Ratha's Courage - Good Stuff Happening

Alien pipe-cleaner critter steals brownies while oblivious author signs Ratha's Courage at Northern California Independent Booksellers Association conference, Oakland, CA, Nov 5, 2008
Picture by JC Simmonds of Beagle Bay


Ratha's Courage has been making various appearances at different events and online sites. Previous posts on this blog have followed Courage's torturous road to publication and final and welcomed refuge at Sheila Ruth's Imaginator Press.

Sheila kindly invited me to attend KitLitospshere08 in Portland Oregon. This was a conference for children's and young adult book bloggers, including book reviewers, librarians, writers, illustrators and other publishing professionals. Since other KidLit08 bloggers have described the conference in detail and with greater wit than I could here, I'll just hit some of the personal high points. I had to scramble a bit to get all the arrangements in place and without conference organizer partner Jone McCulloch's aid in getting registered, it would have been harder.

I went up on the Coast Starlight Amtrak train and enjoyed the ride, especially along some of the inland Oregon coast, where I watched bald eagles soaring out over the estuary. As soon as I figure out how to get the picture out of my cellphone, I'll post it here. My clunky old road-warrior of a Sony Mavica digital camera decided to take a vacation, so the phone was a backup. I hope I can fix the Mavica or get it fixed. It has been a real workhorse.

Being a compulsive note-taker at conferences, I filled up several pages with notes on the sessions. I decided not to post them here. Instead they are in the Yahoo KidLitosphere group files, and are available to anyone in that group.

Just for the heck of it, I took along some stuff for display, including a pipe-cleaner alien critter that I made. I thought it would be an eye-catcher during the Meet the Authors event. Actually my little friend got more attention at the hotel bar. I suppose folks decided that they could explain it as a booze- induced hallucination. Here's Betsy Bird mugging with the critter, and a bit from her SLJ Fuse#8 blog (scroll down her blog page).

After the conference, I stayed in Beaverton, OR, spending a delightful few days with the family of a young Ratha fan who is a writer, photographer, and an artist, then returned home on the southbound Coast Starlight.

More good things continued to happen once I got back. Joan Druett, a New Zealand literary blogger, wrote about Ratha's Courage and the rough road to publication in a post called “Fantasies and Miracles”

I had sent Imaginator Press an article of how science fiction writer Andre Norton helped get Ratha's Creature published. Sheila and I decided to use it as a press release, and she sent it out. The result, among other things, was another Joan Druett post, “An Inspiring Story of Sponsorship”. Thank you, Joan!

Since pipe-cleaner critters were part of the story, here is another pic of the little brownie raider in closeup. He's not a kitty, but a strange little beastie called a "chumat", which is sort of the alien equivalent.


I knew that since Courage appeared this year, the book was eligible for the kidlit blogging community's Cybil awards. Scarcely had nominations opened, and before I could wonder if Courage would be chosen, a devoted Ratha fan had dashed in (at a speed that would make Thakur the Named herding teacher dizzy), to nominate it in the Science Fiction category. I think more than one reader wanted to name it, but the Cybil rules say one nomination per book. Even if Courage just makes it to the Cybil short list, I will be very pleased, and if it gets a Cybil, I will be knocked over backwards and all the Named clan cats will have to lick my face to revive me. There are so many other deserving books out there, but one can always hope!


CB

Ratha's Creatures - What Are the Rumblers?

Ratha's Courage introduces several new creatures to the series, including a larger horse called a “striper” and the two “rumblers”, Grunt and Belch. Adopted by the herder Bundi, and his younger friend Mishanti while still small, these beasts have unexpectedly grown into behemoths greater than the elephant-like “face-tails”(based on American mastodons – see “What are the Face-tails” in previous blog posts) that the Named are still struggling to domesticate. Ratha, having been preoccupied with clan business, hasn't been paying much attention to Bundi and Mishanti's two pets.

Here is her encounter with Grunt and Belch from Ratha's Courage, Chapter 2:

“As Ratha came to a grassy clearing, the sound of splintering branches made her look up. The hair lifted on her neck and her eyes widened. The alert hunter within made Ratha take a quick step back before she caught herself.

