In my Duffy Barkley novels, the Merpeople don't have tails, but they are well camouflaged. Orca colored so invisible almost against the dark depths and against the bright sky, and with seaweed green manes and a thumb spike. They can comb molecules to build domes of water and their islands move around as well as surface and sink. I took a break from writing to draw the princess meeting a species of small hippocampus, with a medicinal power in their slime coating. I love my writing days.
