| QUOTE (Nergali @ Nov 16 2021, 04:45 PM) | ||
Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I meant to put down spiracles, as lizardworms, one of their closest kin, have those, and I don't believe any other method has been mentioned in this lineage. |
Saying "spiracles" is like saying "nostrils".
Probably better to wait for elaboration to be done before adding respiration.
| QUOTE (CosmoRomanticist @ Nov 16 2021, 12:16 PM) |
| What are the red parts on the wings? I'm afraid that this looks like some kind of cartoon coral monster more than an actual animal. I'm sad about this, because I like the concept. I just feel like it needs some changes. |
There are actual animals that look like this.
Why are the eyes shiny? (And why so many? By my calculations this has at least 22 teeth)
| QUOTE (MNIDJM @ Nov 14 2021, 12:12 PM) | ||
|
I need a better name for this grouping before I can do that
| QUOTE (SpeedTowel @ Nov 14 2021, 12:26 PM) |
| Falcotherium is repeated twice in the scientific name |
It's supposed to be
looks like everyone liked sheather's idea of flying saucers. okay
It's more that these are the ones that are basal enough to fit in the same subgenus. I didn't want to call them sausophreys or something, I actually would like suggestions for better names
For flora, accidental biochemical earth cloning is probably okay to ensure anyone is actually able to make them, as long as it fits established canon. For fauna though, it's good to research first--for example, I nearly implied plents have stuff that only works with through guts on accident not too long ago.
yes, each species is listed in its respective habitat, rather than linking the subgenus. On approval, I will upload this to the wiki myself, since it's quite a bit more complicated than a normal upload.
I've added more detail to each individual species.
I've added more detail to each individual species.
Biochemistry it's largely unelaborated, so any time you state a species does something biochemical it becomes canon that all biochemistry needed for that is present in previous species.
It's pretty great for accidentally turning aliens into Earth clones.
It's pretty great for accidentally turning aliens into Earth clones.
Abyssal gigantism is a competition thing (and, in real life, does not exist as it is described in the rules). It would not be a thing at all if fish were more suited to deep sea life.
| QUOTE (MNIDJM @ Nov 12 2021, 10:53 PM) |
| I was hoping to do all three back-to-back but realized that the subgenus needs more thought put into it |
On your end or mine?
This depends on true falcotheres - has it been decided how approval will work on subgenera?
| QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Nov 12 2021, 10:27 AM) |
| What sorts of oil, microbes, and irritants? I'm not sure if things like greasy hair would really threaten a flea, or things with different integument. Is its skin really sensitive? |
Newborn shrews breathe through their skin. Imagine if you inhaled skin oils. Fleas, meanwhile, have full body armor.
| QUOTE |
| ...even these bizarre mammaloids have a cloaca. Sagan 4 is the cloaca planet, apparently. I don't think any alternatives would make Sagan 4 look good on Google, but it's still odd. |
All non-placental mammals on Earth have cloacas. A lack of one is a weird placental mammal thing. Same with shrews, only modern fuzzy ones (estimated to be Velishroot and onwards) lack a cloaca. I can see where the confusion might come from though; certain wacky reproductive features of kangaroos and opossums are well-known trivia that seems to contradict them having a cloaca, when in reality it's just inside the cloaca.
| QUOTE |
| How intensive is their nutrient draw from their mother? Do the infants hijack the mother's metabolism, a la humans? Does the placental thread allow the offspring to chemically interact with the mother in some significant way? |
It's based on bandicoots, so it's however it works in them I guess. It's weirdly difficult to Google.
| QUOTE |
| I wonder if this is the first Carpozoan to give up having six eyes. It's very unusual. Is that conspicuous dark-blue dot next to its eyes all that remains of one of its pairs of eyes? |
No to both
Leaping Soriparasite (Saliensorex longacrura)
Creator: Disgustedorite
Ancestor: Lazarus Soriparasite
Habitat: Dixon-Darwin Boreal, Dixon-Darwin Rocky, Dixon-Darwin High Grassland, Darwin Temperate Woodland, Darwin Chaparral, Darwin Plains, Vivus Boreal, Vivus Rocky, Vivus High Grassland, Vivus Volcanic, Vivus Alpine, Raptor Volcanic, South Dixon Alpine, Verserus Alpine, North Dixon Alpine, Darwin Alpine
Size: 2 cm long
Support: Endoskeleton (Bone)
Diet: Hematophage (Swiftsnapper, Montemsnapper, Westward Haglox, Opportunity Shrew, Short-Necked Shrew, Treehook Tamow, Argusraptor Complex, Stink Shrew, Twigfisher Shrog, Interbiat, Kuraimingaku, Twineshrog, Brighteyes, Skewer Shrog, Tigmow, Nightsnapper, Cardicracker, Sausophrey, Haglox, Pickaxe Tamow, Tigmadar, Shepherd Harnessback, Coastwoodufo, Woodsalcon, Underswooper, Mothhead (rarely))
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm (Host's Body Heat, Basking)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Pouch, Milk, and Placental Nourishment After Birth)
The leaping soriparasite split from its ancestor. It is named for its very long hind legs, which allow it to quickly leap away from scratching claws, preening tusks, and other threats. It also has smaller, more strongly hooked foreclaws which allow it to cling to hair and feathers more easily when its host is on the move. It can now feed from saucebacks, which have similar blood to carpozoans, and on shrews, which have joined the local ecosystem since its ancestor's evolution. Under significant pressure as an obligate parasite, it has shrunken to only a quarter of its ancestor's size, and multiple leaping soriparasites can exist on a single host. It has lost its vestigial second and third pairs of eyes, leaving it with only a single pair which has been enlarged. Its "hairy" toe pads have given way to thick rubbery scaleless skin, which provides much better traction for leaping. Its grey coloration makes it cryptic in the shadows of even ground-level flora across almost its entire range, though in some biomes "throwback" golden mutations are common.
