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]
Hesse or Hessia, officially the State of Hesse, is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major historic cities are Darmstadt and Kassel. With an area of 21,114.73 square kilometers and a population of over six million, it ranks seventh and fifth, respectively, among the sixteen German states. Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Germany's second-largest metropolitan area, is mainly located in Hesse.
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.
Goethe University Frankfurt is a public research university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt. The original name in German was Universität Frankfurt am Main. In 1932, the university's name was extended in honour of one of the most famous native sons of Frankfurt, the poet, philosopher and writer/dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The university currently has around 45,000 students, distributed across four major campuses within the city.
Arnold Fanck was a German film director and pioneer of the mountain film genre. He is best known for the extraordinary alpine footage he captured in such films as The Holy Mountain (1926), The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929), Storm over Mont Blanc (1930), The White Ecstasy (1931), and S.O.S. Eisberg (1933). Fanck was also instrumental in launching the careers of several filmmakers during the Weimar years in Germany, including Leni Riefenstahl, Luis Trenker, and cinematographers Sepp Allgeier, Richard Angst, Hans Schneeberger, and Walter Riml.
Budenheim is a municipality in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Unlike other municipalities in Mainz-Bingen, it does not belong to any Verbandsgemeinde.
Runkel is a town on the river Lahn in Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany.
Brechen is a municipality in Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany.
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.
Ludwigshöhe is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Rhein-Selz.
Woppenroth 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.
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.
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 .
Blair Witch is an American horror media franchise created by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, distributed by Artisan Entertainment and produced by Haxan Films that consists of three feature films and various additional media. The development of the franchise's first installment, The Blair Witch Project, started in 1993. Myrick and Sanchez wrote a 35-page outline of a story with the dialogue to be improvised. Filming began in 1997 and lasted eight days. The film follows the disappearance of three student filmmakers in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary on the local legend known as the "Blair Witch".
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.