Cold, Wet, and Doubly Up in Your Crotch.

August 13, 2007 10:27 AM

"While we were there, sitting by the fire one night, I saw an extraordinary-looking dog that appeared to have two noses. I was sober at the time, and then I remembered the story that the legendary explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett came back with in 1913 of seeing such strange dogs in the Amazon jungle", explains fellow British Colonel John Blashford-Snell. The double-schnoz phenomenon has been documented in other species, and has even been studied, dramatized, and synthesized in humans. But a clue has recently been discovered in Bolivia that hints at not just a random mutation, but what might have once been a multi-snouted dog breed.
posted by Toekneesan (29 comments total)

How do they smell?
posted by jtron at 10:39 AM on August 13, 2007 [3 favorites]

neat links, by the way - and isn't it odd how the second nose on that calf resembled a pig snout?
posted by jtron at 10:42 AM on August 13, 2007

"Explorers, investigating a giant meteorite crater after gifting a church organ to Bolivian locals, discover a breed of two-nosed dogs". You can't make this stuff up.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 10:57 AM on August 13, 2007

See also Pachon Navarro, though most sites are in Spanish, and each of their noses has but one nostril.
posted by Toekneesan at 10:57 AM on August 13, 2007

All the pictures I take of my own dogs feature my hand holding their necks exactly like the first link. Otherwise they end up being giant, blurry, extreme closeups of- well, of dog noses. With dog-nose goo on the camera lens.
posted by jiiota at 10:59 AM on August 13, 2007

jtron: terrible, they're sweaty from being out in the jungle.
posted by dismas at 11:00 AM on August 13, 2007

I've never gotten the two noses illusion to work. I've always blamed either an inability to cross my fingers far enough or the well-known problem of 30% of all illusions being entirely false.

Thanks to this post, I think I'm on to the real culprit. I am feeling twice as many noses as I have, but I have only 1/2 a nose.
posted by DU at 11:01 AM on August 13, 2007

Try it with a pencil, DU.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:25 AM on August 13, 2007

"My dog has two noses."
"How does he smell?"
"Fantastic!"
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:27 AM on August 13, 2007

But a pencil has no fee....oh, substitute the pencil for my nose.

Nope, still doesn't work. I assume I'm supposed to feel two pencils because my brain "knows" that the outside edges of my index and middle fingers can't be touching the same small object at once, right? Maybe my senses are poorly optimized, since that isn't working.
posted by DU at 11:35 AM on August 13, 2007

Speaking of the title--Doubly Up in Your Crotch--having two penises apparently isn't all it's cracked up to be.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:36 AM on August 13, 2007

DU: Doesn't work for me either. It just feels like I'm rubbing my nose with crossed fingers. I even tried closing my eyes.

I probably look terribly silly right now. *rubrubrub*

(And yeah, cool links!)
posted by fuzzbean at 11:46 AM on August 13, 2007

Dog noses look like they're formed with a split/seam down the middle anyway, so I wonder if all this is just an increase in teh space between the two sides.
posted by Zinger at 12:02 PM on August 13, 2007

Darnit, the space.
posted by Zinger at 12:03 PM on August 13, 2007

Am I the only one fixating on the BBC's photo caption?

Xingu is said to be intelligent and fond of salty biscuits.

It's good to know fellow intelligent creatures share my fondness for salty biscuits.
posted by annaramma at 12:21 PM on August 13, 2007

The Scientific Exploration Society was in Bolivia to investigate a shallow crater about five miles in width.

According to Colonel Blashford-Snell, he has now found evidence that this was caused by a giant meteorite, which struck the Bolivian Amazon Basin up to 30,000 years ago.

He says he has found evidence of human habitation within 50 miles of the blast zone, and believes these people were wiped out as a result of the meteor's impact.

The explorers also carried with them a church organ from Dorset as a gift to local Bolivians in order to secure their help with finding the meteorite.

"Colonel Blashford-Snell". Giant meteorite. An expedition carrying a church organ through the jungle. The discovery of the two nosed dog. The two nosed dog's best friend, a pig. "Salty biscuits".

This is all beyond awesome.
posted by jokeefe at 12:33 PM on August 13, 2007 [5 favorites]

you may find it interesting, that in a way, we DO have two noses. each nostril is a kind of nose, and we smell, as it were, in stereo. in this light, the two nose phenomenon may be quite understandable.

popular media account:
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/mar/raw-data-scents-and-scents-ability

a technical article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9521322&dopt=AbstractPlus
posted by mano at 12:41 PM on August 13, 2007

.... and sorry to distract from the enjoyment of salty biscuits.
posted by mano at 12:44 PM on August 13, 2007

"we smell, as it were, in stereo"

Aha! I've got it! The dog thought it would have smelled better in Doubly!

Case closed.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:52 PM on August 13, 2007

I assume the two-assed dogs of Senegal are more evidence of continental drift then.
posted by kingfisher, his musclebound cat at 12:52 PM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Heh jokeefe, I was about to quote the same parts. It's a 18th century expedition escaped from the time warp.
Great story.
posted by jouke at 1:11 PM on August 13, 2007

"While we were there, sitting by the fire one night, I saw an extraordinary-looking dog that appeared to have two noses. I was sober at the time ..."

I keep getting this mental image of Rowley Birkin, QC who would have been, of course "very very drunk at the time"
posted by kcds at 1:51 PM on August 13, 2007

Phht, two noses, that’s nothing, yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn't there He wasn't there again today - although I can’t really admit sobriety here, so...

(from weapons-grade pandemonium’s link) “Diphallia is a medical condition and should not be confused with genital bisection, which is an elective procedure which involves the splitting of the penis.”

Ahhh!!! *runs around holding groin*
Biscuits aren’t going to help that, no matter how salty.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:13 PM on August 13, 2007

How do they smell?

very well - two well in fact.
posted by CynicalKnight at 2:14 PM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

He [Xingu] had just produced a litter of puppies with a bitch that had a single nose.

Damn — too late for Bulwer-Lytton!
posted by rob511 at 3:30 PM on August 13, 2007

Ahhh!!! *runs around holding groin*

Smedleyman, SHHHhhhh. For God's sake don't say that out loud. We don't want another thread hogging argument with about whether it's bigoted to be freaked out by people getting their knobs chopped in half.

The dog is pretty cool. The story is awesome. I want to see the pig and the dog getting up to some high-wire hi-jinx that end with them eating someone's Sunday roast, or culturally appropriate equivalent thereof. The explorer can then use them to infiltrate the Temple of Pelom Rof, Dark Lord of The Underlands.

Bonus points if the organ is used to play a secret holy chord that sends the souls of the undead back to the Hell.
posted by howfar at 4:00 PM on August 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Here's a field report of the expedition from the SES site. It starts out with a bus crash!
posted by mexican at 9:58 PM on August 13, 2007

Last time I heard of Blashford-Snell, he was leading a crack team of piano tuners into the Amazon to tune the grand piano he'd previously delivered to the Wai Wai tribe.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 12:03 AM on August 14, 2007

How do they smell?

Twice as bad.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:00 AM on August 14, 2007