The seemingly universal fascination with sabephs among Dome 5 explorers has led to sabephs being the most well documented animals aboard the Rhynia. Unlike most, the exact number of sabeph species is a known fact: 24 species have been recorded and confirmed, though not all of them have been studied yet and of some only the subadults have been properly recorded.
As more species started being documented, so did their young. As it turns out, the calves of most coastal sabephs are born with a skin pattern that fades away into dull countershading as they age. What’s even more interesting is the fact that this phenomenon has been documented in a broad variety of sabephs that we now know are not closely related, meaning that newborns with decorated skins have evolved independently several times. One has to wonder though, why would a species that is completely blind evolve complex patterns? The answer seems to be rather simple: camouflage. The stripes and spots of many calves apparently allow them to hide from visual predators among algae forests and reefs by breaking their silhouette. Not only this, but there has been a theory proposed that states that the patterns of young sabephs might be detectable by echolocation. This however is just a theory and has yet to backed up with actual evidence.
Despite their evident high intelligence, many if not all sabeph specimens documented so far are covered in scars from snout to tail. Most of them seem friendly, but their many scars, most of which seem to be made by other sabephs, indicate that might actually lead quite violent lives. Whether these are battle scars, ice or rock scratches or mutilations or all of these combined seems to differ per species. Several individuals have been discovered that apparently survived devastating attacks by predators, while others only show small bite marks that match their own dentition.
A species that gave a little insight into how sabephs tend to get their scars is the swordbeak sabeph (Enchorhinus denticulatus). An incredibly widespread species that lives in every sea in Dome 5 and can often even be found in the deep open ocean, it is also one of the most intelligent of all sabephs. It has the second highest brain to body ratio (second only to the clipper sabeph of the West Angia Sea) and has observed displaying many characteristics we’d consider “human”, such as helping other animals. Another one of these behaviours was the case of a mother swordbeak adopting an orphaned Nütsov sabeph shortly after giving birth to her own calf. These species are not at closely related and occupy vastly different ecological niches, but that did not stop the mother from raising the striped little calf as her own. Interestingly, swordbeaks seem capable of effectively communicating with other sabeph species by learning to speak their language, as the mother was recorded talking to adult Nütsov sabephs and attempted to return her adopted child when it had come of age. While no one had been able to put a tag on this female, they did manage to consistently track her for many months and discovered that at least in females, many scars are created by juveniles that bite their mothers for attention.
This behaviour especially explain the scars near the cloaca. Sabephs care for their young for a long time, but how they did this was unknown until feeding was actually witnessed with this female. Sabephs are ovoviviparous and after they are born, the mother still keeps producing eggs. These are not regular eggs however. They are infertile, contain little genetic material and have far higher concentrations of fats and proteins than any regular egg would have. Sabephs apparently use this as the method with which they feed their calves before can process harder foods. The juveniles bite and nibble the mother around her cloaca to stimulate her to release some eggs and while doing this, they often slight injure her.
The smallest sabeph species is the appropriately named
pygmy sabeph (
Aommatopeton pygmaeus). A very rare and elusive species, it only lives in a small area of sea between the southeastern coastline of Ailidha and Hader’s Island and Burrland where it inhabits the great algae forests. At just over 1,5 meters long, it is about the same size as the largest dufa’s, a clade of fully marine
thriae unique to Dome 5. Because of its small size and ecological overlap with southern roundfin sabephs and possibly certain dufa’s, this species is the only sabeph known to include plant matter in its diet. It’s strong and sharp jaws aid it in cutting seaweed and its gut seems to contain a lot of unique bacteria that aid in digestion. In addition, pygmy sabephs eat mostly soft bodied animals like cephalopods and small agnathans. Their jaw anatomy suggests that they are more closely related to mottled sabephs than they are to common sabephs, even though they superficially redeemable the latter more.
Cruising the vast open oceans of Dome 5 is where one can find the fastest sabeph on record: the longfin sabeph (Manawydan velox). Averaging at 5,5 meters in length with flippers over 3 meters long each, it has the largest fins proportional to body size of any sabeph. Shaped like a torpedo, it can reach incredible speeds with some explorers reporting seeing one easily outrunning their boat which was going over 50 kilometres an hour. But this body shape and huge flippers limits their manoeuvrability and only really makes them efficient hunters in a straight line. Because of this, it’s relatively easy for their predators to ambush them as their flight paths can be easily predicted. As such, we unfortunately encounter dead longfin sabephs floating in the open sea more often than any other large sabeph.
Not all sabephs live in the sea. In fact, one of the most deadly sabephs lives in rivers. It goes by many names among explorers: crocodile sabeph, thuligator, crocobeph, boatkiller, delta devil and the list goes on, but among scientists it’s known as the Thule riverine sabeph (Potamanax mortifer). An indiscriminate ambush hunter that lives up to its many names, the Thule riverine sabeph will attack almost anything that dares venture into the rivers, lakes and estuaries of Thule, including boats. They’re usually around 4 meters long, but the largest individuals can grow up to 5 meters. This makes them one of, if not the biggest animals one can encounter in the mainland of Thule.
A closer look at the anatomy of Potamanax reveals some interesting characteristics. Like the Kenolaemidae it has 4 unfused tips on the ends of its jaws and a big fleshy throat. Unlike the Kenolaemids though, it has a tailfluke. This tailfluke however is not vertical like in other sabephs, but horizontal like those of cetaceans. Unlike whales and dolphins however, Potamanax seems to use this horizontal fluke for steering rather than propulsion, although it may possibly add a little bit of speed when ambushing. A genetic analysis of Potamanax reveals its one of the most basal Sabephs alive and is placed outside of any other family as the sister species to all other sabephs.
The largest living Sabeph is also the most elusive. Found exclusively in deep open waters, the giant beaked sabeph (Rhynchosmilus maximus) is rarely ever encountered by explorers. Once briefly glimpsed from a distance, they originally thought it was a titanic species of beaked sabeph for quite a long time. Until some day one washed ashore. It was over 12 meters long, had 4 tips on its jaws, no tailfluke, a large fleshy grooved throat and jaws that could not open up much. All of this points to giant beaked sabephs being suctionfeeders of the family Kenolaemidae. Interestingly, this beached specimen was a male which had large knife like protrusions on its beak, while the first reported sighting of them did not state the press of these spikes. This suggest sexual dimorphism, which is quite rare in sabephs.
One faithful night, the members of Rafelman-vessel were out in the wind still open ocean, admiring the magnificent auroras of the Rhynia, when they heard a loud splash. When they looked they saw many meter-tall fountains appearing from the ocean surface. A whole pod of giant beaked sabephs had come up to breathe. Under the aurora-lit sky, they could see that the magnificent leviathans were covered in many scars from their battles with what we can only assume are gigantic cephalopods that live in the deep.
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