A childhood belief about general

As a kid growing up my grandfather used to always tell us that the reason for the winding trails going up the slopes of nearby hills (from cattle grazing) was because of these extremely rare animals called Gyrasticuttus's (I can't spell it). Supposedly this animal was born with the legs on one side of its body shorter than the other... which was handy for eating grass as it wound up the hill. Unfortunately once at the top it couldn't get down because of the leg imbalance so it had to tumble end over end in order to get down. I believed him whole-heartedly for years and my sister and I (who usually fought like dogs) would spend entire car rides in silence trying to catch a glimps of the rare beast out our window... which as it turned out, worked very well for my grandparents.