Sutekh Hound

The deltadactylian sutekh hound (Setotherium spiroides), as is apparent by its common and scientific name, was named after its supposed resemblance to the “Set animal”, a creature which frequently appears in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics as the totemistic representation of the god Set. The exact identity of that creature is unknown, with speculations ranging from a highly stylized aardvark, warthog or saluki dog to something completely extinct or made up. The resemblance to this particular Martian alien is however almost certainly a complete coincidence. Though, funnily enough, Set was the god of foreign lands and deserts, so perhaps he would have been a better fit for Mars than his adversary Horus.

“Suts”, as they are sometimes nicknamed (serendipitously Sut is also the name of a demon from Islamic folklore), are common opportunists of the Hellas Savannah, often roaming wide tracts of land in search of small animals, as well as carcasses left behind by larger, more fearsome predators like the irsu. Their curved beak sees a similar use as that of various carnivorous and omnivorous birds on Earth, easily able to pick up small prey and food items as well as ripping loose flesh off bones.

Often, they are also seen flicking a sort of barbed tongue, the function of which remains elusive. Anecdotally, it has been observed that they use this organ to rasp off flesh or even lap up blood. Blood-drinking and sucking is a curiously widespread phenomenon across the Martian biosphere, though would be pretty unusual for scavengers, as open carcasses tend to lose all their blood rather quickly. The tongue, as has also been suggested, may instead have more of a function in the close association betweens suts and the local chiropede shrubs (left), whose polyps may sometimes excrete a kind of resinous substance from their cuticle during strobilation. Indeed, suts are sometimes observed licking these shrubs, though it is unclear if they really are licking up the resin or instead simply the morning dew. In any case, this cannot be imagined like the symbiotic relationship between an alien flower and a heron-sized hummingbird, because chiropedes simply do not reproduce like flowers (their “leaves” detach and live their own lives as centipede-like animals that do the actual mating). There is the so-called “Gardener hypothesis” by Röder (2331), who imagined that the shrubs provide the sut with a nutritious treat in exchange for protecting it against other predators. There is no observational evidence to support this. Maybe there simply is no connection and the tongue has a use more adventurous than most academics are able to imagine. I would know.

Unlike wild dogs on Earth, to whom they are often compared, sutekh hounds are not especially social, mostly moving across the savannah alone. Though, unlike other predators like the irsu, who are downright xenophobic, the suts usually have no problems when encountering each other. Sometimes they can even opportunistically team up to mob a prey animal or larger threat. Ultimately such camaraderie remains ephemeral, bonds broken as easily as they are formed. It is possible that it was not always this way. Geologically recent fossil deposits sometimes show dozens of specimens having all died in the same place. If this is evidence of past gregarious or even pack behaviour, it is possible that the deteriorating conditions of the planet may have eventually broken all bonds of friendship and family, the ecosystem no longer being able to support large groups and so everyone realized they are better off alone. However, as is usual with paleontology, especially Martian paleontology, such evidence is too ambiguous to make any such definitive statements. The bonebeds may also be easily explainable as predator traps, the suts, small-brained as they are, all accidentally falling into the same rocky crevasse one after the other, so accumulating in a step-wise manner.

Suts usually give birth in burrows to two or three young, which brings to mind the distant relative Syncarpus. Unlike that questionable parent, suts tend to care for all their young equally, leading to much more infrequent infanticide. This may be because the savannah is more abundant in resources than the shrublands and tundras. Sut mating has rarely been observed, though a colourful dewlap hanging below the throat seems to often come into use when determining who gets to impregnate who.

Like many Martian predators, suts seem to observe human astronauts/cosmonauts with an aura of curiosity. As is often speculated in these cases, this may be due to our superficial resemblance to the ushabtis, the smaller species of which the suts do hunt. No matter where man boldly goes, the cosmos has a strange tendency to remind him that he is made in the shape of not god, but prey.

