_______________________________________________________ Species of The Named By Thistle-Chaser (v1.2) _______________________________________________________ Cats, three-horns, dapple-backs, treeings, face-tails .../Yarr!/ Hard to know just what these critters are. This is an attempt to compile what we've found out so far. Named, Unnamed, The Hunters and the other cats ---------------------------------------------- The first thing that comes to mind is that these cats are sabretoothed cats. But if you read a little closer the descriptions of black, tawny, or redish fur with the 'black mask' and also look at the pictures on the books. Sorta looks like a Cheetah which also adds to confusion. But there are no cheetahs in North America. So what cat could it be? I'm absolutly sure these cats are of the Puma family. (Puma aka Cougar aka Panther (not leopard type panther) aka Mountain Lion) Pumas also have the 'fangs' spoken of in the book. The size varies from line to line. (So Shongshar coulda been another line of Puma that had gotten some sabre-tooth genes in there or something... or he could have been a sabretooth himself.) There are pictures of the Named at http://fessran.freeservers.com/Images/species.html Three-horn Deer --------------- These beasts we are still trying to find out .. a small picture of a deer that has the 'three horns'. They are definitely deer (the books call them 'deer') Just a matter of finding out what species exactly. If you can find anything out about this mysterious creature ... let us know! Dapple-back Horses ------------------ First thing you think is 'horses? but there weren't horses in America ...' .. wrong. There was 10+ million years ago. But were wiped out in the Americas during the Ice Age. There have been several species that I have looked at .. what might be the dapplebacks are the Pliohippus ... or earlier the Merychippus ... but thats only a guess. As for being called 'dapple' ... they had stripes, solids and spots back then. So our dapplebacks are undoubtedly spotted-backed horses. At any rate ... whatever they are they are from the Miocene time ... 5.3 millon to 24 millon years ago ... which does fit in our time scale! :) (A possible contestant, the Mesohippus, is pictured at: http://fessran.freeservers.com/Images/dappleback.jpg .... courtesy of Fessran's biology book.;P) Face-tails ---------- This was one of the most easiest to pick out .. since we were already told in the book! (Though it took me awhile to pick it up myself ;P ) It's none other than the mammoth. Don't know what one is? Take a look and Mr. Snuffleupagus then add some HUGE tusks. That's (roughly) a mammoth. ;) There's also a picture at: http://fessran.freeservers.com/Images/facetail.jpg Treeling -------- This has probably been one of the most difficult creature to track down. The books say its a 'lemur' like creature, but lemurs only exist on Madagascar island. Others have considered it a monkey ... but no primates (but for the lemurs) have long, ringed, tails. So we had to leave the primate family and looks else where. What else has a ringed tail and a black 'masked' face? Well .. a raccoon. But raccoons don't quite fit the description the books give you. Hasta be smaller. What fits that description? Their cousin, the ringtail. That undoubtfully is what our treeling friends are. http://fessran.freeservers.com/Images/treeling.jpg Seamares --------- According to my biology book, four-legged mammals climbed into the ocean about sixty million years ago... as Thistle pointed out above, our timeframe is 53 to 24 million years ago-- exactly the right time for /Rodhocetus kasrani/ to have lived.. this is a rather vicious-looking animal, like a cross between a cetacean and an alligator. There's a picture of it at: http://fessran.freeservers.com/Images/seamare.jpg .... Thanks again to the people who made my biology book.;>