The Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer is a fictional animal invented by ''
Discover
Discover may refer to:
Art, entertainment, and media
* ''Discover'' (album), a Cactus Jack album
* ''Discover'' (magazine), an American science magazine
Businesses and brands
* DISCover, the ''Digital Interactive Systems Corporation''
* Di ...
'' magazine as an
April Fool's Day
April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is an annual custom on 1 April consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fools!" at the recipient. Mass media can be involved in these pranks, which may ...
joke.
A short article on the Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer first appeared in the April 1995 issue of ''
Discover
Discover may refer to:
Art, entertainment, and media
* ''Discover'' (album), a Cactus Jack album
* ''Discover'' (magazine), an American science magazine
Businesses and brands
* DISCover, the ''Digital Interactive Systems Corporation''
* Di ...
'' magazine. The article was written by
Tim Folger
Tim Folger is an American science and nature writer. He is a contributing editor at ''Discover Magazine'' and writes about science for several other magazines. Folger has been the "series editor" of ''The Best American Science and Nature Writing ...
, then an editor at the magazine. Folger wrote several other April Fool stories for the magazine, including a basketball-sized particle named the "bigon", and the discovery of prehistoric musical instruments— rhinoceros bladder bagpipes, a mastodon-tusk tuba, and a bone triangle—supposedly used by
Neanderthals
Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an Extinction, extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ag ...
.
Hoax
The article carried a purported photo of a Naked mole rat-like creature with a bony growth protruding from its head. According to the article, this animal had recently been discovered in
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...
. The bony structure was suffused with tiny
blood vessel
The blood vessels are the components of the circulatory system that transport blood throughout the human body. These vessels transport blood cells, nutrients, and oxygen to the tissues of the body. They also take waste and carbon dioxide away ...
s that would heat it to a temperature high enough to melt through the ice. To acquire food, a group of these animals would burrow into the ice underneath suitable prey, and use their heads to melt through. When the animal, usually a
penguin
Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...
, sank helplessly into the water, the group of Borers would devour it. It was even speculated in the article that Antarctic explorer "Philippe Poisson" (''poisson d'avril'', "April fish," is the French equivalent of "April fool") may have been eaten by a group of these animals when he disappeared in 1837.
A clue that indicated that the Ice Borer story was a
hoax
A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...
can be found in the name of the
biologist
A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...
who discovered the animal, "Aprile Pazzo" ("April Fool" in Italian).
Cleber Redondo, a deputy art director, created image by digitally manipulating an image of a
naked mole-rat
The naked mole-rat (''Heterocephalus glaber''), also known as the sand puppy, is a burrowing rodent native to the Horn of Africa and parts of Kenya, notably in Somali regions. It is closely related to the blesmols and is the only species in th ...
, adding fangs and a "bony growth" (based on a
trilobite
Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the At ...
) with a "red-hot" front edge.
Influence
''Discover'' magazine received more mail about this article than about any other article it had ever published. A number of zoo officials and scientists sent humorous letters to the magazine asking how they could acquire specimens of the creature.
''
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
''Ripley's Believe It or Not!'' is an American franchise founded by Robert Ripley, which deals in bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims. Originally a newspaper panel, the ''Believe It or Not'' feat ...
'' picked up the story and ran it as a real news item.
The story was repeated as true in ''The Unofficial X-Files Companion''.
The creature was featured in
Godzilla: The Series as an enemy kaiju.
In the game
Subnautica: Below Zero, the Ice Worm leviathan is likely based on the Ice Borer, as both creatures possess a "hot bone" in their heads that helps them to melt through ice to hunt for prey.
References
{{Reflist
External links
Museum of Hoaxes EntryTim Folger's Web page
April Fools' Day jokes
Journalistic hoaxes
1995 in science
1995 hoaxes