Usually, organisms don't change joint directions when they change their locomotion, and instead work within their limits.

Don't individual vent locations only last a few thousand years? This would basically be extinct on creation.

QUOTE (Jarlaxle @ Jan 30 2023, 08:51 PM)

QUOTE (colddigger @ Jan 31 2023, 02:34 AM) I do actually have a whole rooster that I killed in my freezer that I could rip a wing off of and pull the bones out of and we can look at it, I actually looked at one of those and it was part of why I was confused about the discussion of twisting motion in bird wings prior when it seemed to have been claimed that they cannot move outside of a 2d plane beyond the shoulder.. As far as I can tell that is still the claim and the basis of the argument against the visorbill's ankle motion

The ankle, which might more accurately be called the second knee, is fulfilling the same role as the elbow in a bird's wing, which indeed is restricted to a plane. There is non-planar movement in the wing toe. But not in the elbow.

However, a bird gets what has the same ultimate effect as non-planar movement from the twisting of the shoulder. A sauceback can get the same exact degree of effect from twisting the hip, but the knee and heel remain on the same plane.

The problem is that instead of showing that, you show the heel bending perpendicular to the plane of rotation clearly visible in the knee joint. That can't happen.

Can you at least trace the "curve" you're talking about? Because the only curves I see are a patagium (or stretchy skin membrane) between the shoulder and the wrist, and feathers being pulled to a different angle by the hand.

You know what, Jarlaxle, if you have access to a place that sells bone-in chicken wings, please go buy and examine one. It'll save us a lot of ridiculous arguing.

QUOTE (Jarlaxle @ Jan 30 2023, 08:21 PM)

Good point, the elbow is twisting into the curve as well. Kind of goes against your general argument .

NO IT ISN'T?????????????????????????????????????

Do you think feathers are rigidly attached and never move?????

Do you think birds can't twist their shoulders????????

What kind of utterly insane misconception is making you think the elbow is bending in any way but its intended direction???????????????????????????

I assumed that was about how it describes the recording of its extinction

calling it its favorite is more fun wording though

QUOTE (Jarlaxle @ Jan 30 2023, 08:03 PM)

The base of the toe is a new the wrist but the ankle is not a wrist? Also if we're enforcing a rule against joints evolving to break away from their original plane, how would biats evolve to spread their wings in the first place? And given that nature breaks that rule in so many ways, what accuracy are we gaining by reinforcing such a rule?

??????????????????????????????????????????

Yes, the foot proper and particularly the wing toe are doing what a bird's hand does.

An elbow does not need to bend like a wrist. The ball socket hip, the saddle joints for the toes, the patagia, and the broad mobility of the feathers themselves allow it to bend in all the ways a bird wing can, because it's the same joints in roughly the same locations doing the same things. I don't get what the hell Jarlaxle is referring to, unless...

Jarlaxle, do you think birds can't twist their shoulders?

QUOTE (MNIDJM @ Jan 30 2023, 07:30 PM)

The wording might be a bit too meta in places.

Which parts should I specifically edit? I want to keep in the ghost lineage and fossil stuff at least, since I'm explaining why its existence went unaddressed.

QUOTE (colddigger @ Jan 30 2023, 07:55 PM)

Third paragraph has capiri misspelled a couple times

Darn autocorrect.

the...curve created by the fact that there's a patagium stretched in between the wrist and the shoulder??? or the curve created by the arrangement of the feathers????? What curve are you talking about, all I see skeletally are bent wrists??????

?????????????



??????????????????????????????



Biat wings have all the same basic joint locations as a bird' wing just with an extra segment before it meets the body????????????????????

The part that bends when ophreys do that is... the base of the wing toe. Because those images are showing the equivalent location on a bird's wing, the wrist, bending.

How do you think a biat wing is structured??

Mystery Capiri (Brachiocervus lazarus) (lazarus arm-deer)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Migrating Capispine
Habitat: Maineiac Marsh, Maineiac Mudflat, Maineiac Temperate River, Maineiac Temperate Riparian, Maineiac Lake, Maineiac Temperate Palus, Maineiac Montane River, Maineiac Montane Riparian
Size: 50 cm long
Support: Endoskeleton (Bone)
Diet: Omnivore (Yanisflora, Brieneux, Vingrasions, Maineiac Bubbleweed, Bubblebush, Shelterkelp, Bubblily, Baebula, Sappy Pinknose, Colonial Bubblgea, Pilonomroot, Marbleflora, Colonialballs, juvenile Leafy Plyentwort, Maineiac Bubblepede, Minikruggs, Pedesorm, Pedemuk, Eusuckers)
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Mesotherm
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Hard-Shelled Eggs in Nests)

The mystery capiri replaced its ancestor. Small and seldom-seen, this little capiri seems, at first, to be a fairly ordinary capiri. Very little sticks out as special about it at all, in fact, as it is very similar to its ancestor in anatomy, though it is smaller and more omnivorous. But there is one strange detail that gives the mystery capiri its name: it appears to be displaced in time by about 50 million years.

The alleged extinction of capiris at the end of the snowball event was not nearly what it seemed, as there was one small wetland-dwelling species that managed to slip under the radar. It spawned a ghost lineage which apparently managed to raft to the volcanic island that would eventually become Lamarck. It survived unnoticed in the millions of years that passed, having laid low in the face of competition from other organisms in the area, and any fossils it left before just the last few million years were buried by frequent volcanic eruptions. The mystery capiri stands as the end point of that ghost lineage.

