snoot

True to its name, this shiny, black, speckled mushroom looks exactly like the snoot on a dog.

Why was he so interested in writing thrillers — particularly at a time when he was, as he says, a “literary snoot?”

Ms. Heller’s obituary noted that her father considered many of these people “wannabe blue bloods, snoots and summer barnacles that roamed about town.”

More than that, the anatomy of the roughly 125 million-year-old snoot bears a striking resemblance to that of another pterosaur found thousands of miles away.

But, unlike a team of costumed super-villains, they can’t be halted with a punch in the snoot, or a zap from a ray gun.