QUOTE (MNIDJM @ Sep 25 2022, 02:38 AM)

This whole batch of submissions is the most radical group of submissions I’ve ever seen in the 16 years of this project. All of it had different flavors of boundary pushing, and I mean that in the best way possible. I don’t think I can accept all of these departures from standard but the ambition alone is admirable

I appriciate that. I've updated it with Oofle & Cubes idea of a more formal summary in the end.

QUOTE (Cube67 @ Sep 25 2022, 12:26 PM)

@[@Oofle] QUOTE   While it is certainly a good one, and the image is quite nice too, I don’t think a poem is considered an acceptable form of primary description. At the least there should be a debriefing or summary on it that’s clearer if you really want to keep the poem (though I don’t know how that would fly regardless) The poem should definitely be kept. Removing it would just be stifling creativity. If we must have a more standard description, I think a summary or alternate description in a more traditional format after the poem would suffice. The sauce position of this organism is weird, although I think the anterior sclerite arranement is really cool. Are the white parts feathered or bare skin?

The white parts are bristle feathers. of my saucebacks the only image I can think of that shows bare skin is the larva stage of the visorbill.

New common name, new genus name, expanded on its ecological role.

QUOTE (colddigger @ Sep 25 2022, 03:37 AM)

I think this description is absolutely fantastic. Like wow, I'm really into this method of introducing body parts, it is so creative.

Thanks, went for bit of A Cthulhu-priest-ish "rise from the deeps" speech as a context that follows into a guided body scan meditation... But for a scuttler. Really hope they let me keep the format.

just throwing it out there, what if they took the slow route and tried achieving something like this through a symbiote?

Perhaps if the two disconnected parts would start as two separate organisms they can evolve to work over the gap, maybe start with a parasitic relationship and evolve into mutualism, exchanging resources through a liquid medium or pores or even some sort of mouth that connects and disconnects depending on the wind...

It could take several generations but would be a really cool project and give them the time to work on the kinks on the way.

I'm not sure what species you'd pick for these.

- - -

QUOTE (HethrJarrod @ Sep 25 2022, 12:55 PM)

I’m not sure how the crank mechanism works Do you have IRL examples of flying things that use this?

This is a classic crank rocker mechanism, which is the common way to translate between rotational movement and rocking movement and vice versa.


While I haven't seen it described in quite the same way, the muscle structure in the legs of a kangaroo or a rabbit is close and results in the circular momentum you can see around their thighs that builds up and recycles energy from hop to hop.


Now we do not have birds that use this specifically, but we do have birds that flap their wings by spinning a very short humerus and ulna to create circular momentum at the base of disproportionately long wingtips that carry the bulk of the wing feathers, like swifts and hummingbirds.


The visorbill and to a lesser extent its ancestor, combines the two systems, using the first to build up and recycle circular momentum and the latter to express it into flight.

The cost was that to evolve long wingtips, also meant evolving absurdly long toes, and then using the wingtips hoof as a spoon to collect the feathers so that it would be able to walk.
That only needed to happen to the outermost toes, but natural selection was evil and placed the mutation in a way that overgrew both hoofed toes, in its ancestor as an unfortunate spandrel, though with the visorbill adapting to digitigrade walking and perching it is becoming more of a feature.

P.s.
The main difference in wing anatomy between Songsauce Piper (the ancestor) and the Visorbill is that the Piper's muscles translated the motion to a linear push, which combined with elliptical wings for short bursts of intense flight, while the Visorbills muscle ends in a very tight loop at the base of the wing/foot forcing it into a circular motion that recycles and builds up energy.
(If in the future you want to evolve something with short speedy bursts of rapid flight and take off, evolve from the Piper, if you want continuous efficient build up of speed, evolve from the visorbill. For gliding, the Sausophrey is your friend, though if you want to evolve a songsauce glider because there just isn't enough singing in the sky, I recommend going through the Piper as the limb anatomy is closer to RL gliders, though you'll have to increase the wingspan considerably)

QUOTE (colddigger @ Sep 25 2022, 05:54 AM)

I'm super into the polyandry going on with these banquets, and the creation of "milk" is very unique, I like the background description of its origin. I don't think I understand the description of the cheek flaps, are these cheeks that have been specialized into entry and exit due to the large tongue dividing them, and continuing to use the singular mouth opening for their functions? Or are they new openings in the head? The intro really drove in the horror of its prey items getting slurped into the cavity gizzard.

Thanks, its the first. Same singular opening, just slight reshaping of the mouth to better serve as a... tongueport?

i've updated the description to better reflect that:

QUOTE

Crawling head first into the mouth under a flashy cheek flap hanging over the side of the mouth while its base is slurped in from the front, the morsel-filled tongue will crawl inwards through the cheek flap and reach into the back of the primary stomach, shifting through guano and pushing it out of the other cheek flap. It will squeeze out the freshly meshed food from the gizzard, and place it directly onto the blind gut's wall, helping them overcome the inefficiencies of a blind gut. The tongue quickly curls up like a snake within the throat pouch and positions its tip as a mouth within a mouth, exposing its olfactory receptors to the open air and preparing to launch at a moment's notice.

Sidenote, these were not originally intended for that purpose, but they did end up as social pest-eating wool-shedding raspberry-milk-producing gulpers that are used to carry their young on their backs and travel long distances in harsh conditions. Domestication potential?

QUOTE (colddigger @ Sep 25 2022, 03:50 AM)

Ooh this little guy! Well not little, but shorter than me. I'm glad the surgeonuk wasn't forgotten. The e and o in surgeonuk might have gotten flipped in your autocorrect, reading the description it ended up that way. "the Surgoenuk is there to attend to the doctors" "the Surgoenuk has split off from its ancestor" "Surgoenuks mate on the land"

Good find, fixed & updated the habitat to reflect that of its main food source (Do mudflats count as wetlands? They aren't listed in the flavor/type lists yet).

QUOTE (Cube67 @ Sep 25 2022, 02:16 AM)

I have to agree that naming an organism after some real-life drama, however important or silly, isn't good practice. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the reference, anyway (although I think this is a good thing because it can be changed without altering the organism itself).

Any name ideas?

QUOTE (MNIDJM @ Sep 25 2022, 01:47 AM)

Okay this art is dope as hell. How'd you texture the fuzz?

Ooh, thanks man.

It was a while but I think it was the Medibang Flat Brush, brush spacing increased to about 40ish and taking down the random rotation so that it leaves that thick hair strand pattern,and very slowly but worth it IMO - adding hairs to different layers and putting in shadows in between.
Also one of the early experiments - i think it was with the acrylic brush - kind of looked like thin straw, not great for the whole thing but still useful so i ended using it around the edges as light fuzz.

Rockruiser (Lapiratis flaccidoris)
{(Floating-stone flaccid-mouth (Latin)}

Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Rockshorian
Habitat: Elerd Temperate Beach, Elerd Temperate Coast, Elerd Temperate Mangal, Iituem Temperate Bay, Iituem Temperate Beach, Martyk Archipelago Temperate Beaches, Martyk Temperate Beach, Martyk Temperate Mangal, Martyk Temperate Sea, Raq Archipelago Subpolar Beaches, Raq Subpolar Beach, Raq Subpolar Coast
{2 Types (Temperate, Subpolar), 3 Flavors (Beach, Mangal, Sunlight Zone)}
Size: 150cm Long Females, 20cm Long Males
Support: Endoskeleton (Chitin)
Diet: Carnivore (Barnapede, Bleedin Waterworm, Bloister, Bubbleweed Muckraker, Bulky Hammerhead, Chum Gilltail, Chunky Zoister, Clarke Cleaner Echofin, Crawling Meiouk, Dancing Urstar, Diamond Pumpgill, Ebony Pump Gilltail, Eggorger Swarmer, Featherbelly Foi, Field Swarmer, Finback, Flat Swarmer, Floating Pumpgill, Follower Gilltail, Fuzzy Krillpede, Gillarill, Gömböc Roj, Gray Muckraker, Greencrest, Groping Slither-Slider, Gulperpump, Hairy Slitherworm, Hitchhiker Scuttler, Kelpoggle, Lediiro, Left-Right Scalucker, Marine Arthrofin, Marine Bubblepede, Marine Filtersquid, Marine Gilltail, Marine Shocker, Marine Urpoi, Nectascooter, Nerius, Oceanrorm, Octofoi, Probing Gilltail, Ray Flat Swarmer, Roj, Rojerius, Scootatrunk, Scuttleball Gillfin, Seafin, Sealid, Seascooter, Slender Seaswimmer, Snatcherswarmer, South Polar Shardgill, Southern Gillfin, Speckled Pumpgill, Speckled Spinderorm, Spotted Shocker, Sticky Urphish, Sucker Swarmer, Sunlit Plagu, Surge Gilltail, Swarmerscooter, Thornback Waterworm, Trunk Frabuki, Twinkiiro Gilltail, Uksip Lazarus, Amelia, Vicious Gilltail, Wolley)
Respiration: Active (Microlungs)
Thermoregulation: Endotherm (Feathers)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Hard-Shelled Eggs)

Holding up a long neck for millions of years can be quite an effort. In the relative safety of the Martyk Archipelago, a branch of Rockshorian descendants have being liberated from that burden. Appearing as a bipedal rock blindly waddling on oversized feet with a proboscis dangling from its front, the awkward-looking Rockruiser seems like an anathema to its namesake. While it is just as capable of raising the proboscis to check a potential concern or interest, it is well protected and easily camouflaged by its rock-like sauce-shell, leaving it little to be concerned about on land.