Slightly embarrassed to be so startled, Ratha bent her head and gave her foreleg a quick swipe with her tongue. Then she looked again.
There was almost no word in the Named tongue to describe the two gray-brown beasts browsing in the treetops. They were mountainous. They even looked a bit like mountains, with backs sloping slightly up from rump to shoulders, extended necks increasing the slope and carrying the ascending line to huge, blocky, horselike heads.”

Though distantly related to horses, Grunt and Belch are not equine. Ratha's language may not describe them very accurately, but our language does. The rumblers are based on a fossil beast from the Oligocene and Miocene called Indricotherium (formerly Baluchitherium because its fossils were discovered in Pakistan). Indricotheres are gigantic hornless rhinoceroses, the largest land mammal ever, exceeding elephants and mammoths in both weight and height. At a shoulder height of about 20 feet, the ability to brows at 25 feet and a weight of 15 tons, no wonder they remind Ratha of mountains!



Although today's horses and rhinos look nothing like each other, they are both perissodactyls, or mammals with an odd number of toes. This group includes horses, rhinos and tapirs, who trace their ancestry back to recently described tapir-like animals called paleotheres. Eohippus, the “dawn horse” of our childhood prehistoric animal books, is now thought to be a small paleothere, like the early Paleotherium hassiacum. Paleotheres didn't remain small, either. The later Paleotherium magnum could browse branches 6 feet from the ground. It had a horse-like head and long neck, but the legs, although elongated like a horse's, were heavy; the feet had three toes with pads underneath. The limbs looked as though they belonged to a tall rhino.
Similarities between paleotheres, early horses and early rhinos have long confused paleontologists, and even now, they haven't yet got it all sorted out. Many early rhinos were small and slender, like the early horses. Many older books refer to them as “running rhinoceroses”, which may seem like a contradiction in terms. Others became the heavyweights similar to the species of rhinos we know today. One, in particular, grew to enormous height so that it could browse high in the trees where other mammals couldn't reach. Its size freed it from having to defend against predators, so it lost its horn and became Indricotherium.

Like the reader, Ratha is a bit baffled.

“She had no idea what these beasts were. Once she had seen a rhino, a low-slung leathery-skinned animal with a head that resembled those moving among the branches far above her. That animal had a horn on its nose. These didn't, just a bulbous swelling above the upper lip.”

She and others of the Named could have easily seen a rhinoceros, since they have existed in various forms for 40 million years, well into her time. The woolly rhino, Coelodonta antiquitas, lived into the last Ice Age and images of it survive on the walls of caves once inhabited by prehistoric humans.

Why do Bundi and Mishanti call the indricotheres “rumblers”? Here, Ratha discovers the reason.

“Her ears swiveled to the sound of drawn-out grinding and crashing. She narrowed her eyes. The beasts were not just eating leaves or twigs; they were crunching up whole branches. A substantial part of the tree's canopy was already gone. Ratha promptly changed her mind about the creatures doing no harm. If they kept this up, they might just eat the top off every tree in the forest.
"Don't be afraid, clan leader," came a yowl from above. "The rumblers are gentle."
Inwardly Ratha bristled at the slightly mocking tone but didn't let her tail even twitch.
One rumble-beast lowered its head to gaze at Ratha. It was still chewing. The mushy slurping sound made her put back her ears. It was as disgusting as any other herdbeast's chomping, and much louder.
The rumbler's eyes, however, were mild, unlike the rhino's red-rimmed, irritable stare.
"They may be gentle, but I still don't want to be sat on." Ratha reared up on her hind legs, squinting to find Bundi in the treetop. "Where are you, Bundi, you little son of a three-horn?"

Even as newborns, wouldn't the two indricothere calves have been too large for Bundi and Mishanti to tame? True, but if they had lost their mother, and were starving and weak, their condition would have made it much easier for the Named herder and his friend to “adopt” and feed them. And their behavior provided suitable names.
Grunt and Belch do provide some comic relief when they dismay Ratha and Fessran, but they also play a critical part in the story's climax. To find out how, read the book!
For an intriguing discussion of paleotheres, horses and rhinos, see National Geographic, Prehistoric Mammals, by Alan Turner, illustrated (gorgeously!) by Mauricio Anton.

