Thoughts on My Fourth Theriotype; 6/13/2009

I feel I’ve figured out a relatively decent amount about my avian-like theriotype, yet numerous things about it remain rather obscure and ambiguous, so I decided that maybe trying to organize some of those thoughts, understandings, and feelings in writing would make them more coherent and help me in making more sense of them as a singular animal of some type.

Currently, I’m not trying to fit this fourth animal theriotype with any particular animal, modern or past, extant or extinct, though I’m wondering now if it’s a kind of animal that even existed (or at the least, has even been discovered in fossils), although not in the sense of some notably fantastical animal but instead as a sort of ‘faux avian’ or ‘pseudo-avian’ animal that holds strong likeness to certain types of avians, proto-avians, and bird-like dinosaurs without necessarily having existed. And calling it something like “dragon” wouldn’t do it justice nor actually make it sound any less vague and accurate than something as obscure as “proto-avian” or “pseudo-avian”, plus it’s notably more bird-like than lizard-like, has feathered wings not membranous ones, is bipedal, and has four, not six, limbs. Actually, I’ll just go with writing out a list of aspects of this avian-like animal type (some links to picture references added):

–Has feathered wings that it could possibly use for gliding or flying short distances, but doesn’t seem the kind to fly high up or for long distances (if it would even be capable of doing so).

–I still tend to think that the wings aren’t completely avian because I get the feeling/sense that they have fingers on them, like early avians, although I remain caught up on the number of digits on each hand—I get the impression of four digits (which correlates to my strange phantom sensations that my fifth/pinky fingers should be gone, but not the fourth/ring fingers), though it could be three instead. However, if it would be four digits, that hasn’t so far fit with any proto-avian type of animal (except ones that had very small, vestigial fourth digits), that and I think the first digit is more thumb-like (not opposable, but shorter than the other three). Unsure of whether the arms are carried most often with the top of the fingers facing to the side or facing forward (probably the former; I do, however, get sensations and do mannerisms of both when feeling avian-like).

–May or may not have a bony tail (of what length I don’t know currently)—I’m thinking more so that it has a bony tail (with feathers on it) instead of a purely feathered one (hence why I gave solkatta a feathered tail tip, because it’s a reference to a microraptor type of tail).

–Has long legs, with moderately proportioned toes compared to leg length (instead of the small toes compared to the long legs of the secretary bird; although some aspects, movement and body wise, of the secretary bird remind me of my avian-like ‘type). There is either no backwards facing toe (like large flightless birds, such as emus and cassowaries, and avian-like dinosaurs), or it’s a very small one, like that on cranes and seriemas. There is no sickle claw on the hind feet, and there are either three or four digits on each hind foot. The toes also do not seem to splay out as widely as those on most ground-dwelling avians (they seem more akin to those depicted in bird-like dinosaurs); I could be wrong in that impression though.

–A kind of long neck, though not as long as, for example, a crane or ornithomimus. When running, the neck is not held up high (like in seriemas), but is angled lower without being completely parallel to the ground (such as like many depictions of avian-like dinosaurs, as also emus, and secretary birds and cranes when running just prior to taking off in flight). Neck is often held in a mild “S” shape, though because of shorter length, it wouldn’t be to the extent of a crane, egret, or heron.

–May have all over feathers (except in some areas, like part of the face, fingers, and lower legs); I’m unsure of this for now, though I have gotten distinct phantom feathers on my chest numerous times, particularly in the winter when I fluff them up to try to “stay warm”. Feathers I perceive would be fairly smooth looking in appearance. May have some kind of feather ‘crest’ on back or top of head (specific form of that I really don’t know, but it seems something less pronounced than, for example, a cockatoo crest; maybe something more similar to a secretary bird, or as simple as an Indian peafowl).

–Undetermined so far as to whether it has a beak or a more dinosaur-like snout with teeth

–Primarily ground-dwelling and not arboreal; I doubt it could even grasp onto branches considering it’s lack of (or almost lack of) a backward-facing toe, though it could of course ‘perch’ on things without grasping around the object.

