Vilous | Talyxian Common Snail Cows [+Creator Insights!]

Hello, Vilous fans!

Today we take a look at a Talyxian organism creature that is famous among and friendly for Eltus folks, known as the Talyxian Common Snail Cows, with an art piece drawn by Mick Ono!

Common Snail Cows Lore

Name: Common Snail Cows / JP: "マイウシガイ"

This is one kind of a creature that is treated as mere "cattle" by folks, stemming from the Talyxian organism group.

While there are many cow type creatures that fall under the "Shellfish Cattle" classification, (note that Urchin Cows are in a different classification altogether from Shellfish Cattle), common Snail Cows are especially famous and representative of the species.

These Common Snail Cows are harmless to the Eltus people and are known to have a good taste. Due to this, they are a popular livestock choice within Gold Ring. Their domestic counterparts have no shell, as they have passed through the improvement of their breed in order for their meat to be harvested and processed easier.

If they are given an adequate amount of feed, and grow healthily, they will reach similar sizes to that of common cows on Earth. People can even ride on those that have reached such a size!

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Naming origin and backstory of Common Snail Cows

In the early stages when Mick and Kiki began to consider the lore, this creature's name was just a shorter, simpler version, "Common Shellfish."  ( JP: "マガイ(Ma-Gai)" )

However, Kiki desired to add a more alien nuance to the name, therefore it was renamed into "Common Snail Cows" (JP: "マイウシガイ").

The initial word "マ(ma)" in the Japanese name, it is generally used for famous and representative species of that classification in reality within the Japanese naming rule for animals. For example, Mallard ducks are called "Magamo" in Japan. ("Gamo/Kamo" means duck)

In English, the term "Common" would be comparable to this, as there is an example of Common Dolphin (JP: "マイルカ / Ma-Iruka").

The finalized Lore choice name, "マイウシガイ(Mai-Ushi-Gai)", ウシ means Cow/Cattle, ガイ means Shellfish, and マイ has no specific origin or reference but it still implies an essence of マ given for the animal name.

And for their English version name, after passing through a discussion for the best localization with the Western Team, it has been decided as "Common Snail Cows".

Also, as you may have noticed, the positions of "Cow" and "Snail" are swapped between the Japanese name and the English name.

The reason as to why the Japanese version name is set to "Shellfish (Snail counterpart in JP name)" for the last position, is simply just for the reason of retaining a good sounding in the sense of a Japanese name.

Due to this, they may be considered as "Shellfish/Snail" within the Japanese version naming structure strictly.

However, this is a not so important manner in which to consider or see them. 

As Eltus are generally sloppy folks for their nomenclature and creature naming, some may call them "snails" whilst others will call them "cows". It would most likely depend on the individual and region. Therefore, from an Eltus perspective, both "Cow Snails" or "Snail Cows" are valid, functional names.

However, when considering the naming policy from the Wiki page title aspect as well, we still wanted to keep consistency in the official English name. Eventually, we have chosen "Common Snail Cows" for these reasons.