Do Taurs have two hearts? One in the anthro half and one in the taur half?

Well, that sorta depends really. I've thought a lot on taur biology and that's a very complicated question. A taur could live off one larger heart in the lower chest. It would require stronger muscles and arteries capable of dealing with the higher pressures (on the outflow of the heart at least) but given the genetic engineering the taur body plan would require that wouldn't be much of an issue. On the other hand with two hearts they could each be smaller, reducing the initial arterial pressure and strain on each heart. However they'd have to be separate circulatory systems because hearts aren't really designed to prevent powered back-flow, which is likely if they're both pumping into the same pipe. So neither are that much better than the other.

But then you have to think about the lungs which share a chamber with the heart... And the idea of having lungs in their lower half is... Not impossible but it poses severe structural problems. a fourth branch at the lungs wouldn't stop them from working, though you'd end up seeing taurs breathing in asynchronously to prevent the upper ones from getting the lower's exhale. The real problem is that the trachea is pretty ridged, and with the spinal structure already in place, it makes the overall torso a lot more rigid. But if you expand the upper lungs and add the powerful pump below, I'm fairly certain you'd get a working system. That or their lungs would need an efficiency upgrade as well.


But to answer your real question I'd initially intended to have an armored and unarmored version, with the armored version wearing regular body armor over the vest as well. But I didn't want it to turn into 3 days of work, lol.

Taur anatomy is confounding. There's also the expansion and compression of the lower half as they ruin to consider. Or how they would eat as having a stomach in the lower half would require a lot of piping, But then how does food exit? Is the lower half just intestines? Is the upper half just throat? Do they have a secondary stomach?

Too true. Digestion should be simple though really. The esophagus, unlike the trachea, is compressible and to a degree stretchable (As are the intestines since they're just tubes of smooth muscle and epithelial tissues). Given the size increase of the organism you could dedicate space in the upper section to a larger stomach (moving the other organs to the lower section since the liver should be closer to but under the heart and the kidneys should be near the bladder and waste disposal orifices... Maybe I'll just do a comic giving lessons on taur biology... I have a feeling that would be SOMEWHAT popular... At least until it becomes clear it's actually JUST a bio-engineering lesson! XD

Oh man, I would love to read that comic! Seeing potential examples of how these things existed would be great but then again I also loved those "Things cut in half" books that showed the inner workings of various machines. You should definitely make this comic.

I just came a cross this and I love how this picture looks, you did a wonderful job on it!

Thanks! Always liked this piece, even if one small part of it has always bugged me visually. Always interested in cool taur Ideas like this, so should you ever want something my inbox is always open!

what a sexy SPAS-12!