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If the issue isn't resolved, I can make a minor plague that plausibly removes the freshwater species. There will be a gen or so to save saycers by making saltwater species (and I plan to do this anyway), as it would be descended from a less deadly disease I'm working on affecting carapacers in general.

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ May 20 2021, 11:20 PM)
Is there a way it can extract oxygen from air through a specific chamber in its stomach, even if the breathing chamber is full of watery acids, rather than air?

As for the fate of the Saycers...well, either they get retconned into extinction, or one could find commonalities in saycers' diets and then say that diet commonality is oddly high in vanadium.

That sounds like it would be significantly less effective than my suggestion over private messages of modifying the gills to hold water.

If a food source is made vanadium-rich, then the question becomes, where did that food source get it?

Carapacers, as a group, severely depend on vanadium, as their blood pigment is vanadium-based. There is no viable source of vanadium on land at present, so unless we do some funky soil color retcon to make Dixon and Talon weirdly rich in vanadium, that means saycers, which are freshwater, have a bit of a problem. I had actually intended to abandon the freshwater line to extinction after discovering this issue right after riversaycer was approved and wish I had brought it up at the time; as it is right now, carapacers should be restricted to saltwater without heavy justification. So what do we do about the saycers?

An unrelated saycer problem also related to their blood, I did not notice at the time that Sealsaycer evolved lungs derived from its stomach. If I had, I would have rejected it, as its digestive and circulatory system are the same organ and this is just asking for lungfuls of acidic blood. That detail should probably be revised or removed.

I do have plans for descendants, though black flora-eaters will probably be the most diverse.

Support Rules

The material and type of a species' support structures, if applicable, must be listed. Examples:
- Endoskeleton (Bone)
- Shell (Calcite)
- Cell Wall (Silica)
- Soft-Bodied (Hydrostatic)

Convergent Evolution

Full-body endoskeletons cannot evolve the same shape twice, so for example since vertebrate-like skeletons have already evolved, creating a new kind of "vertebrate" is not allowed.

Size limits on land

A terrestrial organism cannot be larger than their support structure and material allows without justification. The size limits are as follows:

- Soft-bodied / hydrostatic (ie. worms, squids): 30 cm
- Lightweight Exoskeleton (ie. insects): 2 meters
- Heavy Exoskeleton (neosiluros; no real-world example): 1 meter
- Hard Endoskeleton (ie. most vertebrates): Reference mammals, ornithischians
- Hollow Endoskeleton (ie. birds): Reference sauropods
- Cartilage Endoskeleton (ie. amphibious sharks): 1 meter
- Unjointed Wooden Endoskeleton: ~60 cm
- Jointed Wooden Endoskeleton: ~4 meters (cannot shrink smaller than 1 meter)




Respiration Rules

Both the method and activity level of respiration must be specified. If it isn't clear whether a structure is made for air or water, that must also be clarified.

Convergent Evolution

Identical active air-breathing organs cannot evolve twice unless they were modified from the same ancestral organ system or behavior.

Respiration Transition

Species respiration must use transition species.

Example:

Water-Breathing -> Both Air- and Water-Breathing -> Air-Breathing

Passive -> Semi-Active -> Active

Respiration Size Limits

Terrestrial fauna with passive respiration cannot be thicker than 4 centimeters without justification.

Planimals which produce their own oxygen using photosynthesis are exempt from this rule.

Is this passive, semi-active, or active?

For those less familiar with respiration outside of vertebrates, determining whether an organism's respiratory system is passive or active can be a challenge. Here is a rough guide:
- Passive: No air/water flow, dependence on diffusion; nothing needs to move for the organism to breathe
- Semi-Active: Weak air/water flow, such as powered by cilia, beating fins, or swimming forward; movement of respiratory system isn't very visible if at all
- Active: Strong flow, pumping of air/water; usually, some part of the body is visibly expanding and contracting




Thermoregulation Rules

Thermoregulation Transition

Species thermoregulation must use transition species.

Example:

Ectotherm -> Mesotherm ->Endotherm

Ectotherms in Extreme Cold Environments

Terrestrial ectotherms cannot be present in polar or glacial biomes without justification.

