thepeacockangel:

thepeacockangel:

They’re aquatic members of the order Cingulata (armoured new world mammals) and are related to the armadillo.  That explains the mammalian characteristics and the scales.

This would also mean that the brightly colored scales are the result of light scattering structures in the scales as opposed to pigment as no terrestrial vertebrates are capable of producing pigments other than brown melanin and yellow-y orange-y carotene.  Birds have structures in their feathers that refract light to create the appearance of color without pigment (also this is how blue eyed and green eyed people get their eye color) 

also they’re probably sort of like seals (spending a good portion of their hanging out and socializing and stuff time on land because they seem to lack a blowhole and the like and have necks and hair and other features that mean they’re not totally adapted to living completely under water but hunting for food in the water).  Also they’re probably tropical because they don’t have enough of a blubber layer to prevent too much heat loss for colder water

and the scales make sense if they actually spend a fair bit of time dragging themselves overland (so they don’t scrape themselves up/irritate their skin).  Also based on their jaws they probably cook their food

They’re probably carnivorous or omnivorous and live on small isolated islands (they’re not well adapted to defend themselves from predation on land so they’d have to live in places without large land predators), they might also have body plans sort of similar to beavers (big tail, small mostly vestigial legs around sort of what we think of as the hip area with webbed feet so they could easily be mistaken for extra fins that they might use for aiding in locomotion on land).  Also their habitat explains luring sailors onto rocks (small islands mean a fairly limited supply of timber so back when ships were made of wood, sinking a ship and looting it for materials would have been great for them)  Their hands probably initially evolved for harvesting and cracking open shellfish (like otters) but became capable of more fine manipulation as they developed tools and textiles for catching larger quantities of fish (which may be faster than them under water because they’re not wholly adapted to living aquatically).

Based on my estimated weight for a mermaid and reading about seals (including a long and very powerfully muscular tail) their dive time is probably roughly half an hour.

Incidentally armadillos are already capable of going without oxygen longer than most land mammals (roughly six minutes which makes sense).

As to boobs: They might just have boobs, they’re mammals.  However most mammals don’t have noticeable boobs unless they’re lactating, however lactating females might spend more time up on land/on rocks with babies where they can be spotted.  If we assume their reproductive biology is similar to an armadillos (who have four nipples and always give birth to four genetically identical pups) but they only have two nipples we can probably assume they give birth to identical twin merbabies every time.

On the other hand all mermaids might appear tend to appear female to a human because breasts aren’t a sexed characteristic for them, they could have fatty deposits there for buoyancy or insulating some heat sensitive organ, or they might be air bladders that are always full when a mermaid is on land and make it easier to keep the head above water which deflate for diving.

I would also suspect that mermen don’t grow facial hair as it would be a greater obstacle to visibility and so on in the water.  

A number of their human like features could be explained by things used to explain human features in the discredited aquatic ape theory, but of course this is an imaginary aquatic pseudo-armadillo theory, so for example long head hair for infants to cling to and buoyant breasts and so on could be explained by “this motherfuckin’ thing is an aquatic mammal”.

It’s probably most closely related to the pink fairy armadillo because that’s the armadillo that looks most like it could evolve into a mermaid.

Also it can survive frosts so might do more okay with thermoregulation and shit.

Based on legends they probably have a throat structure that allows for speech much like a human’s (and for singing, their increased lung capacity giving them greater vocal power than a human would have perhaps) though they may also have organs similar to baleen whales that allow them to send vibrations through water to communicate with other mermaids while under water (we do not understand how baleen whales make noise, they don’t have vocal chords) though because they are much smaller it wouldn’t travel as far as whale song.

They also might domesticate seals the way humans domesticated dogs (as hunting animals and protectors and even for herding underwater livestock eventually) and possibly flightless birds found on islands.  They might also go after seabird eggs and possibly also keep food waste eating seagulls the way humans keep pigs.

They likely dry certain forms of seaweed for fuel (as again the shape of their jaw and the general depiction of their teeth as similar to hominid’s suggests an omnivore that cooks its food) and also probably farm the best type for burning along with the best edible types.

They probably build structures that must be entered through the water to avoid land animals getting in to bother them/eat them/etc (sort of like beaver dams maybe?)
There may also be freshwater species and related species entirely adapted to living in water (as dolphins and whales are)