Creature seed: Caws.

Blame this.

Caws

History – mercifully; perhaps, too mercifully – does not record the name of the Mad Scientist on Old Earth who first decided to mix cows and cats.  The plan, reportedly, was simple: imagine a cow with the fangs and claws of a lion or tiger! Fear their wrath as they go stampeding through the defenseless countryside, goring and tearing at all humans in their way!  And how would their creator would laugh at the sight!  Laughed, the way that they laughed at him in Veterinary School.  But he’d show them. He’d show them all.

[pause]

Well, that was the plan, at least.  Problem with that? Well, apparently the Mad Scientist in question forgot to carry the one.

Caws are, in point of fact, giant cats the size of cows.  Except that they’re herbivores. And, well, very placid. Fairly smart, for herbivores – smarter, certainly, than domestic cats – and they give quite acceptable milk.  On the other hand, they taste absolutely awful. And on the gripping hand, as that three-handed ambassador might say, the hair that they regularly shed makes for a marvelously soft and durable fabric. So there’s certainly an agricultural niche for the animals, now; they’re not edible like cows, not as cheap to keep as are sheep, and aren’t good for vermin control like cats – but they can thrive in a remarkable number of environments and are trivially easy to manage. Herding caws is not like herding cats: and neither is it like herding cows. Caws don’t stampede.

Plus, kids love them.  A riding caw is considered across most of the Galaxy to be an eminently suitable substitute for a pony or xeno-velociraptor for one’s first riding beast. The breeders have been working on variants of the species for quite a long period of time…