That would actually be really cool! It would also account for how so many mermaids are shown sticking their heads out of water or sitting gracefully on rocks instead of flopping around gasping like a fish out of water.
That would actually be really cool! It would also account for how so many mermaids are shown sticking their heads out of water or sitting gracefully on rocks instead of flopping around gasping like a fish out of water.
agreed Raegan
Little Sailor, Little fool, your better heed the golden rule
do unto other just as you, would like to to have them do to you
you think you can just walk away,but no, it doesn't work that way
see once your mine, your'll always be
I never give anything for free...
Ok, I can't resist anymore... it really should be "Interesting fact about Merfolk" not "Merfolks"... folk is already considered a plural term and never gains an S at the end of it.
oh..... I just noticed.. thanks 0_oOriginally Posted by Joy&RaptorsUnrestrained!
arrrgh WHERE DO I EDIT!
*sighs* - _- .....
Last edited by Nemefish; 04-23-2012 at 12:53 AM.
I know, right. I tried to edit my thread title the other day, and couldn't figure it out.....
Mermaid Dottie
ATTENTION: Please use extreme caution when feeding the mermaid. Failure to do so could result in loss of digits.
you know i figured it out dottieone does not actually edit it, you have to contact mernetwork on the forum bars on the top.... the contact mernetwork is somewhere on there
they fixed it for me :P
Wow this thread was a really good idea. When it comes to breathing I always thought that they had a gill set behind each ear that angles back down the neck, that's why you usually don't see them in pictures. But I really love Bellasea's idea of their breathing process being similar to frogs. It'd make more sense. And um hi there everyone! (I'm new >.>)
oh hello Nyrunie welcome to the communityim glad you found satisfying info to ease your questions :3
Certain huge clams make merfolk instead of pearls. The clams are closely guarded and slowly open as the merbady is ready to be "born." It's especially entertaining when several clams release their babies at once.
I have a mermaid story in the works. Once I'm in a position to post weekly installments, I'll have to post them on the forum or my wall somewhere.
Last edited by midwesternmermaid; 05-21-2012 at 08:23 PM.
I'd say they are mammals but they still hatch from eggs. Like a platypus
That would be so awesome^^ and actually it's not that unlikely. And with a little imagination they can be just as real as you and me
I'd say it's not just the amount of unexplored waters that defines the likehood of mermaids. I mean even tho much of the rainforest is still not discovered that doesn't mean that there are small alive computers running around there :P But I do my best to come up with scientific explanations for everything about themLol I know. But they likely could exist, I mean if we haven't explored a place, how do we know they don't? My way of thinking is the more ocean we explore, the lower the chances of them existing are. The less we've explored, the more likely it is. Ergo, they have a 95% chance of existing now, and as we explore more of the ocean, the more places we know they don't exist. In a body of water that hasn't been explored, they have a 100% chance of existing. The idea of chance is that it's a possibility, not set in stone. So I'm not saying they do exist, I'm just not ruling out that they don't.
I always think of them breathing underwater- gills in the lungs like the Man from Atlantis or perhaps with gills located at the sides of the neck, behind the ears, and they disappear from view when out of water. Their lungs are adaptable and can breathe out of water, just not as well.
I can't buy the idea of mers being a creature of the deep and the surface- the majority of creatures who make deep sea their home, when they surface do not do well, unless you're a sperm whale and have adapted to that in the most incredible ways. But the deepest dwelling squid won't last if they are pulled to the surface, same goes with ceolocanths and frilled sharks (my favorite shark)- both so rarely seen because they're of the deep, and when they're seen at the surface it's because they're dying. And while mermyth is all fantasy, it still has to have some plausibility to work in my mind. Otherwise I don't really hold onto it. (I know, I know, I can buy the idea of a mermaid, but not if everything around it makes no sense. lol)
i know this is an awkward question, but how do you think mermaids reproduce? I mean, they dont exactly have any (that i can see) genitals... so? The angler fish idea seems a bit freaky, and i cant imagine a guy biting onto a mermaid while his organs deteriorate o.O
i know its weird to ask, but i have been wondering fovever
I've always thought they did it like dolphins or maybe shards did, or perhaps as snakes.
