#tatchgob

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Results: Tatchgob

This is a weird one, I think, because there are a couple aspects of this entry that fully make sense in the context of what this animal actually is, and others that just make you think, "wait, the medievals thought what about [redacted]?" Not a lot else to add here, and I'm already running unusually late with this tonight, so here's the entry in question:

And below the cut is the art people have produced, in rough chronological order:

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has decided this is an insect, for entirely sensible reasons. The entry says that it flies, but not that it's a bird. It also says that the female reproduces without copulation with the male, and Silverhart helpfully observes that parthenogenesis is a much more common phenomenon in insects than in birds. Specifically, it's a bee, because the Tatchgob is said to be large and slow-flying, and as we all know, a bee's wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground.* This one is specifically inspired by vulture bees -- bees that do in fact eat carrion as the Tatchgob is implied to do (the entry doesn't actually say it eats the corpses, only that perceives them).** Silverhart further notes that they ended up spending a few hours going down a rabbit hole about vulture bees, a warning from which I failed to learn, as I spent the last half-hour reading arguments about whether "meat honey" is a real thing. Anyway, enough commentary from me, look at the very good drawing of a bee and then read what Silverhart says about it in the linked post.

*Bee Movie reference mine; please don't blame Silverhart for my internet-poisoned sense of humor.

** The Aberdeen Bestiary does actually specify this, but it was buried in the long religious-allegory section after the main description so I missed it when setting this up and didn't include it in the post. Now I wish I had, because it hilariously notes that the [Tatchgob] "is often overtaken by death when it descends to the dead animal from a great height." The drawings we could have had of animals crashing full-force into the ground... actually I'm torn on whether that would be a plus or a minus.

@strangelyflesh (link to post here) has made the reasonable call that a large flying animal may as well be a dragon-thing, so here's a bird-like dragon for you. Delightful facial expression on this one. Honestly everything about that head is very charming, actually. The linked post mentions that they "reproduce like those fucked up little geckos" and I am struggling against the temptation to fall down another rabbit hole, so I'm just going to move on.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) drew a bird, but decided to focus in on the fact that it's too large to fly quickly. It's broadly based on a bustard, which is apparently the world's heaviest flying bird (learn something new every day) but is shaped and posed specifically to evoke the silhouette of an aircraft, specifically the infamous Spruce Goose. (Cover the head with your hand, you'll see it.) Extremely clever, in my opinion. For more details on the design decisions, see the linked post. One more thing before we move on, though... check out that thing on the far right of the image, down in the sea. I think that's one of these critters:

Okay, now we're moving to the next one.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) continues to outdo herself with the stylized medieval drawings. This one is definitely a creative choice -- Capybara notes that they would have been inclined to draw a dragon for this one, except we already had the dragon entry a while back. So she decided this was a komodo dragon that can glide on skin flaps like a flying squirrel. Excellent, love it, very interesting coloration also.

Capybara also raises the interesting question of whether the bestiary writer ever considered what male Tatchgobs might be for, if they aren't involved in the reproductive process. I suppose evolution is a fickle mistress, especially when the person describing your animals doesn't know what evolution even is. They don't seem to have an allegorical purpose either (there's like half a page railing against hypothetical people who fully accept that a [Tatchgob] can give virgin birth but deny that Mary could, which I guess is the point of that detail, but the male Tatchgob goes unmentioned). Anyway, the monk would probably just say they exist because God wanted them to or something... actually I'm not sure how aware they were of the possibility of species that didn't come in two sexes. Anyway, moving on.

@pomrania (link to post here) also thought large flying thing -> dragon, but decided to make theirs more fishlike. See, fish engage in external fertilization, and what are the odds of a pre-modern observer just missing the fact that the male is involved? Assuming they're not on board the "spontaneous generation" wagon. I really like this design, also; gliding on these fin-like structures is especially cool. And yes, according to the linked post, the fact that it shares a color palette with the ace flag is fully intentional. Ace icon Tatchgob.

@strixcattus (link to post here) has drawn a good bird -- serrated beak a solid choice -- but as with many of their posts, the real gold is in the text. See, Strixcattus gave us another carrion-eating bird some months ago, and they've decided this one is a related species. That's right, meet Wutugald tatchgob, the Brown or Lesser Wutugald. Which also explains why this one has that yellow thing above its beak there. Love the connection being drawn to previous entries. (Strixcattus's original Wutugald post can be found here.) As usual, you are strongly, strongly encouraged to go read the descriptions Strixcattus includes with their animals. You should then go check their brief follow-up to the Tatchgob here.

