, some tabloid news and pseudo-scientific books have treated the nose-walking beast as a real animal and introduced it as the "latest scientific research results."

A little monster that walks with its nose

Steiner wrote in the book: In 1941, a scientist discovered an animal that walked with its nose on the Hy-Yi-Yi Islands in the Pacific Ocean. An observation station was then built on the island, and a group of scientists began to study it. Steiner fabricated a pseudonym, Harald Stümpke, as the author, claiming to be the former head of the station.

In Steiner's world of nasal walking, nasal walking animals are mammals whose ancestors look like shrews. There are 138 species in 15 families. Their noses are called nasarium, which can not only walk, but also have many other uses. Unfortunately, the Hy-Yi-Yi Islands were flattened by the US nuclear test, and the nasal walking animals and all the research data were destroyed, and there is no way to verify it.

Artificial model of the "skeleton" of the rhinoceros | Tylwyth Eldar / wikimedia

Rhinoplasti used their noses to walk, and different rhinoplasti had different ways of walking. Rhinoplasti with a single nose stood upside down with their noses, using the muscles of their noses to move forward, just like the gastropods of snails. Rhinoplasti with multiple noses used their noses as legs, and they split into 4 to 6 noses in the early stages of embryonic development. There was a sponge-like tissue called corpus spongiosum in the nose, which would harden when congested, and the breathing ducts in the nose were inflated to support the body with the help of the dual forces of hydraulic and air pressure.

A nasal beast that walks on its nose | Drawing by Gerolf Karl Steiner

Otopteryx volitans had a nose with bones and elbow-like joints. By bending and extending the joints, it could hurl itself like a catapult. Even more outrageous, Steiner described that in the air, the snorkeler would vigorously flap its large ears 10 times a second so that it could fly. It was the most beautiful snorkeler, with dazzling fur, and it looked like a hummingbird when playing among flowers and chasing insects.

The all-powerful nose

In addition to locomotion, Steiner also gave the Nostodon's nose other uses.

The nasal animal, whose scientific name is Emunctator sorbens, usually lies on the plants beside the stream, with two long snot hanging from its nose, sticking to small animals such as insect larvae in the water, and then sucking them up as a delicious meal. The nasal animal, whose scientific name is Orchidiopsis rapax, has a nose as gorgeous as a petal, which is used to lure flower-picking insects.

Fishing nasal beast | Drawing by Gerolf Karl Steiner

Eledonopsis suavis, with a small body, has six extremely thin and long tentacle-like noses (30 cm long) that can emit light to attract insects. It usually hides in caves, with its nose sticking out of the cave, secreting mucus to stick to tiny insects, and then sends the insects to the stomach through the nasal passages through the movement of epithelial cell cilia and the peristalsis of the nose, just like a nasogastric tube. If it catches a large prey such as a spider, its nose will entangle it like an octopus and send it to its mouth to eat.

Some of the nose-walking beasts have extremely degenerated bodies, with only their noses being extremely developed. The noses replace the body's organs to maintain life, and their bodies are extremely small, like early embryos.

Weird fantasies

Steiner also put his wild imagination into the tails of the rhinoceros. Some of the rhinoceros tails are very strange. The rhinoceros, whose scientific name is Tyrannonasus imperator, is a fierce predator as its name suggests. The name imitates the "Tyrannosaurus Rex". Its genus name is "domineering nose" and its species name is "king". Its tail has a stinger like a scorpion, which is its powerful weapon for hunting.

Carnivorous slugs use their poisonous tails to stab their prey. | Drawing by Gerolf Karl Steiner

The tail of the nasoboma lyricum is hollow in the middle and connected to the rectum. Through a muscle-like "air pump" at the base of the tail, it can pump gas from the digestive tract into the tail. When the tail is inflated, it stands up like a balloon, reaching a height of more than three meters. In this way, it can use its tail to pick fruits from the trees.

N. lyricum's tail has another use - when being chased by T. imperator, it will wrap its tail around a branch, hang its body upside down, and swing back and forth like a pendulum until the T. imperator becomes dizzy and gives up.

Are you sure this isn't... | Pokémon

Later, the fans of the Nosedimon created more "fan works", including a Nosedimon standing upside down on the seabed with six noses, a Nosedimon drilling holes in wooden boats with a drill-shaped nose, etc. On April Fool's Day in 2012, the Natural History Museum in Paris, France, also held a "Nosedimon exhibition" with lifelike Nosedimon models. The Nosedimon, which was destroyed by an imaginary nuclear bomb, has gained immortal life in the imagination of fans all over the world.

Model of the Nostoris, whose drill-like nose can drill through wood according to the setting of enthusiasts | Museum National D'Histoire Naturelle

Author: Little Wombat

Editor: pee pee shrimp

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