Watch out for accidental endotherm traits!

As most large animals familiar to us in real life are endotherms, it can be easy to accidentally give an ectotherm characteristics which it would not usually have or that even actively harm it.

The following traits should only be present in organisms which can generate their own body heat:
- Full-body insulatory integument (ie. fur or feathers); ectotherms do not need these and they actively prevent them from warming up, as insulation works in both directions
- Blubber; similar to fur and feathers
- Moist, "steamy" breath; indicates breath is being heated by the lungs

The following traits are rare in true ectotherms and must be justified on inclusion:
- Erect, pillar-like legs (as opposed to the sprawling legs of a lizard)
- Powered flight
- Hopping, sprinting, and other high-energy cursorial adaptations
- Huddling behavior

But is the appearance of a trait for a reason really not in a sense intentional? Tigers evolved to have stripes so that they could blend in with (correction) branches and leaf litter. The trait became widespread in the population because it has a purpose. Meanwhile, "unintentional" evolutionary traits also exist--in some circumstances such as population bottlenecks, a freak mutation can become established in a species' population without any reason for it to have evolved, such as the loss of blood pigment, a reduction of the immune system, or a sudden doubling of the entire genome. And this isn't even getting into the bizarre way cephalopods evolve, which is literally goal-oriented evolution in real life. I've even seen so-called spec gods compare evolution and human society, noting that both show a pattern of testing new ideas and picking the best one, just one by mutation of a genome and the other by electrical signals in a brain.

I mean, there can be evolutionary "intention" in that features tend to evolve for a reason. That's the case with shrogs being different colors too. I don't understand the point you're making with the wording.

Insulation can trap heat and it can block excess heat. I also imagined this being somewhat like an ostrich, which is also cursorial and has naked legs. I'll edit with some clarifications soon.

It is indeed rapid selection of long leg mutations. Had the assault of the argusraptors been slower, they could evolve more gradually, gain hooves, and lose toes along the way, reaching this form with legs better suited to running.

user posted image
Barkbuck (Cervolepus planilanx)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Scrub Barkback
Habitat: Javen Tropical Woodland, Javen Tropical Scrub, Darwin Savanna, North Darwin Tropical Scrub, North Darwin Tropical Woodland
Size: 1.2 meters long (excluding tail)
Support: Endoskeleton (Jointed Wood)
Diet: Herbivore (Crystample, Woodland Grovecrystal, Tropical Crystamboo, Caprystal, Signpost Crystamboo, Rifamboo, Crystamboo, Fruiting Grovecrystal)
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Mesotherm (Bark)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Live Birth)

Following the attack of the argusraptors, some regions were left completely devoid of large herbivores, as they had all been eaten to extinction. One such region was Javen. The barkbuck split from its ancestor, left the trees, and quadrupled in size to fill this void, losing its prehensile tail in the process. Despite its beak and teeth being made of wood, it is very effective at consuming crystals, as all it needs to do to eat them is create enough force to crush them--it doesn’t need to chew--and wood is strong enough to do so. Despite its bark being useless to protect it from predators, it is retained as insulation, as its structure blocks excess heat from entering its body and traps the heat that it has already produced fairly well. Its legs remain naked, as it still needs some bare skin in order to urinate due to plents like itself doing so through pores in their skin. This also has the effect of removing excess heat as needed.

In an arms race with the argusraptor complex, which completely bypasses any form of woody protection with its sclerotised jaws, the barkbuck rapidly evolved cursorial adaptations to flee instead. Because it evolved its long legs so quickly, being selected for over a short period of time rather than appearing gradually and being optimized along the way, all of its toes are intact and clawed, even though it only walks on two of them per foot. Its thumbs are still opposable, allowing it to use them to grasp and manipulate flora as needed.

Barkbuck’s bark, instead of forming thick brown splintering scales, is fairly thin and smooth and, like a surprisingly large number of Terran trees, actually contains pigmentation. It can be difficult to distinguish from the bare skin of its face and legs without close examination. There was actually no biological reason for it to be colored distinctly in its ancestor, and the reason why basal barkbacks have such strangely-colored bark will likely remain a mystery.

