Supplemental Predator Material

[mythusmage]

As far as I can tell this forum is the most appropriate for this material. In this thread I'll be presenting some supplemental material and corrections for Betabunny Publishing's The Bestiary: Predators. Overall the author, Sean Butcher does a good job, but he does miss a few things, and got others wrong.

In this first post we'll deal with the clouded leopard, Neofelis nebulosa.

The genus Neofelis, along with Panthera and Uncia (snow leopards) belongs in the subfamily Pantherinae. However clouded leopards are included among the small cats. The clouded leopard web page I linked to above describes them as about the size of a labrador retriever. They are not capable of roaring. The clouded leopard is wary, good at hiding, and hunts by ambush. They avoid man whenever possible. Any dealings in an adventure are most likely to be by accident or with a pet of some kind. Some clouded leopards have bonded with humans, others do not.

One thing to note about clouded leopards is the presence of a noticible muzzle, an unusual feature in cats, and possibly a carry-over from the common ancestor of cats and dogs.

Off to do some more research on felines.

 

[mythusmage]

Well, I did some online research regarding the domestic cat, and learned the animal can sucessfully interbreed with lots of other species of small cat. Servals, asian fishing cats, lynxes and bobcats. So I get to digest the data I found a bit. but rather than leave you waiting I present a bit of supplemental material about canids. Specifically wolves.

According to recent genetic studies dogs are wolves. That is, you cannot tell a dog from a wolf by looking at the genes alone. This makes dogs a subspecies of wolf, Canis lupus familiaris. Genetic work on red wolves has also shown a very close relationship to grey wolves. As a matter of fact, that same work has shown interbreeding with dogs and wolves to some degree. There are those who insist the red wolf is actually the result of crossbreeding between dogs and grey wolves. At the very least it would appear that red wolves are a subspecies of grey wolf themselves.

Then you have the coyote, which is known to crossbreed with domestic dogs, and has been known to interbreed with grey wolves under the right conditions. Larger specimens may owe their size to dog or wolf ancestry. However, I know of no genetic work indicating how close grey wolves and coyotes are. If the two are as close as wolves and dogs the taxonomy will likely have to be changed to the following:

Canis lupus: The grey wolf
Canis lupus rufus: The red wolf
Canis lupus familiaris: The domestic dog
Canis lupus latrans; The coyote

Note: The dingo of Australia is not a separate species, or even a subspecies. The dingo is properly considered a race of domestic dog. Being descended from animals brought by Malay travelers visiting Australia's northern coast some 3,000 years ago. In appearance and behavior it is much like the pariah dogs of India and the Middle East. Having traits in common with the dhole, this indicates possible domestic dog-dhole interbreeding as well. Note that both races of feral dog breed once a year and have a strict pack hierarchy. Note too that in times of abundance grey wolf breeding and pack hierarchy tends to follow domestic dog norms. That is, when things are tough breeding is once a year and the alpha pair only. When things are cushy it's breed when you feel like it and anybody can participate. Since dingos live in a rough land they've gone back to once a year and only the boss dogs can do it.

If you're wondering if domestic dogs can breed with any sort of canid, be assured they cannot breed with foxes, jackals, cape hunting dogs, or maned wolves.

 

[Alzrius]

I was curious as to why the listing for Tigers says "Subspecies: 5" and then lists eight different subspecies on the table on the same page (p. 50).

On a personal note, it was disappointing to not see an entry for the fox.

 

[Omegaz]

As far as I can tell this forum is the most appropriate for this material. In this thread I'll be presenting some supplemental material and corrections for Betabunny Publishing's The Bestiary: Predators. Overall the author, Sean Butcher does a good job, but he does miss a few things, and got others wrong.

In this first post we'll deal with the clouded leopard, Neofelis nebulosa.

The genus Neofelis, along with Panthera and Uncia (snow leopards) belongs in the subfamily Pantherinae. However clouded leopards are included among the small cats. The clouded leopard web page I linked to above describes them as about the size of a labrador retriever. They are not capable of roaring. The clouded leopard is wary, good at hiding, and hunts by ambush. They avoid man whenever possible. Any dealings in an adventure are most likely to be by accident or with a pet of some kind. Some clouded leopards have bonded with humans, others do not.

One thing to note about clouded leopards is the presence of a noticible muzzle, an unusual feature in cats, and possibly a carry-over from the common ancestor of cats and dogs.