References:

• Röder, Geronimo: The Gardener Hypothesis, in: Journal of Areobiology, 32, 2331, p. 89 – 90.

Ammit

The underground of Mars, sheltering its inhabitants from the harmful radiation and aridity on the surface, has become a refuge to many organisms. Some of which have no counterpart aboveground anymore, being relics of ages long past.

Ammit (Duatsuchus caecus) is one such relic, perhaps one of the oldest “living fossils” known from the planet. A relatively large carnivore at about one and a half metres long, it is assumed to be the last known member of a clade called Cancrisuchia, colloquially referred to as “crocstaceans”, archaic onychognaths that used their specialized raptorial arms for feeding. Some have compared them to Earth’s eurypterid “sea scorpions” in ecology and functional morphology.

In the fossil record, Cancrisuchia appears an unimaginably long time ago, in the Thermozoic Era, in the Argyrian, when Mars was still a semi-tropical ocean world and plant life was first starting to colonize the few strips of dry land. Cancrisuchians were among the earliest onychognaths to become amphibious, though unlike their later relatives, they mostly stayed at the boundary between water and land. Generally, they are thought to have been exclusively aquatic ambush predators, much as crocodylians and temnospondyl amphibians on Earth, and, once established in that role, dominated that niche for many millions of years. The key to their success lied, of course, in their raptorial arms. All archaeognaths lack teeth, their chelicere-like mouthparts functioning more like double-beaks. This limits their adaptability to carnivorous niches, especially compared to the toothed periostracans, which were at the same time taking over many marine niches. Cancrisuchians solved this problem by turning their first limb pair into another set of jaws, deriving from their shark-like scales projections which can for all intents and purposes be called teeth. Functionally these impressive “hands” can be settled somewhere between the claws of a lobster and the jaws of a crocodile, making for very effective weapons in grabbing and holding prey, possibly even further processing the food through careful manipulation by both hands.

Still, success does not last forever. The first major radiation of the Cancrisuchia, the Magnastracia, which included such impressive forms as the 7 metres long Deinoastacus, went extinct already in the Early Isidian, following climate changes. Their smaller cousins, the Microchelia, followed in their steps and over the course of the Thermozoic re-evolved comparably large sizes again. But these vanished too, at the end of the Cydonian, together with the large, reptilian thagmasaurs and various other lifeforms, in a massive extinction event whose cause(s) still remain mysterious. In the following Hylozoic, the role of aquatic ambush predator on Mars was largely filled by the so-called mangalasaurs, derived cuneocephalians unrelated to the cancrisuchians.

With that, it was long thought that Cancrisuchia is completely extinct. But the discovery of the ammit (made quite dramatically after it attacked a speleodrone) has seriously called that into question. While it is technically possible that it represents merely a case of convergent evolution from some unrelated lineage of archaeognath, the anatomical similarities between it and the fossils is too startling to accept that easily. If accepted as a genuine late-surviving microchelian cancrisuchian, on the other hand, it would open up the problem of there being a ghost lineage of these organisms that skipped the fossil record for two entire eras. Like in that old children’s story, it would be like finding a trilobite in your backyard today out of the blue.

One possible clue towards unravelling this conundrum is the fact that the ammit has (so far) only been found in flooded cave systems formed by the ancient lava tubes beneath Elysium Mons. If current palaeogeographical hypotheses are correct, then Elysium formed a slowly growing island continent throughout the Late Thermozoic and into the Hylozoic. We know for a fact (as far as facts go in astropalaeontology) that Elysium formed a refuge for other onychognath taxa during this time, such as the deltadactylians, which otherwise went extinct on the main southern continent. It could very well be then that some cancrisuchians could have survived on the former island as well. And perhaps these survivors adapted very early on to underground habitats, leaving little opportunity for them to fossilize.

