Who connects the birth of lemmings, the horns of unicorns and the feet of birds of paradise?

Buck540

Worm determined that the unicorn did not exist and that purported unicorn horns were really simply from the narwhal. At the same time, however, he then wondered if the anti-poison properties associated with a unicorn's horn still held true, and undertook primitive experiments in poisoning pets and then serving them ground up narwhal horn (his poisoning must have been relatively mild because he reported that they did recover). His other empirical investigations included providing convincing evidence that lemmings were rodents and not, as some thought, spontaneously generated by the air, and also by providing the first detailed drawing of a bird of paradise proving that they did, despite much popular speculation to the opposite, indeed have feet like regular birds. Jan 30 05, 10:16 AM

gmackematix

Yay Buck! It was indeed the wonderfully named 16th century Danish scientist Ole Worm (pronounced Olay Vorm). There was a reported freak lemming-fall over Bergen, Norway, in the 1500s. Maybe that encourged the lemmings-out-of-thin-air theory. Despite Worm's work, great birds of paradise still have the scientific name Paradisiaea apoda. "Apoda" means without feet. Jan 30 05, 6:29 PM

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