Now, to the Aberdeen Bestiary.

That's right, it's the eagle again! I wasn't expecting a repeat, but you have to admit it's clearly the same bird. The illustration for "eagle", in case you don't remember, looks like this:

Virtually identical except for the coloration of the wing feathers.

Okay, yeah, there are no duplicate entries, I just had to point out the fact that they look exactly the same. This one is the vulture, which apparently also doesn't reach far enough north for our illustrator to be familiar with it.

(A quick check through Wikipedia indicates to me that the various vulture species whose ranges include Europe tend to stick to the southern parts. None of them seem to reach the British Isles, which is where this manuscript originates.)

Anyway, something I find interesting about this is that vultures are another animal that modern people often think of as sinister, creepy, or just gross, but the bestiary is actually really positive about them. There's even one part where they get to be a Christ symbol, which honestly I have to share. It starts with that "dying by descending from a great height" bit I quoted earlier:

The fact is, if a vulture, in flight, sees a corpse, it sets itself down to feed on it, and is often overtaken by death when it descends to the dead animal from a great height. It is right, therefore, that Christ, who was God's mediator and our redeemer, should be signified by the name 'vulture'. While remaining in the heights of his divinity, like the vulture flying on high, he saw the corpse of our mortality below and descended from heaven to the earth beneath; he deigned, indeed, to become man for our sake; and when he sought man, the living thing that had no life, he who in himself had eternal life, met his death at our hands.

That's right, the whole Jesus thing was the allegorical equivalent of diving towards a corpse and accidentally smashing into the ground. Really puts the New Testament in a different light.

There's also a part where vultures foretell death. But not foretell for our benefit, mind: the example given is that vultures have learned to recognize what an army is and follow it because they know there will be food. So they're foretelling for their own purposes, and if we happen to notice and draw any conclusions, that's just a side effect.

One more quote from the Aberdeen Bestiary, and then we're done.

For who looks at the eyes of the vulture, that is, at what lies behind men's thoughts?

... that's a reference people get, right? anyway, it's late, good night.

[silverhart-makes-art]

Okay, so I think I have good notion of what this week's Bestiary Posting animal could be. I also am curious about the mention of the female not needing a male to reproduce. I know parthenogenesis has been documented in quite a few animals and I'm sort of curious if olden day folks also encountered and documented this rare phenomenon or if it's just the whole virgin birth thing. The latter seems more likely, I suppose, but less fun.

The description for the Tatchgob says nothing about it being a bird, or having feathers, only that it flies. And while parthenogenesis is documented in birds it's not really a common occurrence. Some bees reproduce via parthenogenesis, so I decided to go for a bee. Plus, been a lot of birds and mammals lately, and I figured I would shake things up. I also don't draw insects often enough, so this was good practice.

I started by drawing a large bumblebee, since the Tatchgob is meant to be large and slow flying, and bumblebees fly around pretty leisurely. They also can be found at pretty high altitudes where the Tatchgob is said to fly. The Tatchgob is compared with an eagle, so I decided to make it's wings somewhat eagle-shaped. Then I got curious if there were any bees that eat meat as the description mentions that it can find corpses from great distances. So I looked it up and there are! They're called vulture bees or carrion bees, and they're pretty neat. Reading about them led me down a rabbithole of reading about bees which easily tacked on three hours to what is a very simple drawing. But inspired by the vulture bee, I decided to color my Tatchgob in a similar manner. Vulture bees also have large mandibles for tearing chunks of meat and that seemed like something my critter needed as well.

[cheapsweets]

The ponderous Tatchgob

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge from @maniculum

Pentel brush pen over initial pencil sketch. I was torn which pen to use for this one, but decided to go for the brush pen, since the ink is so much darker, and I made a lot o pencil alterations to this one!

As ever, reasoning under the cut…

The Tatchgob, it is thought, gets its name because it flies slowly. The fact is, it cannot fly swiftly because of the large size of its body.

Okay, something that flies, but flies slowly, because it is so large... There's no specific mention of it being a bird, which opens up a lot of cool possibilities, but on reading this description, I immediately had a vision and knew where I was going with this.

On the one hand, the core of this creature is heavily based on bustards, specifically the great bustard (the one I'm most familiar with, having seen them in captivity), and the kori bustard. Bustards are the world's heaviest flying bird, and it seemed a good fit!

