Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Swamp boogers vs. woolly boogers

Many people mistake the common swamp booger with wooly boogers and it’s important to understand the differences.

This page discusses the different species of boogers and sadly notes that swamp boogers have become so rare that some people have never seen one in the wild:

“Don't you know that swamp boogers are actually natives of Virginia? Before the pilgrims, Virginia was covered with swamps and therefore a perfect habitat for them swamp boogers. When the pilgrims arrived they hunted the swamp boogers for food.

Swamp boogers are fairly slow and very curious animals. That was there demise. On top of the hunting them for food, the pilgrims and their descendants filled in the swamps and destroyed the swamp boogers natural habitat.

Today swamp boogers have become so rare that some people actually regard them as a myth.


But in 2001 a group of scientist have stumbled onto a small colony of them in the middle of the Florida everglades. They are now protected by federal law.”


I’ve commonly asked how a wooly booger is different from swamp boogers. I’m no biologist, but once you see a wild booger the differences become clear. Native to the swamps of northern North Carolina and Virginia, the swamp booger tends to be larger than the “wooly” booger. Also, many sighting of woolly boogers are really just common western forest boogers.

Save the boogers

Part of the problem with the boogers is that their natural habitat is rapidly disappearing. Booger Mountain, once a sanctuary for woolly boogers, has become a major Christmas tree supplier:



The woolly boogers are almost gone, and the failure of the government to preserve the boogers natural habitat has provoked outrage among booger conservationists:



The boogers natural habitat is disappearing, and ours may be the last generation to see these magnificent creatures in the wild.