Making myths real II -Going dental

Teeth are so important. Our heroes need good teeth, but what about our creatures?

I'm currently writing about a potential fight between an Aufhocker (see my earlier post) and a Werewolf. To get it right I went researching (I'm a nerd, I'm allowed). Who would win, what bite patterns would happen? Are their teeth tearing teeth or chewing teeth?

General concensus seems to indicate that aufhockers, (like werewolves) have canid (dog-like) teeth.
Canid teeth meet together in a scissors like action - a sure indication of a raw food diet. They have fangs for grabbing and puncturing, incisors for nibbling, premolars for tearing, and molars for crushing bone. Unlike herbivores which only have molars that are used for grinding food and mashing grasses, leaves and other vegetable matter, canine teeth are more for slashing, cutting and tearing.

This gives me a better indication of how and what a fight between a werewolf and aufhocker might play out - it also got me looking once again about making mythological creatures real in your writing.

Macabre as it may seem I went searching for teeth and skulls on the internet. I remember when writing about Devika the naga (from Magical Creations and Redemption) that I went looking at the teeth and fangs of a black-mamba. Devika, being a naga, has flick down fangs that drip venom and a black mouth - just like the black mamba snake. I remember considering how I would make her fangs real. This is one of the images I used as a reference for her. Her fangs could retract in sheaths then flick down when she wanted to envenomate a victim...

This then got me thinking about the skull formation of the aufhocker. I imaging it being something similar to that of a werewolf as an aufhocker often described as a canid shifter. To the left is a mock-up skull of a shifted werewolf (complete with bullet hole in the centre of the forehead!) that I sourced from google images. You can see that the artist has used dog/wolf teeth, placed in a humanoid/canine blended skull.

Below is a diagram of a normal human skull for a comparison. You can see in the werewolf-mockup that the  lower mandible (jaw) is significantly narrower than that of the human. This would indicate  that the mouth could open wider than a human. The average human can apparently open their mouth 3 - 4 cm from tip to tip of the inscissors. A wolf can get up to 12 cm or more. Thats a 3 or 4 times larger bite area than a human jaw could make. Additionally the nasal cavity of the werewolf is much larger, and also has the two maxilliary recesses on either side of the larger cavity indicating a heightened ability to smell. Unlike the a dog however, the werewolf skull has a human formed super-orbital torus (brow ridge), indicating that the face of the werewolf is not completely canine in appearance but the upper portion of the face remains human-like.
Facinating stuff!

I now have a pretty good idea of how hideous a fight between  an aufhocker and werewolf would be. Combine the mutated canid head with claws and a hell of a lot of upper body strength and you've got a battle of epic proportions!

Here's an interesting diagram of how a 'shift' might take place. You'll notice however, in this artist's rendition that the superorbital torus virtually disappears, resulting in much more canid features...




Below is a gallery of interesting mythological and real skulls that might be useful as a reference later on.




Cat Skull - note the huge orbital cavities (eyes!)

Black Spider Monkey Skull - blunt inscissors,

Owl Monkey - check out the teeth and eyes!



"Dragon Skull" - small nasal and eye cavities with tearing teeth.

Viper skull - rear facing teeth to hold onto prey
whilst injecting venom.

 

 

 

Have a lovely Sunday and happy writing / reading!

 

 



 



Making myths real...

It's one thing writing about mythological creatures, and its another actually making them real for your reader.

I like my mythological creatures to be realistic, at least biologically so. If the creature can't work biologically, or at least be literally manipulated to do so, I don't bother with it. Take for example Jormangandr, the mythical sea serpent I blogged about some time ago. He was so large, that he spanned the world. Not realistic enough I'm afraid, if I was to write about this serpent, I'd make him massive, but not so massive he spans the circumference of the world.

So it's no surprise when I found this internal diagram of a Naga, I became particularly excited. I find it absolutely fascinating considering how a mythical creatures could potentially work physically in the real world.

Take the dragon for example- one of the most common creatures written about in fantasy. To make it believable, a reader needs to believe the laws of nature can work with the creature. For example if a dragon had puny wings, and big belly yet was described as flyingf like a falcon -  in any 'Earth-like' world would not be believable. Therefore, in most modern adult fantasy texts,  the dragon has realistic features.

Now the Harpy would also be one of my favourite mythological creatures, as readers may have noticed, they crop up a few times in my novels. Whilst cruising the net I found this rather interesting anatomy style drawing of a Harpy. Now as you  probably know, my Harpies do not have hideous faces but, this illustration is a wonderful diagramatic representation of on a 'True Harpy' how the wings would work, and that how a Harpy would stand.

[image courtesy: NSFW]

Then in further cruising of the net, I was determined to find an anatomical image of a manticore as really these are my number one favourites. Alas, I couldn't come up with a disection style image, for anything but the stinging tail.
None the less, I'm impressed someone had the foresight to draw one, it's so refreshing to know that I am not the only person in the world who ponders these things!

[Image courtesy: Evil_Jeebit ]

In my novella about Phil the Manticore, I mention the unique tail of the manticore... but I'm sorry to say, that novella has gone by the way, at the moment. Hopefully I'll have time to pick it back up next year! Anyway, I thought this was a particularly fascinating image, showing the poison sacs  in the tip of the tail, and the unique angling of the spines. Impressive.

 The mermaid I suppose has some similarities to the Naga, and this is a particularly cool anatomical picture.

Most amusingly however, was the amount of information I found on Centaur anatomy. These beasts have the torsos of two animals, human and horse, thus, they have two hearts, two stomachs, two sets of lungs. This is a nice break down about it.
http://www.elftown.com/_Centaurs%20Anatomy

I have an incling that sometimes the interest on mythological creature anatomy may have a fetish link to it, which quite frankly I'm not prepared to delve into, but I can assure you is out there if you start googling anatomy and mythological creatures... you have been warned... what has been seen cannot be unseen.

Enough of that, the final creature I'm going to look at is actually Satyr. I think Satyrs are funny, because they are so rude and highly sexed characters. When I've seen them in film (I'm thinking Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief here) their gait looks kind of silly - as well I may be if you had goat legs. So last is a picture of the bone structure of a Satyrs legs. When you look at this diagram, you can certainly imagine the awkward walk a Satyr may have in comparison to a human.

Anyway, I hope you found these interesting and informative. I think it is always important to keep in mind the biological logistics of the creatures you write about. Making them functional is the key in making them believable.

Have a fabulous weekend.