–Habitat, diet, body size, colorations and body patterns, and even time of existence are basically completely unknown to me so far.

–Has an avian-like way of “calling”, with pointing the head somewhat upward, and moving head in an undulating, repeating pattern of coiling neck in a minor S-shape then pushing the neck and head out and up some (kind of similar to a peacock/peafowl, seriema, or a meadowlark calling, and some other birds).


There could be a few more of those details I have figured out but can’t currently recall them. On one hand, after about four years of wondering on and off what my avian-like theriotype is these are about all that I have figured out (and as shown, some of them are just “maybe this; I don’t know yet”). On the other hand, it shows that there’s been enough consistency in these aspects that I’ve recognized them decently to determine a fair amount of body shape and specifics and also some behaviors, so I do have more comfort now in considering this animal aspect a theriotype as opposed to my few fragmented canine aspects (which I don’t consider numerous or “whole” enough to personally count as a theriotype). It’s just I’ve decided that I’m sort of tired with saying things like me having a “possible fourth [or avian] theriotype”, or thinking of it in my mind as a “semi-theriotype” because of not understanding that animal aspect in a full enough way like that of my identified theriotypes. Until now, I basically ended up seeing the avian-like parts of that theriotype rather disjointed—I had never tried to honestly put them together into forming a specific animal beyond looking through existent and some extinct animals that correlate in a few ways to this theriotype. Yet I didn’t let myself just try to understand it on its own merit, per se, as opposed to just sometimes roughly comparing and contrasting it mild amounts to this or that avian or avian-like animal.

Honestly, I think my understanding of what parts of myself, behaviors, shifts, sensations, etc. are associated with that avian-like theriotype has been so vague over the past few years because, like with mongoose, I did not have enough pieces put together and more thorough comprehension of what it is like for me to be that theriotype. Cat and horse were much easier to identify as my theriotypes, and to personally confirm them as such, because of my long-term familiarity with what those animals are like. Mongooses I only had a minor knowledge of what they were like and even the way they looked prior to ’06 or ‘07. My avian-like theriotype is all the more tricky because I have nothing to directly compare it to: it’s either an extinct animal with little to no knowledge about it (by probably anyone, let alone me), or it’s an animal that’s similar to some extinct animals but never itself, as a species, existed.

In ways, I have subconsciously avoided delving deeper into introspecting on my avian-like theriotype, in part because it’s not a mammal and truthfully, I have a bias toward feeling myself synced up to various types of mammals more than birds, and even less so for proto-avians or dinosaurs. I think I also didn’t want to come to terms with the high possibility that it’s an animal that isn’t specifically a bird, and even ‘worse’ in my mind was that it’s probably an extinct or never-having-existed animal that my entire knowledge about it will have to be determined from comparing and contrasting it to other animals and figuring out how all the pieces of it coherently fit together within me, with no direct correlation of any animal that I can point to (and name) and say “yes, that’s what it is”. And it’s so ‘Earth animal’ like that thinking of it as a fantasy-oriented otherkin-type doesn’t work for me; so it’s a “theriotype” for me, regardless of whether it was an animal type that really existed on Earth or not. Though considering the mass amount of animal species that have existed, and the very small fraction of extinct ones that will ever be discovered, plus the diversity of bird-like dinosaurs and “pseudo-avians” (as I’ll call them) that evolved and existed alongside birds and the still mysterious animals that evolved into birds—there still remains plenty of possibility that whatever my avian-like theriotype is, it may correlate very strongly to some animal that really did exist once on Earth.

I would just like to finally, after four years, take a significant dive into introspecting on and putting together the pieces for identifying this fourth theriotype of mine, whatever it may actually be, and no matter if I have to make up a unique term to refer to the animal type eventually. So, with this writing, that is exactly what I am doing—starting my ‘real’ search for it finally. I also have my suspicions of how it even came to exist as a [therianthropic] part of me, and that’s something I’ll likely explore further as well and describe it in writing later sometime.