Yeah. I got the Mer species mixed up. You'll have to forgive me. As shadowy grandma and the big mama looked so similar... And they all have fluff/beards.
Glad Sanny-boy wouldn't't eat me now... But the idea did briefly amuse me that he was just one that wouldn't. Just an outcast through and through.
Man and his confused vendetta against bread... Just eat it. Don't think about it.
New question: do Sanny's species and the Abyss ones ever cross paths, and would the Abyss merfolk eat them too?
Oh, you're absolutely right!
We haven't shown a fullbody adult deep-sea merfolk, and we haven't even revealed the grandmother's design yet!
In fact, deep-sea merfolk are completely different in appearance from pistrix.
Here's a reference sketch (with a size comparison) of three different species:
- The deep-sea merfolk (Abyssugens hispida), with its 5-meter female and its 1.30-1.50-meter male
- The pistrix (Apocapisces regalecus), pictured here with only the 7-meter-long female (the males are more or less the same length, they just tend to be thinner and less imposing, but also more ornate)
- The common merfolk (Maregens vulgaris), where the males are larger, and the one pictured here is a full 2.5 meters long (but still quite small compared to the other two species).
Deep-sea merfolk rarely encounter other merfolk and merfolk-adjacent species due to the depths at which they live: common merfolk live primarily in the epipelagic and mesopelagic zones (specifically, up to a maximum of 500 meters deep), pistrix live in the bathypelagic zone, from 1,000 to 4,000 meters deep, while deep-sea merfolk live in the abyssopelagic zone, between 4,000 and 7,000 meters deep.
Only very rarely do they encounter a pistrix, when the latter is in the deepest part of its environment and the deep-sea mermaid is in the shallowest part. However, these encounters are almost mythical, so much so that they have inspired several legends and rumors within pistrix society.
If an adult deep sea mermaid encounters a young pistrix, she will attempt to prey on it, as she would any other fish of a suitable size. It makes no sense for them to consider the intelligence of their prey; the scarcity of food in their natural environment often forces them to eat even their own young.
Eating an adult pistrix is more difficult: fully grown pistrix are longer than a deep sea mermaid's. However, a hungry deep sea mermaid, especially a female (given the extremely small size of males), might still decide to attack and kill a pistrix.
If a deep sea mermaid encounters a common merfolk, she would attack it and eat it immediately, but this encounter cannot occur in the wild.
Thank you for asking this!
