The Dryad and similar creatures appear in legends originating all over the place, and have become popular species in various roleplaying games. While there are some local variations in behaviour, tree species and appearance, the common features seem to be these:
Bound to their tree, but can ambulate away from it quite some distance
Kind of pretty, kind of tree-y, mostly feminine appearance
Associated with freshwater
Appreciate sacrifices, originally meaty ones, and subsequently monetary ones.
The whole ‘half animal half plant’ concept is fascinating, but also a challenge because I’m very much on the ‘animal’ side of the science side of tumblr, but why not? Creatures that exist part way along the animal-plant spectrum exist in nature, we can tweak the features we see in such hybrids to develop a biologically plausible dryad. I’m sure this isn’t the only way to do it, but it’s the direction I’d take.
But to do so, I need to borrow some ideas from the carnivorous plants, orchids, lichen and redwoods.
Now, to start with, the most consistent feature of Dryad mythology, and the most interesting, is their complete dependence up on their home tree. If the tree dies, the dryad dies. If the dryad strays too far from its tree, it also dies. This would suggest to me that it’s not the dryad walking around which is the primary organism, but the tree itself. After all, I haven’t come across any tales of the tree dying if the dryad is slain.
So if the dryad is the accessory organism, then what, really, are they?
Anyone else remember playing the Legend of Zelda as a kid and being seriously spooked by those hand monsters that would drop from the ceiling, Wallmasters I think they were called? I hated them back then, but I kind of love them now, and that’s what I was thinking of when a ‘Disembodied hand monster’ was requested for this Fantasy Biology post.
Most fantasy species are at least superficially similar to a real, living or extinct species from which to draw inspiration and scientific understanding. A ‘hand’ that crawls around on its own, eh, not so much.
Unless we stretch what we know of biology quite a bit.
Viewing our hand monster from the outside, which is really all we have to start with, we find five limbs (fingers and thumb) and a body (the palm and wrist in some cases). Even if you consider the ‘thumb’ to be some sort of tail-like-limb, it doesn’t really resemble the anatomy of any vertebrate species. It’s barely even bilaterally symmetrical, it’s actually closer to radial symmetry.
And the Earth does have a handful of radially symmetrical creatures. The jellyfish and anemone being some.
Yes, I’m going to argue that the Hand Monster is some sort of very distantly evolved land jellyfish.
That is so cool! Do they eventually migrate into the water in part because of the massive weight of their shells? So their surface area allows the water to help support them and their poor knees?
Also do they travel? Or do they root themselves in place? They’re so cool!!!!
yes!! the ocean lessens their heavy load. Furthermore, they seem to enjoy seeing new places but by the time they’ve reached maturity they move so slowly you can hardly tell they’re moving. this not only conserves energy but also gives the biome on their shells time to adapt to different temperatures!
The basilisk (Naja regula) and the cockatrice (Regulus gallus) do have overlapping distributions, but they are not the same creature.
The basilisk is the tiniest of spitting cobras, maxing out at only around 12-14 inches. However, it is also among the most venomous, and packs both a deadly bite and the ability to spit blinding venom several feet away with deadly accuracy. But before you get too disappointed, there may be some truth to the reports of insta-death odors and environment wrecking toxins as well, though not in the way you might think. These diminutive serpents dwell in volcanic regions surrounding the Red Sea and along the Great Rift Valley, where hidden gas vents may have made it appear that local flora and fauna have dropped dead for no reason.
The cockatrice, meanwhile, is a much showier beast. A flightless member of the wyvernidae family, it is swift footed and aggressive. Both sexes possess the red head and wattle, but the male’s crest is much more pronounced and swells with blood during mating rituals and threat displays. All dragons can spit up the contents of their stomach to some degree; the genus Regulus has honed this defense mechanism to a precise spurt of chemicals that can cause a painful burning sensation and blindness, much like the spitting cobra. This is generally a last resort; they prefer to simply bite and kick.
The female lays 3-5 eggs in a shallow depression lined with dry grass and leaves. It is up to the male to incubate the eggs and protect the chicks from predators, especially mongooses, which seem undeterred by the cockatrice’s aggressive nature. Cockatrices are found in Northern Africa, as well as parts of Southern Europe.
Due to popular demand, I did “Pegasus” after all.
Pegasus is a genus closely related to Gryps (griffins and hippogriffs), which was once widespread across Europe and the Americas, but underwent a sharp decline following the last ice age. The most famous species, Pegasus olympius, is not actually found in Greece but in parts of Northern Europe and Russia, but was named for its resemblance to its mythical counterpart. It is about the size of a large deer and ranges in color from white to speckled grey or greyish-brown. “Pegasette” is the smallest species of Pegasus, and the only remaining in the Americas. It is a textbook case of Insular dwarfism.
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