Off to do some more research on felines.

I do include the clouded leopard in the Bestiary. It is under the Big Cats section since it belongs to the Subfamily Pantherinae. Anatomical comparison and recent genetic profiling indicate that it is most closely related to the clouded leopard, with which it shares the characteristic of having short legs. It does lack the ability to roar and thus has often considered a borderline case between big and small cats. Clouded leopards have in the past been listed under the subFamily Felinae (small cats), but they're now list them under Pantherinae, either as Panthera nebulosa, or as Neofelis nebulosa. The latter appears to now be the dominant.

Sean

 

[Omegaz]

According to recent genetic studies dogs are wolves. That is, you cannot tell a dog from a wolf by looking at the genes alone. This makes dogs a subspecies of wolf, Canis lupus familiaris. Genetic work on red wolves has also shown a very close relationship to grey wolves. As a matter of fact, that same work has shown interbreeding with dogs and wolves to some degree. There are those who insist the red wolf is actually the result of crossbreeding between dogs and grey wolves. At the very least it would appear that red wolves are a subspecies of grey wolf themselves.

I think it was Konrad Lorenz who speculated that some breeds of domestic dog are not descended from wolves, but from jackals. He based his speculation on the different temperaments and behaviours of the various dog breeds. This is now known to be wrong, and all domestic dog species are known from genetic information to be descended from gray wolves. This doesn't mean that there was some archetypal dog from which all other breeds have decended. Grey wolves were doubtless domesticated on many occasions and in many locations, and through selective breeding gradually morphed in appearance and behaviour.

As an example of how easy it is to produce a domestic dog from a wild canine, in one experiment (by Belyaev)it only took 20 years or selective breeding for tameness, to change a silver fox into an animal that behaved like a border collie.

BTW I do not cover domestic species in the Bestiary. Given the number of domestic cat and dog species, such an effort would require its own volume.

 

[Omegaz]

I was curious as to why the listing for Tigers says "Subspecies: 5" and then lists eight different subspecies on the table on the same page (p. 50).

On a personal note, it was disappointing to not see an entry for the fox.

There are unfortunately only 5 surviving species of Tiger. 3 are extinct. For the sake of completeness, and because they went extinct recently, I include both the extant and extinct species.

Sorry to disappoint you in not including foxes. They were included in an earlier draft, but eventually I had to cull a number of species (based on a number of criteria), to avoid producing a document that was many hundreds of pages long. Most small canines, felines, and rodents were cut. Few of these small predators would present a challenge to a party of adventurers. While a fox might bite you if you attempted to pick it up, it is unlikely that it would attack, even if cornered (and if it did it would not be able to inflict damage).

 

[Alzrius]

Sorry to disappoint you in not including foxes. They were included in an earlier draft, but eventually I had to cull a number of species (based on a number of criteria), to avoid producing a document that was many hundreds of pages long. Most small canines, felines, and rodents were cut. Few of these small predators would present a challenge to a party of adventurers. While a fox might bite you if you attempted to pick it up, it is unlikely that it would attack, even if cornered (and if it did it would not be able to inflict damage).

That is understandable. I guess I saw it as about more than just using that animal as a foe, per se. All of the animals in the Bestiary can be used as the subject of summon nature's ally spells, animal companions, use with the lycanthrope template, or the anthropomorphic template (from savage species), and much more. It's just something of a let down that I won't be able to make a werefox or have a ranger with a fox companion, etc.

It's no big deal though. You could always release it as a web enhancement.

 

[Omegaz]

That is understandable. I guess I saw it as about more than just using that animal as a foe, per se. All of the animals in the Bestiary can be used as the subject of summon nature's ally spells, animal companions, use with the lycanthrope template, or the anthropomorphic template (from savage species), and much more. It's just something of a let down that I won't be able to make a werefox or have a ranger with a fox companion, etc.

It's no big deal though. You could always release it as a web enhancement.

The focus of the Bestiary is definitely on animals as foes. The number of species I was covering became too large, so I had to narrow the focus a little. It is my intention to handle rules for familiars, training etc., through supplements and freebies, so at some point it will make sense to include smaller animals. I had been considering a publication focusing on anthropomorphic animals at some later date, but needed to get a sense of what type of demand there would be for such a product.

Putting out stats and info for foxes shouldn't be too hard. They were fairly complete at the time I cut them.