On the other hand, and this might be a bit of a deep cut, I was reminded of the Spruce Goose, the largest flying boat ever made, and the plane with the widest wingspan until 2019... The profile of the body in flight (including the reason why the tail feathers are upright in display, which would probably cause some drag!) was drawn to mirror the profile of the plane (with the addition of the head sticking out the front, of course).

Tatchgobs, like eagles, perceive corpses even beyond the sea. Indeed, flying at a great height, they see from on high many things which are hidden by the shadows of the mountains.

I gave it a larger eye, patterned after an eagle's, to reflect its great vision.

The pattern of the feathers and tail, as well as the whiskers, are taken from the great bustard. The shape of the beak and the head crest are taken from the kori bustard, given that it specifically includes carrion as part of its diet (though I'm sure the great bustard wouldn't turn up its beak, given the chance!)

Looks like this tatchgob has spotted a corpse! Over the ocean we gooo!

It is said that Tatchgobs do not indulge in copulation and and are not united with the other sex in the conjugal act of marriage; that the females conceive without the male seed and give birth without union with the male; and that their offspring live to a great age, so that the course of their life extends to one hundred years, and that an early death does not readily overtake them.

Okay, this is a really cool addition, but I couldn't work out how to include this in the drawing, given the decisions I'd already made at this point. In hindsight, I should probably have toned down the crests, whiskers, and other fanciness, but it was fun to draw (and I needed the tail feathers to keep the profile of the vertical stabiliser from the plane!)

[strixcattus]

The Tatchgob

Took a break from bestiaryposting last week, but I'm back on the ball now. Had an idea for this one that I'm enjoying. There wasn't a lot of information, but the line about "perceiving corpses beyond the sea" stuck out a bit, so I decided to see if I could roll with the concept—you'll pick up on what it is below.

The Tatchgob

The Tatchgob (Wutugald tatchgob), also called the Brown Wutugald or Lesser Wutugald, is a carnivorous bird found in North America, particularly in the western United States and Mexico. It is related to the Common Wutugald, though both species are often called by this epithet. More commonly, the Common Wutugald is simply called the Wutugald.

Tatchgobs, like their sister species, have keen senses and much of their diet consists of scavenged corpses. However, Tatchgobs are more likely to hunt than they are to scavenge, and they do not preserve their food as the Wutugald does. A Tatchgob hunts its prey with both its powerful legs and its sharp beak, easily killing fish and other aquatic animals or carrying off rabbits and small dogs. They are also often seen digging for mice or snakes in their burrows.

The two species are easily distinguished from one another by sight, as the Tatchgob has brown feathers, with its head, tail, and the undersides of its wings being lighter in color. In addition, its beak is slightly longer and its legs are shorter, and it is overall larger in size, with wingspans occasionally surpassing seven feet.

Like the Wutugald, the Tatchgob has a stone set between its eyes. This stone is more fragile than its sister species's, and prone to crumbling during removal. Because of this, the poaching which Wutugald populations suffer greatly from has largely avoided Tatchgobs.

Tatchgobs also share the ability to mimic sounds, though they do not make use of it very often. They do not fear predators or rivals, being able to overpower nearly any contender. The primary situation in which they use mimicry is to copy the mating calls of other birds, tricking them into revealing their locations so the Tatchgob can descend upon them.

Female Tatchgobs keep permanent nests, usually near bodies of water. Males often attempt to do the same, but they are liable to be chased away by a female if they approach her territory too closely outside of mating season. Even during mating season, the males are tolerated at best and violently forced out when the female lays her eggs, at the latest.

In the event that no male approaches a female, or the female has scared away all males nearby, she is capable of performing parthenogenesis. Unfertilized Tatchgob eggs are less likely to hatch, but such offspring appear to be as healthy as any Tatchgob chicks, and do not seem any less likely to survive to maturity. It is as yet unknown whether the common Wutugald is also capable of this behaviour.

Tatchgobs have demonstrated impressive longevity, with many specimens reaching 40 years even in the wild. The longest-lived individual, a female named Agatha, is currently 61 years old.

[coolest-capybara]

Our new monster of the week in the Maniculum Bestiaryposting Challenge, the Tatchgob!

This one might be another bird, but since it wasn't explicitly stated, I went in a different direction. If we hadn't already had an entry for the dragon (or rather, the Choglaem), I might have drawn one.

