SOURCE: "The Hothouse World" by Arthur K. Barnes   (Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1937)

DESCRIPTION: "Fifty feet long and nearly twenty feet wide, it had three pairs of squat powerful legs ending in enormously spatulate discs. Its hide was a thick, tough gray stuff that gleamed dully with a wet slickness in the half light. But the most surprising feature was the creature's head which, instead of tapering to a point, broadened into a mammoth snout extending several feet horizontally from mouth-corner to mouth-corner. Flattened against the ground it had a ludicrous similarity to a fan-tail vacuum cleaner attachment. The shovel-mouth stared at the party disinterestedly out of muddy eyes, then lowered his head and waddled across the clearing. Its mouth plowed up a wide shallow furrow as it ate indiscriminately the numerous fungi, low-lying bushes, sticks and mud." ("The Hothouse World" by Arthur K. Barnes)

NOTES: The Shovel-Mouth is herbivorous, using its shovel-shaped nose to till the ground in search of fungi. To see the ground after a shovel-mouth as been there is to see what looks like a field tilled by a drunk farmer.

HISTORY: Barnes' tale is remonscient (in a good way) of the planetary tales of Stanley G. Weinbaum. His Venus has been well-thought out. See also The Murri, The Rotifer, The Venusians, The Whip, and Whiz-Bang Beetles.

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