larson caused much confusion with the cow tools comic by making one tool resemble a saw. this caused people to miss the point of the cartoon completely by trying to figure out what the other primitive tools were supposed to be.
it seems to be the same thing with that object in the tree.
Gary Larsen drew a picture of a cow with some oddly shaped items on a table. Since the objects were obviously useless, they are testament to the stupidity of cows. And the tag line was “cow tools.” You virtually had to channel Gary Larsen to get the joke, but knowing that cows are dumb and any tool they devise would be pretty badly suited to any purpose except appearing in a Gary Larsen cartoon gets you more than halfway there. Gary admits he’s no draftsman and often states that he drew something attempting to draw something else and when he was finished, discovered the original joke didn’t work, but the failed drawing suggested a new joke which was perfectly suited to the Far Side. That’s genius. Unfortunately, about a zillion cartoonists then sprang from the wainscotting drawing oddly shaped things and assigning incomprehensible tag lines and waiting breathlessly to be proclaimed the “next Gary Larsen”–as if there could be such a thing. The whole point of genius is that it can’t be quantified or reproduced.
Now on to sea tools–a salvadore dali concept.
I wrote the author (or at least to the email address on the home page of “Snake Tales”). I said:
**
**
He explained it thusly:
Seems obvious to me.
Those things that look like arms are the koala’s ears.
Nyah nyah told ya so 
Hey it may be bad, but it’s not half as bad as most Wizard of Id or Marmaduke or Family Circus cartoons.