CB

Ratha's Courage E-Released on Baen!

This version is an electronic book, which means you purchase it, then download it into your laptop, Sony reader or other device. On sale now for $6.00.

To buy it from Baen Books, you need to get an account, which is free and easy.

Here's the link:

http://www.webscription.net/p-822-rathas-courage.aspx

Baen's homepage is:

http://www.baen.com

Baen will have an exclusive on the book during April, then Amazon and Fictionwise http://www.fictionwise.com will be carrying it.

If Courage does well as an E-book, the next step is print publication.

Eeeeyarooo!

The other books in the series are Firebird re-issues and are available through the net and at bookstores.

My deepest thanks to everyone who made this happen, including E-Reads, Baen, and my agent, Richard Curtis.

CB

A Taste of Ratha's Courage

Update 2: The book wasn't up as of 4/3. E-Reads has done the E-Book file, checked it and has sent it to Baen. As well as herding the book to E-publication, I am currently writing the kickoff announcement article that will appear on the E-Reads Blog (http://www.ereads.com).

Ratha's Courage to be released 4/1/08 on Baen Books (http://www.baen.com) along with E-Reads (http://www.ereads.com)

Ratha's Courage
by Clare Bell
Excerpt copyright 2007

Chapter One

A shiver of excitement went through Ratha. She began her stalk, belly fur brushing the ground. Grass whispered past her legs as she felt the slow controlled power of each muscle. Her tail-tip tingled with the urge to twitch, but she held it still.

The horse the Named called a striper tossed its head and flapped its tail, eyes widening. Ratha slowed her down-wind stalk so that she seemed nearly frozen, yet was still moving. The striper swung its neck around, jerking its head and ears back.

Ratha stilled until the herdbeast settled, then quickened her stalk, easing her weight from one foot to the next, placing each directly ahead of the one behind and moving so smoothly she felt as though she were flowing across and through the grass, a green-eyed river of tawny gold.

Nearing the striper’s dancing rear hooves, inhaling it’s sweat-sharpened scent, Ratha trembled with the impulse to dash, spring and wrestle her prey to the ground. She took a long slow breath, as the herding teacher, Thakur had taught her, mastered her urge and crept around the striper, circling in front of it.

Stripers were new to the Named herds. This horse was dun, with dark brown mane and tail. Ratha turned her head to bring her gaze down along its banded forelegs to the three-toed feet. These feet differed from those of the smaller dappleback horses that the clan had long tended. The striper’s center toe, sheathed in a single hoof, was larger, the side toes further off the ground. That hoof had far more power than the four and three-toed feet of the dapplebacks. Ratha had dodged it many times and other herders had been sent sprawling.

The striper grunted and whinnied, its nostrils flaring with her smell. From her crouch, Ratha lifted her chin and stared up at the horse, trying to catch and hold its gaze. As if sensing her purpose, the striper reared, its forefeet cutting the air, its tail whisking its flanks. She froze again; waited.

When the striper dropped down, she pounced on its stare with her own. Again it evaded her, closing its eyes and ducking its head, showing her only its bristling mane.

She knew the stripers were smarter than the dapplebacks; by now her stare would have a dappleback helplessly imprisoned.

Thakur had warned her that the stripers were clever; that the larger head held a more alert and cunning mind. Suppressing her frustrated growl, Ratha made several rasping snarls that were almost barks.

The sounds had the effect she wanted. The striper’s ears swiveled, the head came up, the eyes opened. Again her eyes sought the striper’s gaze and this time she captured it. The animal stiffened, as if about to fight, but snort and stamp as it would, the striper couldn’t break Ratha’s stare. It stilled to near-immobility, only its hide shivering.

Ratha felt triumph strengthen her heartbeat and deepen her breathing. She was so close; she could reach out and tap one of the horse’s forelegs with a front paw.