Cruising through the water on long webbed toes, floating on air trapped between layers of chitin at the bottom of its sauce-shell, the Rockruiser was well adapted to make the most out of the island environment, replacing its ancestor in its range. As they shifted to make use of their ability to find food, they moved from stalking the shore to actively swimming throughout the Archipelago and seeking underwater prey. Rather than keeping still, they needed to move their mouth fast, losing the long tendons in favor of many quick small short burst muscles. The probosci's tip is rounder and more streamlined for moving underwater, its tusks are held sideways like the pincer claws of a Terran Bobbit worm, followed by dense concentrations of feather-whiskers, a ring of nostrils at the outermost ring, and backward protruding ears, not unlike those of Terran eared seals.

The archipelago has changed the landscape of the mating game. Swimming along the archipelago with their nests on their backs and no longer easily contained by shoreline harems, females started to improve their reproductive chances and the genetic diversity of their outcrop by exchanging male larvae as gifts with females of other outcrops. Earlier reproductive capacity became favored over Fighting and dominance, and once rare developmental disorders inhibiting post-larval development in males have become widespread, undermining the harem system completely and resulting in extreme male neoteny. Males are now slightly larger larvae with developed reproductive capacity and are exchanged as gifts between females, indirectly mating by securing grandchildren in the process. The larva-like male will stay in its mothers nest-shell until given to a new female, where it will use its claws to climb down the female's plumage, holding onto rough ridges around her cloaca and pushing its entire body inwards, leaving out only its respiratory spiracles to maintain its breath. Once done, it will either make its way back to its mother's neck or passed between females, depending on the social circumstances and available mating opportunities in the outcrop.

Tolatongue (Armalinguis tryponofidi)
{armored-tongued (Latin) serpent-burrow (Latinized Greek)}
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Blowtongue
Habitat: Drake Bush, Drake Frostwood, Drake Lowboreal, Drake Mamut, Drake Polar Scrub, Drake Prairie, Drake Steppe, Drake Temperate Woodland
{3 Flavors (Woodlands, Mixed Scrub, Herbaceous). 3 Types (Temperate, Subpolar, Polar)}
Size: 120 cm (Males), 140 cm (Females)
Support: Endoskeleton (Jointed Wood)
Diet: Carnivore (Azure Phlyer (Juveniles), Cloudswarmers, Cobalt Lillyworm, Communal Janit, Creab Shell, Creab Walker, Croriss, Crysfortress Shell, Crysfortress Walker, Dartirs, Desert Gossalizard, Dwarf Pinyuk (Juveniles), Festive Uktank (Juveniles), Frabukis, Golden Phlyer (Juveniles), Greater Lahn, Gushitos, Hopping Ketter, Ikasaru (Juveniles), Indigo Wutuu, Indigo Wutuu (Juveniles), Infilt Pewpa, Inzcrek, Lahnworm, Lizalagarto (Juveniles), Loafpick (Juveniles), Marmokerd (Juveniles), Mikuks, Mini-Flower Ketter, Minikruggs, Nectar Crystalworm, Plains Uktank (Juveniles), Plowskunik (Juveniles), Sapworms, Scalescooter, Scarlet Phlyer, Scarlethorn (Juveniles), Scuttlers, Silkruggs, Sprawlaclaw (Juveniles), Sruglettes, Steppe Lizalope (Juveniles), Switchfang (Juveniles), Teacup Saucebacks, Tree Pinyuk (Juveniles), Uklunk (Juveniles), Ukrith (Juveniles), Vermees, Wub, Xenobees, Xenowasps)
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Endotherm (Cotton)
Reproduction: Sexual, Live Birth, Two Genders

Under the cover of winter snow, an intruder breaks into the Switchfangs burrow. Undulating side to side, shifting the dirt with a fusiform tip, the intruder follows the strong scents and the slightest of shifting motions. A youngling squeaks in alarm, but it is far too late as it is pulled out of its burrow, hard wooden spikes digging into its flash.
Within a thriving nest of communal Janits, a group of workers barely have time to react as they are picked in groups and one by one, devoured by a toothy oral cone, they are swallowed into a pit of hard wooden spikes, they are helpless as the thick muscular walls of the gizzard close in on them, crushing them together into a fine pulp.
Up in the forest canopy, an Ikasaru picks up the vibrations of rustling between the branches. Following the source, the Ikasaru's eyestalks rest on the sight of a serpentine form, a long wormy figure with stretchy green skin between 4 rows of chambered wooden cuticles, expanding into a thick bulbous head at its tip, ending with a toothy oral cone. It has not yet noticed the Ikasaru, there's a blindness to its motion as it seeks the source of the scent, tasting the air within cracks along the cuticles. Its motion seems graceful, 4 long sets of muscles stretch between hardened blood-filled chambers for support, appearing almost like a graceful neck. But that illusion quickly breaks, as It is that very same blindness that makes it blind to the Ikasaru's camouflage, and as it zeros in on its prey, its motions become sharp and jerky, shifting from using blood-filled chambers as support for pull muscles to flooding different chambers to form the pushing force behind of the motion, it appears to advance towards its target in epileptic spasms. It just about misses, and the Ikasaru manages to crawl away, only to find itself captured by the oral ring of another. The two take joy in sharing the meal, they feast and play with it, one swallows it from its tail while the other bites off the limbs and eyes.

Emerging from the mouth of a large woolly biped, this is no worm or serpent, but the tongue of the Tolatongue. Splitting from its Blowtongue ancestor and expanding inland, the Tolatongue catches its prey with a cone of toothy cuticles around the opening of its ancestral tongue trap. Keeping the trap as a permanently internalized gizzard at the end of its tongue, it can devour multiple morsels before having to release its content, allowing it to feast within nests and burrows of hibernating animals, making the best of Drake's harsh winters.
Using the muscles remaining from the ancestral internalized fingers to pull the rest of the cuticles inwards and not stand in the way of digging through dirt and snow, it was able to form segmented blood pressure chambers. These provide anchor points for the pulling muscles when full and a pushing force in the process of flooding the chamber, creating a very efficient internal support system for digging and sifting through dirt and snow.
Crawling head first into the mouth under a flashy cheek flap hanging over the side of the mouth while its base is slurped in from the front, the morsel-filled tongue will crawl inwards through the cheek flap and reach into the back of the primary stomach, shifting through guano and pushing it out of the other cheek flap. It will squeeze out the freshly meshed food from the gizzard, and place it directly onto the blind gut's wall, helping them overcome the inefficiencies of a blind gut. The tongue quickly curls up like a snake within the throat pouch and positions its tip as a mouth within a mouth, exposing its olfactory receptors to the open air and preparing to launch at a moment's notice.

Satisfied with the day's hunt, the Tolatongue will make its way to join with the rest of its banquet. Following the trails of familiar scents, while urine sweat from its throat pouch marks a new trail for the future, the Tolatongue tracks the area from which it came. Getting closer, it starts hearing familiar howling at a distance and responds with its own. Approaching with a swagger and swaying its buttstril side to side, its howling will sound like it is coming from multiple sources, confusing potential predators nearby. Using the shape of its face, quite literally all ears, leading into its ancestral dual tympanic membrane system, each specialized in its range, the Tolatongue can listen carefully to the soft crawling of potential prey and easily differentiate it from the distant howling of its banquet. Coordinating along the howl chain, they will gradually band together in mutual protection as they approach an approximate center between the sources of positive howling and further away from disappointed and fearful ones, often coming together in a new resting location somewhere in the middle, shifting the banquet's gathering towards higher resource concentrations and away from danger.

Back at the banquet, The Tolatongues joyfully rub their tongues on each other's throat pouches, an act of mutual recognition involving the tongue's olfactory receptors and the signature smell of the urine sweat pores. The banquet is no random collective, but rather an intricate network of relationships, bonds, personal reputations, subtle competitions, and occasional conflicts. They will groom and clean each other's tongues and wool using their prehensile tusks, and share food remaining in their tongue gizzard, an act critical for the banquet's survival during the cold seasons.

As springtime approaches and the thick covers of wool began to shed, the act of food sharing takes on a different meaning. Females are larger and will be more exclusionary towards younger females reaching maturity, leaving the banquet with a ratio of 3 to 5 males for every female. To secure reproductive success, the male Tolatongue will grab the tastiest mixture of morsels it can find, cover it with gametes, and fill the rest of the gizzard with a special type of milk, offering the mixture to a female as a nuptial gift.
The milk, initially evolving as a secretion of sugary oils to entice females and augment the male's nuptial gifts, was quickly adapted to feeding the young. Filled with anthocyanin and acids that help the newborns regulate their digestion, giving it a color and flavor not too dissimilar to raspberry syrup.
It is produced by two glands that expand from the back of the neck, connecting to a lamp of fat storage at the rear. The space between, or "cleavage", exclusive to males, formed an ideal nest for newborns and has since evolved further into that role, with male head crests expanding backward to cover the nest.

