ANNOUNCEMENTS

Primate Nooz is pleased to report the results of last issue's questionaire about the story we ran on Dr. Oondóué M. Boué's discovery of bluetail guenons in the Bermuda Triangle. 8% of our readers responded to the questionaire, and of those, 11% stated that they believed Dr. Boué while 89% said they thought he was insane.  Of the 89% who said they did not believe him, approximately 86% also declared that they would not fly on Gabon Airways.  54% stated that they would avoid the Bermuda Triangle on any airline. Mr. Christopher Shaw, who has settled down nicely in his new position as West Coast correspondent for the Nooz and who conducted that portion of our survey, reported that the percentage of people in Los Angeles who did not believe Dr. Boué was only 23%, and that a whopping 96% of the staff of the LA County Museum of Unnatural History firmly believed the veteran primatologist. The poll had a margin of error of + or - 52%.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Senhor Teófilo Afonso Rosario Sobradinho  (1982). The Natural History of the Gobo Root.  Jesus da Lapa Bros. Press, Belo Horizonte, Brazil  *****

Mitsuo Ohhohoho  (1988).  Mitsuo's Monkeys.  Simon and Schuster, New York.  *****

Christopher Shaw  (1989).  “Being the West Coast Correspondent of the Nooz while continuing to recommend good reading for anyone who makes such a request of me, carrying on my important work at the Page Museum, and trying to decide whether to go any further with my lawsuit against Primate Nooz can be a tricky business.”  Reader's Digest,  897:51-64.  **

GOBO ROOT Cont. from page 3.

rubber tire that are often seen on the highways of the world, except that it is brown rather than black, is rough and fibrous rather than smooth and shiny, and is straight rather than curved, but other than that it is just the same.
      The gobo root has been known by many names, among which are topepo, scammony, jalap, wasabi and jungle parsnip.  The root that your mommy sees on her grocery store shelf was originally part of a much larger root that frequently wound for miles through the tall forests, strangling jaragua trees, crossing rivers and lakes, and tripping up ground-dwelling Croesus monkeys and people alike.  In some cases it could grow to have a diameter of 10-15 feet. The innocent-looking gobo root has been blamed for such common tropical ailments as popeye, urosis, coxalgy, zymotic fever, the bends, xanthoma, staggers, scabbado, zootic rot, earworm, the pox, gout, bighead and the plague, but there is no evidence that it has caused any of these. However, three small-town mayors are known to have died from gobo root poisoning in the U.S. in the last twelve months.
      Curuá, Xingu, Iriri and Aporé Indians hunting the giant mud turtles and skipperjacks that inhabit the Amazon's sluggish rivers are known to chew the gobo root which increases their lung capacity and permits them to remain underwater for hours.  Both the jumping spider monkey and the flat-footed or ruby-rumped tamarin feed on smaller sections of the root, breaking it and allowing the brown, gummy sap to exude.
      Uh oh, the editors are frantically waving their arms up and down and I take that to mean that I am out of time, so I'll say goodbye for now, but I'm sure I'll see you all very soon.

WOW!  DOES HE KNOW HIS GOBO ROOTS OR   DOESN'T HE!  HEY KIDS, BE SURE TO SHOW THIS ARTICLE TO YOUR MOMMIES BECAUSE THEY NEED TO BE INFORMED TOO.  NEXT TIME, “WHAT IS THE AYE-AYE-AYE?”