Abode Sciencewatch: Dromaeo-Swordfeet!
©2002 by Linda "Sweetwind" Tam

My own interpretation of a scene from the story 'Summer Tag' in which Lonebriar confronts the swordfeet.

The story "Summer Tag," in the second of the Blood of Ten Chiefs prose books, introduces us to a second dinosaur species of the World of Two Moons: the swordfeet. They apparently correspond to the Earthly species Velociraptor mongoliensis, which lived in the late Cretaceous period (85 to 80 million years ago). This dinosaur was a member of a group called the dromaeosaurids, or raptors. Raptors had a unique body plan, never seen before or since, which made them incredibly efficient predators. They walked and ran on two legs with a long, stiff tail as a counterbalance. A slender, supple neck supported a long head, lithe and deadly, with a long jawline brimming with sharp teeth, each serrated on one edge. Their three-fingered forelimbs were armed with long, curved claws for grasping their prey and holding the victim tight. But foremost, and providing the elves' name for the animal, was the large, sickle-shaped, upright killing claw on each foot. The innermost digit of each three-toed foot was held up off the ground, keeping its enlarged claw razor-sharp, and was equipped with special muscles and tendons to flex the talon forward and down, enabling the animal to slash powerfully at its prey.

Many people are familiar with velociraptors due to their prominence in the Jurassic Park trilogy (both books and movies). Michael Chrichton and Stephen Spielberg used a bit of artistic license. There are known species of dromaeosaurids the size of those depicted in Jurassic Park, but Velociraptor itself was actually only about a meter (3 feet) tall and 1.8 meters (6 feet) long. (For Elfquest, actually, the movie provides a useful model - the raptors of Jurassic Park are about the same size in proportion to humans as swordfeet are to the Wolfriders. Or to put it another way, real Velociraptors are to the movies' velociraptors roughly as elves are to humans.) The leanest of the dromaeosaurids, they are estimated to have weighed about 11 kilograms (25 pounds), which probably doesn't sound like much until one has fastened itself onto you and is in the process of disemboweling you.

The "switchblade" claw of Velociraptor would be about 10 cm (4 inches) long.

Baby velociraptors hatched from eggs. From fossilized skulls of juvenile velociraptors that have been found, we know that the young ones had proportionally shorter snouts and bigger eyes than the adults. This indicates that the babies were fed and looked after by the adults for some period. (Contrast this to baby alligators, which look like tiny adults when they hatch, and receive no parental care.) It also suggests a more sophisticated social structure, such as might occur in a pack-dwelling species like wolves. Many paleontologists believe that the raptor dinosaurs were pack hunters; certainly, their brains were large enough to indicate they had the intelligence for such a lifestyle. Multiple dromaeosaurid fossils have been found together around the fossil of a single large prey animal in several instances. This suggests a pack hunted and attacked the prey together. However, it could be due to individuals collecting to scavenge off someone else's kill. So until more evidence is collected, we can't be positively sure.

Unfortunately, raptor fossils are not very abundant, but more are being found all the time so our knowledge of them will surely continue to increase. In fact, in 2000 the fossil of a small dromaeosaur was discovered so remarkably well-preserved that some of the soft parts of its body are recorded in the stone (usually fossils preserve only the hard parts, like bones and teeth). This little dromaeosaur was covered with feathers! Did all dromaeosaurs have feathery hides? It's possible!

