American forests are old.

They came up with the recession of the ice several thousand years ago and parts of them have not died since. The popular myth is that when we came from Europe a squirrel could start a journey at the Rio Grande and make its way to eastern Canada via treetop. Fly on the branches.

Take a handful of earth, you're holding biotic material accumulated over thousands of years. Humus — the living or once-living part of soil. Take a magic filter to most earth in the Western United States, remove the branches, the spores, the leaves, the tiny pieces of hair, and much of what you'll have left is granite. Earth doppled black and grey, sand that was a rock. We have to be careful where we drill our wells out here because the decomposing granite makes the water taste bad.

Most of our animals look like granite. Predators, prey, insects, birds: all mottled shades of black, brown and grey. One must move unseen. Everything moves unseen here. Even in death, one remains unseen. It's rare to find a bear carcass.

The granite snipe was first described by German Geologist Karl Bonnets following his first of three tours through the American Rocky Mountains in 1904. Near the end of June, Bonnets and colleague Erwin Franck set up camp at the base of a heavily wooded hillside near Sheridan, Wyoming.

Bonnets awoke to find a small animal trying to unzip his pack.

In his Abhandlungen aus der Geologie Bonnets gives a brief accout of his encounter with a granite snipe, describing it as "A kind of small, fast-moving sloth with great blue eyes" (Bonnets 336).

E. Bonnetsa. You find something, it bears your name.

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Chordata
Class Mammalia
Order Decapoda
Family Homonidae
Genus Bonnetsa
Species E. Bonnetsa

Today, the taxonomy of the granite snipe is a subject of some controversy. Biologists surveying the old forests of the American Southwest report slight differences in the body structure and markings between specimens observed in different habitats. Move between the Galapagos Islands and the finches are different — it's not unheard of. Biologists have tentatively (and somewhat extravagantly) divided the granite snipe into eight different sub-species to be assessed on further study.

Regional differences aside, descriptions of this little creature have stayed true to Bonnets' description: it looks like a little sloth. But genetics are strange. It's a relative of the opossum. Rhinos are related to horses.

The name 'granite snipe' comes from the markings: its short hair is a doppled mix of black and grey, like fine granite. It is distributed in small patches throughout the old-growth forests of the American West, throughout the Rocky Mountains and down into the chaparral and scrub of the Mexican desert.

Bonnets saw the creature's eyes, but he didn't do them justice.

In cats, the pupil of the eye is slit-shaped rather than round, allowing for better regulation of light. The granite snipe takes this a bit further — its pupils are narrowed almost to nothing. The extremely narrow pupils diffract light inside the eye like the grooves on a compact disk, allowing for much-improved perception of movement.

See, this creature is a hunter.

While the granite snipe is omnivorous in a broad sense, it consumes vegetation only when there are no prey available. Lizards, rodents, and even small cats are on its menu. Active strictly at night, descending from the treetops. In small enough prey, the canines are sharp enough to puncture the skull; otherwise, the little beast goes for the throat and scampers away, waiting for its victim to bleed to death.

The granite snipe makes no sound. It has no vocal cords. It is deaf.

Living quarters are typically refined from holes in trees or spaces under rotting logs. Burrow openings are sealed with a door of twigs and leaves, which is rebuilt every morning when the animal retreats for hibernation. Like felines, granite snipes are solitary, so mating is an awkward affair. Typically, the male will follow a female over the course of several weeks and launch a sudden attack, sex organs already erect, hoping to inseminate her by surprise.

If he is not quick he will likely be mortally wounded.

Gestation is 40 to 60 days, during which the female becomes increasingly lethargic. She gives birth quickly in her burrow, feeding her young live prey. At roughly four weeks of age the young emerge and try their hand at hunting. Most who do not survive fall victim to starvation; granite snipes are rarely consumed by other animals.

This is a long-lived creature. Captive specimens have survived sixty years. Those that have died in captivity have died from disease; a granite snipe has never been observed to die of natural causes.

British pharmacologists have recently taken up voice for more intense study of the granite snipe after discovering a refined version of the 'anti-aging gene' in trace enzymes of its urine.

We administer hormones derived from horse piss. Don't act so surprised.

Geneticists at the University of Edinburgh working with specimens taken from Colorado have turned their attention to an obscure allele previously thought to be a section of junk DNA. In granite snipes, the allele provides for more receptors for the protein rubisco, which maintains the integrity of the genetic code as it is replicated in new cells throughout life. Denegration of this code is believed to be the major cause for aging.

The fountain of youth may be a relative of the opossum.

Postscript: This is fake.

paraclete. "RumourQuest 2006."
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1793894

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnetsa

Lady Wildlife
http://www.ladywildlife.com/kingdom/US/granite_snipe.htm

Desert USA
http://www.desertusa.com/?article=103860