I am very surprised that DISCOVER would report the common ice mole rat as a scientific "breakthrough." It has been known for many years as the only terrestrial mammal in Antarctica. We have a rather large collection of these little mammals, known to us as Thermocephalus frigidash kemphos. You have illustrated only the rather plain female in your report. I am sure your readers would have been more interested in seeing the spectacular male with its striped purple-and-yellow head, which contrasts markedly with its dark blue posterior.

I must also point out an error in your reported body temperature of 110 degrees. The anterior body temperature is actually 107.6 degrees, whereas the posterior has a temperature of only 70.2 degrees. This anterior-posterior heat flux is important in preventing these ice mole rats from sinking through the ice sheets and is unknown in any other mammal.

Loof von Lirpa
Department of Vertebrate Zoology
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C.



Last Christmas, on a visit to New York City, I was walking past the Central Park ice skating rink at twilight. The rink was already closed, but there was one lone skater practicing her figures. I was hurrying, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the skater losing her balance. Everything happened so fast. She seemed to be sinking into the ice, which had turned into a pool of slush about six feet in diameter. To my horror, she dropped out of sight in moments--but not before I saw a tiny, ugly, rodentlike head peer up briefly from the slush. I rushed over, but by then all that remained were the metal portions of the skates. Because I had had more than one drink at a friend's office Christmas party, my mind could not accept what I had seen. I'm ashamed to admit that I brushed off this bizarre event. Like a typical New Yorker, I just didn't want to "get involved."

Now I realize what must have occurred. As much as we have all been concerned about the northward progression of killer bees into our country, I'm afraid that I have more bad news to report. Apparently these horrid creatures, these ice borers, may be invading our temperate zone.

David L. Charney, M.D.
Alexandria, Va.


Aprile Pazzo's discovery was fascinating, although not wholly unexpected considering Pazzo's renown for fantastic and even unbelievable research observations. Further, although Pazzo is known to be on the cutting ice of science, in this instance it must be pointed out that her description of hotheaded ice borers is not new.

On April 1, 1950, Dr. Auguste Fou, while investigating the disappearance of several peewee hockey players in Quebec, discovered a colony of hotheads living in the ice between the blue lines at the hockey rink at which the players were last seen. Unfortunately, Fou was denounced by the Quebec Junior Hockey League; his findings were never made public, nor was he heard from again. Pazzo's recent corroboration, therefore, is a welcome addition to the heretofore repressed information regarding a hot animal whose existence is now out of the deep freeze.

Robert Wolkow
New York


At first I suspected the old LSD in the coffee trick. Then I noticed that although it was March, I was reading your April issue. Your picture of the "ice borer" shows a Namibian mole rat with either an osteoma or a funny hat. Disregarding the evolutionary and geographical quandaries such a creature would present, let me deal with the inevitable metabolic problem. I am certain that experts in this field even now are calculating that in order to perform the thermal feats described, the creature would have to eat penguins for 483 hours each day. I have a solution: the beast has harnessed the secrets of cold fusion.

John O. Ives
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vt.


I want Aprile Pazzo to send me some hotheaded naked ice borers. This is the perfect solution for removing unwanted ice and snow from my driveway. It would also help me cull the flock of equally repulsive, unwanted bald-headed Chicago penguins that roost in my backyard every winter.

Robert Meyer
Buffalo Grove, Ill.