Again came the rush of desire that threatened to propel her up onto the horse’s shoulders, driving her teeth into its neck. In her imagination, she was already atop the striper, feeling the stiff upright mane bristle into the corners of her mouth. Part of her already felt the velvet-furred skin resist, stretch and then tear through beneath the points of her fangs, her neck muscles pulling and twisting in just the right way so that her fangs would slip between the neckbones and skillfully separate them while the prey’s blood flowed in pulses over her tongue. . .

Outwardly Ratha shuddered, yet kept her eyes fixed on those of the horse while inwardly she swiped the feelings aside. No, such a fevered attack was not the way of the Named. She had fought this internal battle many times before, when she trained as a cub under Thakur, and later when she began her duties as a herder. Even when she culled herd-beasts, she would not let instinct run wild.

Ratha used her frustration and desire, pouring them out savagely through her eyes. The horse was now as still as if it were already in her killing embrace. The muscles and tendons atop her forelegs quivered with the need to drive her claws out and deep into flesh.

She lifted out of her crouch, rearing up on her hind paws to lay one foreleg almost gently over the horse’s shoulders and up along the back of its neck. In spite of her care, the beast started, but before it could begin its escape flurry, Ratha slapped the other forepaw around the underside of its neck.

Now Ratha used her claws, but only enough to maintain her hold as she pushed backwards with her hind feet to unbalance the striper and pull it over. She was so close to the horse now that she couldn’t hold its gaze, but she no longer needed to. It was falling into the daze that doomed prey often assumed.

Instead of digging into the striper’s nape with claws and teeth, Ratha used the pressure and friction of her pads combined with her weight and her experience in knowing exactly how and where to push in order to topple the beast.

As if in a trance, the striper sank to its knees. Ratha climbed further onto it, using her weight to press the horse down onto its belly. She draped herself across the animal, one forepaw keeping the horse’s forelegs, with their dangerous hooves, at a distance. She wrapped the other forepaw around the top of the horse’s head, twisting it up so that the throat lay exposed.

Feeling the striper's heartbeat thudding through its ribs and into her own body, Ratha bent her head, jaws starting to open. The heart’s beat was strong in the creature’s neck, visibly jolting the skin over the great vessels and releasing a deep temptation in Ratha to bite deeply and hard.

Instead she opened her mouth to its full gape and set her teeth in position for the instinctive throat bite. With the horse’s sweat-smell hot in her nose, she squeezed her eyes shut with the effort not to bite, feeling the jaw-closing muscles beneath her eyes and on the sides of her forehead tremble with the strain.

The onlookers, Thakur and the young cubs learning herding from him, had grown quiet, as if they sensed the conflict within her.

Slowly, deliberately, she pulled her head up, feeling the skin of her muzzle slide
back over her teeth as her mouth closed. She swallowed the saliva that had flooded her mouth, staying atop the striper while the youngsters shrilled their praise and Thakur added his deeper note. Their cries sounded strangely muted to her, as if they were distant or her ears muffled...

(End of excerpt)

Courage galloping toward 4/1/08 release

My agent, Richard Curtis, has just confirmed today that everything is on-track.

Courage will be released on 4/1/08 as an E-Reads/Baen Books selection.

Baen's website is www. baen. com. (Note - you can buy individual titles as well as the subscription.) E-Reads is www. ereads. com.

After all this time and grief, it really is happening.

Yarrrooo!

"Get the blood off the book. You can leave the sweat and tears..."

Ratha's Creatures - What Are Seamares?

You thought you knew all the prehistoric creatures, even the really strange ones. And then, up from the pages of Ratha and Thistle-chaser pops an real oddball.

Not Thistle herself, though she definitely has her quirks. What on (or off) Earth is Splayfoot, the seamare? This critter has got to be a made-up beastie, a major authorial indulgence. A horse-like head, including ears, a short horse-y neck and pony body, but legs and feet that don't work at all like a horse's, feet with webbed toes, and to top it off, the critter has tusks, swims, and eats clams?

As Ratha says to Thakur, when he returns from a scouting expedition to the seacoast, "Fat, tusked dapplebacks with short legs and duck feet? And they swim in this great wave-filled lake you found?" (On page 70 of Ratha and Thistle-chaser.)