Your imagination is your only limit
I think they reproduce the way that Betta fish do. they give off a 'scent' and the male and female swim around eachother, and the male wraps his body around the female, and squeezes out the eggs, and then fertilizes them. I feel like sex wouldn't be for pleasure, just babies. idk. makes it sound really animalistic but idk! that's how I imagine it.
I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. - Jorge Luis Borges
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. - Alice in Wonderland
formerly 'sophiadarling'
My notions about sex are much too romantic to accept that. I would say that it would be much the same for Merfolk as it is for dolphins. Also, I feel they would give live birth. It's easier to take care of young that can swim with you than lugging an egg around in the open sea. Especially for a species that usually has only one offspring at a time.
Alveric
For my novel, The Accidental Mermaid, go to http://mermaidsofxanadu.com/
Coming in 2014: Spindrift
I feel you! That would be if they had eggs, though. I like the idea of live birth! lil mer-babies, what's not to love?(:
I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. - Jorge Luis Borges
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. - Alice in Wonderland
formerly 'sophiadarling'
Generally, evolution works on an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule, combined with a "hey, that actually works!" response to mutations, followed by letting the results of natural selection (or human selection) do their work to determine whether those changes become prevalent or die out. I don't think any vertebrates that emerged from the sea in the distant past have ever gained gills once they returned to the water, although their lungs have adapted to be better suited. So if merfolk are a product of evolution and not gods or magic or super science or genetic engineering, it is more likely that they were fish that somehow developed humanoid torsos, faces, and arms in order to mimic humans for some reason that better enables them to survive, rather than sharing a common ancestor with humans and returning to the sea. There are fish (Mudskippers and lungfish are good examples, though some catfish and other sea life show a remarkable ability to stay alive and even move on land for extended periods of time) that do seem to have the ability to breathe air.
Frankly, though, I think it is easier and less headache-inducing for everyone to just say "merfolk look like and can do what they do because it's magic," but that's less fun than working out all the little details.
In the Blood-Dimmed Tides book by White Wolf, merfolk are a kind of changeling (in that setting, defined as dream/fairy spirits that have survived in the modern world by taking human form, though only to the eyes of humans, while other changelings can see their true appearance, which they assume when away from humanity or in the otherworldly realm of the Dreaming), and appear as humans to normal humans, have a severe weakness to human disbelief (such that even unknowing proximity to humans while submerged can cause merfolk to lose their ability to survive underwater and drown). Merfolk go through three life stages: they are born as "Nereids"... gray skinned, fish-eyed babies with webbed fingers and toes. Nereids are exceptional swimmers, but lack gills, however, the milk of mermaids (which they produce throughout their lives once they reach maturity) enables anyone who drinks it to breathe underwater for at least day (as well as enabling humans to perceive the true forms of changelings and other aspects of the Dreaming, granting resistance to deep sea pressure, adapting the eyes to see clearly underwater and preventing the skin from pruning), which means that even if an expectant mer-mother gives birth out in the middle of the ocean, she can ensure that her children can breathe via nursing. The second stage depends on the merging of a nereid with an "apsara," a sort of dream-spirit sea-animal, dependent on their personality. This ritual transforms the nereid into a Nixe, though (if the animal is a vertebrate) males are often referred to as "tritons" and females as "mermaids", or, if they should merge with an invertebrate, they are referred to as "nucks" (whose skin is often transparent) and "sirens" (who are beautiful but deadly), and are more properly considered murdhuacha, not merfolk. This stage is when they are most energetic and most attractive. Once they reach the third stage, they become Naugs, and their hair becomes white and flowing... this is also when they are strongest, their bodies honed by years of swimming with and against the currents. Merfolk Naugs are respected leaders and members of the community, while Murdhuacha naugs are particularly savage and sometimes even driven out by other murdhuacha... or eaten. It should be noted that merfolk bear live young, but murdhuacha lay eggs on the drowned corpse of some creature... though the nereids produced by each are identical to each other and can become one or the other.
I though that description was a bit harsh on the invertebrate animals, but it is from a setting called The World of Darkness, so I probably shouldn't have been expecting rainbows and butterflies. Still, it had some really interesting ideas.
I have a question, though... what sort of "superpowers" or "magic" are merfolk capable of in most of the stories you guys and gals enjoy? I've heard everything from shapeshifting and psychic abilities to musical and elemental (particularly water, air, and weather) powers to necromancy and wish-granting and control of/communication with sea animals.
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