Here we have a Mer-taur, the result of a leopard seal-Mer hybrid mating with an actual leopard seal. As far as is known, Mer-taurs only happen when a Mer hybrid breeds with a sea creature of the same stock as its non-Mer parent. So if a Mer and a dolphin had a child and the child then bred with a dolphin, there is a small chance a dolphintaur would result.

Pureblooded Mer (the ones with more or less human bodies) differ markedly from their hybrid relatives but in other ways are quite similar.

• Pureblooded Mer are about the size of a human with a fish tail attached, 7-9 feet long and somewhat heavier than a trim human due to the muscular tail. Hybrids and taurs can be much larger and generally end up about the size of the non-Mer parent. A leopard seal-Mer hybrid like the one here can easily exceed 1,000 pounds and there are still larger hybrids.

• A pureblooded Mer's genitals are where a human's are, at the base of the abdomen where the flesh and scale portions meet. By comparison, a hybrid or taur's genitals are where you'd expect them to be if they were fully feral, e.g. down on their feral half's abdomen. They are so far down the body in the case of this female leopard seal hybrid that they are out of sight even in this view, but they are there.

• This means that a pureblooded Mer has an easy time having sex with a fellow pureblood or human, but finds mating with any sort of feral awkward. (They do it anyway, of course. That's how the hybrids happen.) Hybrids find mating with full ferals easier and tend to prefer that, with the occasional result being a taur-form Mer like this leopard seal hybrid.

• All Mer are unusually flexible compared to humans in many ways. Even a pureblooded Mer, seemingly 95% human from the waist up, can open its jaws far enough to swallow something the size of a man's arm or occasionally even a leg. They can't swallow a whole adult human, but they can swallow a pretty big fish. This makes all Mer naturally talented at ahem certain sorts of sex.

• This is accentuated in the hybrid and taur variants, who can easily swallow prey up to a third their size or even larger if the meal is conveniently shaped. The sea leopard taur here obviously just swallowed an intact human. The stomach of all Mer is located in the fish/feral half which allows for a very large stomach even in pureblooded Mer. All Mer are primarily carnivorous and can digest bones.

• The Mer's other orifices are also unusually flexible, as is their body in general. All Mer of any morphology can, with practice, have sex with improbably large males. There are Mer-Orca hybrids and the father in these cases is not always the Mer. "Just the tip." That's all it takes, in the end.

• The odd morphology and natural flexibility of hybrids and taurs occasionally leads to one learning to eat with an orifice other than the mouth. It's best not to inquire too closely.

• Only mammals are known for certain to be able to hybridize with Mer. Humans, sea otters, seals, sea lions, dolphins (including orcas), and some small whales have demonstrably mated with and hybridized with Mer. Mer are (obviously) very open minded when it comes to lovers and there are rare instances of more exotic Mer such as Mer-hippo hybrids. Rumors persist of fish-Mer hybrids resulting from couplings with sharks, eels and other fish, but if this happen it's very rare. Even repeated and enthusiastic sex (the usual kind) between a Mer and a sea mammal only produces offspring on rare occasions, taurs are still more rare, and you're more likely to be hit by lightning than to be eaten by a Mer-shark. Still, stories persist.