Naw..Thakur must be having delusions. Maybe he ate some fermented fruit. Or did he?


In the 1960s while excavating for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), the particle beam research facility that runs as straight as a laser through the hills west of Palo Alto, California, a construction crew found some very weird fossil bones. They even baffled Stanford University paleontologists; so much so that they bestowed upon the 20 million year-old remains the name "Paleoparadoxia", or "ancient puzzle". The discovery held up work on SLAC while the experts removed and preserved the fossils, which now reside in SLAC's Visitor's Center. Oddly enough, this find happened only about 10 miles from where I was living as a kid and I wasn't even aware of it until later. I think I did know vaguely that something prehistoric had been discovered at the new SLAC project, but not the details.

(Even stranger was that I had already made a toy "sea-horse" creature. As a child, I used to make animal figures from pipe-cleaners and later, telephone wire. I wanted critters I could pose and this was long before "action figures".( Actually, I think mine were better, since these animals would bend all over, not just at certain joints. Yes, there was Gumby, and later Pokey, but I found them boring.) The animals were mostly horses, but I had other creatures, such as cheetahs. Some were horse-derived, such as the sea-pony I made. He had a horse head, short neck, chunky body and webby feet with toes. I also stuffed a cork in him so that he would (semi-) float in the bathtub. I did him in two versions. The first was with pipe-cleaners, but when he got wet, the steel-wire stems rusted and he fell apart. The next version, done with scrap telephone wire from a Stanford office installation, was truely aquatic, due to the plastic insulation on the wire. He worked much better, but didn't float as well, being heavier.)

The text described Paleoparadoxia as "pony-sized" and "horse-like" with short, stout limbs and large,wide four-toed feet with "hoof-like nails". It also had some endearing oddities. On the forelimbs, the ulna and radius ( the two forearm bones) were fused so that "the foot could not be turned without rotating the whole leg". A drawing of the skeleton had a caption that described a "peculiar stance with inturned feet". According to this book and others, this peculiarity may have been an adapation for walking on unstable river or ocean bottoms, or in rough, shallow water. It also said that Paleoparadoxia moved on land "in the manner of sea lions" and that the tusks might have been used to "prize off food, be it seaweed, seagrass or even mollusc.".

(The word "desmostylian" comes from the creature's unique tooth structure. Each tooth is formed by a chain of upright tubes, linked together, forming a chain. "Desmos" is chain, "stylos" is pillar.)

Splayfoot leaped out at me from that picture and description. Perhaps my imagination added the webbing between the toes, although the feet do look somewhat webby in the painting.


Illustration by M. R. Long from Mammal Evolution: An illustrated Guide

Why did I choose the name 'seamare'? Well, first off, 'seahorse' already referred to a fish. Also the creature was female. Maybe I could have called her a 'sea-pony', but 'seamare' had a nice smooth sound to it. The name 'Splayfoot' came right out of the picture, especially the right fore-foot.

So here she is, confronting Newt/Thistle-chaser at the beginning of the story. (The "blubber-tusker" is a short-tusked Miocene walrus. The POV is Thistle's)

"Peering up the beach, she saw a natural jetty of gray sandstone thrusting out to sea beneath a cliff. on the promontory, gray and black shaped sprawled in the sun. At first she thought these animals resembled the blubber-tusker, but their broad bodies were less blubbery and more compact, slate-colored on top and cream below. Chunky fore- and hindlimbs folded back against sleek sides as the creatures lay on their bellies. Their heads were long and tapered, reminding Newt of the muzzle of a forest dappleback rather than the snout of a blubber-tusker. They also had leaf-shaped ears that swivelled and twitched."

"It grunted to itself as the waves washed its sides."

"...Newt saw the elongated muzzle, resembling that of a dappleback, but instead of a rounded nose and chin, the creature had a tapered snout with a pronounced overbite. It yawned, revealing downward-pointing incisors in the upper jaw and a cluster of tusks thrusting from the lower."

