Ba'ku pterodactyl
Read part 1: Ba’ku tortoise, Ba’ku goat
October 17, 2113
Octavio Briswald’s field notes
I awoke late, and for the briefest of moments lay discombobulated, trying to remember why I was on a shelf of sandy rock rather than in my own comfortable sleeping quarters. The air was thin, and filled with strange noises—a terrible creaking scratchy cacophony.
The events of the previous night came back to me in a rush, and I sat up, casting about for Fitzmurdle. I saw him not far away, scribbling furiously on his blessed sketchpad. I opened my mouth to give my usual morning halloo, but before I got the words out Fitzmurdle turned around sharply and put a finger to his lips. Heeding his warning, I padded softly over.
“By Jove,” I whispered, “I had not thought to see you drawing again for a long time yet!” The previous night he had fallen off a sheer cliff face some thirty feet, landing heavily on his arm with a sickening crunch of bone.
But now he grinned up at me, waggling the fingers of his left hand in an uncharacteristically cheeky manner. “Must not have been as bad as we thought,” he said. “I seem right as rain today. And just look!”
Cautiously, I peeked my head around the boulder he’d indicated. What a thrilling sight met my eyes! The monstrous reptiles were just a few feet away. Perched at the edge of the cliff, they were terrifying, screeching in the most dreadful tones and stinking to high heaven of rot and decay.
We spent a happy three days on that mountain face, observing the beasts and taking extensive notes, which will be published in my upcoming paper, Putridity and Pestilence: the Digestive Oddities of the Ba’ku Pterodactylidae. However, to our mutual surprise and chagrin we discovered that the pterodactyls were in fact piscivores, flying miles every day to catch their daily rations.
The mountain they live on is entirely barren of insect life, moreover; and thus when we had had our fill of dactyls we descended from the mountain, our quest for the baffling butterfly to be continued… (!)
Read part 3: Ba’ku rhyl, Ba’ku butterfly
Other mentions: Seen in a doodle in the margins of a 24th century children's book (TNG).
