Spirit Animal (Ex)
At 1st level, a shaman forms a close bond with a spirit animal tied to her chosen spirit. This animal is her conduit to the spirit world, guiding her along the path to enlightenment. The animal also aids a shaman by granting her a special ability. See the Spirit Animal section on page 47.
A shaman must commune with her spirit animal each day to prepare her spells. While the spirit animal does not store the spells as a witch’s familiar does, the spirit animal serves as her conduit to divine power. If a shaman’s spirit animal is slain, she cannot prepare new spells or use her spirit magic class feature until the spirit animal is replaced. Spirit Magic: A shaman can spontaneously cast a limited number of spells per day beyond those she prepared ahead of time. She has one spell slot per day of each shaman spell level she can cast, not including orisons. She can choose these spells from the list of spells granted by her spirits (see the spirit class feature and the wandering spirit class feature) at the time she casts them. She can enhance these spells using any metamagic feat that she knows, using up a higher-level spell slot as required by the feat and increasing the time to cast the spell (see Spontaneous Casting and Metamagic Feats on page 113 of the Core Rulebook).