Irsu

“And I will send the beast of the field among you, which shall rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you few in number; and your ways shall become desolate.”

-Leviticus 26:22

The Hellas Basin could be called the “most functioning” ecosystem on Mars, in that its vegetation cover allows for more or less fleshed out trophic levels at all heights. Unfortunately for everyone involved, that includes active predators. Of these, the Irsu is the most ferocious, the most deadly, non-venomous animal so far discovered on the planet. Its jaw alone is the largest among any Martian, its hardened, self-sharpening tooth-plates reaching up to the length and height of butchering knifes, able to bite through bone like butter.

This is a survivor of a past age, one where pedicambulates ruled the planet. And it does its best to not let that memory die. It alone rules over these desolate plains, always stalking through and ambushing from the fronds and spongine growths with great efficiency, its spotted pattern presumably helping it camouflage. It lays waste to both onychognath prey, whose chest-lungs it loves to tear open, and others of its own clade, whose internal shells its teeth cut through with ease. Other predators, such as sutekh hounds or the heremakhet, fear it and rarely fight over carcasses with it. Living solitarily, Irsu are not even safe amongst themselves outside of breeding season. In a stark contrast, they make for decent parents. Usually only laying one large egg, the chick is cared for greatly by its single parent until it is old enough to hunt by itself.

Among the favourite prey of Irsu are the great ushabtis and their relatives, their glass skeletons being easily broken by its teeth. These dumb animals being, by coincidence, quite humanoid, has led to some obvious and quite perilous problems for human space explorers. The Soviets were the first to explore the great basin and, infamously, these first cosmonaut pioneers were not given guns, as they did not initially expect this kind of life to be found here (at least this was the official explanation, some rumours state that they were not issued weaponry for budgetary reasons or due to fear of suicide or homicide within the team). Alas, all that his friends could find of poor Yuri was vomited-out flesh and one of his boots, his foot still inside. Being of a different biochemistry, the alien was presumably unable to completely digest the man. Though this still leaves the question open where the rest of his spacesuit (and skeleton) went. There is an urban legend among astronauts that parts of Yuri can still be found strewn across Mars. A glove there, a helmet-piece here, maybe a knucklebone somewhere right by the Great Face. Indeed, there are now rumours that the Chinese recently found a heavily corroded human mandible… at the opposite end of the basin from where he died. If true, either some scavenger has carried this bone very far or there are more casualties the other space agencies do not want to tell us about.

Back on Earth, the Irsu has become a popular choice for plush-toys. My grandson owns one, he calls him Ogilvy, after me.