Females will spend most of the warm seasons pregnant, giving birth to 3 or 4 litters a summer, while each male will carry its litter on its back for a little over a year. While the male-to-female ratio might seem unusual, it has allowed the banquet to maximize its reproductive opportunities without sacrificing the investment into each young, forming an efficient K-selected reproductive unit.
As the young mature, they will increasingly spend more time outside of their nests, learning from their fathers, exploring their environment, and memorizing the locations their survival might depend upon, for a Tolatongue would never forget the location of a promising Switchfang burrow.

Bobbysoxer (Lapitergum tabernusoris)
{Stone-back mouth-boots (Latin)}
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Rockshorian
Habitat: Dass Temperate Beach, Ninth Subtropical Beach, Blood Subtropical Mangal, Blood Bayou, Blood Subtropical Riparian, Jlindy Tropical Beach, Jlindy Tropical Mangal, Bardic Swamp, Bardic Tropical Riparian, Koopa Subtropical Mangal, Koopa Subtropical Beach, Pipcard Bayou, Pipcard Subtropical Riparian, Wright Bayou, Wright Subtropical Riparian, Javen Tropical Beach, Javen Tropical Mangal, Terra Swamp, Terra Tropical Riparian, North Terra Tropical Riparian, Ichthy Swamp, Ichthy Tropical Riparian, Jeluki Subtropical Mangal, Jeluki Bayou, Jeluki Subtropical Riparian, Clarke Subtropical Beach, King's Temperate Beach, Always Temperate Mangal, Always Marsh, Always Temperate Riparian, Dorite Subtropical Beach, Glicker Subtropical Mangal, Glicker Bayou, Glicker Subtropical Riparian, Ofan Tropical Beach, Ofan Tropical Mangal, Gec Tropical Riparian, Gec Swamp, Chum Subtropical Beach, Chum Subtropical Mangal, Biocat Bayou, Biocat Subtropical Riparian, Huggs Subtropical Riparian, Iituem Temperate Beach
{3 Flavors (Beach, Wetlands, Mangal), 3 Types (Tropical, Subtropical, Temperate)}
Size: 170cm Long Females, 200cm Long Males
Support: Endoskeleton (Chitin)
Diet: Larva: Carnivore (Bloister, Bog Echofin, Bulky Hammerhead, Cala Keryh, Canoe Krugg, Charybdaran, Clarke Cleaner Echofin, Common Gilltails, Common Oceanscooter, Dabbling Cotingo, Diamond Pumpgill, Dunki, Eggorger Swarmer, False-Spinemander Fraboo, Field Swarmer, Finback, Flat Swarmer, Floating Pumpgill, Floating Pumpgill, Floor Onamor, Follower Gilltail, Galleon Lyngbakr, Gallratworm, Gillarill, Gömböc Roj, Greater Wolley, Greencrest, Groping Slither-Slider, Gulperpump, Gut Anemoweeds, Honey Toadtuga (Juveniles), Ichthy Gilltail, Ichthypede, Imprisoned Wolley, Incomplete Talúnuisce, Kiturorm, Larvaback, Left-Right Scalucker, Lesser Bloisters, Marine Fraboo, Muckwater Fraboo, Munchicanth (Juveniles), Onamor, Ray Flat Swarmer, River Scrambler, Rojerius, Salt Bog Bowlwhorl, Sandtrapin, Scootatrunk, Scuttleball Gillfin, Seafin (Juveniles), Shardscale, Shockshell Gilltail, South Polar Shardgill, Southern Gillfin, Southern Strainerbeak (Juveniles), Speckled Pumpgill, Squidwhals, Swarmerscooter, Tonboswarmer (Larva), Twinkiiro Gilltail, Ukback, Urmelia, Valley Constrictor (Juveniles), Wooleater Echofin); Female: Filter-Feeder (Aphluks, Barnapede, Blind Moonlit Nerius, Byoukiri, Cadantiteras, Camouflage Foi, Chainswarmers, Chaoses, Chemeba, Clickworm, Cloudswarmers, Colonialballs, Colonuses, Crawling Meiouk, Crocunetwork, Crocusisms, Cryoflows, Cryoutines, Dragon Marephasmoids, Electini, Engulfamoebas, Flashcells, Flovars, Frabukis, Grabbyswarmers, Infinities, Krillpedes, Kuyasha, Kyanoses, Luminus, Meiouks, Microplaques, Microprobi, Microswarmers, Minibean, Miniswarmers, Miniwhorls, Moonlit Dancer, Morsuses, Nerius, Noplanktoid, Orangemosses, Padlers, Painted Leafhorn, Prongangels, Redmosses, Sailcells, Salmunduses, Seacleaners, Shelpads, Slender Miniswarmer, Snatcherswarmer, Snotflora, Spirals, Sucker Swarmer, Swarmerkings, Swarmerweed, Testudiatoms, Whip Swarmers); Male: Carnivore (Baraxshot (Eggs), Bora Scuttler, Borinvermee, Brutishelm Uksip, Burrback Krugg, Catch-Me Krugg, Cleaner Borvermid, Common Fraboo, Communal Janit, Desert Ukjaw (Eggs), Exoskelesor, False Cleaner Borvermid, Harnejak (Eggs), Higgle (Juveniles), Hitchhiker Scuttler, Hockel (Eggs), Horned Landlubber (Eggs), Infilt Pewpa, Kakonat (Juveniles), Landlubber Onamor, Mooncrest Hammerhead, Nectascooter, Netoris Ukjaw (Eggs), Rugged Scuttler, Scuttlers, Serpmander, Serpungo, Snoronk (Eggs), Spineless Toadtuga (Eggs), Spinemander (Juveniles), Squeaky Gremlin (Eggs), Stowaway Harmbless, Thorny Toadtuga (Eggs), Tilepillar (Eggs), Toadtuga (Juveniles), Tonsa Krugg, Trunk Frabuki (Eggs), Vermees, Weird-Boned Twintail, Xatakpa (Eggs), Xatashot (Eggs))
Respiration: Active (Microlungs)
Thermoregulation: Endotherm (Feathers)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Hard-Shelled Eggs)

"Is that rock wearing shoes?"
"It appears so Sir, I believe those are Terran shoes & 1950s frilled bobby socks Sir"
- Sagan 4 Geological Survey Team, First Impressions

Sitting still in the shallow waters, appearing to any onlooker from the coast as one rock among many, the female Bobbysoxer lies in wait. Below the water her legs look like they are "kneeling backward" on her heavily padded heels, appearing to be wearing a pair of "shoes" where her toes should be, framed by the frilled feather-whiskers similar to the ones on her face. spurred into action as the slightest motion in the water is felt by her sensitive feather-whiskers, she raises a foot and launches it towards the passing morsel, the top of her shoe separating from its sole like an opening maw, revealing a pair of toes stretching down underneath it, the shoe and the toes close shut on the target like mandibles, ensnaring and squeezing the life out of the target. Her "shoe", an exoskeletal sauce-like structure extending from the top of her metapodial bone and covering the toes of each of her feet, evolved from neotenic retention of the opposable pseudo-thumb on rockshorian larva. While it does not move on its own, muscles at its base can expand and contract to control its flexibility, allowing the shoe to flex on top of the toes while walking or standing & stiffen when used as a claw. By leaning on her padded heels, cracked from a lifetime of weathering abuse and rough terrain as they are, she frees up her shoe-covered toes to act as claws at a moment's notice.
While her shoe-claws greatly expand her potential feeding envelope, she'll rarely use it for herself. Like the Rockshorian ancestors that her kind has replaced in their range, she carries her nest in her rock-shaped sauce-shell, its feather-covered outer walls filled with carefully placed eggs, sleeping larva hanging with their claws, while other larva feed or try to catch their own prey along the pier like rim. Carefully placing the morsel in the corner of the pier, squeezing it, and mashing it with her toes for good measure, she taps the rim with her toes to signal the placement of food to the excited young.
For herself, she prefers much more modest prey. As with all females of her kind, when she neared reproductive age her tusks withered at their roots and eventually broke off, leaving open cavities into her mouth where they once stood. Reaching into the water with her large lips, she moves her tongue to create suction, pumping water into her mouth through and redirecting it out of her tusk-holes, the teeth of her oral ring crossing over one another to create a net while rings of muscles at their base now squeezing out the water. By specializing in filtered, adult females do not compete for the same food with their own young, expanding their combined niche for prey of both the macro and the micro and leaving more food for both in the process.

A couple of her dozen outcrop sisters raise their long necks over their sauce-shell to listen and sniff out potential dangers while the outcrop's adolescent Bobbysoxers jump from shell to shell. Old enough to hunt on their own but still lacking a fully developed shell for protection or camouflage, they seek out the more active prey that might not be so easily enticed by the adult's shadows. At the first sound of danger, they'll scuttle between their mothers, many submerging under the water while breathing through their spiracle tubes or pulling the tubes down in an enclosed fist to hold their breath.

