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Fictitious Creatures of April Fool's Day

List Universe posted a list of the Top 10 Bizarre Genetically Modified Organisms. The list included the "paper tree":


As well as the Fern Spider:


Other creatures on the list included the graisin (a giant raisin), the rubber cork tree, the Umbuku Lizard (a flying lizard), the Dolion (a cross between a lion and dog), the Tiny Piney (a miniature pine tree), and the Lemurat (a cross between a lemur and a cat).

Two items on the list were actually real. They were the GloFish (a bioluminescent Zebrafish) and the Grapple (a cross between an apple and a grape).

Images of an 8-inch mummified creature resembling a fairy were posted on the website of the Lebanon Circle Magik Co. Accompanying text explained how the creature had been found by a man walking his dog along an old roman road in rural Derbyshire. Word of this discovery soon spread around the internet. Bloggers excitedly speculated about whether the find was evidence of the actual existence of fairies. The Lebanon Circle website received tens of thousands of visitors and hundreds of emails. But at the end of the day, Dan Baines, the owner of the site, confessed that the fairy was a hoax. He had used his skills as a magician’s prop-maker to create the creature. Baines later reported that, despite his confession, he continued to receive numerous emails from people who refused to accept the fairy wasn’t real. He later sold the fairy to an American collector for £280.

Tokyo's Ueno Zoo announced in a press release that it had discovered a remarkable new species of penguin: A giant penguin called the Tonosama (Lord) Penguin, 165cm-tall and weighing 80kg. Its favorite food was said to be "white fish meat with soy sauce." The giant penguin was revealed to the public on April 1. It was reported that: "As the cameras rolled, the real penguins rose their beaks and gazed up at the purported Lord - but then walked away disinterested when he took off his penguin face to reveal himself to be zoo director Teruyuki Komiya."

The scientific journal Nature, in its online edition, revealed the discovery of "a near-complete skeleton of a theropod dinosaur in North Dakota." The discovery was referred to in an article by Henry Gee discussing the palaeontological debate over the origin of birds. The dinosaur skeleton had reportedly been discovered by Randy Sepulchrave of the Museum of the University of Southern North Dakota. The exciting part of the discovery, according to the article, was that "The researchers believe that the dinosaur, now named as Smaugia volans, could have flown." In actuality, the University of Southern North Dakota does not exist; Smaug was the name of the dragon in Tolkein's The Hobbit; and Sepulchrave was the name of the 76th Earl of Groan in Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan. This Earl, believing that he was an owl, leapt to his death from a high tower, discovering too late that he could not fly.

Discover magazine published an article detailing the discovery by wildlife biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo of a fascinating new species: the hotheaded naked ice borer. Dr. Pazzo, the article explained, encountered this creature while studying penguins in Antarctica. She noticed a frightened penguin rapidly sinking into the ice, and when she pulled the hapless creature out of the rapidly growing slush pool, she found small, bizarre animals attached to its lower body. They were about half a foot long, and quite light. Their unique feature was a bony plate on their head that they could cause to become burning hot, allowing them to bore tunnels through the ice at high speeds, "much faster than a penguin can waddle." Packs of them would rapidly melt the ice beneath a penguin, causing it to sink into the slush, at which point they would surround the creature and consume it. Dr. Pazzo hypothesized that the hotheads might have been responsible for the mysterious disappearance of noted Antarctic explorer Philippe Poisson in 1837. "To the ice borers, he would have looked like a penguin," she was quoted as saying. Discover received an enormous amount of mail in response to this article. The responses of most readers were very tongue-in-cheek, but a few readers were annoyed that Discover had taken liberties with the trust of its readers. (For more details, see article: Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer.)

The British Today newspaper offered a feature on a flying rabbit from a northern Guatemalan rain forest, which was being brought to a theme park. Pictures showed it flying through the air by means of pigeon-sized wings on its back. The commentary explained that the rabbit was "a natural performer and totally at home working with parrots."

