image: Pixabay, Smoky Mountains
STRANGE ANIMALS
I’ve already told you about some of the strange animals in the Great Smoky mountains. There was the squirrel that plays checkers, and the Great Smoky Mountain Ugly Varmint, actually an overgrown chipmunk, and the 40-foot long catfish, and Bigfoot. But there’s a few more. For example, there used to be a hippopotomouse. The hippopotomouse starts out very small and lives in a nest high up in a tree. But it grows really, really fast and all of a sudden it’s so big the tree falls down. The hippotomouses are all gone now, but you can tell they were here. Every time you go hiking in the Smokies, and see a really big tree trunk lying on the ground, now you know why it fell down.
Then there’s the Smoky Mountain elephant, or smelephant. It has very big ears and is very self-conscious about this and doesn’t like people staring at his ears. When they started the helicopter rides over the Smokies, all the smelephants moved to the far end of the park away from the people and away from the helicopters. They’re all hiding now so you’ll never see them but there’s a way you can be sure they were here. The next time you go hiking on a trail in the Smokies and the trail crosses over a stream, stop and take a look at the bridge that the Park Service, or maybe the Civilian Conservation Corps, built to go over that stream. Usually, you’ll find that the bridge is really solid and massive. In fact, that bridge could hold an elephant.
The next strange animal I want to tell you about is real, like the others, and is based on Cherokee legends, which are all true. It’s a worm. Not an ordinary worm. This worm has feet. Eight of them, four at each end. It’s called Ustutli, which I think means in Cherokee, worm with feet. Ustutli was quite large and its diet, I’m sorry to say, consisted mainly of Cherokee Indians. It could raise up its front end, like an inch worm, except much bigger. The front end, with four feet, would go high in the air, move forward, stretch out, and come down again, much farther along the trail. In this way, it would trap its dinner, who had no way to escape, with four feet in front and four feet in back. Now, the Ustutli preferred to trap its victims on trails which run up and down the mountain sides. The reason for this is that on the trails which go across the mountain slope, when the Ustutli raised up high in the air, it would sometimes fall over and tumble down the mountain. That is why, even today, people build trails that go mainly around the mountain and not so much straight up and down. There's a legend about a visiting brave from a northern tribe who started the fire which burned up the last Ustutli. Actually, I think the Ustutlis are gone because of lack of food supply, owing to the fact that President Jackson invited the Cherokees to move to Oklahoma, which is another story for another time.
The last creature I’m going to tell you about today is the Smoky Mountain penguin. Yes. Did you know there were penguins here? Actually, penguins evolved in the eastern US, in the Appalachian range. If you’ve seen penguins, you may have noticed the characteristic black-and-white color pattern. You might even have wondered if that color pattern provides any survival advantage. This is an example of what biologists call ‘mimicry,’ which means, like the Cree Indians.
The penguins evolved that particular color scheme so that the alligators would think they were killer whales and leave them alone. Penguins like warm weather and when the glaciers were approaching, the penguins had a big gathering to discuss what to do. They decided to move south to a warmer climate. Specifically, they all decided to go to the Galapagos Islands, which they heard was much warmer. Well, some of them did find the Galapagos Islands. They’re still there; you can go see them, which proves my story. But many of them had navigation trouble, or GPS trouble, or something. Anyway, they missed the islands and kept on going and wound up in Antarctica, where they still are, and still looking for the travel agent who promised them warm weather.
STRANGE ANIMALS
I’ve already told you about some of the strange animals in the Great Smoky mountains. There was the squirrel that plays checkers, and the Great Smoky Mountain Ugly Varmint, actually an overgrown chipmunk, and the 40-foot long catfish, and Bigfoot. But there’s a few more. For example, there used to be a hippopotomouse. The hippopotomouse starts out very small and lives in a nest high up in a tree. But it grows really, really fast and all of a sudden it’s so big the tree falls down. The hippotomouses are all gone now, but you can tell they were here. Every time you go hiking in the Smokies, and see a really big tree trunk lying on the ground, now you know why it fell down.
Then there’s the Smoky Mountain elephant, or smelephant. It has very big ears and is very self-conscious about this and doesn’t like people staring at his ears. When they started the helicopter rides over the Smokies, all the smelephants moved to the far end of the park away from the people and away from the helicopters. They’re all hiding now so you’ll never see them but there’s a way you can be sure they were here. The next time you go hiking on a trail in the Smokies and the trail crosses over a stream, stop and take a look at the bridge that the Park Service, or maybe the Civilian Conservation Corps, built to go over that stream. Usually, you’ll find that the bridge is really solid and massive. In fact, that bridge could hold an elephant.
The next strange animal I want to tell you about is real, like the others, and is based on Cherokee legends, which are all true. It’s a worm. Not an ordinary worm. This worm has feet. Eight of them, four at each end. It’s called Ustutli, which I think means in Cherokee, worm with feet. Ustutli was quite large and its diet, I’m sorry to say, consisted mainly of Cherokee Indians. It could raise up its front end, like an inch worm, except much bigger. The front end, with four feet, would go high in the air, move forward, stretch out, and come down again, much farther along the trail. In this way, it would trap its dinner, who had no way to escape, with four feet in front and four feet in back. Now, the Ustutli preferred to trap its victims on trails which run up and down the mountain sides. The reason for this is that on the trails which go across the mountain slope, when the Ustutli raised up high in the air, it would sometimes fall over and tumble down the mountain. That is why, even today, people build trails that go mainly around the mountain and not so much straight up and down. There's a legend about a visiting brave from a northern tribe who started the fire which burned up the last Ustutli. Actually, I think the Ustutlis are gone because of lack of food supply, owing to the fact that President Jackson invited the Cherokees to move to Oklahoma, which is another story for another time.
The last creature I’m going to tell you about today is the Smoky Mountain penguin. Yes. Did you know there were penguins here? Actually, penguins evolved in the eastern US, in the Appalachian range. If you’ve seen penguins, you may have noticed the characteristic black-and-white color pattern. You might even have wondered if that color pattern provides any survival advantage. This is an example of what biologists call ‘mimicry,’ which means, like the Cree Indians.
The penguins evolved that particular color scheme so that the alligators would think they were killer whales and leave them alone. Penguins like warm weather and when the glaciers were approaching, the penguins had a big gathering to discuss what to do. They decided to move south to a warmer climate. Specifically, they all decided to go to the Galapagos Islands, which they heard was much warmer. Well, some of them did find the Galapagos Islands. They’re still there; you can go see them, which proves my story. But many of them had navigation trouble, or GPS trouble, or something. Anyway, they missed the islands and kept on going and wound up in Antarctica, where they still are, and still looking for the travel agent who promised them warm weather.