The Martian Honkasquonk
The Martian Honkasquonk is a cautionary tale about space exploration and alien biohazards.
Bring back soil samples, they said. We can learn a lot, they said.
One of the things we learned is that just because Earth life doesn’t have silicone-based spores that can lie dormant for hundreds of millions of years, doesn’t mean that Martian life can’t have them.
The other thing we learned is that the Honkasquonk spawns by the billions and that its wind-blown spores are smaller than a dust particle.
No one knows how the Honkasquonk escaped NASA’s isolation facilities, but the creature did escape, and it quickly colonized hipster beards worldwide.
The Honkasquonk crawls out of toilets and drains by the hundreds in warm summer months to release its spores. The creature will hang motionless on drapes and furniture with its butt in the air, often unnoticed due to its camouflaged skin.
When disturbed, the Honkasquonk makes a series of loud honking gasping sounds or “honkasquonks” and scares the shit out of whoever bumped into it.
Fun Facts:
Mint flavoring is chemically similar to the sex pheromones secreted by Honkasquonks, and they will copulate wildly with any object dipped in mint flavoring, even in a solution with microscopic trace amounts of the stuff.
It shouldn’t surprise you too much to learn that the concentration can be as low as 2 or 3 parts per million. As you probably already know from experience, a toothbrush left by the bathroom sink overnight will be covered in frantically copulating Honkaquonks in the morning no matter how well you clean the brush the night before.
That is why medieval monks slept with their tooth brushes stuck in their butt. One of the reasons.
Habitat:
Hipster beards, sewer systems, your toothbrush.
More Improbable Creatures:
This trading card is part of a series titled “Uncle Joe’s Field Guide to Improbable Creatures” by Jethro Sleestak. View more Improbable Creatures.