The mystery capiri bears many traits typical of capiris. It has a keratinous beak and crest, a pair of compound eyes each consisting of three eyes in a single socket, a color-changing sail, a single pair of legs derived from its forelimbs, and a tail derived from what was once a leg as well. The tail bears spikes at its end, which can be used to strike a chasing predator using a kicking motion. Less common for capiris, but typical of its derived ancestry, it lacks teeth, has a long prehensile tongue, and has spikes at the tip of each sail spine. Its body is covered in scales, but it has a layer of fat which allows it to hold in some of the heat it generates.

Moving on to the specifics of the mystery capiri itself, this small creature roams up and down the floodplain in small family groups, using its tongue to snack on flora and small easy-to-catch fauna that it passes by. Its favorite food is the yanisflora, which its ancestors also ate, but it will also eat other leafy flora in its environment. It regularly enters the river itself to feed on aquatic flora, even wandering into deep water and using the high placement of its nostrils to take breaths even when it’s completely submerged otherwise, but it usually sticks close to shore so that it can flee from aquatic predators.

The mystery capiri has little protection against winter chill, so over the winter the entire species migrates north to hibernate in the shelter of small natural caves carved along the mountain river. This is the only time one is likely to see a large number of them in one place. In the spring, they all wake up and disperse downstream to breed and lay their eggs along the river, lake, and wetlands. Mate selection is determined by color-changing displays and dances using their long tongues to show health and dexterity, respectively. Once their eggs hatch, parents and their young will proceed to start wandering the riverside together. The young grow quickly and reach full size after their first year, but they will not start breeding until their second. Mystery capiris have a life expectancy of 3-4 years, but if they are not killed by predators or disease, they can live as long as 12.

I was gonna give it a bit and wait for input from others but more and more just came up and up that I gave up on it completely; I think this is completely unsalvageable for the following reasons:

- Too large to fit inside plants as described even if they shrunk by 10x compared to the ancestor
- It is incredibly unlikely that large active predatory cellular fauna would evolve into the 3 roles described, which are of largely sedentary and much much smaller bacteria and fungi
- The genus is too broad in ecological niche
- Does not appear to be based on research of actual organisms doing the things described, thus resulting in it being overly vague and likely missing things that they would need in order to function (a problem also present in nitrocycles, by the way)
- Much of the text is copied from this video word for word, and while it could be rewritten in hydro's own words, well...
- Fixing all of the above issues would require a redesign and rewrite so fundamental that it would become a completely different organism, like turning a submission of a sauceback into a submission of an obsiditree, and we're right at the end of a gen that's drawn on way too long, so it really isn't worth it.

So I'm going ahead and rejecting it.

wait a minute, holy shit, these are huge??

I don't think it's even remotely plausible for these ecological roles to come about from macroscopic, predatory, cellular fauna like Hexpouruses. Even as 3 separate entries, one for each niche. This puts it into the territory of a complete rewrite into a fundamentally different organism, which is grounds for rejection.

Apparently the niches of real microbial endophytes that exist in real life are already taken by nitrocycles, and these don't even resemble any plant symbiotes?

QUOTE (OviraptorFan @ Jan 30 2023, 05:32 PM)

I still feel like the torso is way too compressed, it just looks like it has no room for guts at all...

I mean, it's as compressed as a giraffe, proportionally speaking.

For future reference



This is what all the joints are. Ball socket hip, planar motion before the toes, then the toes including the wing toe can move around more like the wrist of a bird.

There is some added complexity with the feathers themselves being able to move up and down some relative to the plane, but the joints should stay pretty much restricted to this or you will have a very floppy nonfunctional wing.

QUOTE (colddigger @ Jan 30 2023, 02:47 PM)

That was my initial understanding before this whole deal with joints and the skeletal outline came into play, and when I was asking about how Saucebacks could twist below the hip on their toes like real animals could. That in mind, that their toes are what's able to break out of the planar motion, what are your thoughts on the limb skeleton I suggested? Basically shortening all the bones, especially the single foot bone and allowing the long toe to become a more maneuverable wing body for fluttering or vortex flight. I wonder about toe folding given they have three bones in there, or would they just fuse...

Well, ophrey wing toes are just one long bone


Breaking planar motion for the toes specifically was kinda required for the ancestors of modern saucebacks to really move the way they did? Especially when they first evolved biramous limbs and were sprawling the hooves to stay balanced on top of other creatures.


Shortening all bones before the wing toe could work, but you'd get a sauce with very short legs lol. I have a concept waiting for next gen that kinda does that, it doesn't even properly climb anymore it just clings to things

The intent was always that the wing toe is the one doing the motion equivalent to that of a bird's hand. I always positioned joints accordingly? That's why they have to have feathers on their toes even in species that walk on both hooves.

If the entire "digitigrade foot" was doing that motion, there wouldn't be species raising and lengthening their toes. They'd just lose the feathers on the wing toe. (I know I have a species in the wip thread that seems to contradict this, but it has an actual explanation that y'all will see next gen)

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Jan 30 2023, 01:11 PM)

Otherwise, so far as I can tell by what I know about chemosynthetic bacteria, it seems sound.

Actually, as alluded to above,

"Like the Ferrotine, the ancestor of the Coppertop, the Copperhead Octothermia, stored excess metal across its entire cell wall. In the case of the Ferrotine it stored excess iron, but in the case of the Copperhead Octothermia, it stored copper. This hindered their ability to absorb nutrients. The Coppertop no longer has this issue, concentrating excess copper it at the top of the cell."

The entire reasoning for its namesake adaptation is just completely incorrect, as the sulfur it needs to perform chemosynthesis is in the water, not in the rock, so it should have just as much trouble getting it as its ancestor.

isn't the sulfur used for chemosynthesis captured from the water itself, making the copper top still block it from getting any?