for those unaware, in addition to pegasi, hippocamps, and other odd horse beasts of greek myth, there were oddities like the hippalectryons, or hippalektryons. what were these?

Chicken ponies.

yes, I am serious.

well, Rooster ponies may be more accurate, as these were usually depicted with the forequarters of an equine and the hindquarters of a rooster.

what is their society like? how are their relations with pegasi? CAN THEY FLY?

I don't know. that's why i'm posting this.

You may now begin Scootaloo related jokes.

Umm... How do I pronounce "Hippalectryon?"

So now we know what Scoota-
...
Damn you.

... Looks like one of those combinations of griffins and ponies... Can we please skip the Scootachicken jokes

1397090>>1397093 I personally hate that joke. I just know a lot of people are going to say it, so I might as well get it out there and take the fun away.

1397087 hip-al-eck-try-on

1397118
Ah, thanks.

1397118
Seeing the down votes on my comment someone does.

But this does make me wonder about this new race

1397129 No problem! Greek's kind of tough. took me forever to get Ophiotaurus right.

1397144 I know! personally, I think they would be a mercantile race, like I imagine camels to be.

1397155
I'll probably not use them but its a thought

1397176 I don't expect anyone to use them, I just want to expand ideas and know what others think.

...How was I not aware of these marvels? There are just so many delightful, insane possibilities here. If one wanted to treat them seriously, they could be used in a science-fiction setting, being the descendants of pegasi who, through millions of years of over-reliance on Ai servants and automated caretakers, had essentially domesticated themselves. Alternately, they could be jungle dwellers (that's where chickens originally came from, after all) in Zebrica, occasionally trading with their plains-galloping cousins but mostly keeping to themselves in their hidden, stone-encircled monolithic cities.

Or they could just be chicken-horses, because that is fantastic and hilarious and could involve the phoneticization of a sound halfway between a cluck and a neigh. Which would be glorious.

1397200
Well... They can fly, probably bloodier fighters than the pegasi, not sure what else

1397057
Did somebody say Chickun Thread?

1397229 right. those spurs would make good weapons...

1397228 Neigh-clucking exclamations of surprise? yes. Zebrica? interesting choice! how do you make a neigh-cluck, though. and have you noticed when surprised, ponies tend to whinny in the show? (or bleat like goats?)

1397118 To be perfectly honest, I don't much care for it either, but you did give an open invitation, and I was right there as you posted it, I took my opportunity.

As for using these creatures, I most likely won't, I already have gryphons and hippogryphs for sapient chimeric flying races.

1397280
Something along the lines of "B'keeheeheeheeeh!", I was thinking. That's just a first attempt, though. I'd want to listen to the two sounds and see what was the funniest way to express a blend of them.

1397300 what gave you the idea for the "Stone-encircled monolithic cities?"

1397280
I've watched way to much Animal Cops: Houston to think otherwise.

For anyone who will use the hippalectryons there are some questions that need to be asked:
1) Are they a true chimeric species like the Griffins and Pegasi
2) Are they simply a hybrid species like mules or traditional Hippogriffs
3) What are their relationship with Hippogriffs

1397319

Great Zimbabwe, mostly, with a little admixture of a half-remembered H.P. Lovecraft story and (of course) the ancient Mayan cities.

1397358 Lovecraft. always good. why did you pick a user name that means "Emu Crocodile?"

1397351 I imagine them being a true chimeric species, and their relationship with Hippogriffs is... well, it's not bad. also, I don't consider Hippogriffs hybrids, just another griffin species

1397383
What I meant is since they are pretty much horses and birds attached in a very horror movie-esque way, are they related?

1397409 No. Hippogriffs= Gryphus species, Hippalektryons=Equus species

1397423 that always looked more like a weird griffon-dragon-sloth to me

It's like a Hypogryph... but... without the gryphon part.

1397447
First I want to thank you for using proper notation for genus name, we are supposed to use italic. Second, Gryphus and Equus are genera not species... perhaps I should start a thread about the proper terminology and notations...

So then the Hippogriffs are related to Griffins while the Hippalktryons are related to horses/ponies?

So cool.

1397471 For me, yes.

1397467 yes.

1397383

Swiftly-striding/fleetfooted crocodile, actually. I got it from the genus of the ancient crurotarsan Dromicosuchus grallator, dead these ~230 million years. D. grallator is the ancestor of one of the protagonists of a non-MLP related story of mine, set in a sort of parallel world populated by the occasional Earth creature from various points in our planet's history, which each evolved in their own peculiar ways in their new home (the world contains freshwater and terrestrial anaconda-like squid, for example, and reef-building ammonites). No one else on the internet names themselves after obscure sphenosuchians, so I generally use it as my default pseudonym.

1397513 Well, always good to meet a fellow Paleobiologist!

1397539
So I probably shouldn't have made an assumption that you are not a biologist then... Hi I'm a Botanist

1397553 Nice to meet you.

I guess I should have specified. I meant Gryphus species as in something like Gryphus regalis (normal griffon types) and Gryphus pseudoequus (hippogriffs), and Equus species as in Equus sapiens whatever for the combined unicorn, earth, and pegasus ponies and Equus sapiens hippalektryon, as well as other Equus sapiens types

I get the feeling these are the kinds of things hippogriffs – if they exist – have as either an inside joke or a secret shame.

Also, I'm not a big fan of Scootachicken, but I may need to have someone point these things out to her in a story, simply for her reaction.

1397118
I admit, I first read it as "hippalectron." I was all set for subatomic particle jokes, but that "y" ruins it. Darn chicken ponies. Can't even orbit a nucleus right.