Very little is known about the ammit in life, due to the inaccessibility of its habitat. Anatomically, its biggest difference compared to ancient cancrisuchians is the complete lack of eyes, attesting to a very long time adapting to the underground. Completely blind, its main sense organs are the long and specialized nasal and aural antennae. Like its ancestors, it probably is still an ambush predator, lying in wait beneath the surface of underground grottoes and lakes and waiting for prey, such as netchu, hekubus or medjed, to walk or swim by and be grasped by the raptorial hands. Any other behavioural or biological traits, including reproduction and activity, remain unknown.

Despite its fearsome appearance, due to a lack of resources underground, it must be leading an extremely slow, energy-efficient life, probably not moving for days, weeks or even months at a time and can probably go for years between feedings. A dim existence, living in darkness and a watery nothingness, unimaginable to the human mind. Though at the same time there must be some comfort, being all safe and cozy down there, unaware of the world slowly dying outside its shelter. Some may sympathize.

Does it even know that the oceans are gone?

Vampire Khaldane

If the name “Cephalopoda” were not already taken up by Earth’s molluscs, it would perhaps be more deserving of Mars’ khaldanes, who instead received the scientific designation Cranioraptora (Stuhlinger’s alternative name “Cephalothoraces” has been ruled an invalid junior synonym, but may still appear in some publications). As these musings imply, these cuneocephalians are mostly just heads with legs. 80 – 90% of the main body is made up of the cranium, the rest is miniaturized and tucked beneath the head like a crab’s tail. Some of the organs that are well-developed in other onychognaths, especially those which aid in digestion, have become highly simplified, if not vestigial.

Unlike any other living onychognaths, the khaldanes have eight unfused limbs, which each end in one-toed (monodactyl) feet. The ancestral condition of all other onychognath groups is to have only six legs, each didactyl. For a long time, it was thought that this was a unique genetic quirk in the khaldanes, a random freak mutation creating an additional limb pair, perhaps at the cost of a digit. Alternatively, it has been proposed (mainly by Simoes et al. 2166 and subsequent publications by ibid.) that cranioraptorans actually lie outside the crown-group Onychognatha and may actually descend from stem-onychognaths of the Lyotian period, which could have up to ten or even twelve monodactyl legs. The mysterious Urocephali, who likewise have unfused, monodactyl legs (though only four), have also been linked by these authors to the Cranioraptora, potentially forming a larger clade together. which they named Paraonychognatha. This has been met with heavy opposition, both on anatomical and molecular basis (Schmidt 2168), because there are many characteristics that show the khaldanes being cuneocephalians, chiefly the fact that they have a fused jaw instead of mandibles, a condition which evolved only once and fairly late in onychognath history. 

Recent analyses comparing the skeleton of khaldanes to other archaic cuneocephalians, such as the ifrit, have disproven the freak genetics and the Paraonychognatha hypotheses and shown a surprise: Khaldanes have actually lost limbs in the course of their evolution. Vestigial remains of humeri and tibias inside the thorax show that the animals’ "legs" are actually hypertrophied fingers! The ancestral khaldane must have been an archaic cuneocephalian that lost a limb pair and then further reduced its remaining four arms and hands, while elongating the two digits per hand. The loss of a whole pair of limbs may potentially place the khaldanes closer to the deltadacytlians than anyone would have previously expected. The discovery that khaldanes are “dactylopodous” has spurned further interest in the possibility that the aforementioned stem-onychognaths and urocephalians were also secondarily dactylopodous, though these would then be cases of convergent evolution.

Now, what exactly would drive these creatures to such an extreme deviation from the original cuneocephalian bauplan? The answer seems to be parasitism. The majority of khaldanes are very small, with hooked hairs and keratinous spikes on their fingertips, attaching themselves to the skin of larger creatures and sucking their blood with a syringe-like proboscis. As happens often in parasites, some organs start to atrophy, in this case the arms and the guts, until all that remains are the head and fingers. There is not much need for a digestive system if your food is liquid and already full with free nutrients and there is neither much need to move around when you live most of your life clinging to someone’s skin.

