Animals that don't Exist

The Studying Parrot

The studying parrot, Parrotus studens, is a rather strange animal indeed. At first glance, it closely resembles the Ara, and only experts are able to distinguish between the two birds by visual observation alone. However, if you ever have the luck of encountering a flock of these strange birds during mating season, it will soon become clear where they got their name from, and that they are truly a different species.

Unlike other species, the studying parrot does not woo partners through a display of bright colors, physical prowess, or elaborately constructed nests. Instead, it spends the rest of the year learning complicated formulas or philosophical insights from humans, which it then parrots back to impress potential mates.

This behavior has given rise to a number of questions, perhaps the most interesting of which is how the parrots distinguish between intellectually relevant phrases and pure gibberish. There are a number of teams from around the world that are studying this behavior, but their efforts have yet to bear fruit. In addition, due to the protected status of the studying parrot, specimens for study are not easy to come by.

For the ancient tribes who share their habitat with the studying parrot, the bird has always been a symbol of wisdom, and whole villages would come to the bird's mating grounds, feeding them and listening to the words they propagate.

Politics that didn't Happen

In 2016, Facebook and others tried to make the world a little worse by creating Internet.org, a free version of the “internet”, with less information, less freedom, and less privacy. But because of the vital role the net now plays not only in our social life, but also in our work life, people who could not afford a real connection were forced to rely on this new, watered down and poisoned version.

Luckily, as emerging nations came to realize the full extent of the hoodwinking that was going on, they decided to sue internet.org for breaching privacy and data retention and sharing laws. The money thus obtained went into a common fund, which in turn was used by those same nations to ensure that every citizen had free access to the internet. The real one, this time.

Citations that weren't Made

"If you don't like us sticking our fingers up your ass, it must be because you've got something to hide."

   - Gen. Hayden, NSA

Animals that don't Exist

The Hangover Rat

The hangover rat, Rattus spiritus, is a member of the rat family. It dislikes light, sound and early mornings, and spends most of its time sleeping in dark places, intermittedly waking up to eat and drink something. There is not much it likes, and even though it does reproduce, it doesn't for the life of it remember when or with whom.

Politics that didn't Happen

Back in the late sixties/early seventies, when things were called groovy more often than not, the Controlled Substances Act was being debated in the U.S.A. At the same time, many places in the country, due no doubt to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and SteppenWolf, decided to legalize or decriminalize cannabis. The debaters in Washington took notice, and, intending to forestall any conflict between State and Federal law, agreed to add a provision to the Controlled Substances Act, allowing State regulations to trump federal ones where Cannabis was concerned.
And it was lucky they did, because otherwise, things would be a real mess today.

Citations that weren't Made

"Wisdom can be found in any civilization. The difference is how we get there."


    - Z.

Animals that don't Exist

The Binary Bacteria

The binary bacteria, Bacillus binarius, is a recent discovery by Prof. Jack Hammer of the Institute for Tiny, Tiny Things (ITTT), North Dakota. At first glance, these monocellular lifeforms seem rather unremarkable. In addition, their reproductive rate is quite a bit lower than that of most known bacteria, which makes them appear like a rather tedious subject for study. However, it was exactly this trait that intrigued Prof. Hammer. “In the wild, low reproductive rate means low competivity for space and ressources, and the theory of natural selection tells us that this should lead to extinction over time. Yet we could find evidence of binary bacterias in a vaste array of substrates. That made me curious.”

Indeed, further research showed that, no matter what kind of nutrients where present (or absent) in its environment, the binary bacteria would grow at an almost identical rate. This is very unusual for bacteria, and by the time of this discovery, Prof. Hammer was positive that there was something special about his latest find. The research that followed would prove him right.

Binary bacteria, his team found, could be in one of two states: reproducing or producing. The producing bacteria would absorb as much matter from their environment as possible, and then transform it into adequate substrate for the reproducing ones. The latter would use the ressources to produce offspring. This simplistic division of labour might seem mundane to most people, but it was the first time such a thing had been observed in bacteria. “Archeabacteria are known to show this behavior on occasion, just as single celled algea do, but so far, it was believed that bacteria never exhibited those traits, and that this was why multicellular lifeforms did not evolve from them. So this recent discovery puts into question everything we know about the evolution of multicellular life on our planet.”

In addition to procuring easily absorbable nutrients, it seems the producer bacteria also emit nocif substances into their environment, keeping competitors at bay. As the colony expands, these are again absorbed by producer bacteria and given back to reproducers as substrate, which could explain how they were able to survive and thrive despite their low reproductive rate.

There is still much that we have to learn about these peculiar organisms, and Prof. Hammer is up for the job. “When I started to see then first signs of their strange behavior, I knew that I would spend the rest of my life with this bacteria. It was love at first sight.”