Like other living soriparasites, the leaping soriparasite has a short toothless lower jaw and a very large lower lip. Its blood-sucking method is unchanged: First, it grabs hold of its host's skin using the teeth on its upper jaw. Anesthetic compounds in its saliva prevent its host from feeling a thing as it proceeds to use its barbed tongue to lick the skin raw, drawing blood. It then wraps its enlarged lower lip around the skin it has grabbed and begins to gulp, creating suction which pulls blood from the wound. It can detach quickly if needed, and it does not spread disease very easily despite its parasitic nature.
Unlike its ancestor, the leaping soriparasite spends more time on hosts than away from them and will leap between them directly. It will even mate and give birth on hosts. When it is separated from a host, however, it does not travel in search of a new one. Instead, it waits in the soil or leaf litter, conserving energy until a new host passes by, at which point it uses its long legs to leap into its pelt. In the coldest parts of its range, it will freeze to death overnight if it does not find a new host, as it lacks any form of biological antifreeze.
The leaping soriparasite reproduces more often than its ancestor because of a few innovations. It has more nipples so that its offspring do not need to spend energy taking turns suckling, and can now have as many as 6 babies at a time. In order for them to grow quickly, it has made a bizarre innovation. It has a placenta, though it is nowhere near as developed as that of the distantly related tamjacks, and it gestates for 3 days. When it gives birth, the umbilical cord is not broken; instead, its offspring remain attached to and nourished by the placenta after birth even as they are simultaneously also nourished by milk. The umbilical cord appears as a red thread stretched between the baby and its mother's cloaca. This allows them to develop rapidly and be weaned as independent miniature adults after only 7 days. It has a poorly formed pouch on its underbelly serving as a guard against oils, microbes, and irritants present on the skin of its hosts, though it is not homologous with the pouch of other shrews and is instead a completely novel structure. It reaches full size in 2 weeks and can begin breeding immediately. As long as mates are available, it can breed every 7 days, giving birth to the next litter as the previous one is weaned.
Would it even affect plents? It's only mentioned affecting saucebacks, which are practically the opposite of plents.
Oh, @MNIDJM, you may want to compare this and its ancestor again...you missed literally every single physical change except the coloration and listed a feature it inherited from its ancestor as a change.
That is not all the changes it has from its ancestor but I'll take it
To prevent floating microclimates such as floating flora and shrog nests from being completely overpowered, there's a few rules I've been going by for use of them for transport to different landmasses. Following this guideline will hopefully prevent unrealistic overuse of these convenient microclimates.
Landmass-Unrestricted: Microclimate Ecology
A species which is directly part of the ecology of a floating microclimate can go basically anywhere where the microclimate is present. Basically, this species is expected to be living in the microclimate itself.
While this is unrestrictive for the landmasses the species has access to, it takes an extra generation for their lineage to go inland, as they will have all 3 flavors taken up by the ocean, coasts, and beach (or wetland).
Examples: A blood-sucker that lives inside the nests of seafaring shrews, an arboreal herbivore which lives and feeds from floating mangroves
Special exception: Flora that are reasonably expected to be intentionally spread via seeds in a seafaring shrew's nest don't have to include the ocean biomes, as they never "live" in them. I used this exception for the fuzzpile, the wood and berries of which were used readily as building material (and in the latter case as food) by the Seashrog, allowing it to move inland immediately.
Biome-Unrestricted: Likely Transport Events
A species which is very likely to be incidentally transported by the microclimate may spread to another nearby landmass. It doesn't live in the microclimate, but goes on and survives accidental trips often enough to cross short stretches of ocean. This technically breaks the biome rules, but this transport method is a precedented exception.
