Rhinogradentia

Background

Rhinogradentia, their island home of Hy-yi-yi, zoologist Harald Stümpke, and a host of other people, places, and documents are fictional creations of Gerolf Steiner (1908–2009), a German zoologist. Steiner is best known for his fictional work as Stümpke, but he was an accomplished zoologist in his own right. He held a professorship at the University of Heidelberg and later the Technical University of Karlsruhe, where he occupied the department chair from 1962 to 1973.

According to Bud Webster, Steiner's motivation for the work was instructional, to illustrate "how animals evolve in isolation".

Harald Stümpke's account

Steiner's fictional author, credited as "quondam curator of the Museum of the Darwin Institute of Hy-yi-yi, Mairuwili," provides a very detailed account of the order and individual species, written in a dry, scholarly tone. The evidently expert voice of the author, his competent writing, and apparent familiarity with conventions of academic literature set the work apart as a rare example at the intersection of fiction and scholarship. Steiner credits himself by name as illustrator of the book, and explains how that role led him to possess the only remaining record of Rhinogradentia.

Discovery and study at Hy-yi-yi

According to Stümpke, Rhinogradentia were native to Hy-yi-yi, a small Pacific archipelago comprising eighteen islands: Annoorussawubbissy, Awkoavussa, Hiddudify, Koavussa, Lowlukha, Lownunnoia, Mara, Miroovilly, Mittuddinna, Naty, Nawissy, Noorubbissy, Osovitissy, Ownavussa, Owsuddowsa, Shanelukha, Towteng-Awko, and Vinsy. The islands occupied 1,690 km² (650 sq mi) and the archipelago's highest peak, 2,230 m (7,320 ft), was on its main island, Hiddudify (Hy-dud-dye-fee).

The first description of Hy-yi-yi published in Europe was that of Einar Pettersson-Skämtkvist, a Swedish explorer who arrived in Hiddudify by chance in 1941, after escaping from a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Each of the islands was home to distinctive fauna, dominated by Rhinogradentia, the only mammals other than humans. In the time after the war, a number of scientists took interest in the rhinogrades and began formal research into their physiology, morphology, behaviors, and evolution.

In the late 1950s, nearby nuclear weapons testing by the United States military accidentally caused all of the islands of Hy-yi-yi to sink into the ocean, destroying all traces of the rhinogrades and their unique ecosystem. Also killed were all the world's Rhinogradentia researchers, who were attending a conference on Hy-yi-yi at the time. The book's epilogue, credited to Steiner in his capacity as the book's illustrator, explains that Stümpke had sent the book's materials to Steiner to serve as the basis for illustrations in preparation for publication. Following the disaster, it is the only remaining record of the subjects it describes.

Biological characteristics and behavior

Rhinogrades are mammals characterized by a nose-like feature called a nasorium, the form and function of which vary significantly between species. According to Stümpke, the order's remarkable variety was the natural outcome of evolution acting over millions of years in the remote Hy-yi-yi islands. All the 14 families and 189 known snouter species descended from a small shrew-like animal, which gradually evolved and diversified to fill most of the ecological niches in the archipelago — from tiny worm-like beings to large herbivores and predators.

Many rhinogrades used their nose for locomotion, for example the "snout leapers" like Hopsorrhinus aureus, whose nasorium was used for jumping, or the "earwings" like Otopteryx, which flew backwards by flapping its ears and used its nose as a rudder. Some species used their nasorium for catching food, for example by using it to fish or to attract and trap insects. Other species included the fierce Tyrannonasus imperator and the shaggy Mammontops.

Pettersson-Skämtkvist's early descriptions of the animals he encountered on Hy-yi-yi led zoologists to name them after the title creature in a short nonsense poem by Christian Morgenstern, The Nasobame (Das Nasobēm). In the poem, which exists outside of this fictional universe and also served as an inspiration for Steiner, the Nasobame is seen "striding on its noses" (auf seinen Nasen schreitet).

Genera

Stümpke's book classifies 138 species of rhinograde in the following genera:

Publication history

Steiner's books as Stümpke have been translated into other languages, sometimes crediting other names based on the country of publication. Harald Stümpke, Massimo Pandolfi, Hararuto Shutyunpuke, and Karl D. S. Geeste are pseudonyms, while translator names are authentic.

Legacy

Rhinogradentia is considered one of the best known biological hoaxes and scientific jokes and Steiner's pseudonymous works on the subject continue to be reprinted and translated.

Since the book's original publication several scientists and publishers have written about Rhinogradentia as though Steiner's account were true, though it is unclear how many of those who continued and popularized the joke did so intentionally. Wulf Ankle wrote that the order "is not a poetic invention, but has really lived". Erich von Holst celebrated the discovery of "a completely new animal world". Timothy E. Lawlor's widely read textbook Handbook to the Orders and Families of Living Mammals, includes an entry for Rhinogradentia that does not acknowledge its fictional nature.

Prior to the publication of Leigh Chadwick's English translation, an abbreviated version ran in the April 1967 edition of Natural History, a magazine published by the American Museum of Natural History. It comprised material from the book's introduction, first chapter, selected descriptions of genera, and the epilogue, and was presented as the lead story, without qualification, by the normally serious publication. The following month, The New York Times ran a story about the snouters on the front page, based on the Natural History article. According to the magazine's editorial director, they had "received more than 100 letters and telegraphs about the snouters, most of them from people who forgot that the article was published on April Fool's Day." Natural History printed several letters to the editor in its June–July issue, and conveyed to the Times the content of several more, ranging from skeptical to fascinated and continuations of the joke. One reader, entomologist Alice Gray, expressed thanks for the article, which enabled her family to identify an animal-shaped metal bracelet from the South Pacific as having been modeled after a "Hoop Snouter", and included a drawing to preserve the record because, she said, it had been melted down with some toy soldiers and a spoon by a young cousin with a new casting set.

Decades later, papers are still published purporting to continue Stümpke's research or otherwise paying homage to Steiner's hoax. In a 2004 paper in the Russian Journal of Marine Biology, authors Kashkina & Bukashkina claim to have discovered two new marine genera: Dendronasus and an as yet unnamed parasitic taxon. On April Fools' Day in 2012, the National Museum of Natural History in France announced the discovery of a wood-eating termite-like genera, Nasoperferator, with a rotating nose resembling a drill.

Rhinogradentia has been included in a number of museum exhibitions and collections. The National Museum of Natural History's Nasoperferator announcement was accompanied by a two-month exhibit honoring the animals, featuring purported stuffed specimens in its gallery of extinct species. Mock taxidermies of rhinogrades have also been included in an exhibit at the Musée d'ethnographie de Neuchâtel, and in the permanent collections of the Musée zoologique de la ville de Strasbourg and the Salzburg Haus der Natur.

Two real species have been named after Steiner and Stumpke: Rhinogradentia steineri, a butterfly, and a Hyorhinomys stuempkei, a shrew rat also known as the Sulawesi snouter.

In popular culture, Steiner's work influenced or inspired works of art. Japanese noise musician Merzbow, for example, gave the name Rhinogradentia to both a song and an album in the Merzbox box set.