But then there was a whole bit in the entry about how Tatchgobs don't "indulge in copulation and and are not united with the other sex in the conjugal act of marriage; that the females conceive without the male seed and give birth without union with the male". I wondered if the bestiary author ever questioned what the males are actually needed for, in that case.

Of course, the whole concept would make sense if it applied to a species which can reproduce asexually. And the description mentioned the "large size of its body." So why not go with a big sky lizard? There was no mention of wings, so I gave it some skin flaps like the Almlaeni before it, and put the sea and mountains that the Tatchgob is described as flying over in the background.

[pomrania]

Here's my rendition of the tatchgob, from @maniculum's Bestiaryposting.

When I first read the description, I thought "heh, ace icon", and knew that I'd be using that for the colour scheme; then I didn't think of it at all for a while, and only got an idea this morning, so this picture was kind of rushed.

Honestly the biggest reason why I drew a dragon was that I didn't want to draw a bird, and also dragons are cool. "Reproduction without copulation" reminded me of external fertilization, and that reminded me of fish, and that gave me "dragon with wings like fins".

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting -- Tatchgob

As a reminder, all previous entries in this series can be found at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting .

The Tatchgob, it is thought, gets its name because it flies slowly. The fact is, it cannot fly swiftly because of the large size of its body. Tatchgobs, like eagles, perceive corpses even beyond the sea. Indeed, flying at a great height, they see from on high many things which are hidden by the shadows of the mountains. It is said that Tatchgobs do not indulge in copulation and and are not united with the other sex in the conjugal act of marriage; that the females conceive without the male seed and give birth without union with the male; and that their offspring live to a great age, so that the course of their life extends to one hundred years, and that an early death does not readily overtake them.

Remember to tag posts with #Tatchgob so folks can find them.

[strixcattus]

I realized partway through the original Tatchgob drawing that the pose I put it in makes it look as though its legs are much smaller than the Wutugald's.

As this hastily-drawn diagram shows, the legs are in there somewhere. The Tatchgob is still capable of big steppy.

[cheapsweets]

Well, now I find both vultures AND Jesus a bit more relatable... 😋

I can see a lot of this, to be honest - griffon vultures just give the impression of being huge, and they have a bigger wingspan than bustards even though the latter birds are I suppose, denser...

As some others have already said, nice to see some respect being given to scavenging birds (more than I'd expect, to be honest!). Vultures are adorable and kinda goofy tbh 😀

Bestiaryposting Results: Tatchgob

This is a weird one, I think, because there are a couple aspects of this entry that fully make sense in the context of what this animal actually is, and others that just make you think, "wait, the medievals thought what about [redacted]?" Not a lot else to add here, and I'm already running unusually late with this tonight, so here's the entry in question:

And below the cut is the art people have produced, in rough chronological order:

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has decided this is an insect, for entirely sensible reasons. The entry says that it flies, but not that it's a bird. It also says that the female reproduces without copulation with the male, and Silverhart helpfully observes that parthenogenesis is a much more common phenomenon in insects than in birds. Specifically, it's a bee, because the Tatchgob is said to be large and slow-flying, and as we all know, a bee's wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground.* This one is specifically inspired by vulture bees -- bees that do in fact eat carrion as the Tatchgob is implied to do (the entry doesn't actually say it eats the corpses, only that perceives them).** Silverhart further notes that they ended up spending a few hours going down a rabbit hole about vulture bees, a warning from which I failed to learn, as I spent the last half-hour reading arguments about whether "meat honey" is a real thing. Anyway, enough commentary from me, look at the very good drawing of a bee and then read what Silverhart says about it in the linked post.

*Bee Movie reference mine; please don't blame Silverhart for my internet-poisoned sense of humor.

** The Aberdeen Bestiary does actually specify this, but it was buried in the long religious-allegory section after the main description so I missed it when setting this up and didn't include it in the post. Now I wish I had, because it hilariously notes that the [Tatchgob] "is often overtaken by death when it descends to the dead animal from a great height." The drawings we could have had of animals crashing full-force into the ground... actually I'm torn on whether that would be a plus or a minus.