"With splay-toed webbed fore-feet, the creature hauled itself onto the beach, jaws wedged wide open by a huge, muck-covered shell."

"The beast seemed to ignore its hind legs, letting them drag behind while it humped and heaved along on belly and stout forelegs."

"For an instant the two confronted each other. With surprising speed, Splayfoot humped herself toward Newt, swinging her tusks. The seamare's anger propelled her up onto her rear legs, and Newt discovered that they weren't as useless as they had first appeared."

"Newt hadn't expected the seamare's sudden transformation from belly-dragger to walker. Splayfoot had a clumsy gait, with out-thrust elbows and turned-in feet, but it served well enough."

"The seamare's black forepaws, with their wide tapering toes and the webbing between, were nothing like the flippers of the blubber-tusker..."

"The seamare gave a bubbling roar and knocked all the remaining shell fragments away with a powerful sweep of her foreleg. She opened her jaws and waggled her head, giving the lurking meat-eater a good look at her tusks and teeth."

(quotes from pp. 32-36)

For more, get Ratha and Thistle-chaser! Or read the first chapter at http://www.rathascourage.com/.

This (as far as I know) was the first time Paleoparadoxia came to life in published fiction. The "huge shell" is the California "horse-neck" clam, also known in Washington as the geoduck. Yum! (Not really. Humans don't eat them much today. Too rubbery even with cooking. )

Interestingly enough, later depictions of Paleoparadoxia were much dumpier and far less charming (though probably more accurate). Since poetic license allows me a little leeway, I've chosen the image I like best.

CB

Ratha's Creatures - Shongshar

Ratha’s Creatures

What is Shongshar? A sabertooth cat?

In Clan Ground, Ratha admits Orange-Eyes, an UnNamed stranger, to the clan. Later, when Ratha angers him by taking away his cubs by Bira (since they lack the Named “light” in their eyes), he becomes the fierce and arrogant Shongshar. He drives Ratha out of the clan and nearly kills Fessran with his long fangs.

Some readers think that Shongshar is based on the sabertooth cat Smilodon, a different species than Ratha’s kind, who are based on the cheetah-like nimravid, Dinaelurus. Smilodon, however, evolved millions of years later than Ratha’s people, appearing in the Pleistocene. The Miocene nimravids, on which Ratha is based, had both sabertooth and “conical tooth” species. Barburofelis, a distant Ratha relative, out-sabered the later Smilodon. Barburofelis had huge fangs that were so long they needed to be protected by a large bony flange on the animal’s jaw.

Even the more cat-like “conical tooth” nimravid species, such as Nimravus and Dinaelurus, had longer fangs than many cats. Nimravus, being more like a leopard or a clouded leopard, had longer fangs than Dinaelurus. Clouded leopards have the longest front fangs in the modern cat family for their size. The whole nimravid family had strong sabertooth tendencies. I often compare Ratha’s kind with the modern cheetah, but fossil Dinaelurus skulls have longer and sharper front fangs than do cheetahs. (See my reconstruction of a Dinaelurus crassus skull in clay).

Saberteeth have arisen in many mammalian lines. Creodonts, which were early, less specialized carnivores that arose long before cats were even a thought in Nature’s mind, had weasel- and martin-like forms with saberteeth. Nimravids gave rise to Dinictis, often called a “dirktooth” cats and Homotherium, known as the “scimitar-tooth” cat. Many of Ratha’s relatives are known as “false sabertooths” to distinguish them from the later “true sabertooths” of the Smilodon line.

Sabertoothed forms also arose among marsupials (kangaroos, opossums and other pouched mammals. Thylacosmilus, a lion-sized South American fossil marsupial carnivore, would have given Barburofelis competition for the nasty-saber award.

Saber-like teeth have emerged in many species, including primates. Some male baboons have fangs that make leopards think twice about attacking.

So, back to old Shongshar. What is he? Well, all of the UnNamed and the Named are the same basic species, although the Named have branched off in their own direction. Dinaelurus and the more leopard-like Nimravus were close sister-species and might have been able to hybridize.

As stated previously, all the nimravids had a tendency to develop saberteeth and Shongshar was an extreme case. Or he is a hybrid between Dinaelurus and Nimravus.