1397589
I see, I see... while I'm not sure I would have made the... bird ponies a subspecies of Equus sapiens I do see what you are trying to do. And I think that the world of Equestria would be a taxonomist's nightmare, especially in my world where natural selection, mutations, and genetic drift may play second fiddle to magic.

1397622 eh, I imagine evolution taking it's natural course, with occasional magic "hotspots" producing unique things, as well as beings who just APPEARED, like the Draconequus.

1397644
Kind of the same here, but when magic (or in the case of the Dragons, Divine Meddling) get involved then things do get interesting. Still trying to track the phylogeny of a race that appears to be made up of two different species that have been on separate branches of the Tree of Life since before the Dinosaurs would be a headache.

1397539

Chemist by training and physicist by aspiration, actually, but I've always been fascinated by Earth's past and the variety of critters that have existed throughout the eons. My knowledge of the subject is mostly self-taught, though, and there are many, many gaping holes in my understanding.

(Edit:) More on topic...The possibility of the spurs playing some role in Hippalektryon culture is rather interesting. Might they carry, say, sheathes around with them to blunt the spurs as a form of politeness when visiting another's home, or when engaged in some sort of diplomatic exchange? Unicorns don't do anything similar with their horns, but then their horns are kinda blunt (with the exception of Pokey Pierce and the Princesses).

1397668 well, I tend to go to extremes when doing so. griffons: 1-mountain-dwelling terrestrial monotreme. 2-mutation causes extra limbs 3-hair-feathers evolve for unknown reason, eventually gliding 4-adaptations for flight evolve 6-intelligence.

yes, it's a stretch, but that's how I look at it

1397695 science can't move forward without gaping holes!

1397707
Meh *shurgs* Considering some of the really strange species that pop up, yeah it's weird and extreme but it could work... mostly.

I'm a person that sat through Ornithology and tried to figure out how a pegasus works

1397731 mixture of certain adaptations and inherent pegasi magic that makes up for what they lack

1397773
I went a tad bit more in-depth than that, including the consequences of the flight adaptions to reproduction

1397781 shorter gestation period?

1397787
Yep, foals from a pegasus mother are always born premature (when compared to those born to EP or Unicorns) because of that.

1397714
Heh, true enough.

1397707
Given the existence of dragons, pegasi, griffons, and (hypothetically) hippogriffs and hippalektryons, I'd be a bit more comfortable hypothesizing a six-legged common vertebrate ancestor in Equestria, with the many four-limbed critters (Earth ponies, unicorns, "normal" animals, cockatrices, etc.) being a result of vestigial/lost limbs. Based on the history of terrestrial vertebrates and arthropods, adding limbs seems to be really hard to do for complex creatures, while losing them is relatively easy (we've got snakes and whales, but dragons and centaurs seem unaccountably rare). Of course, I'm not too familiar with, say, crustacean evolutionary history, so I could be wrong about that. Maybe it's just a land animal thing.

And on that subject, I have no idea what is up with hydras, and would prefer not to think about it. My best guess is that only one of the heads is actually real, and the other three are extremely convincing modifications of its forelimbs and its true tail, which the hydra uses to...I don't know, scare off rocs, ziz, thunderbirds, or dragons by convincing them that they're attacking four creatures instead of one? Sort of like caterpillars with false fronts, only instead of aimed at wren-sized birds, it evolved to protect a creature the size of a hill from a predator the size of a mountain.

...The Equestrian biosphere is a terrifying place.

1397877 Hydras= 2 headed mutation found in snakes taken to an advantage, except they and dragons are monitor lizards.

I find the 6-legged common ancestor unlikely. there are very few 6 limbed vertebrates in mlp (griffons, manticores, pegasi, alicorns, dragons)

1397057

It looks like a griffon was shagging a pony, they both got chopping half, and then, moments later, the Flash rear-ended them in such a way that the hippalectryon was born.

I haven't the slightest clue where this thing would pop up or why. Maybe, in a country plagued by cockatrices, the ponies added some of their genes to themselves to become immune to their stare? Or perhaps they were a group of pegasi that worshipped griffon gods, and then they let nature take its course?

This creature is interesting. In my story, I had planned to explore bat ponies. An interesting way to add these creatures would be to have them both be in a coexistent relationship. The hippalectryons graze and farm clearings in the jungles during the day, and then go to roost in the trees at night.Then the bat ponies come out of their caves at night and feed on the fruits in their orchards.
Let's just say, you'll know my fic if/when you read it.

Now look, children, when a mommy and a daddy love each very much, and one is a pegasus and one is a griffon...

1397877

a six-legged common vertebrate ancestor

Yes, hello? I mean, it's not like the one confirmed on-screen instance of reproduction at work shows four-limbed parents having six-limbed children, furthermore accompanied by mention of six-limbed parents having four-limbed children...

(In case it's not painfully obvious, I'm surprised that more people don't default to something like this, not bashing your version. Pretty sure there's no other explanation that isn't equivalent to "it's magic, I ain't gotta explain sheit".)
(Also, it seems obvious to me that it must be at least theoretically possible for a given pair of ponies have a child with both wings and a horn. I'd go so far as to posit that this is true even if they're both earth-ponies.)

The Equestrian biosphere is a terrifying place.

Oh my goodness, we have no idea. Cockatrices? Manticores? Dragons? These are normal creatures? (more or less.) How the heck is all this even powered?

1625726

I go with this, or with the notion that pegasi and dragons were made artificially by unicorns once they mastered magical powers.

Oh my goodness, we have no idea. Cockatrices? Manticores? Dragons? These are normal creatures? (more or less.) How the heck is all this even powered?

Really do not go into the physics behind these biological marvels. Unless you have a team of physicists and mathematicians, a lot of drink, and no full-time employment on your hands, the complexity of Equestrian magic physics would probably destroy your enjoyment of life. That's why "magic" is considered the sane explanation.