Better Beastiary

     Man-eater. That was the word on the street when we began our search for the legendary leucrocuta.

     "It's not fair," whined my assistant Timeaus, a pint-sized, but plucky faun just starting as an field artist for Better Bestiary, "you're only a third human, but it'll eat half of me!"

     That's Timmy's humor for you, nervous and forced. He was hoping we'd do a piece on jackalopes or wild haggis for his first job, but I had my eye on wilder game. 

     We started our search in Ethiopia, on the edges of civilization where the constant encroachment of the wild and lack of modern amenities churn out tales of mythic beasts and dark encounters by the bucket load. It seemed no one was without a friend or a friend of a friend who had come to within an inch of their life in facing the leucrocuta.

     "It sounded like a man calling for help," said one villager ominously, "but when my friend went to investigate he only saw glowing eyes."

     Had he not been quick on his feet, that friend would have been crushed and gobbled down whole by the unhinged jaws of the leucrocuta. Some pegged the beast as the monstrous offspring of a lioness and a hyena. Thrown into the mix were the haunches and hooves of a deer and the head of a horse, or even a badger. It's jaws, rumored to open clear back to it's ears, were said to be filled not with individual teeth, but with bear-trap like rows of sharpened bone. It had the ferocity of a lion, the swiftness of a stag and could perfectly mimic the voice of a man. 

     With such a description, we had to see it for ourselves.

     We trekked two days into the wilderness with no luck. Of lions and hyenas we saw and heard plenty, and many a time I followed trails of cloven hoof prints only to disappointment. But on the third day, as the sun was dipping into the sky and Timmy and I were setting up camp, an eerie and unfamiliar cry shook us. It was a shriek, to my surprise, that sounded very much like a human cry for help. I followed its sound, dragging my reluctant photographer behind me. Just beyond the tree-line, two hulking beasts, the size of large mules, were squabbling over the bones of a long dead buffalo. 

     Hooves of a stag, head of a badger and a set of fearsome jaws that shattered bones like balsa wood: these were our leucrocuta!

     Brimming with excitment (and fear, no doubt, on the part of my brave photographer) we watched the leucrocuta until the dark of evening obscured our view - and through the night, in our camp, we listened to their scoffing and chortling.

     In the next few days we discovered the main pack. Led, it seemed, by a dominant female, the pack functioned with a strong heirarchy, threshing out disputes with human-like whines and snarls that raised the hair on our necks. They seemed to do their hunting nocturnally, and in the mornings we observed them crunching on the bones of their kills - or perhaps the kills of other unlucky predators from which they thieved. They have a taste for bones, an explanation, perhaps, for the wide hinge of their jaws and their rows of bony teeth. They consume a carcass entirely, from horn to hoof to hide, leaving nothing for the beetles or buzzards.

     But a man-eater? In our week of observation we saw little evidence to suggest that these carnivores had any particular taste for man-flesh. On several occasions they warily approached our camp, and I kept a hand on my rifle just in case, but the most grievous loss we suffered was a carelessly placed bag of jerky. I suspect that these animals are scavengers by preference, though it's possible that drought or famine once drove them to seek easy prey like humans, earning them their bad reputation. But I must conclude at this present time, that for centaurs and fauns, at least, they have no taste.

     And my dear photographer, I'm sure, is thankful for that.