The largest species, the vampire khaldane (Cranioraptor hansruedii) represents then an interesting deviation from the deviation. It has apparently given up its parasitic roots and become instead a deadly predator of small game. While it has on occasion been observed picking at solid foods with its bird-like beak, it still prefers a liquid diet, having gone even further than the simple bloodsucking of its smaller relatives. Just like a spider, it will pump its poor prey full with an acidic venom, which will both pacify the victim as well as liquefy them from the inside. Once fully dissolved, the khaldane will then suck the body dry, until only a shrinkwrapped mummy remains. About the height of a badger, the khaldane is one of the largest predators of the shrublands, though it is restricted to the eastern plains of Tharsis, and mostly found hiding inside rocky crags during the day. They also aestivate there for the whole dry season. Due to their big eyes, it is hypothesized that they are mostly active at night. Mostly.

Vampire khaldanes have surprisingly large brains, at least for Martians, and have been observed communicating with each other through gestures and hissing vocalizations. Some of these communication attempts have on occasion also been directed at astronauts, the creatures showing a general curiosity towards humans. The reasons for this may however be sinister, as a preferred prey of the khaldanes seem to be the rokyrs, small species of shrubland ushabtis, aka humanoids.

The great irony in the khaldane’s ascendancy to the predator guild is that it has itself become victim to parasites. Parasites far worse than itself or its relatives. For reasons that remain uninvestigated for now, C. hansruedii seems to be the preferred host of the neuroparasite Infernoproductus horriblis, the korus silian, a unique species of brachioboid. A young silian will attach itself to the head of its host and, with its pedicle, slowly push one of the silicon eye-disk out of its socket, to then connect its pedicle to the eye’s nerve-canal. Once this is achieved, the parasite will completely take over the nervous system of its host and live its life vicariously through the victim, until either the host body becomes unusable or gnawed to death by the silian’s offspring. If the original khaldane is still aware or alive after the takeover is hard to say and I do not think anyone really wants to know.

References:

• Schmidt, Zeblorb: Pseudognathan traits firmly place Cranioraptora within Cuneocephali, in: Martian Advances, 167, 2168, p. 69 – 89.
• Simoes, Joel; Schmidt, Zeblorb; Smith, John: New Hierakonpolis fossil supports linking the Urocephalia to the Cephalothoraces, in: Journal of Astropaleontology, 77, 2166, p. 34 – 56.

Europan artefacts

I have argued long and hard with myself about whether I should mention this, as I am technically not allowed to talk about it. But I am close to croaking anyway, so what is the worst they can do? Kill me twice? No, they will just claim this is a hoax I made up, the sceptics will continue to label it as such and only the crazies will believe me. That is how they have always handled these things, ever since the Majestic 12 documents under Truman. Due to my work on Mars, I was originally planned to go to Europa for Minos-3, before that mission was cancelled due to M-2’s failure. We were shown highly classified information during the briefings. I already talked about the satellite images, but we were also able to read reports in which the astronauts of M-2 reported finding strange objects frozen in the ice or ejected from geysers. They did not look biological, but neither did they look like they could have come from us or the Soviets. I was unable to take a photograph, but I was able to sketch the most distinctive object they directly showed us from memory:

Sketch of putative Europan artefact inscribed with unknown writing.

Our superiors were themselves unsure about the authenticity of the object. It was allegedly recovered by one of the surviving M-2 astronauts and brought to Earth, but he himself kept it secret at the time. After returning to Earth, he became a member of the Church of Synthology and paraded the piece around in private congregations as an affirmation of the cult’s beliefs. It only came under government possession after his house was raided, following the aftermath of what happened on the International Lunar Station. It therefore seems highly likely that the piece could have just been a forgery, which the person used to further his position in the church while leveraging his reputation as a former astronaut.