(Or he is a Smilodon that time-traveled back from the Pleistocene to the Miocene – no, just kidding. Or you can write that story.)

When you first read Clan Ground, what did you think Shongshar was (other than a big pain in Ratha’s tail)?

Comments?

CB

Ratha's Creatures - Treelings

What are the treelings?

In Clan Ground, the herding teacher Thakur (pronounced Ta-KOOR, since it is a Bengali word meaning “teacher”) literally runs across a small furry creature and accidentally injures it. His first thought is to eat it (he is a cat, after all), but he becomes intrigued by the little fur-ball. He calls it, Aree, based on the sound it makes, and decides to keep it as amusement and as a companion. Aree has hand instead of paws or claws, and uses them to climb trees, pick fruit, throw things, and pick ticks out of Thakur’s coat. Thakur discovers that Aree can do many other things, including some that influence the clan’s use of the Red Tongue (fire).

Once he convinces the clan that Aree is more useful than tasty, Ratha and the others accept Thakur’s odd little pet, letting the treeling groom them. When Aree turns out to be female and has babies, Ratha and other clan members adopt little treeling companions.

What kind of prehistoric creature is Aree? Readers have made many guesses, including monkey, ape, squirrel, raccoon, lemur, tarsier (bush baby), other type of primate, other type of rodent, other member of the raccoon family and totally made up by author.

Here’s a hint. I made one mistake in describing Aree, enabling her to do something that the real prehistoric species probably couldn’t.

Any ideas? Many readers already know, but I’d like to hear some guesses.

Next up in the Ratha series guessing game. What is Shongshar, the clever tyrant who uses the worship of fire to take over clan leadership?

CB

Ratha's Creatures - Did They Really Exist?

Readers ask if the various creatures in the Ratha series really existed. The answer is yes, they are based on real fossils, but a few have been slightly modified. Keep in mind that I began the series in 1983 and wrote it until the mid 1990's. Paleontology has made huge leaps since then, finding many new prehistoric species and making new discoveries about old ones.
The three-horn stag that Ratha encounters in the first page of the first book is based in part on the Miocene proto-ceratid ("before deer") species Synthoceratus. This animal had a y-forked nose-horn, but a very un-deer-like snout and little horn-stubs instead of true antlers. To make the creature more appealing (to me as well as readers), I added the branched antlers and the more elegant face of later deer species.
Originally the dapplebacks were based on Hyracotherium, a fossil better known as Eohippus, "the dawn horse". Their dappled backs came from a painting in a paleontology book, showing the little proto-horses browsing in a leafy forest.
Now researchers have decided that the "dawn horse" really isn't a horse ancestor at all; it more closely related to the hyrax and the elephants.
In my mind, the dapplebacks are still horses, perhaps early versions of forest-browsing Miohippian proto-ponies that later gave rise to the main branch of horse evolution, the hipparions, with their enlarged center toe of three. Not the modern horse Equus? No, actually Equus was a side branch. Hipparion and its relatives formed the main trunk of the horse-y tree.

The “shambleclaw” that Ratha sees in the forest is a giant American ground sloth. Not monstrous, like Megatherium, but not tiny either. The name attempts to describe how the creature might have shambled along awkwardly, hampered by the huge fore claws it used to dig up termite mounds and strip leaves from trees.

Young Ratha almost becomes bird food when she confronts a huge flightless “terror crane” based on the species Diornis, with a bit of Teratornis added in. After the dinosaurs vanished, mammals remained small and had to contend with feathered avian dinosaur descendents that resembled the recently extinct moas of New Zealand. The birds had a head start on the furries, and grew huge, dominating the forests and plains of the periods preceding the Miocene, the Eocene and Oligocene. They may well have hung on until the Miocene

In the 1980’s, Diornis and Teratornis were thought to be carnivores, due to their huge hooked beaks. Now paleontologists debate that image, pointing out that the heavy beaks could have cut through vegetation as well as flesh. But mammal is still on the bird menu in the Ratha books, although the mammal in question manages to escape.

CB