#makaki

Pretend that I love you.

For my fic :P

This is almost entirely unchanged from the original, I've just gone over them all with watercolour to fit the rest of my wildlife fact file pics. I will therefore copy-pasta all the text from last time.

Makakis came about because screw horses. Horses are way too finicky. Horsey people are very knowledgeable about horses; I couldn't give a shit about horses. I give up trying to make my horses realistic.

Also, on a side note after seeing a bandicoot digging at Mum's lawn yesterday, I had the idea that most mammals in Tsyllaes should really be marsupials, what with it being based pretty heavily on Australia and all.

I decided to try combining these ideas, starting with real marsupials, the extinct megafauna. Honestly the only one big enough to ride is the giant wombat, which absolutely bloody exist in Tsyllaes now, but not overly convenient as a steed. I looked then at extinct mammals to see if anything else might be useful, and came across the macrauchenia, some weird South American creature which was its own evolutionary branch, unrelated to anything else that currently exists. The closest they've got is the tapir/horse/elephant branch. PERFECT. Also I can find virtually no info about this thing.

The common makaki is the one people think of whenever they think of a makaki. In keeping with their not-horse origins, their patterning is generally anything that a horse can be, as well as in keeping with their being marsupials, anything marsupials can be. They're about 2m tall at the shoulder, so significantly bigger than horses, but they're also very chill with sitting, most often lounging like kangaroos. I wanted to draw one lounging here but I needed to show the heights, so I'll do that when I eventually draw the Own's makakis. They have three toes on each foot, which makes them more agile and gives them stronger ankles than horses so the sodding things don't break their ankles. They live mostly in the mountains and hills of Kazin, Llayad and northern Raykin, where they use their snoots to pull leaves off of trees for food, occasionally fruit if they can get it but they're fine off leaves. They're suited to Kazin's open forests and the plains of Llayad, not so good in full desert with their comparatively small feet and need for water. Those from tropical forests and the Llayan savanna have no mane while those from the colder mountains have manes all the way down their back. The particularly cold border between Llayad and Kazin also breeds them with floofier coats. Llayans call these ones Kazinian makakis, because Llayad has their own 'common' one.

The destrier is the one bred for battle. Bigger than the common makaki and with very strong legs, especially the back legs for springing forward from a stationary start. They have the longest tusks of all makaki breeds which can be an extra weapon in battle, and longer trunks, too, cos. I dunno. I felt like playing with the trunks. I'm sure there's an application for that. Also, side-note, this one's Mongrel! After drawing all the boys' makakis, I've better figured out how their anatomy goes, so I've tweaked this one a fair bit from the original, giving him longer, thicker legs and changing how the back legs kink to be more like how I've been drawing them, a bit more strength and spring to them.

Oooooh he's a big, beefy boy, this one. The draft makaki has been bred for pure strength, huge forequarters for pulling heavy carts and plows, big feets for digging, strong trunk and tusks for pushing over trees and hauling branches.

By complete contrast, Assiraz's makaki is bred purely for looks. The more snowy white, the pricier the animal, except their swishy gorgeous tail which has all the colours. Long, elegant legs and slender, curving neck. They're named after Empress Assiraz, who was the one to start breeding them in the first place. Literally their only use is to keep nobility's skirts clean and elevate them above the plebs, so in that regard they're highly practical. For anything much else, they're kinda useless.

Native to the tropics and bred for its meat, the stocky little tapi has patterning on its back like a giraffe and range from grey, like the above, to dark brown with black spots to better camouflage. They taste like camel. I've never eaten camel so just roll with it.

DONKEY. Or more technically a mule, but I just wanted to call it a donki. It's a hybrid between a tapi mare and common stallion to make a smaller makaki, less fragile in the legs giving them greater endurance than the common makakis, but because they're much smaller they're cheaper for the average Kazinian. More than half the donkis are sterile, which makes those ones nice and cheap for the poorer Kazinians, and even those which can breed are still significantly cheaper than common makakis and WAY cheaper than draft makakis.

The two Llayan makakis, first one just called the 'Llayan makaki,' but, as mentioned before, Llayans call this one the 'common makaki' and the other one the 'Kazinian makaki'. She reach! And she has a foal in her pouch :D Llayan makakis are a bit smaller than the Kazinian ones. Also, because they're not actually zebras, the dark stripes can be any colour, though herds are mostly all of one colour.