A short article on the Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer first appeared in the April, 1995 issue of Discover magazine. The article was written by Tim Folger, then an editor at the magazine. Folger wrote several other April Fool stories for the magazine, including one about the discovery of prehistoric musical instruments—bagpipes, a mastodon-tusk tuba, and a bone triangle—supposedly used by Neanderthals.