because no one else will

Eridians are going to have a fairly solid grasp of the English language (and possibly even some others), an intimate understanding of the environmental conditions a human needs to thrive as well as their nutritional and psychological needs, a solid grasp of a number of scientific concepts discovered by humans, and decent familiarity with human culture and customs (if probably an American-centric one). Some Eridians might even be explicitly trained as diplomats or ambassadors with the expectation that one day the two cultures might interact more regularly.

Kalakocetus aurorae was an early cetacean that lived during the Eocene, about 50-48 million years ago, in what is now the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent.

It represents the (currently) most basal known branch of the whale lineage, with teeth that are transitional between the crushing herbivorous-omnivorous molars of the closely-related raoellids and the shearing carnivorous molars of later archaeocetes.

Only known from a lower jaw and teeth, its full life appearance is unknown — but based on the body proportions of other early cetaceans it would have been a roughly cat-sized animal, around 60cm long (~2'), possibly resembling a smaller version of its better-known relative Pakicetus. It was also probably similarly semiaquatic, wading into rivers to hunt fish and other small freshwater prey.

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