This is in fact a translation by Robert Weill from the original book published in German in 1961 and it's probably a good idea to translate the back cover of this first:
'In 1962 the scientific world learned with astonishment the existence of a new order of completely odd mammals, named rhinogrades. This extraordinary discovery was described and analysed in detail in a small book of about one hundred pages.
On reading this book, anyone with a little knowledge of zoology or biology couldn't fail to be gripped by a feeling of stupefaction mixed with wonder.
Since then research has contined and Professor Guillaume Lecointre, of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, details the present state of knowledge. He reveals the discovery of three new species, which could well have played a role in La Pérouse's mysterious shipwreck.
Be careful: the rhinogrades haven't yet finished making news!'
But I'll start at the beginning, which is in a poem by the German writer Christian Morgenstern (1871-1914), who first wrote about a creature called the Nasobēm, which could walk on its nose: these in fact were rhinogrades. But as far as anyone knew, Morgenstern had never been near the South Pacific. Perhaps he's heard of the story from someone else? Anyway, it was enough to spark Dr Gerolf Steiner's interest, but we'll leave that one for a second.
In 1941 the Swedish Einar Petersson-Skämtkvist escaped from captivity by the Japanese and landed on Assaa-Lor, one of the Hi-Iay Islands in the South Pacific. The group of islands at the time only had a population of 700, although within several months Petersson had inadvertently wiped them out as they succumbed to the cold he had. But at least he'd made the discovery of rhinogrades to tell the world about.
Dr Harald Stümpke and a number of researchers were working on the rhinogrades in the Hi-Lay Islands in the 1950s when the entire archipelago was submerged as a result of nuclear testing. The only fortunate thing is that Stümpke had given Steiner his initial writings on the rhinogrades, so the book could be published.
And so we have the result of Stümpke's work on rhinogrades, of which there were 15 families and 138 species, 10 of the families having a single nose and 5 more than one nose (either 2, 4, or 38). Rhinogrades varied even more radically from each other, some being able to take on the attributes of flowers (their noses serving as petals), a variety could fly using their ears, another fished with their (single) nose, and so on. The book is obviously fully researched with everyday and Latin names used, footnotes, scrupulous bibliography, etc.
The update is fascinating too, as it reveals that three new species were found in 2006 on Espiritu Santo island 400 miles away in Vanuatu, all having a powerful drill for a nose, all boring skilfully into wood. The writer of this is Guillaume Lecointre, who asks himself what the rhinogrades are doing there: they've not been known to exist anywhere else. Could it be that at the end of the 18th century – when Jean-François de Galaup de Lapérouse left Brest on Louis XVI's orders on a diplomatic and scientific mission – that Lapérouse's ships called at the Hi-Iay Islands to stock up on wood? And that, unbeknown to them, some rhinogrades were carried as stowaways? And that the mysterious sinking of both L'Astolabe and La Boussole was the work of rhinogrades?
This brilliant book – which feels like one of the most amazing I've ever read – is of course a magnificent hoax: Morgenstern was a writer of nonsense verse who gave Steiner the idea of the rhinogrades, Petersson is an invention, the Hi-Iay Islands are fictitious, and Harald Stümpke is a pseudonym of Gerolf Steiner. But Lecointre is real enough and he's moved the hoax forward: in fact, some museums still carry the story to show they have a sense of humour too.
This book doesn't appear to have been re-published in England as the only copies available are from 1967. But then the English title – The Snouters – is hopelessly stupid and virtually gives the game away.
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