The barkbuck has smaller and more numerous babies than one might expect from a creature of its size and niche. This is because of a major constraint of plent reproduction--their offspring, at birth, must be able to squeeze out through the mouth. Further, having a single large baby would restrict neck flexibility during pregnancy, which is not great for an herbivore. So, barkbuck still has litters of 3-4 small babies like its ancestor instead of investing in one large baby. It is also beneficial to have more babies because it doesn’t live in herds and cannot depend on group defense behaviors, so many of its babies are lost to predators.

The barkbuck is yellowish in the more open parts of its range, but populations in the woodlands have darker coloration to blend in with the dark trees.


Old thread: https://specevo.jcink.net/index.php?showtopic=1412

What might current life become 100 generations from now? Let's make and doodle completely wild predictions in this thread.

My only suggestion is to keep it in line with the ancestral anatomy of the species you pick to evolve. The result can be serious, completely off the wall, or somewhere in between--it's your choice.

For those on the discord server, this thread is analogous to the #wild-speculation channel.



Note: This thread is not meant for dead-serious "this will happen". It's for predictions, like meta-speculative biology. Some of it is silly while some is a little more serious, and some of it might even happen, but honestly, most of it probably won't, a lot like future Earth spec, except it's for a planet that is also itself a spec project.

Although Sagan 4 Beta is meant to be more scientifically accurate than Sagan 4 Alpha, as a collaborative project run by non-professionals based on already-shaky starting material, it is impossible for all content to hold up to that vision. As such, referencing Sagan 4 Beta organisms for your own project, science homework, or even unrelated Sagan 4 submissions is not recommended.

Disclaimer FAQ


Q: Why can't problematic submissions be decanonized, like what The Library did?
A: While a species that was recently approved by mistake can be easily plucked out, an established lineage cannot be. Unlike The Library and similar community projects, Sagan 4 is iterative and as such submissions directly influence one another like with real evolution. Decanonizing a problematic lineage would be like going back in time to prevent moss from ever evolving--the repercussions would be far too significant and would reverberate throughout the entire tree of life. Even a dead-end offshoot with no descendants is another species' predator, competitor, or prey.

Q: Can't you just have an extinction event that wipes out all problematic organisms instead?
A: In theory yes. In practice, however, as seen with many failed projects it is an observable fact that doing such a thing in an iterative project like Sagan 4 will cause conflict in the community and drive away members, potentially killing it. As such, non-destructive methods of dealing with problematic organisms such as retcons are vastly preferred.

Q: What about the Cish?
A: Cish were an exceptional case. Rather than just having scientific oversights, they were laden with problems stemming from misinterpretation and poor moderation practices early on, and they inexplicably replaced all of their ancestor's alien anatomical features with standard chordate ones. They were also greatly disliked by Sagan 4's community, and the decision to wipe them out was decided by vote. The main reason the Snoodcish was spared was because it had actually been reverted back into a more primitive state, ironically also by misinterpretation, and as such could serve as a starting point to potentially redeem the lineage.

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user posted image
Disasterxata (Magnacaprasaura clades)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Gracilxata
Habitat: Dixon Savanna, Dixon Tropical Scrub, Dixon Tropical Woodland, Dixon-Darwin High Grassland
Size: 3.2 meters long
Support: Endoskeleton (Bone)
Diet: Herbivore (Pinprong, Quaxaca, Thistle Puffgrass, Sprawling Quillball, Fuzzyfan, Yuccagave, Snow Windbulb, Puffgrass, Arid Puffgrass, Inda, Fuzzpile saplings, Coniflor saplings, Cragmyr saplings, Mainland Fuzzpalm saplings, Tropical Gecoba Tree saplings, Carnossamer saplings)
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Endotherm
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Hard-Shelled Eggs)

Following the attack of the argusraptors, some biomes were left completely devoid of any large herbivores, as they had all been eaten to extinction. The disasterxata replaced its ancestor and quadrupled in size, becoming a large herbivore in a very short amount of time due to a complete lack of competition in a significant portion of its range. The still-extant xatazelle remains in the niche it left behind. It has become bulky once more and has a large gut which helps in digesting all kinds of small flora. It can even eat spiny flora because it has thick saliva to protect its mouth and tongue. For protection against predators, its armor is more extensive. However, it is slower as a result. Its chin spike and upper incisors come together as a bizarre mismatched beak for clipping flora.

