{"id":7796,"date":"2013-04-02T11:08:53","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T16:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=7796"},"modified":"2015-07-07T11:29:47","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T15:29:47","slug":"interview-with-a-saber-tooth-tiger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=7796","title":{"rendered":"Interview with a Saber Tooth Tiger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note:<\/strong> this article first appeared<\/a> as a guest blog post in Scientific American.<\/p>\n

\"Lions,<\/a>
\nCave lion(esse)s, Aurignacian era, Chauvet cave, France<\/p>\n

From our science correspondent AA.<\/em><\/p>\n

AA: We\u2019re in a cave at an undisclosed location on the Himalayas, interviewing Ms. Lilypad, a saber tooth tiger. Ms. Lilypad, what made you agree to this interview after your species has lived incognito for literally millennia?<\/p>\n

LP: I got tired listening to the TED goombahs going on and on about de-extinction. So I decided to write my memoirs. Why should everyone get rich and famous but us?<\/p>\n

AA: Were you able to find agent representation?<\/p>\n

LP: (Extends a claw towards an avalanche of printouts). They\u2019re falling all over themselves, but most are suggesting chewtoys as royalties. What do they take us for, wolves?<\/p>\n

AA: Everyone thought you\u2019d gone extinct. How did you manage to survive?<\/p>\n

LP: We had to leave yaks alone, couldn\u2019t afford to arouse suspicions. We scraped along by carefully harvesting yetis — and the occasional climbing expedition when things got really lean. Though humans are more trouble than they\u2019re worth, with all that extra stuff to remove. Do you know how bad GoreTex tastes? Plus it wreaks havoc with our digestion.<\/p>\n

AA: How did you manage to escape detection, especially after the advent of sophisticated surveillance technologies?<\/p>\n

LP: Whenever we crossed in front of one of those silly hidden cameras, we clapped a paw over our fangs. The National Geographic doofuses thought we were Siberian tigers (snickers and grooms her whiskers).<\/p>\n

AA: Are the others in your group on board with breaking cover after all this time?<\/p>\n

LP: Most are. The warmup made the yeti population plummet. Also made them tougher to chew. We\u2019re all looking forward to real food, like mammoth steaks (starts opening a jar of horseradish sauce).<\/p>\n

AA: But if you eat mammoths, you\u2019ll drive them back into extinction!<\/p>\n

LP: Do you want to have an unregulated mammoth population explosion? If we don\u2019t do our part, they\u2019ll trample everything into mud! (Sniffs the horseradish sauce, wrinkles her nose). Besides, you\u2019re a fine one to talk. Rapacious bipeds.<\/p>\n

AA: Point taken. Where would you prefer to live, given a choice?<\/p>\n

LP: The Siberian cousins tell us things look pretty grim up there. Similar reports from the Polar Bear Bureau on Greenland and Nunavut. Antarctica has a good food supply, though the habitat\u2026 We considered zoos but the photos look awful. I mean, aluminum bathtubs? Circuses are better \u2013 at least you get to do something. So we got proactive, put together a proposal for cleanup services. Sent it to big-city mayors.<\/p>\n

AA: What was the response?<\/p>\n

LP: Guarded. On the other hand, we got eager queries from cartels and military leaders.<\/p>\n

AA: How much territory would you require?<\/p>\n

LP: Something the size of Rhode Island. (Pause). Per tiger.<\/p>\n

AA: Would you consent to being part of scientific investigations? Experimentations?<\/p>\n

LP: We\u2019re flexible. But after watching a few episodes of Nova, we\u2019re really wary. Some things are off the list for sure. Ixnay to tranquilizer darts and forced mating. (Eyes correspondent\u2019s arm) Mind if I test the horseradish sauce on you?<\/p>\n

AA: Bad idea.<\/p>\n

LP: Ok. (Grumbles under her breath).<\/p>\n

AA: What do you think of the transhumanists\u2019 ideas about uplift?<\/p>\n

LP: We saber tooth tigers are already as uplifted as we want and need to be.<\/p>\n

AA: What about their concept of turning predators into loving vegetarians?<\/p>\n

LP: Send them over, we can discuss this face to face (starts opening a jar of wasabi). Send over the guys who think that tiger parts cure impotence, while you\u2019re at it.<\/p>\n

AA: Speaking of that, have you had cubs of your own?<\/p>\n

LP: A few. Hard to find nice males with a decent genetic pedigree. Plus they try to expand into your territory afterwards, as if one mating gives them lifelong rights (growls). Also hard to teach the cubs good hunting habits, with all the skulking and hiding we\u2019ve had to do.<\/p>\n

AA: Are you looking forward to becoming part of the world?<\/p>\n

LP: We do the live-and-let-live thing, everyone\u2019s happy.<\/p>\n

AA: By the way, isn\u2019t Lilypad an odd name for a top-of-the-chain predator?<\/p>\n

\"Pad<\/a>LP: My mom named me after the tiger in Elizabeth Marshall Thomas\u2019 Animal Wife<\/a><\/em>, whose pawprints looked like water lily leaves. (Purrs). She read a lot \u2013 winters here are long!<\/p>\n

On the right:<\/strong> Lilypad stealthily concealing her giveaway fangs (photo: Peter Cassidy, staff photographer).<\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong> Interview with a Yeti<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: this article first appeared as a guest blog post in Scientific American. Cave lion(esse)s, Aurignacian era, Chauvet cave, France From our science correspondent AA. AA: We\u2019re in a cave at an undisclosed location on the Himalayas, interviewing Ms. Lilypad, a saber tooth tiger. Ms. Lilypad, what made you agree to this interview after your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}