Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Creature Feature: ...Haggis?

Deep in the misty moors of Scotland, a strange, furry animal roams. It is called the Wild Haggis (Haggis scoticus), and is specially adapted to live in the mountainous highlands.



There are two subspecies of haggis: one with long right legs, and one with long left legs. They cannot interbreed because, if they try to mate, both partners will fall over...

HA HA! Fooled you! There is no such animal as a Wild Haggis!

You already know from "They Actually Eat That" what haggis really is: Sheep's organs simmered in a sheep's stomach with special sheepy seasonings for three hours. The Scots were so amused that tourists did not know what haggis was that they took the notion of somebody's innocent "is that some sort of animal?" and ran with it.


Complete with some INSANELY cool taxidermy.

There are millions of depictions of haggis as some sort of wild or domestic creature. They range from the furry critter seen above to disembodied stomachs with eyes, noses, and legs. There is even a cute little sculpture (or shop?) of a mother haggis and her little hagglets suckling her nipple-less belly.



As of 2003, 33% of Americans visiting Scotland believed that the haggis was an animal. Wow, we're stupid.

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