Haggis............. The Truth

[Bigkahuna]

It's amazing what steroid injections will do even for a haggis!!! According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest Haggis ever taken was one of over 200lbs, taken with a 10 gauge over&under Beretta, by a Lord Farquar in 1983.

[Pleater]

It's amazing what steroid injections will do even for a haggis!!! According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest Haggis ever taken was one of over 200lbs, taken with a 10 gauge over&under Beretta, by a Lord Farquar in 1983.

Ah now - that is evolution in action - I suspect that the escaped wild boar now roaming the country have a lot to do with the alteration in size.

Having developed a taste for wild boar only the largest haggii survive the encounters, but they and their offspring are able to feast on the boar they bring down, so increasing their size and ensuring ever greater success in the hunting.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Lallans]

If the haggis is in genetic flux, I hope you will bring the following narrative to the attention of Scottish authorities- it tells the sad story of how the Appalachian sidehill wampahoofus overspecialized and mutated to the point of extinction. That is in Vermont, of course- they still abound, much as ever they did, across the Canadian border, where I'm from:

The Wampahoofus: A Sad Evolutionary Tale (10/04)
By Maeve Kim

My dad was a native Vermonter who was a Long Trail end-to-ender and hiked every side trail around Mt. Mansfield many, many times. He used to tell the following story about the legendary wampahoofus, the namesake of the beautiful trail on the flanks of Mansfield.

The wampahoofus was a large mammal, now extinct, that some say resembled a moose-gnu hybrid. Its worldwide range was limited to part of Mt. Mansfield, usually between 2600 and 3200 feet up.

Like many large mammals, the males and females didn’t have much to do with each other except during the period of the year devoted to courtship and mating. The rest of the year, the males wandered around Mt. Mansfield in a clockwise direction, grazing and enjoying the scenery, never descending into the valleys, never climbing to the very highest elevations. Females spent a few months a year in the higher reaches of Nebraska Notch, nursing their calves. (My dad’s great-grandfather recalled coming across five of the ungainly cows, each caring for one nursing calf. Quite a sight.) Most of the year, though, the females walked around Mansfield at a high level, although never on the ridgeline. Unlike the male, the female wampahoofus always went around the mountain in a counterclockwise direction. When males and females met at the wrong time of the year, they passed each other without a second look. At the right time of year, of course, they mated.

Now, after hundreds of generations of walking laterally across a slope, the legs of the wampahoofus adapted. The males, who went around the mountain in a clockwise direction, developed shorter right legs than left legs. The females, after eons of counterclockwise perambulation, began to grow shorter left legs than right legs.

This unusual evolutionary adaptation worked fine for many generations – but unfortunately, the uneven leg gene appeared to be dominant. The males’ right legs kept getting shorter and shorter, as did the females’ left legs. Eventually, when a couple met to mate, things just didn’t fit. The wampahoofus died out. Vermont – and the world – lost a truly unique creature.

To visit the Wampahoofus Trail, climb the Butler Lodge Trail from the Stevensville Trailhead in Underhill Center. Follow the trail around the back of the Lodge, pass the start of the Rock Garden Trail, and you’ll be traversing the haunts of the wondrous beast.

This is pasted from the site http://www.naturecompass.org/gmcburl.../0410wamp.html

-so it must be true.

[Lallans]

(more on the wampahoofus-cousin to the haggis? ) ... I've been pondering my sources and now believe that the Vermont lady cited above was given a safe and cleaned-up version of the real truth! Her description of the creature suggests a harmless plant eater, whereas the real animal is quite a ferocious carnivore, with a head sort of like a bear but with crocodile jaws and teeth. They make a living eating sleeping overnight campers and hikers they come upon, and depending on whether the beast itself is able to travel clockwise or counter-clockwise, and how you yourself are oriented to the slope, they eat you either headfirst or feetfirst. In fact, if you ARE spending the night on a mountain side, it is advisable to sleep with your head pointed either up or downhill, to give yourself a fighting chance to squirm out of the creature's jaws when it grabs you. Witness the fact that old timers would always tell children this and the truth is evident.