The Naming of the Shrew

Published Oct 22, 2019, 9:00 AM

Sometimes unbelievable things are all the rage, while others are lost in the shuffle of life. Today's tour will give you a glimpse into both kinds of curiosities.

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Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. It happened with a bang. A zoologist named Harold Strumkey had made a groundbreaking discovery of a new species of shrew and was excited to exhibit it to his peers. Strumkey, born in Strasburg, Germany, was the curator of the Museum of the Darwin Institute. He had come across a rare kind of animal known as a rhino grade. Rhino grades had evolved over millions of years into one nine species of shrew like mammals that ran the gamut of biological function and form. For example, there were some were shaped like worms, as well as enormous carnivores that hunted for their prey like lions. But despite their variety, many of the rhino grades had one thing in common their noses. They used their noses to move around and travel long distances. One species could even launch itself into the air using its nose. The autopterics or ear wing would flap its ears to fly backwards controlling direction with its nose like a built in rudder. The island where these animals lived had been discovered by a Swedish soldier who had been held captive in a Japanese pow camp. The vessel head escaped in had crashed on Haiayi, a small Pacific archipelago, and he quickly noticed the odd mammals roaming the landscape using only their noses. There had been a civilization of people living there too, but they've been unprepared for the soldiers unwanted companion the common cold. The germs ravaged the local population, killing all seven hundred of them in a short time, But the soldiers discovery had found its way to Stumpy, who worked tirelessly categorizing and sorting the rhinal grades into two groups, single and multi noosed mammals. It was at this same time when Stunkey began to work on a book of his new research. Not only did some of these animals flap their ears or bounce on their noses, some walked upside down on four noses while their hands and feet stuck straight up in the air. He compiled all the information he had gathered into his nineteen fifty seven book The Snouters, Form and Life of the Rhinal Grades. Stunkeys discovery was the breakthrough of a lifetime, and it was imperative that it be shared with the world. So he invited zoologists and road and experts from all over the world to join him on HAIII for a conference to discuss his findings. And as I said at the beginning, it happened with the bang. During the nineteen fifties. You see, the United States had decided to carry out tests of its nuclear arsenal in what it thought was a remote location. Unbeknownst military officials at the time, the island chain they'd selected for their tests was not, in fact uninhabited. While they were there, a test bomb went off and in an instant wiped out everything in its path. The islands all sunk into the sea, the researchers were obliterated, and the rhino grade entia were gone forever. All that remained of the different species was Stunkey's book, which was translated into English in nineteen sixty seven. But don't feel too bad for the people and animals that were lost in the blast. They didn't feel a thing when it happened, because it never did those shrews that had bounced on their noses or glided using their ears. They never existed, neither did any of the researchers, or even the island for that matter. The whole ordeal had started as a scientific joke taken to the extreme. Harold strum Key had been the pen name of German zoologist Geolf Steiner. Steiner really was born in Strasbourg in nineteen oh ay, but he never traveled to a remote archipelago. Steiner had been an illustrator during World War Two and had drawn a tiny mammal that walked on its nose based on descriptions by poet Christian Morgenstern. Soon the snouters, as he called them, started walking their way into his lectures and professional work. He kept adding to their story, too, fleshing out their biology and behaviors, until his fun little hobby had taken on a life of its own. He included anatomical sketches, wrote fake journal articles, and constructed a world for his creatures that was so scientifically accurate that his colleagues had become captivated by it as well. In fact, the first chapter of his book was published in the nineteen sixty seven issue of the American Museum of Natural History's official magazine, without comment or critique. Two readers the snouters were living breathing rodents, just like rats or mice. Steiner's hoax lives on today. Academic papers continued to be published about his work, as though it's still being researched. There are even real animals bearing Strumkey's name, including a shrewd rat that lives in Indonesia. It has a short snout like a pig's and a set of long teeth. Although this roadent walks on four legs, not its nose, But that doesn't mean there couldn't be a creature out there like the one Steiner described, just waiting to be discovered. To find it, I suppose that will just have to follow our nose. It doesn't take much for a fire to spread. It starts with a spark, then a small flame, give it some air and a little kindling, and it isn't long before that flame has grown into an uncontrollable blaze. Sometimes fires are necessary, they're deliberately set to clear old brush to make way for new growth, and sometimes nature steps in and starts the fire itself. In the everglades. For example, fires triggered by lightning strikes engulfed the grass along the river basin, improving water flow and habitats for local wildlife. But not all fires healthy environment. During the mid eighteen hundreds, fires were set to clear land for farms and railroad tracks. Such a fire had been set in the Wisconsin town of Peshtigo in October of eighteen seventy one. It had been one of many controlled blazes started in order to pave the way for new development. However, in unexpected weather pattern brought in a cold front that day, and with it came high winds. These winds spread the fire out, causing it to grow into what experts called a firestorm. Firestorms possessed specific traits that set them apart from other kinds of fires. Flames and firestorms burn at two thousand degrees fahrenheit or higher, with winds that blow it over one hundred miles per hour. So as the fire spread, it grew so large and powerful that it actually made its way across the Peshtigo River, burning the town on both sides. A flaming tornado, also called a fire whirl, incinerated homes and train cars as it picked up and tossed their smoldering holes into the air. Townsfolk fled as quickly as they could, their first thought being to jump into the river. Its waters were ice cold, despite the flames burning on both sides. Many drowned, while others fell victim to hypothermia, and those who couldn't make it out of town in time will they succumbed to the fire itself as it blazed across one point to million acres of land. Before the fire started, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, had a population of roughly seventeen hundred residents. A report filed two years later listed the number of deceased as high as twelve hundred, although the final number is thought to be much higher. We may never know just how bad it was, though, because town records were destroyed in the blaze. Coincidentally, at the same time as the Peshtigo fire, another fire had begun on the Door Peninsula in northeastern Wisconsin. It had originally been thought that the fire in Peshtigo had gotten so big and powerful that it had migrated across the Green Bay and onto the peninsula. When that fire had reached the small town of Robinsonville, a group of nuns and families from the town hid inside the local church and prayed for protection, but the fire quickly consumed the town and lingered outside the chapel, surrounding it on all sides. Everyone inside stood helpless. Ultimately, though their prayers seemed to have worked, the church and those inside it somehow survived the fire. About ten years after the Peshtigo and Door Peninsula fires had been extinguished, theories surrounding their origins began coming out of the woodwork. Perhaps they hadn't been started by reckless railroad hands or over zealous farmers after all. In fact, some people believe that fragments of a media righte had landed in Westconson and ignited the areas where they made impact. Scientists dispute this idea, though, as meteorites are cold when they hit earth surface. But there is something odd about two such large fires burning at the same time in roughly the same area of Wisconsin. Both events are relatively unheard of, and you might think two thousand people dying over a million acres would be more well known. But it's not surprising that nobody covered what happened that day in Peshtigo. They probably had their hands full with another blaze burning at the exact same time, one that killed only three people but destroyed over seventeen thousand buildings in the process. And everyone has heard of this one, the Great Chicago Fire. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,

Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

From the creator of the hit podcast Lore comes a new, bite-sized storytelling experience. Each twice 
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