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.