Quote Originally Posted by kujoestars View Post
Fair enough on lifespan; I just wanted to check. Although, I will say that evolutionarily, mammals descended from reptiles. Specifically therapsids, reptiles with many mammalian traits. So for me, it's not too big a stretch to think Auri are more intermediate (i.e. mammals with some reptilian features and physiology). Especially considering we most definitely have warm-blooded reptiles in FFXIV even ignoring the dinosaurs and dragons (looking at you, Feral Crocs).
I know the fantasy genre as a whole tends to play loose and fast with the rules of interbreeding between species but it seems like a stretch to extend it to different branches of the animal tree. In our world, different species generally can’t breed together. There are exceptions for those closer together (like horses and donkeys or tigers and lions) but it’s not always successful and the end result may have severe chromosomal issues at worst and be sterile at best.

Even among mammals, XY aren’t universal sex chromosomes and the closest living mammals to reptiles (platypus) have 10 sex chromosomes.

All that said, this is a fantasy game still so anything can happen that the writers want to happen.