Of the swordfeet on Abode, we have but little more information. Their scaly skins are brilliant green and glossy. They live far to the south of the holt in Freefoot's time, and are rare enough that, although the Wolfriders have a name for the animals, they don't recognize their cries ("half whistle, half bark") when they hear them in "Summer Tag." It's unclear whether the swordfeet are solitary or pack-dwelling - the two animals encountered in the story stay together, but they are a juvenile and her mother, so perhaps this is just a long-lasting mother-child bond. It's also unclear whether they lay eggs. Lonebriar, who has a special ability to send to them, senses that the juvenile is "carrying pups," while another elf, Suretrail, refers to her incipient "litter." Does this mean she will give live birth, or is she carrying eggs that she has yet to lay? The swordfeet communicate with each other, using chirping sounds and perhaps a form of sending (Lonebriar can feel their private communication through his psychic link). Intelligent, they communicate clearly with the elf. And frankly: Lonebriar tells the others, "she doesn't know what lying is." They win his admiration for their bravery, loyalty, and strength. They are acknowledged to be very, very dangerous, though - they are known to attack wolves and elves as well as deer, bear, and big cats. They have no scent and are therefore hard to detect, for both wolves and elves.

The story "Summer Tag" was also told in comic form in Blood of Ten Chiefs issue #5 (reprinted in the Reader's Collection Book 9b: Blood of Ten Chiefs). It was retitled "Talon," and the story was adapted to fit into the comic medium. Unfortunately, those adapting the story did not recognize velociraptors from the portrayal in "Summer Tag." The description in the text is clear enough to anyone who has a mental image of a velociraptor to hang it on. They are described as "like giant birds covered with green scales instead of feathers and grasping claws instead of wings," and it is said that "the great claws on their hind feet ... gave them their name". At the end of the story, Lonebriar cuts "the two great talons from the dead swordfoot's back feet" which implies a single prominent claw on each foot. But if you don't recognize velociraptors while reading, the descriptions aren't quite enough to regenerate the creature from scratch. The resulting scratch-built creatures drawn for "Talon" look (not to put too fine a point on it) like plucked turkeys. Three-clawed feet, yes, but all the toes are equal size; there's no counterbalancing tail, and overall the design is more dragon-like than dinosaur-like. I contacted the author of "Summer Tag," Allen L. Wold, who confirmed my speculation that he had based the creatures on raptors. Since his intent was to have an animal that felt "real" in the story, it's disappointing that the comic showed such a fantastical made-up creature.

Finally, some speculation on the future. Could the carnivorous dinosaurs of Elfquest, which includes allos (as discussed in Sendings #14) as well as swordfeet, have survived from the time of the original quest to the time of the technologically advanced, urban societies of later Abode? The same question might be asked of the other Earth-Pleistocene-epoch mammals shown during the original quest, such as the longtooth and the woolly mammoth. Scientists are still debating the causes of the extinction of mammoths and sabre-toothed cats on Earth. Climactic change and hyperlethal disease have been posed as possible reasons, but another leading theory is overhunting by increasingly technologically advanced and numerous humans. Any of these three causes (or others as well) could have eliminated some of Abode's primordial species. Certainly, human and elfin hunters might have targeted dangerous species like allos and swordfeet for eradication, as the stories featuring these creatures illustrate. Still, the human population load of Abode never got as heavy as it has on Earth. As mentioned in The Rebels issue #8 (reprinted in the Reader's Collection Book 13a: Skyward Shadow), the human population of Abode, plus two colonized planets, several colonized moons, and miscellaneous space stations is just 2.5 billion - compare that with 6 billion and counting for Earth, and we have only a handful people inhabiting Space Station Alpha! There may be plenty of wild spaces on the World of Two Moons for large carnivores to survive. What I wouldn't give for a tour of an Abodean zoo!

Even if the dinosaurs of the World of Two Moons did go extinct, we might still be able to see them on Abode in the high-tech era. Consider once again the fictional Jurassic Park, whose dinosaurs were brought to life using scraps of DNA from ancient blood samples. The Abodeans have this technology! Rosie of the Rebels, we are told, was created using genetic material recovered from the remains of a dead Preserver, plus nearly ten percent padding with human genes to fill the gaps in the reconstructed genetic sequence (The Rebels issue #2, reprinted in the Reader's Collection Book 13: The Rebels). After overcoming the formidable obstacles to create a creature that is not even native to the planet, with patched-in genes from an utterly unrelated species, the scientists of Abode should find it child's play to resurrect mere dinosaurs.

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