Listening from the shore, a large bull is on patrol. Covering a harem of 3-5 outcrops and bypassing disputed coastal territories, he is constantly traveling further inland than his female counterparts. Ex communicated from his childhood outcrop in puberty, as with all males of his kind once they become too aggressive to live cooperatively, he has spent his life adapting to roam the rocky shore and ground rather than past the water line.
Having to camouflage himself from all directions, his down feathers have taken an earthly tone. If he senses incoming danger or is just in need of rest, he will lower himself to the ground, using his shoe-claws as a shovel to entrench his thick legs in place. Hiding his spiracle tubes between his rocky sauce-shell and tail club, he'll fold his tail into the space at the back of his shell. Pulling in his head, he'll raise his rock-textured tusks to complete the illusion, enclosing the front of his shell, and providing protection and camouflage from all directions.
Unlike his female counterparts, his shell has no room for nesting, but for the space for his neck and tail, the rim of his shell folds tightly around his body along his sides, and it's quite a bit thicker. He is built to survive a lifetime of clashes with other males, whipping their tail clubs, ramming their tusks, kicking and grabbing each other underneath their sauce-shell with their shoe-claws.
His diet has also adapted to his land-bound life, he will use his feather whiskers to listen to underground motions, seeking out burrowing critters & eggs with his tusks and shoe-claws and sucking them in with his narrow lips and sticky saliva. By curving his separate niche, he does not compete for food with the females or juveniles of his territory.

By covering 3 different ecological niches between juveniles, adult females, and adult males, their kind was able to become as prolific as the rocks they mimic, populating the continental shoreline.

Ophan Skeggox (Rotaferrum securis)
{Iron-Wheeled Axe}
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Ophan Scimitar
Habitat: Raptor Chaparral, Raptor Veldt, Raptor Volcanic, Raptor Highvelt, Raptor Badlands (Uncommon), Raptor Plains, Wallace Desert (Uncommon), West Wallace Veldt, Verserus Highvelt, Verserus Rocky (Uncommon), Wallace Chaparral, Wallace Bush, Wallace Volcanic, Central Wallace Veldt, Wallace Plains, South Darwin Highvelt, Darwin Temperate Desert (Uncommon), South Darwin Rocky (Uncommon), South Darwin Chaparral, South Darwin Plains
{3Ranges (Subtropical, Temperate, Mountane) 3 Flavors (Mixed Scrub, Herbaceous, Arid)}
Diet: Scavenger, Kleptoparasites & Oppertunisitic Carnivore (Argeiphlock, Barkback, Binsnoo, Cragagon, Dardiwundi, Desert Tilecorn, Desert Ukjaw, Disasterxata, Dualtrunk, Dundigger, Dungshell Fraboo, Eggslurping Sorite, Grassland Lizatokage, Gryphler, Guangu, Gulperskunik, Handlicker Dundi, Hedgimal, High Grassland Ukback, Interbiat, Kehaida, Nectarsnapper, Mouse Gryphler, Neoshrew, Opportunity Shrew, Ouranocorn, Phouka, Pickaxe Tamow, Pink Scrambler, Plehexapod, Rainforest Buttpiper, Ramchin, Rosybeak Phyler, Sabulyn, Scrub Barkback, Shroom Herder, Sitting Dundi, Snoofloo, Snoronk, Stink Shrew, Stride Sauceback, Striped Phlock, Stygmogg, Tasermane, Thornmole, Tigmadar, Treedundi, Undergroundi, Velocitoon, Xatagolin, Xatakpa, Xatazelle)
Size: 2.5M Long
Respiration: Active (Microlungs)
Thermoregulation: Endotherm (Feathers)
Support: Endoskeleton (Chitin)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Hard-Shelled Eggs)

Replacing its ancestor in its range, the Ophan Skeggox has further specialized to make the most out of the Kleptoparasitic and scavenging lifestyle it has inherited from its Ophan Scimitar ancestor. A large thick necked brute, it will lazily approach a dead carrion and claim it for itself, initimidating other scavengers as well as the predators that made the kill. It's backplates have increased in size and now grown into each other, bringing together their mass and thick neck muscles and culminating in a large front horn, giving it the bearded battleaxe shape that is the skeggox's namesake, using the horn claim the territory around the carcass, fight rivals, and aids in cracking bone and armor pieces while it eats.

Like its ancestor, it uses the rocking motion while feeding and visible spots on its tail to create the illusion of an Argusraptor's face running towards the observer, with different breeds of Skeggox mimicking the colors of the local Argusraptor's breeds, often amplified with dark lines that broadcast the illusion from larger viewing distances, taking a form that coincidentally tends to mimic Terran Haida line art.

With a preference for open plains and a lifestyle demanding vast territories and young that require a lot of mutual investment, once they find a good mate there is no reassurance of reliably finding another one, so they settle into lifelong bonded Ophan pairs called Bikes. They judge each other by a vivid and animated mating display in which an outercoat of feathers switches places with an undercoat of feathers of a contrasting color using the small hydrostatic muscles at the base of the feather, resulting in an animated display of moving stripes across their plumage in all but the thin bristle feathers covering their lower half. They will take turns protecting the nest, brooding the eggs, feeding their young regurgitated food, and eventually start bringing the older juveniles with them to learn how to find and secure food. The juvenile's backplates do not yet grow into each other, providing a spikey defensive measure, and their tail feathers delay the growth of barbs, allowing them to function as quills and making the juveniles a difficult meal to eat without injury.

Common Visorbill (Plumatibia diaspeirus)
{Feathered-flute (Latin) Scattered-around (Latinized Greek i.e. diaspora)}

Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Songsauce Piper
Habitat: Clayren Temperate Rainforest Archipelago, Lamarck Temperate Rainforest, Lamarck Subtropical Rainforest, Ittiz Temperate Rainforest Archipelago, Abello Temperate Rainforest Archipelago, Anguan Temperate Woodland Archipelago, Barlowe Temperate Rainforest, Barlowe Temperate Woodland, Barlowe Subtropical Rainforest, Time Subtropical Rainforest Archipelago, Dixon Subtropical Rainforest, Dixon Subtropical Woodland, West Wallace Tropical Woodland, Dorite Subtropical Woodland, Central Wallace Tropical Woodland, Darwin Subtropical Rainforest, Drake Temperate Woodland, Soma Temperate Rainforest Archipelago, Dingus Temperate Rainforest, Dingus Temperate Woodland, Ramul Subtropical Woodland, Ramul Subtropical Woodland Archipelago, Steiner Subtropical Rainforest Archipelago, Barlowe Tropical Rainforest, Raptor Tropical Rainforest, Wallace Tropical Rainforest, Darwin Tropical Woodland, Darwin Tropical Rainforest, Steiner Tropical Rainforest Archipelago, Steiner Tropical Rainforest, Vonnegut Temperate Woodland Archipelago, Fermi Temperate Woodland, South Darwin Subtropical Woodland, Darwin Temperate Woodlands, Martyk Temperate Woodland Archipelago, Koseman Temperate Woodland, Koseman Temperate Rainforest
{2 Flavors (Rainforests, Woodlands), 3 Types (Tropical, Subtropical, Temperate)}
Size: 22 cm long
Support: Endoskeleton (Chitin)
Diet: Omnivore (Berry Arbourshroom (Berries), Blood Tropofly, Bora Scuttler, Boreal Tubeplage (Fruit), Borinvermee, Branching Qupe Tree (Fruit), Brutishelm Uksip, Carnofern Flugwurm, Carnossamer (Fruit), Chasing Twintail (Juveniles), Cleaner Borvermid, Cloud Swarmer, Cloudbubble, Cloudgrass, Cloudswarmers, Cobalt Lillyworm (Juveniles), Communal Janit, Corkscrew Krugg, Cragmyr (Berries), Creab Walker, Crysfortress Walker, Dragonworms, Eggslurping Sorite, Exoskelesor (Juveniles), False Cleaner Borvermid, Feroak (Berries), Ferries (Berries), Flesh Fairy, Fourmaw Sauceback, Frayedspikes (Fruit), Fruiting Grovecrystal (Fruit), Fuzzpile (Berries), Glideabovi, Greatcap Baseejie (Fruit), Grub Krugg, Gryphler (Juveniles), Gundiseater, Gushitos, Hair Nimbuses, Hanging Olshkra, Hemoswarmer, Herbivorous Tropoworm, Hydrabowl, Infilt Pewpa, Kehaida (Juveniles), Lazarus Soriparasite, Leaping Soriparasite, Leepi Meepi, Logworm Sauceback, Lungworm Clogmane (Adults), Lurcreeper (Seeds), Lurspire (Fruit), Lurtress (Seeds), Mainland Fuzzpalm (Berries), Marblora, Minibees, Minizap, Mudfish, Nectar Crystalworm, Nectarsnapper, Nightcrawler Borvermid, Olshkra, Omnivore (Barnline (Fruit), Osziza, Parasitic Floats, Penumbra Fuzzpalm (Berries), Plumottle, Quhft (Fruit), Quilbil (Berries), Qupe Tree (Fruit), Rainforest Carnofern (Fruit), Sauceswarmer, Scrambled Shrew (Juveniles), Scrubland Tubeplage (Fruit), Shaggy Volleypom (Megaspores), Sky Bloodbee, Sleeve Ferine (Berries), Smirking Soriparasite, Soricinus, Spectresnatch (Juveniles), Sruglettes, Stowaway Harmbless (Juveniles), Sweetworms, Syrup Ferine (Berries), Teacup Saucebacks, Tlukvaequabora (Berries), Tropical Gecoba Tree (Fruit), Tropoworm, Tubeplage (Fruit), Tusovendis (Seeds), Tusovinda (Seeds), Twinkbora, Twin-Tail Orbibom (Berries), Uksapo, Umbral Sphinx (Juveniles), Uniwingworms, Wafflebark Ferine (Berries), Weird-Boned Twintail, Whiskrugg, Wub, Xenobees)
Respiration: Active (Chambered Unidirectional Lung)
Thermoregulation: Endotherm (Feathers)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Hard-Shelled Eggs)

All throughout sagan the Common Visorbill's songs can be heard, as the descendants of the Songsauce Piper, branched off into a migratory lifestyle, spreading their high-speed wings and settling wherever they found a tall branch to perch on and a warm sun to lay their eggs under.


