Lepcis Study

This is Lepcis. He's an equan (short for equanthera), or one of the now updated nayonas. Equan were created by a team of scientists in secret to be a candidate for xenotransplantation. That's when they use animal parts in humans, it's an actual thing! Pig hearts are often the thing most transplanted. These equan were created with human dna, so their organs would be more compatible with the human recipient. When an equan's body is exposed to a lot of human dna at one time (as I'm toying with religion, too, with the idea that human dna is superior and stronger than our animal companions' dna), that equan will take on the human form. The calcium in the bones will leech out into the muscles, allowing the bones to become extremely flexible (like a rib soaked in a mild acid bath), and this allows the bones to take on new shapes. This will obviously cause a lot of pain for the equan, as calcium causes muscles to contract. The muscles are resistant to muscle ossification, so they stay soft until the equan takes on his/her human form. Then the calcium reenters the bones, makes them strong once again, and the muscles relax. I haven't figured out where all of the mass goes, as it obviously can't just disappear... ah, physics, you have once again thrown me a curve ball.
Anyway, the scientists didn't want to go down the same path with equan as they did with baboons. Baboons, you see, were once a candidate for xenotransplantation, but they didn't reproduce fast enough, and were pulled from the list. Scientists were smart about this, and they made both sexes of the equan species able to bear children.
But unfortunately as all good Frankenstein monsters go, they escaped. So far they are regarded as a cryptid (like bigfoot or nessie). They have developed a taste for human flesh, because they know that with excess human dna in their bodies, they can phase from one form to another with (painful) ease. This obviously helps them blend in, and lowers their chance of being killed by the people who know of the equan. OK, going to stop writing this book now...
I feel equan represent how we humans are playing with transgenic animals, the Catholic view of human/animal relationships, and the fear we humans have of what could be.