The disasterxata has very poor hearing, mostly because its ancestral eye-hearing method is very ineffective at actually picking up sound. It mainly detects predators by sight instead, and its ear crests have been modified into a pair of antler-like structures. The “antleyears” are somewhat longer and more elaborate in males than females. Its main predators are argusraptors, but unlike the woody armor of plents, the disasterxata’s armor contains mineral bone, which is far more difficult for argusraptors to bite through.

Though it lacks any kind of fiberous integument, the disasterxata is nonetheless an endotherm capable of regulating its own body temperature. Its large size keeps it warm in the cooler parts of its range. Disasterxatas move in herds for protection and nest communally. To avoid crushing their eggs, and so that they may walk away to eat, they use decaying flora piled on top to incubate them rather than sitting on them directly. Though small, hatchlings are precocial and can run soon after hatching, though they largely depend on their parents to bring them food. Adults may employ older juveniles as “babysitters” for younger ones while they leave to find food, similar to the Terran Psittacosaurus. They reach full size in 3 years and can live for around 25.

Through incidental consumption of spores which passed through the disasterxata’s gut unharmed, the puffgrass has been spread to Dixon Savanna and Dixon Tropical Scrub.

--

Wasn’t gonna replace this originally...then I noticed it was a recent victim of spondylozoan knee-becomes-heel syndrome. Its ancestor’s ancestor is in the same niche anyway :^P

changed to hook, I changed what it was while drawing and forgot to edit the description

user posted image
Woodyshroom (Fungilignum obumbratio)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Supershrooms
Habitat: Vivus Boreal, Vivus Temperate Rainforest, Darwin Temperate Woodland, Darwin Temperate Rainforest, Dixon-Darwin Boreal, Huggs Temperate Riparian, Bone Temperate Riparian, Irinya Temperate Riparian
Size: 1 meter wide
Support: Cell Wall (Cellulose)
Diet: Detritivore (Decaying wood of black flora)
Respiration: Passive
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm
Reproduction: Asexual (Asexual Spore Achenes, Budding), Sexual (Periodic Spore Fusion)

The woodyshroom split from its ancestor and grew significantly in size due to a lack of competition, becoming a prominent decomposer of black flora. It differs from sapshrooms, which also grow as “shelves” on wood, in that it does not consume sap at all and is not parasitic. It has traded its ancestral fruit for clusters of woody achenes which each contain only a single spore. As its name suggests, the woodyshroom’s fruiting body is lignified, which makes it difficult to eat, digest, or dislodge from the decaying log it feeds on. It is strong enough to support the weight of medium-sized fauna standing on it. Unlike the chitinous “wood” of shelf fungi on Earth, the woodyshroom’s wood is actually genuine cellulose-based wood.

The woodyshroom has gained sexual reproduction; as its achenes contain multiple spores, not all of them germinate. These dormant spores are periodically transported by rain, and when they meet they sometimes fused. Having never had sexual reproduction in its ancestry, the woodyshroom's ancestors were naturally haploid; the first fused spores, meanwhile, were diploid. However, it did not gain the ability to undergo meiosis until several iterations later, resulting in the modern woodyshroom being highly polyploid, possessing a monstrous genome 32 times the size of its ancestor's. Fertilized and unfertilized spores can grow into fully functional and morphologically identical woodyshrooms, the former (sporophyte) with 32 complete sets of chromosomes (dotriacontaploid) and the latter (gametophyte) with 16 (hexadecaploid); the sporophyte uses meiosis to produce hexadecaploid spores. The large genome will likely not shrink considerably in the future, rather the redundant chromosome pairs will gradually transform into new kinds of chromosomes with their own genes and purposes, taking full advantage of all the newly-added genetic "space".

Image caption: Achene
user posted image

The woodyshroom’s achenes, which are just one millimeter wide, function like seeds and have hooks on them, which causes them to become stuck in fur, feathers, trichomes, plent cotton, and other forms of fibrous integument present on fauna. They depend on luck to successfully land on logs, as the achenes have no food stores apart from the wood making up the casing. This is not much of a problem, however, as the forests are filled with wood, and the main body is perennial--they can live as long as 80 years, growing bigger all the while and producing new spores.

