While the terrestrial fauna of the Rhynia are free migrate between the domes, it goes without saying that this generally does not apply for aquatic animals. The seas of every dome are as isolated as from each other as can be, and because of this, few assumptions or predictions can be made about the life inhabiting the seas in individual Domes based on that of others. More often than not, surprises lurk beneath the waves.
One of the first among these were a group of marine animals in Dome 5 that just did not seem to make sense at first. Despite living in the water, they were not fish, and though obviously belonging to placodermi, their internal bones were mostly ossified. They breathed air, but not through nostrils, and while they were active hunters, had no eyes. Nothing dwelling on land resembled these swimmers even remotely, not even terrestrial placoderms encountered in other domes. The munchers of Dome 4 came closest, yet the swimmers lacked the characteristic arm-jaws of the latter and had a skull structure completely different from antiarchs.
The first specimen of these Team Schoedsack could get close to was a washed up carcass and, while a lot was learned, it raised more questions than it answered. Some very strange adaptations were present in this animal, ones that could only be explained if its ancestors originated on land, and even then there were some that were just so strange they seemed absurd. The creature completely lacked eyes and had no light detecting organs whatsoever. It had large double nostrils, as are present in many fish, but also lacked true gills and instead had “blowholes” on the top of its head that lead to its lungs. Inside the massive head, there was a very large brain quite unlike any vertebrate brain we have seen so far, yet disturbingly similar to a dolphins, with split brain halves and a huge auditory cortex but with massive olfactory bulbs. In front of this large brain was a large, heavily vascularised, fat-filled area, and next to the breathing tubes, airsacs and structures not too dissimilar from the monkey-lips found in odontocetes. This, combined with the fact that this creature did not even have orbits for eyes, led the researchers to the hypothesis that this creature used echolocation when it was alive. Its head appeared to actually be a fusion of the cephalic and thoracic plates, and its large fins seemingly came from the pelvic girdle, while a pectoral girdle was nowhere to be found. Through some intensive phylogenetic bracketing and analysis of the skull, the researchers determined this creature was probably of phyllolepid descent, although whatever ghost lineage brought it forth is yet to be found. Team Schoedsack needed to find a living specimen to better understand them; a single corpse simply did not say enough.
Though they are often spotted in the distance, breaching and making fountains when they surface, whenever the team’s boats come close, they flee. It was assumed that the sound of the motor scares them away, but rowing to open sea is not a risk anyone wanted to take. Instead, ROVs were sent out into the water, but even they had no luck approaching them while the sonar was still on. The team was almost about to give up when someone suggested just shutting the sonar off. Reluctantly, the operators agreed, even though sonar is vital to an ROV. Within barely 10 minutes, the ROV's sensors started picking up on rapid bursts of sound, and soon a shadow appeared from the deep blue. It looked similar to the corpse, but had a long beak tipped with pseudoteeth. As the sound sensors of the ROV were overloaded with wave after wave of high pitched clicks, their theory was confirmed: this was a secondarily aquatic blind echolocating phyllolepid , or S.A.B.E.Ph for short.
The Long-beaked Sabeph (Rhynchosabephium sonotimens) is, with its 3.5 meters in length, a medium-sized Sabeph comparable to bottlenose dolphins. Like them, it hunts mostly for small fish and cephalopods in a variety of habitats. Similar to most of the other Sabephs, the long-beaked Sabeph is apparently a monogamous breeder that mates for life. The curious young female Team Schoedsack encountered investigated the ROV for quite a long time until an intern accidentally pressed the sonar button and scared her away, never to return.
The one time Schoedsack actually did take canoes out to the water, they were greeted by a friendly pair of sabephs which were of the same species as the original carcass. The Common Sabeph (Aommatopeton vulgaris) is at the small end of the spectrum at just over 2 metres long. Whether they were attracted to the team's fishing, or motivated by sheer curiosity, we cannot know, but the couple hung out with them for quite a while. Going against every rule a wildlife scientist should adhere to, they tried to feed them. The sabephs were not interested in fish however, but rather went for the bait crustaceans. The team did not dare swim with them, for wild animals can always be unpredictable, but they did lower a hydrophone to listen to their chatter. They spoke intricate combinations of clicking, whistling and chirping with strange rhythms and, whenever we moved abruptly, they reacted.
The echolocation of these creatures, though, sent shivers down everyones backs. Not for frequency or volume, but because it reminded them of the omninous clicks which reverberate the lower decks, allegedly from some creature which haunts the lightless lands beyond the lamp-cities and electrophyte groves, a being as dark as the night itself. These sounds, as well as some reported sightings, led to their popularization as one of the most well known and well feared cryptids on the Rhynia.
One of the largest sabephs was actually discovered unintentionally. Our ROV was following a school of surprisingly large cephalopods with a bioluminescent “dagger” at the tip of their mantles, when out of nowhere, the school was attacked by, not one, not two, but a whole pack of 3-4 meter creatures. They appeared to be a family, as one male and one female were significantly larger than the others. The Mottled Sabeph (Aommatopeton maculatus) appears to be a deep sea specialist that hunts in the deepest parts of Dome 5 for practically anything it can chew on, but seems to have a taste for molluscs. The mother of the pack haf large bite taken out the upper tail fluke that appears to be quite fresh, leading to the conclusion there might be other large predators down deep that can somehow get close enough to a Sabeph to bite one.
Once it was figured out that artificial sounds scare sabeph away and that most of them are very curious towards anything man-made, Schoedsack was able to adjust the way they operate and got a lot more results. Many sabephs, mostly common and long-beaked individuals, approached the boats once they turned the power off. The friendly nature of these creatures caused Schoedsack to lower shark cages into the water to get up close and personal with them and over time, even started swimming alongside them as long as their chattering was still in the “friendly” spectrum that was observed.
One day, team-member Quint Brody was swimming with his favourite common sabephs, a mature mated pair nicknamed Tweetee and Tom, when suddenly, they scattered. Before he realised what was about to happen, he saw a large shadow approaching from the deep. There was about 20 metres between him and the shark cage, so his chances of getting there in time were slim. While his anti-shark wetsuit gave him some protection, you never know what might happen on the Rhynia. As the creature came closer, he saw it was a sabeph, a big one too. A 6 meter long subadult Axejaw Sabeph (Machairognathus atrox), the largest recorded Sabeph so far and the only one with such a specialised weapon, presumably used for feeding; their protruding jaw matches the scars and wounds found on Icebreakers and other large marine animals. As the creature is blind, the striped anti-shark wetsuit was of little use, and yet, despite its fearsome appearance, its chattering indicated its intent was not of malicious nature, but rather, curiosity. The axejaw approached him within arms reach, quite unlike the other sabephs that always keep some distance. After careful consideration (and a fiery discussion with the captain) he went to swim along with the large male predator. Strangest of all, was that the Axejaw appeared to be copying or communicating with the diver by blowing bubbles, similar to a scuba gear. They swam for over an hour before the male lost interest and swam off. This extraordinary behaviour clearly demonstrates there’s a lot more to the Sabephs than meets the eye and more research is needed if we are to understand them.
These illustrations, as well as the accompanying text were a fan-submission by DemonicManchot from DeviantArt, best known for his flattacanth project. If you have similar fan-contributions in mind, you can send them to us and we might include them if we consider them fitting for the world.
Comments
Post a Comment