FROG WHO BECAME A KING

The American Mastodon does not doubt that some readers of these pages may be confused as to the exact physical and mental attributes of its narrator. It is possible they wonder if the American Mastodon really is the last remaining specie of his kind, or if (and to scientists this latter theory seems a more likely hypothesis) he is actually a human being, and the persona he adopts is nothing but a clever and amusing facade; a well-orchestrated ruse.

Lately, however, scientists have begun questioning their previously held assumptions in lieu of recent news reports suggesting that the division between the ancestral and evolved lineages of the living orders may be a bit fuzzier than previously thought.

Either way, the American Mastodon wishes you to know that he is not that different from you. Scientists speculate that even if he is of the genus Mammut, he may still have been born from the womb of a human mother.