The woodyshroom can sometimes grow on living trees, feeding on their deceased heartwood. When it does this to a towering rainforest tree such as the gargantuan obsiditree, this can be actively harmful, as the trunk becomes more fragile and will eventually be toppled by strong winds. However, shorter, wider black flora such as obsidoaks actually benefit from this, as being hollow makes them lighter and better-able to support their own weight, which in turn allows them to live longer and grow larger.

Like its smaller ancestors and cousins, the woodyshroom is highly resistant to disease and parasites. It readily bounces back from plagues without ever even becoming endangered.

Thank you, and I've added a detail on that

It's not fire-resistant when dry and dead.

added a detail

Edited and elaborated.

user posted image
Frigid Vesuvianite (Vesuviana arcticus)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Vesuvianite Tree
Habitat: Drake Taiga, Drake Boreal, Drake Polar Scrub, Drake Rocky, Drake Polar Woodland
Size: 28 meters tall
Support: Cell Wall (Chitin), Chitinous "Wood" Trunk
Diet: Photosynthesis, Detritivore
Respiration: Passive (Stomata)
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm
Reproduction: Sexual (Airborne Spores), Asexual (Budding)

The frigid vesuvianite split from its ancestor. It is better-suited to surviving exposure to snow and ice, allowing it to colonize the taiga and polar scrub. Though smaller than its ancestor, it can grow in colder conditions, allowing it to successfully reach full size in polar habitats and higher in the mountains, even encroaching on subalpine altitudes. It competes very successfully with the Pandocrystal, but has not outcompeted it.

The frigid vesuvianite has even greater branching of its trunk than its ancestor did. In fact, it would appear almost like it has a single erect trunk completely covered in branches, but this “trunk” is simply a series of upright branches itself. Its other branches slope downwards, allowing snow to slide off. It can grow slightly faster than its ancestor, especially in the polar scrub, due to greater availability of nitrogen. Otherwise, however, it is similar; it takes decades to reach full size but can live for centuries, it reproduces using airborne spores released from dedicated crystals, and it can use detritus as a food source before it reaches full size (the latter also allowing it to grow even in dark polar winters).

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Darth Shroom Herder (Chimeraflora darthensis)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Shroom Herder
Habitat: Darwin Temperate Woodland, Vivus Boreal; Farms Only (no permanent residence): Darth Lava Tube Caves
Size: 1.5 meters tall
Support: Endoskeleton (Jointed Wood)
Diet: Herbivore (Sapshrooms, Supershrooms, Tamed Berry Arbourshrooms), Scavenger, Weak Photosynthesis
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: ?
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Live Birth)

The Darth shroom herder split from its ancestor. It primarily consumes farmed shrooms, no longer feeding from its stockpiles at all. With its instinctive habit of farming shrooms using detritus and carcasses came a drive to find bigger, better sources, leading this large beaked nodent to move northward into the woodlands which were full of logs and leaf litter. There it also discovered the Darth Lava Tube Caves, within which conditions were stable year-round and there was lots of dark space unobstructed by competing flora to grow large fields of shrooms. Though not all populations of the species use these caves, the ones that do have become the species’ namesake because their massive harvests resulted in them having an exceptionally high population density. It has taken on a dark coloration using anthocyanins, which do not block light for photosynthesis; however, living in a dark environment, photosynthesis has hardly any use for the species and is ultimately vestigial.

Darth shroom herder shroom farms are more conspicuous than those of its ancestor. To maximize growing space for shrooms, they will instinctively lean tree branches together in a manner resembling the framework of conical tents such as teepees. To encourage more shroom growth, the Darth shroom herder will defecate into the shroom farms, as its dung contains the spores from its last meal. Shroom mycelium will climb the dead branches and produce fruiting bodies all over them, as well as all over whatever else the herders placed in their farm. The Darth shroom herder will then consume the shrooms once their berries are ripe. The shrooms sometimes attract small creatures which eat shrooms, such as gamergate gundis, which the Darth shroom herders will stomp on when they see them to defend their farms. As the shroom farms provide a significant amount of food compared to the amount of effort needed to obtain and eat it, Darth shroom herders have a lot of free time, which is mostly spent on social activity.

