The stone louse (Petrophaga lorioti, in German Steinlaus) is a fictitious animal created by German humorist Loriot in 1976 to parody nature documentaries. It was primarily featured in a video sketch, as well as being a fictitious entry in the German medical encyclopedic dictionary Pschyrembel Klinisches Wörterbuch .
Loriot created a popular mockumentary titled The Stone-Louse, a parody of Ein Platz für Tiere ("A Place for Animals"), a longstanding TV series about endangered wildlife by the famous German zoologist and documentary filmmaker Dr. Bernhard Grzimek (ARD, 20.47-51). The mockumentary chronicles Loriot's 1976 "discovery" of the stone-louse.
The "science documentary" describes the stone-louse as a rodent-like mite in the order "Fictional Rodents", 20 to 24 mm (3⁄4 to 1 in) long which consumes about 28 kilograms (62 lb) of stone per day, depending on the density and tastiness of said stone. Loriot gives some deadpan comments on a filmed building implosion, mentioning the "shy rodent" to be at lunch in its natural habitat (before the implosion). As the building vanishes into dust and rubble in the background, Loriot caringly speaks about the "possierliche kleine Nager" ("endearing little rodents") and concludes with some "alarming" points about the endangered status of the entire species.
In 1983, the clinical dictionary Pschyrembel , from German scientific publisher Walter de Gruyter, contained information about the stone louse for the first time in printed form. The short article is thought to be based mainly on Loriot's TV documentary.
Extending Loriot's parody, the Pschyrembel informs about the louse's "value" in fighting bladder, gall and kidney stones. The subspecies "gallstone louse" and "kidney stone louse" are mentioned only briefly due to "lack of further scientific data".
In the 257th edition of the Pschyrembel, the authors omitted the fictitious entry. The following edition, in 1997, featured it again due to protests from readers and was presented on Frankfurt Book Fair as the correct "Steinlaus inside" version.
Recently discovered "insights" found their way into this new version, which even speculated about the stone louse's participation in the fall of the Berlin Wall, since the wall was mainly placed in areas "commonly inhabited by the stone louse". That theory was reinforced by "discoveries" that the stone louse might have been used by the Spartans to bring down the ancient Athenians' Long Walls. Other hypotheses connect the stone louse with the end of the Stone Age.
The Pschyrembel denies that the stone louse has become extinct, and refers to recent "sightings" by a local expert on stone lice, "Dr. Schlereth", at construction sites in Kronach, Bavaria. The 260th edition extends the article even further, referring to results in homeopathy.
The fictional Member of Parliament Jakob Maria Mierscheid has contributed to the (fictional) 3. Hoechster Steinlaus-Symposium, XII (3) in Frankfurt. [1]
A contribution to a Senckenberg Museum Symposium in Frankfurt in 1999 mentioned "dangers" posed by stone lice to the protection of architectural heritage and monuments. [2]
Within Dortmund Zoo, some stone lice are "tended" and "on display".
Petrascheck's handbook of Lagerstättenlehre (ores and mineral resources) [3] refers to weathering effects of the animal.
Iris Ritzmann Lithophagus entry in Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte [4] claims a predecessor, the Steinbiter or Lithophagus, mentioned already in Zedlers Universallexikon. She states a 19th-century use of homeopathic remedies, based on Lapis infernalis C 30 had resulted in the extinction of the species. [4]
According to a scientific paper of Deutsche Bibliothek, a rough guess of the amount of stone lice in the neighborhood of German libraries amounted to 113.3 billion. The author, Dr. Florian Seiffert, assumes that after the fall of the Berlin Wall, stone lice sought another ecological niche and found it in libraries. [5] The Berlin wall case has been confirmed as well in English sources. [6]
The German Insurance Catalogue for the German Public Health Service (only the G-DRG Version 2003/2004) temporarily mentioned Stonelouse Parasitism on men as a possible illness and gave some indications about average treatment, cost tags and remedies. The Color Atlas of Pathology by Thieme Medical Publishers refers to Petrophaga lorioti as a therapeutic infestation that could be used in the management of stone disorders.
The municipality of Zürich has issued official guidance for citizens having trouble with stone lice. [7]
Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest, known professionally as Christopher Guest, is a British-American actor, comedian, screenwriter and director. Guest has written, directed, and starred in his series of comedy films shot in mockumentary style. The series of films began with This Is Spinal Tap and continued with Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration, and Mascots.
Epidemic typhus, also known as louse-borne typhus, is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters where civil life is disrupted. Epidemic typhus is spread to people through contact with infected body lice, in contrast to endemic typhus which is usually transmitted by fleas.
Jakob Maria Mierscheid MdB has been a fictitious politician in the German Bundestag since 11 December 1979. He was the alleged deputy chairman of the Mittelstandsausschuss of the Bundestag in 1981 and 1982. According to his official biography, he was born in Morbach/Hunsrück, a very rural constituency in Rhineland-Palatinate. He is Catholic and a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Fictitious or fake entries are deliberately incorrect entries in reference works such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, and directories, added by the editors as copyright traps to reveal subsequent plagiarism or copyright infringement. There are more specific terms for particular kinds of fictitious entry, such as Mountweazel, trap street, paper town, phantom settlement, and nihilartikel.
Dark Side of the Moon is a French mockumentary by director William Karel. It originally aired on the Franco-German television network Arte in 2002 with the title Opération Lune.
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Flonheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Villmar is a market village and municipality in the Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany. The community is the centre for quarrying and processing the so-called Lahn Marble.
Lautzenhausen is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Kirchberg, whose seat is in the like-named town.
Docufiction is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is and which simultaneously introduces unreal elements or fictional situations in narrative in order to strengthen the representation of reality using some kind of artistic expression.
Darwinius is a genus within the infraorder Adapiformes, a group of basal strepsirrhine primates from the middle Eocene epoch. Its only known species, Darwinius masillae, lived approximately 47 million years ago based on dating of the fossil site.
Pschyrembel most commonly refers to a popular medical dictionary in German, the Pschyrembel Clinical Dictionary .
The Synagoge Zürich Löwenstrasse is the oldest and largest synagogue in the Swiss municipality of Zürich. In 1884 built in Moorish style, the oldest synagogue of Zürich also houses the prayer and school house of Israelitische Cultusgemeinde Zürich (ICZ) which was founded in 1862. ICZ is a unified Jewish community having about 2,500 members, and thus the largest Jewish community in Switzerland, which since 2007 in the Canton of Zürich is recognized as a denomination, i.e. it has the same legal state as the Christian denominations. In the synagogue, the community celebrates the daily Minyan and Shabbat and holiday services. The synagogue is a cultural heritage of national importance in Switzerland.
Neo Magazin Royale is a German satirical late-night talk show hosted by Jan Böhmermann. Produced in Cologne, it has been aired weekly on the ZDFneo channel since 31 October 2013. It is also made available in advance on the online ZDFmediathek internet page, with some segments uploaded to YouTube.
Knulp is a series of three tales by Hermann Hesse, published in 1915 by S. Fischer Verlag. The three episodes are about a vagrant called Knulp. Hesse wrote these tales between 1907 and 1914 and they are considered to be part of his “Gerbersau” cycle.