Like a Tapir in Some Monument

Fresca shared her thoughts about Edward Gorey's guest, it of Doubtful Guest fame. Most of us are probably familiar with the 50-year-old story of the creature that showed up at this house one day and to the best of our knowledge is still lounging around the estate causing problems. Fresca believes Gorey creature’s closest relative is the tapir, the strangely snouted beast seen in Asia and elsewhere:

I often assume that people are familiar with our planet's most amusing mammals, such as lemurs and wombats, and I am often wrong.

Stefan Seitz notes in his funny (but serious) paper In the Name of the Tapir that he recorded at least 2,000 misidentifications of the tapir by zoo-goers. The top guess was anteater. Some Germans guessed coati, but only because the German name for coati means "nose bear." Scientists tell us that tapirs are most closely related to horses and rhinos, who also have split hooves.

Tapirs, however, alas, are on the endangered species list.