Re: Horned diggers/Navajo legend

[Adrienne Mayor <afmayor@aol.com>]

The large burrowing mammal-like reptile (therapsid, Placerias), found  
in abundance around Petrified Forest, near St Johns, Arizona, had  
large bony "tusks" for digging. These fossils may have influenced the  
old Navajo myths about a creature called "Burrowing or Horned  
Monster." This monster was described as a very large horned animal  
something like a huge elk or a gigantic striped gopher with horns or  
tusks. It could be found in windswept gullies in the desert, where it  
dug tunnels and plowed up the earth.