The rocking of the Femur (1A) coupled through the Tibiotarsus (1B) pulls & cranks the Grashof muscle loop (1C) building angular momentum at the base of the Cannon bone (1D) which translates the angular momentum for flight or hopping. The digitigrade walking toe stretches while hopping (2A) and curls down when perching (2B).

Limb anatomy:
By extending its ancestor's thick thigh muscle over the knee & tibiotarsus while tightening the muscle at its lower end, the Visorbill has evolved the Grashof muscle Loop, a tight muscular band restricting the motion at the heel of the cannon bone. As the femur pulls & pushes the tibiotarsus, the Grashof Loop restricts the motion of the heel into circular rotation around the muscular loop's hip connection, building angular momentum which in turn pulls the femur through the tibia into continuing the cycle, thus maintaining the energy of the motion from one rotation to the next with a minimal loss.
In terms of classical mechanics, this creates a 4-bar rocker-crank mechanism, in which the hips form the base, the muscular loop acts as the rotating crank, the femur acts as the rocker, and the tibiotarsus connects the two as the coupler. As the femur rocks back and forth, it builds up angular momentum around the grashof loop, speeding up the rotation at the heel of the cannon bone.



During flight, the Grashof muscle remains by the hips while the cannon bone and wingtip toe extend sideways, stretching out the wingtip claw and unfurling the long feathers comprising the main length of the wings, allowing for the long wings optimized for sustained high-speed flight, not like the Terran common swift or the Eurasian hobby.
As the Grashof muscle rotates from the heel of the cannon bone, the wings flap comes from the rotation at the base of the heel. Much like fast-flapping Terran birds that use angular momentum during flight, such as swifts and hummingbirds, they are able to build up and maintain angular momentum at the base of the wing, allowing for continuous high-speed flight. Just like those Terran birds, the smaller the circular path taken by the base of the wing, the faster it takes to complete the full rotation that makes for a complete wing flap. Unlike those Terran birds, which need tiny arms at the base of their wings to generate angular momentum along smaller circular paths and are therefore limited in muscle attachment points to those tiny arms, the Grashof muscle allows the Visorbill to generate the angular momentum from muscles attached to the femur, providing them with larger surface area for muscle attachment points with which they power the Visorbill's sustained high-speed flight.

On foot, the wingtip toe flexes up, collecting the long flight feathers with the wingtip claw. Shifting completely to a digitigrade pose, they move on foot by hopping on the palm of their walking toes. By using the Grashof muscle to rotate the heel of the foot and by bending their flexible walking toe like the foot of a Terran kangaroo rat, they can quickly hop between branches, crucial for the survival of juveniles that aren't ready for flight. While the Grashof muscle loop prevents them from launching themselves as high or as fast as their direct ancestor, it allows the Visorbill to quickly build up angular momentum while hopping or even while staying in place, creating the appearance of tail twerking before takeoff. At rest, the walking toe naturally curves upwards while its claw curls downwards, creating a tight grip that allows perching on branches effortlessly.



By shifting the backplates of the Songsauce Pipe (1) they redirect the air inhaled via the forward air intake (1A) to exhale out of the sideways (1B), angled (1C) or backwards (1D) facing air thrusters, blowing against the direction of motion to redirect & reorient themselves. The Eyestrill is protected behind the Visor Lens (2A) during flight, but stretches outside of the visor to sniff the air (2B). Sound is funneled (3) around the tongue underneath the ears. Identification marks (4) covering the tail plate allow visorbills to recognize each other.

Flight agility:
During their long migrations, they often have to rely on flying prey for sustenance. While the Grashof muscles are optimized for continuous high speed, they are not optimized for rapid speed changes. Like their ancestors, they mainly steer through their ears and tails, but to take sharp turns and dives without changing their wing rotation, they follow the steering of their ears by using their wing tip claws to control the shape of their wings, often aided by the muscles of their walking toe (that is otherwise folded over the wingtip claw to reduce drag during flight).
At the same time, using their ancestral Songsauce "pipe" mechanism to shift their back plates and cover the output air holes of their unidirectional respiration system, they've adapted their air holes to act as directional thrusters, with the intake air holes facing forward, the 1st pair of output air holes facing sideways, the 2nd pair at 45 degrees and the fourth facing completely backward, they can redirect the air blowing out of their lungs to aid in agile maneuvers and take-offs.

Sensory perception:
Extending from their mandibles are their name sake's visor lenses, thin transparent chitin within reinforced rings protecting the eyestrills from the fast accumulation of dirt and moisture during long high-speed flights. Each stretch of transparent chitin is covered with a layer of protective wax, protecting it from the elements and preventing glare and shine from obscuring their vision, not unlike the Terran glasswing butterfly. While helpful in maintaining sight, the visor doesn't help smell their environment. To compensate, they will occasionally stretch out a few of their eyestrills to take in the air around the visor.

Like their ancestors, they funnel sound around their tongue to the underside of their ear membranes, compensating for distortions made from redirecting their ears as they steer during flight as well as acting as a sort of radar dish while hunting & foraging for food under the leaf litter.
Just like their ancestors, the sensory information is processed on the way from the head--like proboscis, presented to the brain as a synesthetic gestalt that runs on the same cognition their one-time blind ancestors used to make sense of the world around them, creating a shared intuitive match between sounds colors shapes and smells. This forms the basis for their communication, allowing them to match their Songsauce flute sounds to the objects of their description, which are most often each other, each designated by the unique identifying markings on each of their tail plates. unlike their ancestors, they are more prone to mismatches due to their wide distributions and larger populations, which can lead to getting socially shamed, losing sexual opportunities, and even being kicked out of the communal gala, though brighter individuals have been known to compensate through mimicry.


From left to right, Visorbill egg (1), newborn (2), 15 days old Juvenile (3) and 40 days old adult (4).

Reproduction & Development:
Visorbills have two mating seasons a year, taking advantage of springtime in each hemisphere as they migrate from one to the other, though not all will have both of them successful, and some will try to increase their odds by competing for the best nesting grounds in the tropical regions in the middle.

The Visorbill's gala is a flexible social unit, and Visorbills will often move between galas as they cross paths during the migration or when they border each other during mating seasons when the gala spreads out into wide networks of neighboring nests.

Visorbills will compete in song and flight as they try to impress each other, and they mate in the air as the male gametes clump together before release, and the female turns and catches the clumps midair, a process they will repeat a few dozen times.
While the gala provides advantages in mutual protection & mating opportunities, it also presents an existential danger, as Visorbills will routinely try to cuck each other and spread some of their eggs to neighboring nests, while also combating the same phenomena from happening to them by other visorbills, socially by forming mutual pacts to alert their neighbors and fueling gala drama, and biologically by laying eggs with unique identifying markers (and in turn targeting eggs with similar markers in neighboring nests), though with about a dozen or two eggs per nest it is easy to be confused about the exact marking of each, though those are laid gradually, finishing their incubations in groups of 2 or 3 a day.
Visorbill newborns are extremely altricial, close to their ancestral larva. Lacking feathers they crawl on their toes and huddle together for heat. They do not yet have a distinct visor, and their eyestrills are pressed sideways to study their sibling's tale plate markers, recognize the tail plates of their parents & sound the alert at the signs of danger. By 15 days they will have their feathers, though still lacking the distinct blue structural coloration that comes in adulthood, showing their true brown colors instead, providing them with camouflage as they make their first hop to forage for food on their own, often forming social connections with their neighbors, as by 40 days they will be flight capable, and while many will follow their parents, some will try to establish a new generation of galas and seek a migration path of their own.


Immigration routes (Green) from the nesting grounds of the northern regions (Red) through the desirable tropical nesting regions (Purple) to the nesting grounds of the southern regions (Blue).

