Like most of the creatures we are sent to report on, the Ketea Indikoi are little studied and reports of their appearance and behavior have grown, like old fish tales, to wild proportions.
The most popular descriptions of these beasts mark them as having the heads of a variety of animals – lions, leopards, wolves, rams – sometimes even of humans and satyrs – with fins and scales and great coiling fish tails to finish off their forms. Many of the self-proclaimed hunters of sea monsters claim that the ketea indikoi are closely related to hippocampi. Having studied hippocampi myself, however, I doubted there could be such correlation between the fishy hippocampus and these creatures that are, if their descriptions can be trusted, clearly mammalian.
As I expected, the reality of the Ketea Indikoi is less titillating to the seeker of legend than was promised, though no less fascinating to students of animal behavior and adaptation. These creatures, though slow moving and surly, proved to be inquisitive and intelligent opportunists upon closer acquaintance - and unlike many of our other, more reclusive, subjects, that acquaintance was freely given - they showed little fear of man or beast or mermaid.
These lions and leopards of the sea, are, in fact, a giant cousin to seals – the smallest would dwarf even the largest of elephant seals. Their coloration makes it clear why sailors mistook them for jungle cats – the males, with manes of thick blubber wrapped in dark fur do strike a lion-like chord and the leaner, fawny-speckled females might well look like a leopard to a sailor with too many days on the sea.
As for those coiling fish tales, I must report a falsehood - their tails and flippers are indeed larger in proportion and more tactile than their common cousins, but they are as mammalian as the rest of them.
The real joy in these animals, however, is not in their physiology, but in their behavior. Though I normally keep safe distance from my subjects as a rule, it was impossible with these friendly sea-bears. They have a great curiosity and thronged about us as soon as we came to shore – first to sniff and chuff at us, then simply to laze about us as we took our notes and sketches. This natural curiosity and fearlessness make the Ketea Indikoi excellent scavengers. We observed them feeding on a variety of delicacies – clinging to rocky outcroppings with their massive paws to munch on crabs and anemones, shaking trees with their curling tails to bring down fruits and dates to eat, and even, in a naughty turn, snatching a loaded fish net from a hapless boat.
Though it would be a joy to linger with these bumbling beasts for longer and learn all the secrets of their comings and goings, I’m afraid with this job a short study must do. Other mysteries await us, to be briefly discovered and quickly left – such is the life of the monthly reporter.
No comments:
Post a Comment