@strangelyflesh (link to post here) has made the reasonable call that a large flying animal may as well be a dragon-thing, so here's a bird-like dragon for you. Delightful facial expression on this one. Honestly everything about that head is very charming, actually. The linked post mentions that they "reproduce like those fucked up little geckos" and I am struggling against the temptation to fall down another rabbit hole, so I'm just going to move on.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) drew a bird, but decided to focus in on the fact that it's too large to fly quickly. It's broadly based on a bustard, which is apparently the world's heaviest flying bird (learn something new every day) but is shaped and posed specifically to evoke the silhouette of an aircraft, specifically the infamous Spruce Goose. (Cover the head with your hand, you'll see it.) Extremely clever, in my opinion. For more details on the design decisions, see the linked post. One more thing before we move on, though... check out that thing on the far right of the image, down in the sea. I think that's one of these critters:

Okay, now we're moving to the next one.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) continues to outdo herself with the stylized medieval drawings. This one is definitely a creative choice -- Capybara notes that they would have been inclined to draw a dragon for this one, except we already had the dragon entry a while back. So she decided this was a komodo dragon that can glide on skin flaps like a flying squirrel. Excellent, love it, very interesting coloration also.

Capybara also raises the interesting question of whether the bestiary writer ever considered what male Tatchgobs might be for, if they aren't involved in the reproductive process. I suppose evolution is a fickle mistress, especially when the person describing your animals doesn't know what evolution even is. They don't seem to have an allegorical purpose either (there's like half a page railing against hypothetical people who fully accept that a [Tatchgob] can give virgin birth but deny that Mary could, which I guess is the point of that detail, but the male Tatchgob goes unmentioned). Anyway, the monk would probably just say they exist because God wanted them to or something... actually I'm not sure how aware they were of the possibility of species that didn't come in two sexes. Anyway, moving on.

@pomrania (link to post here) also thought large flying thing -> dragon, but decided to make theirs more fishlike. See, fish engage in external fertilization, and what are the odds of a pre-modern observer just missing the fact that the male is involved? Assuming they're not on board the "spontaneous generation" wagon. I really like this design, also; gliding on these fin-like structures is especially cool. And yes, according to the linked post, the fact that it shares a color palette with the ace flag is fully intentional. Ace icon Tatchgob.

@strixcattus (link to post here) has drawn a good bird -- serrated beak a solid choice -- but as with many of their posts, the real gold is in the text. See, Strixcattus gave us another carrion-eating bird some months ago, and they've decided this one is a related species. That's right, meet Wutugald tatchgob, the Brown or Lesser Wutugald. Which also explains why this one has that yellow thing above its beak there. Love the connection being drawn to previous entries. (Strixcattus's original Wutugald post can be found here.) As usual, you are strongly, strongly encouraged to go read the descriptions Strixcattus includes with their animals. You should then go check their brief follow-up to the Tatchgob here.

Now, to the Aberdeen Bestiary.

That's right, it's the eagle again! I wasn't expecting a repeat, but you have to admit it's clearly the same bird. The illustration for "eagle", in case you don't remember, looks like this:

Virtually identical except for the coloration of the wing feathers.

Okay, yeah, there are no duplicate entries, I just had to point out the fact that they look exactly the same. This one is the vulture, which apparently also doesn't reach far enough north for our illustrator to be familiar with it.

(A quick check through Wikipedia indicates to me that the various vulture species whose ranges include Europe tend to stick to the southern parts. None of them seem to reach the British Isles, which is where this manuscript originates.)

Anyway, something I find interesting about this is that vultures are another animal that modern people often think of as sinister, creepy, or just gross, but the bestiary is actually really positive about them. There's even one part where they get to be a Christ symbol, which honestly I have to share. It starts with that "dying by descending from a great height" bit I quoted earlier:

The fact is, if a vulture, in flight, sees a corpse, it sets itself down to feed on it, and is often overtaken by death when it descends to the dead animal from a great height. It is right, therefore, that Christ, who was God's mediator and our redeemer, should be signified by the name 'vulture'. While remaining in the heights of his divinity, like the vulture flying on high, he saw the corpse of our mortality below and descended from heaven to the earth beneath; he deigned, indeed, to become man for our sake; and when he sought man, the living thing that had no life, he who in himself had eternal life, met his death at our hands.

That's right, the whole Jesus thing was the allegorical equivalent of diving towards a corpse and accidentally smashing into the ground. Really puts the New Testament in a different light.

There's also a part where vultures foretell death. But not foretell for our benefit, mind: the example given is that vultures have learned to recognize what an army is and follow it because they know there will be food. So they're foretelling for their own purposes, and if we happen to notice and draw any conclusions, that's just a side effect.

One more quote from the Aberdeen Bestiary, and then we're done.

For who looks at the eyes of the vulture, that is, at what lies behind men's thoughts?

... that's a reference people get, right? anyway, it's late, good night.