#coelobon

[euxinova]

14.

Endemic to Coelobon, the Mandragora Wasp (Zethus circaeon) bears its young in a manner specialized to its environment. When gravid, a female migrates to the vicinity of a mature Solenostemon gladiorum, where, in strict solitude, she builds a nest for her eggs with tiny budded leaves torn from the basal whorl of the plant. She will capture a single, robust victim to dismember and feed on piece by piece — usually an Asian Rose Mantis (Theopropus vernans), as mature instars of that species commonly lurk among the leaves. Once the prey is consumed, the wasp will pulp and regurgitate the nest’s leaves, fashioning it into an amphora-shaped vessel that she will cling to until the eggs begin to hatch. This behavior, coupled with the male’s habit of auto-castration while fertilizing the eggs, has earned the insect the native moniker puriratinajarat or “concerned parent.”

[euxinova]

3.

The siphons at either end of the Makassar Salp (Pegea pacifica) can dilate sufficiently to allow other animals to crawl or swim inside the body (1). Typically such an intruder is ejected during propulsion, but occasionally may become lodged. In these circumstances, the salp’s usual recourse is to expel all water and contract at both ends, suffocating the creature in a vacuum (2). The salp may itself die in the process, and then harden — resulting in an attractive, semi-opaque object shaped like a bird’s egg (3). “Mermaid grenades,” as these floating trinkets are often called, are commonly gleaned by Coelobonese fishermen and sold as souvenirs.

[euxinova]

1.

      ELLUBECQUE, EUXINOVA, MARCH 1, 188X. Yet another anonymous warning sent Wilfred Archbairne-Quelleck* into the Coelobonese Pavilion of the International Trade Exposition to locate a sabotaged fixture and avert an outrage. This time, the message steered him to a fountain whose jets balanced glass sculptures of the most celebrated marine invertebrates found off the Asian island-kingdom of Coelobon. Of these, the model of the Makassar salp was a miniature bomb in disguise. He was to snatch this out of the exhibit shortly before noon, when another visitor meant to deploy it.

But yet again, despite obvious tampering, the threat itself was absent. Wilfred discerned the separate inner chamber, filled with stone pellets, which pressure from outside could agitate — yet without the lethal element of petroleum, the ornament was strangely harmless.

This was the third such incident for Wilfred. And like the others, it coincided with a genuine atrocity — for at that moment, on the city’s outskirts, the boiler of the public condenser carriage La Gondole exploded for unknown reasons, killing eleven passengers and a conductor.

*Employed by Archbairne’s Fine Arts Quarterly (London) on behalf of the Euxinovan crown (due to his partly Euxinovan extraction) Wilfred served as editor and principal scribe for the 188x Exposition’s English-language catalog.