Rhinogradentia IV: final

Gerolf Steiner, the creator of the Rhinogradentia, died on August 14, at the age of 101. I found out by accident, as I wondered whether there was any news about him. Just a mention of his death, without any obituaries. Perhaps these will follow later, opr perhaps they are not on the internet. If none of this means anything perhaps you should replace 'Rhinogradentia' with 'snouters' and 'Gerolf Steiner' with 'Harald Stümpke'. I wrote about him and his creatures three times: first, second and third blog entries. Gerolf Steiner was one of the first, probably the very first, to publish a book on made-up animals that was well-based in biology. That is in act debatable, as I do not think anyone would really believe it likely that mammals with fully-functional legs would ever start walking on their noses. But his work on the Rhinogradentia is clear not meant to be taken that seriously, and doing so would ruin it - an attitude Steiner himself probably smiled at, given the way he portrays similar overly 'correct' attitudes in his book ''Stümpe's Rhinogradentia - Versuch einer Analyse'. That book, purportedly written by one Karl D.S. Geeste, but in reality by Steiner himself, contains ssome interesting insights in his life and times. In this last blog entry on the Rhinogradentia I decided not to show one of the Rhinogradentia, as they can, I think, all be found on the internet somewhere (the book is however still available and I recommend it). Instead, there are some comments on what we could not call 'speculative evolution', or 'speculative biology', or whatever name you prefer. First, Steiner writes that the habit of designing animals for fun is a much more common childish trait ('Kinderei') as is commonly admitted. He himself started doing so at a very early age. He writes that his first creatures were biologically implausible, and he provides an example of his work done in 1922, when he was about 14.

Click to enlarge Copyright Gutav Fischer Verlag Stuttgart

These animals are labelled 'elephant variations'. The comment for the animal at the bottom reads that it is a slimmed-down small elephant. Its no longer columnar legs show that Steiner has a good feeling for biomechanics. A few years later, at the end of the 1920s, he produced a group af animals entitled 'Balhörner'. Here they are (my scanner just gave up, so the quality is not too good -sorry-).

Click to enlarge Copyright Gutav Fischer Verlag Stuttgart

Steiner describes then as partly mammalian, partly reptilian, but does not consider them very good, as 'he was after all only a very young student'. Well, that particular young student lived to 101 years of age. I will close with a translated version of an interesting sentence, in the section where he describes that his own early inventions were still scientifically impossible (I followed the German structure of the sentence). "Later believable forms were produced; resembling fantasy animals in part, these have been published recently -a long time after the first publication of the Rhinogradentia- in England in 1981 (D.Dixon, After Man), creatures evolved from real lifeforms according to the rules of evolution." That is interesting: the writer of the first well-known book on speculative biology knew of the second such work. A pity he does not write more about it: did he see resemblances with his own work? We will probably never know.

Rhinogradentia I

One of the best known examples of fictional life must be the 'Rhinogradentia'. This word, composed the usual scientific hodgepodge of word stems from first Greek and then Latin, means 'nose walkers'. And that is exactly what these odd little mammals do: they walk on their noses. If they do not use them for walking, there are other uses too: for example they catch insects with them, either by mimicking flowers or by entangling them in mucus. The one above doesn't do anything as fancy: it simply walks on its nose.

The Rhinogradentia were first described in a little book published in 1957, entitled 'Bau und Leben der Rhinogradentia' (Literally: 'Build and life of the Rhinogradentia'), written by Professor Dr. Harald Stümpke (that is what the book would want you to believe; the real author is Gerolf Steiner). The book has later been translated into English (the snouters), French (les rhinogrades), Italian (i rinogradi) and Japanese (sorry, no idea). My copy, a German one, dates back to 1981, and contains line drawings in black and white.

The book is still available, certainly in German and English, which probably says a lot about its qualities: it is still funny and entertaining after 50 years. It has received quite a bit of attention on the internet as well. It featured in the 'Tetrapod zoology' blog, not just once but twice, and there is even a Japanese site showing photographs of models of various Rhinogradentia. These look very much like the original drawings. I would be curious to read the text, but Google's translation services leave enough to be desired when it comes to Japanese to leave it unsaid.

If the Rhinogradentia have already received so much attention, is it necessary to repeat all that here? I will only go into the Rhinogradentia shortly here, and in a next instalment I will discuss a few things about the Rhinogradentia not easily found on the internet.

The drawing shown at the top depicts the first 'Nasling' designed by Steiner, so in a way it is the prototype for all others. The very first drawing may not exist anymore, as it was an aquarel given to a student out of gratitude for having given the author some asparagus (more on why asparagus was important in the second instalment). The drawing was inspired by a poem by Christian Morgenstern; it starts as follows:

'Auf seinem Nasen schreitet

einher das Nasobem,

von seinem Kind begleitet'

(Literally: 'On its nose strides the Nasobema, accompanied by its child'). Regardless of any poetic qualities, you can see that the drawing certainly does justice to the text. The word Nasobema, by the way, means 'nose walker', but here the word for 'nose' is Latin and the one for 'walk' is Greek, just the opposite of 'rhinogradens'. I guess the biology doesn't really make much sense: the animal still has perfectly functional limbs, and there appears to be little evolutionary reason to develop an alternative mode of locomotion under these circumstances. But the fun of Steiner's work is that it is so well carried out otherwise that you immediately overlook such matters. There are life histories, quotes of (equally nonexistent) scientists, and many more details to entertain the reader.

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Just one other example should wet the appetite for more nosewalkers. The drawing above shows Otopteryx volitans. The discussion starts whether it was sufficiently evolved to separate it from the other Hopsorrhines (it turns out it isn't), and then delves into its flying habits. It flies backwards... Landing and taking off are disussed as well, which is proper if you start thinking about it: flipping the tail downwards and backwards must have some interesting aerodynamic effects! The text states that its fur glistens so much that it resembles a humming-bird.

The other two drawings show the love of detail. I left the legends in, even if not all readers can read the original German text, simply to give a feel for the work.

The next instalment will provide a bit of background. To end this one I would like to report something of interest: while searching Google, I came across this intriguing mention: apparently someone in 1970 named a real butterfly species 'Rhinogradentia steineri'. So they do exist, in a way...