This is biome-unrestricted because the only required biomes are the beach or wetland where the floating microclimate overlaps with the species' normal range. The species may go inland immediately. However, this is restricted to landmasses that are very close to one another, analogous to Beta's flyways in distance.
Examples: A small creature lays its eggs in a seafaring shrew's nest because its babies feed on rotting flora, a perching creature nests in the mangroves sometimes and gets carried off after storms
Genus Groups
Floating microclimates are great free explanations for global genera. But try not to get too carried away! While missing mesofauna niches are always good to fill, when it comes to larger organisms, it's good to avoid visually homogenizing every landmass with the same kind of tree.
Reminder
As fun as it is to have your species be literally everywhere, this isn't really necessary and is frankly a lot of work, especially if you plan to make descendants for each landmass! Trust me, making so many shrogs has been a lot of labor and sore hands and I'm still not done, not to mention the ideas I have for kakonats and more. Keeping the lineage contained on one or two landmasses is less work and has less risk of causing any mass-homogenization, and you have more time to focus on making just one robust localized lineage. (I know some of you have been worried about islands sinking, but don't worry--while I can't give details on the week 27 map, it's been known since before the limbo that there won't be any more of that insane sea level rise).
There's also limited space in both shrew nests and floating mangroves that must be considered. Looking at a seashrog nest in particular, it's already a bit crowded--that 10 meter wide bowl contains two adult shrogs and their offspring, piles of food and nest material, a shailnitor, multiple cleaner and false cleaner borvermids, some stowaway harmblesses, a small breeding population of kakonats, and possibly a shorelance or two. Minus one shrog, there might be a pirate waxface and her babies literally on top of all that. There are probably still some niches open, but after a certain point, I think the shrogs are gonna start kicking out some of the stowaways.
This isn't to say that you should never use floating microclimates! Just please be mindful of the ecology you're messing with and how much work you're making for yourself.
Landmass-Unrestricted: Microclimate Ecology
A species which is directly part of the ecology of a floating microclimate can go basically anywhere where the microclimate is present. Basically, this species is expected to be living in the microclimate itself.
While this is unrestrictive for the landmasses the species has access to, it takes an extra generation for their lineage to go inland, as they will have all 3 flavors taken up by the ocean, coasts, and beach (or wetland).
Examples: A blood-sucker that lives inside the nests of seafaring shrews, an arboreal herbivore which lives and feeds from floating mangroves
Special exception: Flora that are reasonably expected to be intentionally spread via seeds in a seafaring shrew's nest don't have to include the ocean biomes, as they never "live" in them. I used this exception for the fuzzpile, the wood and berries of which were used readily as building material (and in the latter case as food) by the Seashrog, allowing it to move inland immediately.
Biome-Unrestricted: Likely Transport Events
A species which is very likely to be incidentally transported by the microclimate may spread to another nearby landmass. It doesn't live in the microclimate, but goes on and survives accidental trips often enough to cross short stretches of ocean. This technically breaks the biome rules, but this transport method is a precedented exception.
This is biome-unrestricted because the only required biomes are the beach or wetland where the floating microclimate overlaps with the species' normal range. The species may go inland immediately. However, this is restricted to landmasses that are very close to one another, analogous to Beta's flyways in distance.
Examples: A small creature lays its eggs in a seafaring shrew's nest because its babies feed on rotting flora, a perching creature nests in the mangroves sometimes and gets carried off after storms
Genus Groups
Floating microclimates are great free explanations for global genera. But try not to get too carried away! While missing mesofauna niches are always good to fill, when it comes to larger organisms, it's good to avoid visually homogenizing every landmass with the same kind of tree.
Reminder
As fun as it is to have your species be literally everywhere, this isn't really necessary and is frankly a lot of work, especially if you plan to make descendants for each landmass! Trust me, making so many shrogs has been a lot of labor and sore hands and I'm still not done, not to mention the ideas I have for kakonats and more. Keeping the lineage contained on one or two landmasses is less work and has less risk of causing any mass-homogenization, and you have more time to focus on making just one robust localized lineage. (I know some of you have been worried about islands sinking, but don't worry--while I can't give details on the week 27 map, it's been known since before the limbo that there won't be any more of that insane sea level rise).
There's also limited space in both shrew nests and floating mangroves that must be considered. Looking at a seashrog nest in particular, it's already a bit crowded--that 10 meter wide bowl contains two adult shrogs and their offspring, piles of food and nest material, a shailnitor, multiple cleaner and false cleaner borvermids, some stowaway harmblesses, a small breeding population of kakonats, and possibly a shorelance or two. Minus one shrog, there might be a pirate waxface and her babies literally on top of all that. There are probably still some niches open, but after a certain point, I think the shrogs are gonna start kicking out some of the stowaways.
This isn't to say that you should never use floating microclimates! Just please be mindful of the ecology you're messing with and how much work you're making for yourself.
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