Pseudomermeids By Rodrigo-Vega Watch

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A small selection of what I consider to be feasible mermaids. Coming up with theoretically possible interpretations for otherwise chimerical and unlikely mythical creatures has become kind of a staple of my work... so here is another popular one.

From top to bottom and left to right,

-Amphibian: Huge fresh-water anurans evolved to humanoid features, including long external gills that look like flowing red hair. They are identified with lake and river nymphs and hags that would drag and drown people into dangerous bodies of water to eat them.

-Belugoid: Belugoids would be smaller, more intelligent relatives of beluga whales. Ceteceans are already quite intelligent and they would make good contenders to develop actual sapience. They could be responsable of luring sailors toward rocks and icebergs with their songs.... but... I don't see them doing it maliciously. Just a side-effect of sailors often being curious, horny and dumb.

-Fresh Water Monkey: The amazon forest already has a healthy population of large river species people will claim to be beautiful water-women that clearly aren't, so maybe we could do with an another one. The idea is that as the amazon basin floods, animals have developed different adaptations to semi-aquatic life... but monkeys being able to move up the tallest branches never quite did the water-thing. Maybe one of the heaviest species, on a low-canopy area, unable to climb into the thinnest higher branches did exactly that. This species would have favored a functional form of congenital sirenomelia. I went with rather primitive monkeys for this sketch, but this logic could well be applied to all kind of primates up from this point, including higher hominids for nearly-human merfolk populations.

Chondrichthyan: cartilaginous fishes with human-like appearance in their upper body, including grasping spines in their pectoral fins and eyes located in the bottom of their head allowing them to scann for prey and tools in the seabed. One of the most intriguing characteristics of cartilaginous fishes is that we have a lousy record of them in fossils not having actual bones, usually just leaving behind a bunch of teeth if we are lucky. Can we tell for sure there WEREN'T any fish people through all of Earth's history?... I wouldn't bet on it! but... still.

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