Nixie (Arborpeditous gustusaer)
{Wooden-footed air-taster (Latin)}
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Bulky Hammerhead
Habitat: Ramul Subtropical Beach, Ramul Subtropical Beach Archipelago, Ramul Subtropical Coast, Ramul Subtropical Mangal, Russ Subtropical Coast, Sparks Tropical Beach, Sparks Tropical Coast, Steiner Subtropical Beach Archipelago, Steiner Subtropical Mangal, Steiner Tropical Beach Archipelago, Steiner Tropical Mangal
{2 Ranges (Tropical, Subtropical) 3 Flavors (Coast, Beach & Mangals)}
Diet: Larva (Filter-feeders), Adults (Scavenger & Carnivore (Barnapede, Belumbias, Burraroms, Charybdaran, Cleaner Borvermid, Cloudswarmers, Common Gilltails, Communal Janit, Dragon Marephasmoids, Elahpekomlap Bubblehorn, False Cleaner Borvermid, Flat Swarmer, Floating Pumpgill, Frabukis, Grabbyswarmers, Gushitos, Gut Anemoweeds, Hitchhiker Scuttler, Infilt Pewpa, Kakonat, Krillpedes, Kyutescoot, Larvaback, Left-Right Scalucker, Lesser Bloisters, Miniswarmers, Miniwhorls, Minizap, Mistswarmers, Nerius, Padlers, Scalescooter, Scuttlers, Shelpads, Shockscooter, Squidwhals, Sruglettes, Sucker Swarmer, Treeneer, Uksapo, Vermair, Vermees))
Size: 30 cm {island gigantism}
Respiration: Active (Unidirectional respiratory system)
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm
Support: Endoskeleton (Wood)
Reproduction: Sexual (Sexual, Two Genders, external fertilization, soft-shelled eggs)

Splitting from Their ancestors and adapting to an amphibious lifestyle on the emerging Steiner & Ramul Archipelagos, the Nixies live a crepuscular life and only venture out to land during the twilight hours, as those that venture out in the heat of the day dry up and die, and those that venture out at night are all but blind in the darkness, making them easy prey for predators. On land, they'll scavenge carcasses washed ashore, catch crawling vermin, catch any small prey that won't expect the long oral arm coming out of the water, and swimming counterparts that won't expect it coming in. They are easily pulled by the sight of small movements and are likely to take a bite of anything that rattles around them. Externally the Nixie look like a bulkier version of a bulky hammerhead, but internally they were undergoing many changes to meet the challenges of the new lifestyle.



Senses
While the Nixies middle eye's primary retina (1A) continues to correct for underwater distortions even when on land, the rolled-up photoreceptor-covered skin behind the middle eye's cornea has evolved into a secondary land-adapted retina (1B) and compensates for the correction, allowing the Nixies to make sense of the world around them on land and avoid potentially deadly miscalculations of size and distance.
Spiraling around the nexus of the hammerhead senses - the 3 eyes and the olfactory sack - is the primary ganglia (2A), which is more likely to be the first to detect potential prey and tends to be more aggressive, prioritizing fight. In the middle tail between the two photoreceptors covered tail projections, they have a secondary ganglia (2B), which is more likely to be the first to detect potential predators and tends to be more defensive, prioritizing flight. Individual Nixies vary in the balance of the two and might shift depending on circumstances, balancing the risks of starvation and predation.

Respiration
The Nixies breath in by stretching out flexible air gulpers (3A), inflating an olfactory sack (3B) behind the hammerhead. If it smells safe, they'll open the safety barrier (3C) between the olfactory sack and the respiratory canal (3D) which regulates the transition from air to water and prevents black flora toxins from entering the bloodstream. The respiratory canal extends into 5 dorsal gill slits (3F), each folded backward to protect a thick layer of concentrated blood vessels from desiccation. Oxygen-rich blood flows from each slit gill to a dedicated gill heart (4A) at its base, pumping the blood forward into the primary heart (4B) around the base of the hammerhead, pumping blood through the rest of the body,

Support
Supporting their body while out of the water is a ventral spine (5A). Grown from the outside-in, from the wooden exoskeleton covering the legs and hips (5B) to the internalized wooden bones between them, it is made of one single piece of wood, mimicking the flexibility of segmentation through soft flexible tissue within tough ball joints (5C), not too dissimilar from the flexible wood stretching within the long oral arm to the flash covered beak.

Digetive system
The Nixie's gut has developed a pronounced stomach (6A) just behind the hammerhead that is supplied with digestive enzymes from two pancreatic livers (6B), functioning as general digestive aids. The food from the stomach passed over a gut partition (6C) turning the previously blind gut into a loop that extends back into the oral arm.

Reproduction
Female Nixies produce eggs in oral gonads (7A) and place them with the oral arm in wooden egg cases (7B) growing under the tail to protect the eggs from desiccation. The egg cases extend from stalks covered with slight yellow stripes, inviting males to use their oral gonads to fertilize the eggs. Females release their larva underwater, where the larva will feed on plankton and small swarmers until they are about 2 months old. They will spend another 4 months on the coastal seafloor, growing and hardening their wooden skeleton until they are ready to venture out of the water. After a year they'll be sexually mature, and spend the next 5 to 8 years spreading their young across the archipelago.

Surgeonuk (Unguosis medifictus)
{claw-boned fake-doctor}
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Plains Uktank
Habitat: Slarti Subpolar Riparian, Slarti Mudflat, Drake Prairie, Flisch Subpolar Beach
{3 flavors (Beach, Mixed Scrub, Wetlands), 2 types (Polar, Subpolar)}
Diet: Herbivore (Doctor Pickle, Pioneeroots, Marbleflora, Snotflora)
Size: 90 cm Tall
Respiration: Active (Water Tank Gills)
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm
Support: Muscle rings, Semi-Internalized Claws
Reproduction: Sexual, Two Genders, Eggs in Water

Deep among the doctor pickle ward, the Surgeonuk is there to attend to the doctors themselves. Ever attentive to its patient, the Surgeonuk pulls together its shell-ears and flattens them to doctor pickle like a statoscope, it tests with slight knocks and quickly diagnoses the quantity and thickness of the fluids. Determining that it should proceed, it will step back into a safe distance and stretch out its scalpel-ended trunk, its hardened claw providing cover & PPE for its narrow oral proboscis. Making a slight incision and passing the end of its oral claw inside, removing whatever amount it has expertly determined to be an excess of doctor pickle juice. Once done, it will release a hardening mucus as its pulls out its proboscis, letting the patient recover.

Appearing to any passerby like an immature doctor pickle planted on a blobby tripped, the Surgeonuk has split off from its ancestor to specialize in its new source of food. Twice its ancestor's height, most of its growth is in the respiratory water tank, allowing it to venture deeper and further inland. Rather than depending on water sources, they can submerge themselves in, any source of running water will do, using their trunk to pump water into one of their two tap holes on either side. To carry the additional weight of the water, its legs stand erect beneath its body, and part of the claws have been internalized to provide limited internal support, while rings of thick muscles do the rest. Surgeonuks mate on the land mouth to mouth, and the female will use her long oral proboscis to release her fertilized eggs into the water. The only time the Surgeonuk must ventures into the water as an adult is during the winter brumation period when they will seek ponds or rivers to hide under the insulating layer of ice and slow down their metabolism.

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ May 21 2022, 04:13 AM)

I think I'll give a full review once it's submitted.

Don't tease

You get your wish, as you submit you caonach species you then reread the post and see they've become wildcard global species of purple "gray goo" that eat anything in it's path. As you try to edit it out the moment you resubmit the changes show up again. You delete the thread and try making a new one but the same thing happens. You give up on the caonach, delete it and go to sleep, but in the morning the submission shows up again. You decide to just not approve the submission but then it shows up on the wikipage, edited by you. You try to remove it but it won't let you. Gradually all the other species on the wiki start showing up as extinct because of the purple goo event, and any attempt to edit it gets undone. You decide to try to restart in a new server but instead of a new wiki the project starts with a purple goo world entry in the front page. You try to move on from Sagan, but the same every spec evo project you join gets the caonach entry and eventual extinction. You decide to quit it entirely, take some time to unplug, and it all goes fine, you live your life never doing spec evo again, until one day your bathroom stops working. You call the plumber, and he tells you about a strange purple sludge that got stuck in the pipes. The thought passes by, but you dismiss it. Reminding yourself that this is reality, you join the plumber to find out what is he talking about, and yet in the pipe you see its dried up levander fabric softener. Unsure as to how it got there but relieved more than you would like to admit to yourself, you pay the plumber to unclog the pipe. As you do, a notification shows up on your phone, you dismiss it but it shows up again from a different source. Clicking the link, you find a video about a new invasive organism discovered, with an all too familiar image in the thumbnail.

I wish Sagan 4 beta started runing.

Just for fun, here's an earlier version of the above prior to feedback, when I was adment on having it chew out its wing slots.