The Daily Mirror reported that Professor Vogel Brayne, a "top genetics expert," had succeeded in crossing the genes of a monkey with those of a chicken. He had thus created a "chickpanzee," a tiny monkey-like animal covered in white down, which was shown hatching from an egg as two bewildered chickens looked on. The little chickpanzee, named Charlie, was said to have left the world of science "shell-shocked".

The Orlando Sentinel featured a story about a creature known as the Tasmanian Mock Walrus (or TMW for short) that it said made a perfect pet. The creature was only four inches long, resembled a walrus, purred like a cat, and had the temperament of a hamster. What made it such an ideal pet was that it never had to be bathed, used a litter box, and ate cockroaches. In fact, a single TMW could entirely rid a house of its cockroach problem. Reportedly, some TMWs had been smuggled in from Tasmania, and there were efforts being made to breed them, but the local pest-control industry, sensing a potent threat in the TMW, was pressuring the government not to allow them in the country. An accompanying photo showed protestors picketing outside the offices of the Orlando city government to call attention to the plight of the TMW. Dozens of people called the paper trying to find out where they could obtain their own TMW.

The Sunday News-Journal in Daytona Beach reported the discovery of a talking pelican. The pelican was found by a Georgia tourist, Sam P. Suggins, when the pelican asked Suggins for fish as he was walking along a dock. Unfortunately the pelican would not talk to anyone else. Nor was it very bright, as Suggins remarked that it said “Kitty” while looking at a small dog. The article noted that there have been recorded instances of sailors teaching pelicans to speak, just as parrots can be taught to speak, and theorized that this must have been such a case.

The famous naturalist David Attenborough gave a report on BBC Radio 3 about a group of islands in the Pacific known as the Sheba Islands. He played sound recordings of the island’s fauna, including a recording of an alleged night-singing tree mouse called the Musendrophilus. He also described a web-footed species whose webs were prized by inhabitants of the island as reeds for musical instruments.

The April 1st, 1972 issue of the Veterinary Record, the weekly journal of the British veterinary profession, contained an article about the diseases of Brunus edwardii, which was described as a species "commonly kept in homes in the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe and North America." The article warned:


For months afterwards the correspondence section of the Veterinary Record was dominated by letters about Brunus edwardii, most of which offered new observations about the species. However, a few correspondents were outraged by the article, such as A. Noel Smith who wrote, "How three members holding sets of impressive degrees can waste their time writing such garbage in a journal that is the official publication of the B.V.A. is beyond my comprehension, as is your effrontery to publish it under 'Clinical Papers'."

It was reported that the British Library later had difficulty deciding how to classify the article, but the article proved so popular that it was eventually published in a special edition by Whittington Press.

The images below, which accompanied the article, illustrate some of the diseases of Brunus edwardii. They are (from left to right): 1) Alopecia, discoloration (very loved); 2) Torticollis and loss of limb; 3) A case of emotional disturbance, hypertension; 4) Attic bear and mice; 5) Lopsided squint.

The Philadelphia Record ran a picture titled, "Deep Sea Monster Visits Philadelphia." Although modern viewers have little difficulty in spotting the picture as a fake, it fooled many of the Record's readers.

The San Diego Union reported that two hunters had killed a bizarre, half-human half-animal beast in an out-of-the-way location called Deadman's Hole northwest of San Diego. The creature, it was said, was responsible for a string of gruesome murders.

The creature was said to have the body of a bear, but it stood upright like a man and had a human face. The Union provided a graphic account of its death: "Cox, who is a wonderful shot with a rifle, brought his weapon to his shoulder and fired. With a cry like that of a human being the beast instantly fell in a hideous heap across a boulder that it was in the act of scaling." Then the hunters discovered the creature's lair where the bones of its human victims lay piled in a heap.

The article theorized that the animal was the result of a cross between a man and some kind of carnivorous beast. It said that the hunters planned to bring the body to San Diego for public exhibit within a few days.

The article caused a minor sensation in San Diego, and many people inquired where the creature would be displayed. Of course, there was no monster of Deadman's Hole, outside of the imagination of the Union's staff.