Darth shroom herders live in groups, like their ancestor. Their instinctive agriculture and large amount of resources allows them to form very large herds, sometimes surpassing two thousand members. Their territories overlap far more than their ancestor’s, simply due to their sheer numbers and resource availability, and they only particularly defend the farms from outsiders. Indeed, only the farms are actually marked as territory at all, as it would be impossible to maintain scent marks for the entire section of land they inhabit. This has its disadvantages of course; members of other herds can encroach very deep into their territory and steal from their farms without being noticed until the last possible moment. Intraspecific conflict can still be quite deadly, as their vicious defense of their farms still involves a clashing of fangs.

The Darth shroom herder’s spikes are longer and are now present on the tail, and they serve to break up its shape and make it look bigger than it actually is. The spikes don’t actually have much direct defensive use and break easily. The species is also sexually dimorphic, as the males are slightly larger and have green striping on their throats and the females are slightly smaller and lack the green markings. Males may fight over mates, though this is far less violent and more ritual as to not tear apart the herd. They breed in the winter and give birth to one offspring at a time in the spring. Like most plents, they mate and give birth through their mouths, which they can open unexpectedly wide for this purpose.

Image caption: Female
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Chameleon Obsidishank (Chameleumbra canitia)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Broad-Trunk Obsiditree
Habitat: Darwin Chaparral, Darwin Plains, Darwin Rocky, Dixon-Darwin High Grassland, Vivus Rocky, Vivus High Grassland
Size: 5 meters tall
Support: Cell Wall (Cellulose), Woody Trunk
Diet: Photosynthesis
Respiration: Passive (Stomata)
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm
Reproduction: Sexual, Airborne Cylindrical Spores

The chameleon obsidishank split from its ancestor and adapted for drier conditions, ironically losing its broad trunk in the process. It is neotenous, better resembling a juvenile tree with its skinny trunk. It has also outcompeted the Obsidoak in its range, as the larger tree struggled to reach full size in biomes prone to fire, and as a result the Treehook Tamow has also become locally extinct. It has a branching trunk and multiple spore pods. In order to keep itself cool, it has evolved camoplasts convergent with those of greyscale algae which allow it to change color; when leaves overheat, they turn grey and then white, but once they have cooled off enough they will darken again. On average, excluding the night, the leaves are at their darkest in the mornings and evenings and lightest around midday. Its spore pods are longish rather than round.

The chameleon obsidishank is somewhat resistant to fire, though not immune. It can recover and regrow after going up in flames. Its leaves are skinny and resist desiccation better than the broader leaves on its ancestor. It is evergreen, or perhaps more accurately evergrey, and rarely sheds its leaves, unlike its ancestor. It uses tubers to store water and nutrients for use in surviving dry seasons and regrowing after fire.

The chameleon obsidishank produces many airborne spores from its spore chambers. Their shape allows wind to pass through rather than around them more easily, blowing the spores away. The production of spores is triggered by an increase in humidity and the release by intense wind, so that they will be distributed sufficiently to germinate during the local wet season or spring rain. The spores are so abundant that they can create an orange haze, and many are lost to the wind, becoming a rather abundant form of aeroplankton high in the sky along with the spores of many other kinds of black flora. Saplings can reach 30 cm in height within their first month in ideal conditions. The amount of time it takes to reach full size varies depending on local conditions over time, but they grow significantly faster than their ancestor did, usually in only 10-15 years.

Preemptively gonna note, since OviFan has stated he doesn't know much about intelligence, if it were me I'd make a comparison to corvids, which similarly craft tools (and, like shrogs, arrived at tool use from instinctive nest building)

I've added support for artist and creator2 to the infobox.

Edited.

Only semi-related, it's kinda funny how arthrotheres ended up basically becoming lizardworms 2 in Beta completely on accident. I had no idea lizardworms existed when I made Catbug, an especially lizardworm-like arthrothere.