RIP wing nibbler, in my heart you will always be the real Claysoar we chewed along the way

Claysoar (Gladiobeccus aureumpectus)
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Zykemet
Habitat: Dixon Chaparral, Dixon Veldt, Dorite Tropcial Savanna, Drake Veldt, North Ovi Tropical Scrub, North Talon Tropical Savanna, Orpington Tropical Savanna, Orpington Tropical Scrub, Orpington Veldt, Ovi Chaparral , Ovi Hot Desert, Ovi Tropical Savanna, Ovi Vledt , Ovi-DIxon Hot Desert, South Ovi Tropical Scrub, South Talon Tropical Savanna, Talon Hot Desert, Talon Tropical Scrub
Size: 40 cm Long
Support: Endoskeleton (Bone)
Diet: Scavenger
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Heterotherm (Basking, Muscle-Generated Heat)
Reproduction: Sexual (male and female, live birth)

They claysoar has split from its ancestors. Extending its ancestral cartilaginous rods past the initial edge of the wing, they were able to break the membrane's shape into a slotted wing, reducing drag when catching warm thermals, and by darkening its wings into a near black it was able to increase the heat absorbed during flight. With these, it was able to soar across the ocean into Ovi, finding a land devoid of its Spardi at the time of arrival, it would have to rely on scavenging to survive. Taking advantage of its wings, it was able to fly long distances with minimal energy in the search for its next meal, in a way not too dissimilar to vultures of another time and place.

Unlike those vultures, the Claysoar can take full advantage of the carcass it found. While the very edge of the lateral mandible tears chunks of flesh, it can use the ventral mandible to counter the motion to tear flesh regardless of the weight of the carcass, adapting the front-most bottom teeth for that very task. When encountering bone or armor, the middle sections of the mandibles are specialized in cracking bone armor or exoskeleton, and the innermost section can grind the remains down over its open mouth, squeezing every last juicy drop of meat.

As a result of its feeding behavior, when it closes its mouth the ventral and dorsal jaws close over the ventral mandibles, creating the distinct appearance of a claymore, from which it gets its name and which it will use when threatened, swinging its mouth like a large broadsword to make its claim for the carcass. For many, the sight of its distinct coloration is enough of a warning sign, its golden chest visible in the sky long before it makes the landing.

The very same gaudy pigmentation doubles as a mating display. While most of the markings act as indicators of health, marking the edge shape of the wing, the curvature of the wing rods, and the shape of the backbone, and those are shared among males and females, the colorful head crest is exclusively male.

As they make their seasonal migration north to south to stay in the warm regions, they will find themselves sharing a much smaller space in Talon & Dixon, where they will inevitably encounter each other, fight and squabble for food and mates, though mostly using the health indicators to visually assess each other without violence. Towards the end of summer, they will pair up, flying together to the northern regions where they will build their nests and give live birth, taking turns to feed and guard the young, which will be fully independent by the end of spring.

Kinble (Flumencopia bullavillus)
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Gillking
Habitat: Vailnoff Twilight Zone, North Subtropical Vailnoff Ocean, South Subtropical Vailnoff Ocean, Talon-Orpington Tropical Sea, Dixon-Fermi Subtropical Sea, West Ovi Subtropical Coast, West Dixon Subtropical Coast, East Orpington Subtropical Coast
Size: 1 cm Hexagonal Zooids, 3 cm Pentagonal zooids, 6 cm to 3 m Zoon
Support: Soft-Bodied (Hydrostatic Skeleton)
Diet: Filter-Feeding
Respiration: Passive (External Gills)
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm
Reproduction: Sexual (male & female, broadcast spawning, live birth)

The Kinble has split from its Gillking ancestor, expanding its habitat West of Vailnoff Ocean. By re-evolving an internal separation of skin, muscle, and gut tissue that their ancestors have previously lost, adapting the skin oils and muscle tissue along the anal fingers to transfer nutrition and oxygen, they were able to roll and fold their digestive system. Beyond making better use of nutrition, it has enabled them to evolve the shorter and stockier variety which was ultimately able to bring the gill arms and anal fingers into the same plain. As the gill arms were already adapted to absorbing nutrition, whenever the anal fingers accidentally reached their neighbor's gills instead of merging anal finger to anal finger, they were able to have a healthier flow of nutrition from the anal fingers output to the gills input.

They now form a continuous intersecting weave, growing their gill branches in a cup-like shape to hold onto and fuse with their neighbor's bulbous anal fingers, allowing them to efficiently share nutrition and oxygen across the colony. With 12 exceptions, each zooid will form a hexagon, made of 3 input cups and 3 output bulbs. In the attempt to create a sphere, they form Goldberg polyhedron, which means they will consistently have 12 pentagonal members, known as foundlings, each with a free connection, 6 with a free gill arm that grows outwards from the colonial bubble to add to the overall oxygen supply of the colony, and 6 with a free anal finger that grows inwards, storing supplies and acting as feeders for newborns, who will spend more time within the colony and differentiating the anal arm before joining.

Like their ancestors, males will constantly spray gametes, where most will make their way to the female's reproductive organs, which will constantly give live birth to new members within the colony. When two mature colonies meet each other, the colonies will contract and expand in rhythm and attempt to follow each other in circles, and exchange their gametes in the process of their mating dance. Unlike their ancestor, the resulting brood will be maintained as distinct from the rest of the colony, coming together around one of the feeders. When ready, they will meet outside of the colony and form the colonial juvenile form, each made of 12 pentagonal foundings forming a dodecahedron.

To better coordinate mating and overall locomotion, they've evolved their eyes to gather internal and external visual cues. Evolving from inverted pigment cups, the eyes have expanded further laterally and inverted inwards from the anterior and posterior ends, practically separating into 4 simple cup eyes, a front-facing pair outside of the colony and a back-facing pair towards the center of the colony. This allows them to instantly respond to a motion beginning at the opposite end of the colony, a reaction made faster through the use of color cones in the eyes and colored underbellies. While not easily seen outside of the colony they form a distinct contrast inside the colony.

Updated the diets with pending submissions to make it easier to see once the generation starts.

I believe other people are working on krakow Lunger descendants, and so as long as there will be some predators that can eat animals in the 10-20 cm range (to justify the defenses), the Krakow restoration project should be ready to go.

I encourage anyone to add to that, and if you happen to be making a Krakow predator that fits the requirement of being able to catch and eat 10-20 cm range animals, please include the Bunvil and the Dragnt Spardyvern in their diet.

Tootsy Nibbler (Tentacularipodia pesictus)
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Toothgrip Bristlebunny
Habitat: Krakow Tropical Beach, Hydro-krakow Tropical Coast, Hydro Tropical Beach, Hydro-Flisch Reef
Size: 4 cm long
Support: Soft-Bodied (Muscular Hydrostat)
Diet: Carnivore (Filterbunnies, Bristlebunnies, Rainbun, Warmbuns, Grapplebuns, Flatbuns, Lurkroufos, Vinacrawlers (Juveniles), Immortazmenian Bunvil (Larva), Bundom (Larva), Spinybun (Larva))
Respiration: Passive Diffusion (Skin-Breathing)
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm
Reproduction: Sexual (male and female, broadcast spawning in water, eggs)

The ''Tootsy Nibbler'' has split from its ancestor when some [[Toothgrip Bristlebunny]] eggs made their way back into salt water. Taking advantage of its relatively flat form to hide under the sand, it evolved into a successful ambush hunter. Spreading along the beaches and coasts from Krakow to Hydro. By extending the gastropod-like foot under the nubs of its anal arm, it was able to form little proto-tentacle nubs all along its body, allowing it to quickly wiggle its way under the sand, and aid it in making its way across the difficult and uneven terrain of the coastal benthic zone.

While the bristles around the nubs provide very little in the way of additional traction for locomotion, they take a major role in its hunting strategy, as each bristle is tied to sensitive mechanoreceptors that sense vibrations in the sand and water above it is hiding under the sand. The nerves go through a local neural cluster around proprioceptors local to each nub, used to filter out sensory input resulting from the motion of the tentacle itself to avoid confusion and sensory overload, where they meet in a central ganglion between the eyes.

The eyes themselves stick above the sand and have a rudimentary lens, protecting against the elements while providing a bit of optical focus. While not quite an eyelid, slight muscles in the "lip" above the eye are used to keep it clean and squeeze out dust particles. When sensing anything above it, it will use its tentacles to leap out of the sand and its counter arms to grab it. Its eyesight lacks object recognition, and so it will try to bite nearly anything, only letting go once the chemoreceptors around its tooth counter arm nubs taste something that has proven unyielding in the past, and even then it is quite slow to relent, providing it with its infamous namesake.

While it still breaths through its entire skin, additional oxygen intake is concentrated along dorsal "vents", acting as gills in practice as they are more likely to be exposed while the rest of the body is under the sediment, though not technically gills due to the open circulatory system. It spawns consistently on a nightly basis, resulting in millions of eggs spreading throughout the year, despite the low survival rate it's enough to promise all who'd dare a potentially very unpleasant stroll along the beach.

Dragnt Spardyvern (Draculum maculaviridi)
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Long-Footed Spardi
Habitat: Krakow Tropical Rainforest, Krakow Tropical Beach
Size: 18 cm long
Support: Endoskeleton (Bone)
Diet: Herbivore (Honorable Crown Mycostrum, Ghost Mycostrums, Redcap Mycostrums)
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Heterotherm (Basking, Muscle-Generated Heat)
Reproduction: Sexual (male and female, live birth)

The [[Honorable Crownworm]]s were fleeing underground in terror as its winged shadow loomed over their Vermpublic nest, a fountain of toxic spit shot through the air, and any crownworm not hit by the stream spit itself did its best to escape the toxic fumes that emerged from it, making their way through the rubble as sheets of [[Honorable Crownworm Mycostrum]] were torn out of place, mycostrum silk bridges collapsed and ballooning refugees where caught out of the air. Satisfied with its share of destruction, the ''Dragnt Spardyvern'' left, leaving the Vermpublic to rebuild before it will strike again.

