a muse takes over – creating alien animal species
In this post, I’ll show you some of the animals I have invented for my science fiction tale of life on the alien planet Meniscus. If you think I have gone crazy, keep reading anyway!
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Hiking through the woods on planet Meniscus is dangerous. At any moment my characters can be attacked by carnivorous club-mosses, voracious bird-like reptiles seeking hair for their nests, packs of wolf-like ‘kotildi’, or three-eyed ‘slear-snakes’. Writing the scenes with these creatures has been so much fun.
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… the wolf-like kotildi are denizens of the Meniscus woodlands – wild, they are voracious, but tame, they are endearing!
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… Odymn and the Slain spend a bit of their time fending off trolling ‘slear-snakes’ …
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Probably because I love birds, I have included lots of birds in my list of species on Meniscus. These include large flightless and burrowing ‘grell’, the wheeling ‘wind-fleers’, and woodland song-birds.
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… Odymn sees a bird that looks like a ‘scarlet minivet’ on one of her adventures … not afraid of her at all …
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Here is a list of some of the animals on planet Meniscus.
| animal | description |
| elginard | wingless insect; moves by floating on air currents |
| evernell | feral cat-like scavenger, with whiskers; slinks, sprays saliva |
| grell-swallows | large burrowing birds; used for a food and fat source |
| kemet | striped horse-like animal with hooves and a long tail |
| kotildi | woodland carnivore, like a large wolf with a hump and mane; source of meat |
| midlar | territorial, tree-living rodent; hoots |
| nelip | small external parasite, infesting fur and hair |
| slear-snake | snake-like reptile with poison teeth, claws, and pincers |
| warbel | song bird living in the woodland |
| windfleer | heron-like bird; moves in flocks |
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My favorite species on Meniscus is a small insect, the ‘elginard’. Wingless and fluffy, it follows currents of air, at the whim of the universe. Dandelion fluff and wooly aphids were my inspiration for the ‘elginard’.
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Copyright 2017 Jane Tims
nichepoetryandprose 
Beautiful drawings, Jane!
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Rebecca
February 6, 2017 at 10:14 pm
Hi Rebecca. Thanks! Jane
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jane tims
February 6, 2017 at 10:40 pm