Harvey Cutter

Harvey Cutter was a hunter who traveled back ten million years to Miocene Italy to capture specimens of primates for the San Diego Cenozoic Zoo. He was having troubles capturing specimens of the hominoids he was after. He had set out a number of live capture traps but the creatures were ignoring the fruit he had set out as bait.

He wasn't even sure if any were about since he hadn't seen any sign of them. He had seen Diceratheriums and the wolfish Cynodesmus that hunted them. Despite the smell, he was glad that he was working in a swamp since the Cynodesmus preferred dry land and in this time period all hominoids were prey. He had also seen herds of Syndyoceras daintily pick their way past the swamp.

One day, while making his rounds of his traps, he did discover footprints around one trap. They were half the size of those of humans but of roughly the same shape. The major difference was the opposable big toe stuck out at an odd angle. Definitely the species he was after. Definitely it had ignored the fat juicy red apple he had set out as bait.

Cursing, he sat down to have lunch, a ration pack based on the old military P- or T- or whatever it was ration. He ate with distaste what he had and then pulled out a cellophane wrapped package of four cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies. He looked at them, laughed and said "Why the hell not?" He proceeded to use them for bait and captured a breeding pair for the zoo.

As he told Lucy Durr, the second assistant curator, what else would you use for bait when going after Oreopithecus?