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Why is it that an Animal Companion that emulates an animal with a swim speed but not a land speed not subtyped as aquatic or amphibious?
Should I assume that creatures like the Manta Ray and Seahorse are just major failures by RAW as Animal Companions?
I do realize some creatures with a swim speed have the appropriate subtypes like Giant Crabs and Archelon but by RAW creatures with a swim speed don't automatically breathe in water. The Animal Companion description does not address this. Please don't tell me I have to get Evolved Familiar just to have my Seahorse Animal Companion breath in water like the rest of its kin. That I didn't find anything on the FAQs about this so I hope this question does get FAQ'd.
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Major failure, eh? The major failure is using an unofficial third party source, http://www.d20pfsrd.com. Use the pdf for the book or the PRD:
The seahorse is shown as aquatic in the Bestiary 4.
The Manta Ray is also shown as aquatic in the PRD and Bestiary 3:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/additionalMonsters/ray.html#_ray,-manta
Neither would be amphibious since neither live on land.
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The shark (CRB and directly below your second link) doesn't have the aquatic subtype either. We could infer that these all are supposed to carry over those subtypes from their Bestiary entries, but I'd prefer to see them in the companion stat block, since there are a number of possibly ambiguous cases. A dolphin, for example, has a swim speed and no land speed, but shouldn't (and correctly doesn't) have the aquatic subtype. Other aquatic animals should show clearly whether they are amphibious.
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Major failure, eh? The major failure is using an unofficial third party source, http://www.d20pfsrd.com. Use the pdf for the book or the PRD:
The seahorse is shown as aquatic in the Bestiary 4.
The Manta Ray is also shown as aquatic in the PRD and Bestiary 3:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/additionalMonsters/ray.html#_ray,-mantaNeither would be amphibious since neither live on land.
In your link the manta ray companion doesn't show any indication that it is aquatic.
The amphibious subtype doesn't mean that the creature lives on land. It means an aquatic creature can breathe air.
It appears that neither the PRD nor the PFSRD includes information about whether any particular animals are aquatic or not in any of the animal companion entries, but both properly provide that information in the full bestiary entries. I guess we are supposed to infer that this quality or its absence is inherited unchanged from the base animal.
RAW, an animal companion isn't aquatic unless its animal companion stats say that it is aquatic. So a shark companion can breathe air but not water.
This is silly, so do what makes sense.
Or don't.
/ Candygram.