Evil and intimidating pseudo-horse
The Makaros (Austrohippus familaris - “familiar southern horse”), at first glance appears rather similar to an actual horse, and to the people of Aeos, it is used similarly. Upon closer inspection, however, its three-toes and flexible upper lip betray its true identity - a litoptern - a unique sort of ungulate endemic to the southern hemisphere distantly related to perissodactyls. It is more specifically a proterotheriid, a clade notable for developing a single weight-bearing hoof convergently with true equines that inhibited our world’s South America. While horses exist on Aeos, they are usually too small to be mounted, or are far too aggressive to make for good domesticates (think zebras.) The sharp spurs and ruffs of fur on his face indicate that the pictured individual is a stallion, as the former are used in intraspecific combat over breeding rights. In most domestic animals, these are usually either filed down or are bred out of some breeds entirely (but others used for blood sports have these enlarged instead.)
While likely first originating from the mosaic woodlands and mountain slopes of central Keiros, makaros have since been transported to every corner of the globe along with the expansion of human civilizations across Aeos. While first domesticated for its flesh, the makaros’ primary purpose quickly shifted toward that of a working animal, being used as a source of transportation as well as a beast of burden. Through selective breeding it has been molded into a myriad of shapes and forms, ranging from elegant pony-sized breeds bred as vanity pets to animals as large and almost as powerful as draft horses. The wild ancestor of the makaros was likely a mule-sized, stocky animal, but centuries of domestication have resulted in almost all free-living populations intermixing with feral domestic stock, resulting in a great variety of body types and coat patterns. What exactly a wild makaros looks like has been lost to time.
Like the horses it resembles, the makaros is a cursorial herd-living ungulate that when returned to a wild state, prefers semi-open temperate and subtropical habitats. Unlike horses, it is primarily a browser, not a grazer (but can survive off grass partially), and it prefers to forage at the peripheries of broken forests. Like most herbivorous ungulates, they form small sex-segregated herds split between natal groups that compose of foals and mares accompanied by a coalition of related breeding stallions that defend them from rivals, and bachelor herds consisting of multiple coalitions that travel together when outside of breeding periods. Herds are nomadic, travelling between mountain slopes and lowland valleys throughout the course of the season, preferring the former during warmer months and overwintering in the latter.
While it resembles a horse, the makaros has many important differences in its care and behavior that impact its use as a domesticate. Its browsing diet and partial reliance on nutritious forage makes it much more costly to maintain than a true grazing animal, and for this reason they are far less ubiquitous in its role as a mount than horses ever were in our world. Despite being domesticated for thousands of years, the makaros remains an intelligent and strong-willed animal that has retained a strong sense of self-preservation, so other domesticates are preferred as war mounts. While not quite as strong or as fast as our world’s horse, it is far more agile and can deftly navigate uneven terrain, making it an ideal general-purpose form of transportation in rugged, untamed landscapes. As a product of its tightly knit social structure, makaros can be hesitant to accept new riders (or penmates), and it may take several weeks of training for a makaros and rider to be able to coordinate together, but bonds are strong once established.
dededos
kaledo-art
2087
jacobvanloon
yousharknotpass
