The reference wackiness continues... three more animals (two live, one extinct, all confirmed real, this time) that I'd never heard of:
Dead (thank goodness): the 10-foot-tall, flesh-eating bullockornis, a.k.a. (I kid you not) "Demon Duck of Doom."
Living in South America: the coypu or nutria, a giant water rat with orange teeth.
And finally, found living in Myanmar (Burma) less than 10 years ago: the leaf muntjac or leaf deer, so called because it's so small that local hunters would wrap it in a leaf to take home their kill.
And in case you wonder where the heck I find these.. "coypu" comes right after "coyote" in Library of Congress subject headings (which I was looking up for a patron), and both the leaf deer and the demon duck of doom (boy, do I like that phrase) are mentioned in a recently published book on extinction (still deciding whether to get it... reviews were sort of lukewarm, and natural history doesn't play that well with our clientele).
Posted by gris at August 19, 2004 10:44 PM