From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The eponymous snark in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark is a fictional animal, the quarry for a hunting party comprising some highly unlikely characters. They are warned that if their snark is a boojum they will swiftly and silently vanish away and never be heard of again.
The word "snark" is an amalgam of "snake" and "shark".
In graph theory, a snark is a graph in which each vertex has three edges, but it is impossible to color the edges with only three colors so that edges of the same color don't meet at one vertex. A boojum is a planar snark. See Four-Color Theorem.
The SM-62 Snark was an intercontinental nuclear cruise missile of the US Air Force that was operational in 1960 and 1961.
In computer lingo, a "snark" is a system failure. When a user's process bombed, the operator would get the message "Help, Help, Snark in MTS!"
More generally, any kind of unexplained or threatening event on a computer is called a snark, especially those pesky entries in log files that might indicate an attempted security violation. (Also see snivitz).
In Marvel Comics, the Zn'rx, or "Snarks", are reptilian aliens who frequently menaced the alien Kymaelians and the child superheroes of Power Pack.
