Imagine you get a knock on your door, and when you go down to answer it, there's two men standing in your doorway.

One is a balding and heavy-set fellow with a foreign accent and a bit of anxiety in his voice.

The other is from the neighborhood, but you've never actually met him.

And behind them, in the street, there are several men waiting, with shovels.

This crowd wants to know if you've seen a chipmunk.

If you lived in Aleppo 91 years ago, you very well could have had an equivalently strange experience.

Israel Aharoni wanted to name animals. Specifically, he wanted to give holy names to the creatures

of the holy land. He was a Jewish biologist, and he hoped to give Hebrew names to animals living in Levant.

Sometimes this task was pretty simple.

First, he'd read up on an animal described in the Torah.

Second, he'd look for the animal in the area best matching this description, and then lastly,

he'd link up the Torah's Hebrew name with that existing species.

Other times, though, it was a little more involved.

This was one of those other times.

His mission was to find a mysterious golden animal in Syria, whose Arabic name translates to

English as Mr. Saddlebacks. In the year 1930, Israel went house by house with his local guide and several shovel-wielding assistance,

knocking on doors and asking if anyone had seen Mr. Saddlebacks.

As I alluded to, I think for modern Americans who constitute the majority of people listening,

this would be the equivalent of someone knocking on your door

and asking if you'd seen a chipmunk.

Eventually, of course, someone at the door said,

Yes, I've seen Mr. Saddlebags in the yard.

...