It didn't always use to be like that. When the Dragnt Spardyvern's ancestor first made its way to Krakow and split from the [[Long-Footed Spardi]], easily accessible sources of mycostrum on the island where scarce, and it had to use its awkward burrow digging skills to dig underneath the fruiting bodies of [[Ghost Mycostrums]] to get a full meal, or accessing the subterranean mycelial networks of [[Redcap Mycostrums]], building up a degree of tolerance to their poison when eaten in small chunks, experiencing it as spicy. An excellent memory was quickly selected, allowing it to memorize large maps of ghost mycostrum locations even when they were not creating fruiting bodies. It has evolved a flattened shovel-like snout to help its digging, and by extending the secondary sliding blade bones of its lateral mandibles into its mouth, it was able to increase its grip and hold them in place when facing them forward to aid in shoveling dirt while digging a burrow or in search of food.
Still needing to spend most of their time basking in the sun to warm up their wings, and lacking large fauna to hide on, they would use their evolving toxic tolerance to find rest where others will usually stay away, namely mats of [[Hexagoleaves]], who's honeycomb pattern it has adopted as camouflage. It has developed two large mucus glands on its vertical mandibles, one ventral, and one dorsal, each forming the center of a triangle between the nostrils and mandibles, capturing absorbed toxic fumes absorbed along the nostrils and mouth, allowing it to sneeze and spit the accumulated toxins. With the arrival of the Crownworms and their Mycostrum nests on the island, all of these adaptations took a new turn, coming together for the single purpose of assaulting these castles for their delicious building materials.


(Captions: toxic spit collection and squirting mechanism)

Using the accumulated toxin in its spit to fumigate areas of the nest and avoid the painful axes of their crusaderworms, is it able to secure portions of mycostrum. It has developed its mouth to actively collect toxins, resting with its mouth open, with mucus excreted from an orifice under the mucus gland between its nostrils, collecting toxic fumes and dripping down the dorsal collector pads and into the ventral oral moats, where they get absorbed into two spongy ventral pads at the back of its cheeks. When it's ready to shoot, it will push its secondary sliding blade bones of its lateral mandibles into its toxin sponges, releasing accumulated toxin spit and folding its tongue in the process to push it into a strong squirt. Muscles in the edge of the tongue allow it to further control its spread and target area, and the shape of the teeth, while flattened to masticate mycotstrum weaves on top, have sharp edges towards the center of the mouth to direct the flow while using its semi-transparent nictitating membrane to protect its eyes from mid-flight backsplash.

Depending on how successful the raid is, it will either fly off with whatever it can take or perch on the buildings to feed before taking more for its young, using the same lateral mandible blade bones to hold onto large chunks of mycostrum in its cheeks to bring home for its young, which will unavoidably get some toxins around them from the pads and help the young build their resistance.
When not shooting or holding food, it will rest its lateral mandibles upwards with the sliding blade outside of its mouth, giving them the appearance of horns.

Despite its aggressive raids, it is still an herbivore, and while there are always casualties in war, it will generally refrain from harming the crownworms themselves, preferring to let them rebuild nests and build new nests in its territory. It uses its excellent memory to remember numerous hive locations, the time since they were last attacked, and their state of disrepair.
This process requires relatively large territories, leading to dispersed populations. To overcome the distances, they will seek out mates in the sky, seeking each other out during the mating season and performing elaborate aerial acrobatics as a mating display, though they are only able to do so for a relatively short time, as their wings can be characterized as dexterous but low on stamina. Once mated, the male will either seek more females or go back to its territory, while the female will dig a larger burrow to give live birth in.

Increasingly more active on ground level, its hind foot gradually regained functionality, from using its toes to get a better grip on the ground while digging, all the way to walking running, and hopping. By growing the 1st and 3rd bones into a muscular secondary femur and tibia and arching its short but dense 2nd bone between them, it can use all 3 limbs to hop into the air, moving from rest to flight in one quick vertical swoop. To be able to do that when pregnant without kicking their developing young when jumping, females developed a heart-shaped womb that splits the litter into two main regions, giving their backside the shallow resemblance to a bubble butt when pregnant.

Shining Redrum (Acusosis cacasalvatora)
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Jocklit
Habitat: Adult; Raptor River, Raptor Temperate Watershed, Rose Subtropical Watershed, Banelord River, Banelord Subtropical Watershed, Dixon-Fermi Southern Temperate Watershed, Leopard Temperate Watershed, Bubbles River, Bubbles Subtropical Watershed, Ofan River, Ofan Subtropical Watershed, Barlowe-LadyM Temperate Watershed; Larvae; LadyM Daylight Zone
Size: 4 cm tall (Adult), 8 mm long (Larvae)
Support: Needlebone
Diet: Detritivore, Filter-Feeder
Respiration: Passive Diffusion
Thermoregulation: Light Reflecting scales
Reproduction: Adult; Asexual (Budding, Fragmentation)
Larvae; Sexual (Broadcast Spawning)

It's autumn, and right on time, the rivers will flow red. On closer examination of the water, it becomes possible to see the roves of tiny swimmers, their dorsal sides are covered with shiny copper-colored scales but for a grey metallic needle along the center, in stark contrast to their white ventral side. They seem to be a tad wider than they are tall, giving them a leafy appearance, with two bulbous heads hanging over a large mouth, and multiple orifices lining the very edge of the leaf.

Long ago, a lineage of Jocklit Larvae developed pores on top of the nephridia, allowing them to expel more of their waste from pores on their dorsal side, delaying the accumulation of waste in the front and increasing the efficiency of their feeding. As it turned out, certain wastes from their mineral-rich diet proved most beneficial precisely when they failed to be expelled completely, leading to specialized nephridia with specialized areas of pores:
[*] All along the back, shiny reddish scales of copper with trace amounts of silver and aluminum, form a reflective surface protecting it from UV rays, which allowed their ancestors to rise to the sunlit areas without being damaged.
[*] Along the middle of its back one can see a visible grey metallic needle, a mixture of processed proteins and iron that results in a springy high carbon-steel alloy, forming its needle bones. Those aid in energy storage as well as in locomotion efficiency, as the muscles pull on the spring to continue the angulation of the body, enabling them to swim upstream and even jump small waterfalls, allowing them to spread in rivers and watersheds.
[*] On the edge of its ventral mantle, multiple pores serve for waste disposal, in effect providing it with a nearly unidirectional digestive system, though divided by waste products.
To support their river-bound lifestyle, their bulbous antennae gonads now include a mixture of chemoreceptors, mechanoreceptors, photoreceptors, and electroreceptors.

Once an obscure creature in the deep, now a visible force of nature painting the seasonal landscape. Every autumn the newborn larvae flow downs the rivers and out of watersheds, breaking out of estuaries into the big oceans, following the food, and splitting in as many directions as they can, using the colder climate to avoid alloy degradation as well as competition and predation by organisms that are more active during the warmer seasons. Occasionally they'll start to create the appearance of red tides in the middle of the ocean surface. Large congregations near the surface are made of many hollow "breeding balls" in which they exchange gametes. As the winter solstice approaches those become increasingly more frequent.
As the weather gets warmer, they'll get larger and start shedding their red-tinted copper scales in favor of lighter shinier shades, prioritizing extracting traces of silver and aluminum through the scale pores. Come springtime, they'll be making their way back to the coasts and estuaries. They'll make use of their vertically angulating spring-like needle bone to jump every waterfall and cross the shallowest of areas, swimming upstream in rivers, though the many that will fall into watersheds will be happy to make it their home if they find a good spot. Along the path, they will use their bulbous sensory antennae to touch and "taste" the sediments and rocks of the river, seeking mineral deposits rich in iron, magnetite, and other useful deposits.

Once they find a good spot, they will attach themselves using their antennae and mouth and begin their transformation. They will lose most of their nervous system and their nutrient ducts will extend into a holdfast, though they will retain and continue to grow their metallic scales out of aluminum and silver, better suited for reflecting high sunlight and withstanding the heat, and in some cases allowing them to survive low tide. The adult form is more detritivorous than that of their ancestor, using gluconic and oxalic acids to bioleach iron and other useful minerals from the sediments, a process which is aided by the heat during the warm seasons. They will continue to use their nephridia pours to expel waste products, as the bioleaching process tends to result in large quantities of useless chemicals, such as vanadium.

As the midsummer passes, they will start growing out fonds, growing each proto-larva on a large scale. They will hold onto their fonds until autumn, when they'll start using pheromone exchanges down the rivers to coordinate, releasing their larvae all together and all at once in a yearly event known as the autumn redrum, increasing the chance that some will make it as they swim down the red flowing river. The Holdfast will remain in place, leaching and storing the minerals in the hopes of growing a larger fond next year.