I brought up possible issues with its size and habitat here. Of course, in this case, it would be irrelevant if it were simply shrunk to 30 cm or smaller, like an olm.

I don't think there would be such an abundance of detritus as to make it fatter than its ancestor as a direct consequence, unless one should presume Sagan 4's ecology here is substantially different from Earth's.

You instantly obtain 122 pieces of "art paper". Unfortunately, it is paper, with original art on its entire surface, stolen from fairly renowned museums, some of which have tracking chips on them in case of theft. You break the all-time world record for art theft and theft of private property simultaneously, and get in all world record books with a crime section. Decades afterward, people puzzle over how you could have simultaneously obtained 122 pieces of art-covered paper from museums. You are widely respected as the world's greatest thief, though you remain imprisoned nonetheless.

i wish I could make an asexually-reproducing single species of Caonach descendant which exists in five habitats for 20 Generations.

QUOTE (SpeedTowel @ Nov 25 2021, 11:40 AM)

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Nov 25 2021, 12:26 PM) Odd...its ancestor doesn't specify why its antifreeze-producing cells are red, so it's unclear whether you yourself ought to elaborate on that. From the original Glacialdrak description: "The faint red coloring comes from the antifreeze producing cells that are spread throughout their bodies."

Yes, I know. I checked that myself. You're just copying what the ancestor's description said. MNIDJM might know.

Odd...its ancestor doesn't specify why its antifreeze-producing cells are red, so it's unclear whether you yourself ought to elaborate on that.

The description feels very small. Can you add to it?

It says "Sexual (Airborne Spores)', but how many mating types does it have? A single mating type, perhaps? Sexual spore production on Sagan 4, unfortunately, rarely goes into detail except at the macro level. Weirdly enough, the first Melanophyta (black flora) species to develop sexual reproduction have left no living descendants, so sexually-reproducing Melanophyta aren't descended from it, and descendants of the Polar Sunstalk alone have independently developed sexual reproduction at least three times. (Greysnip, Bonespire, Salty Sunstalk)

"—" why the emdash?
"Gekkotan" is highly obscure jargon. I recommend "gecko-like".

"multitude ridges" Multitude of ridges.

Have the mammary glands disappeared entirely? It doesn't seem as if there would be a cost to vestigial structures.

I see it has a huge breadth of Carpozoan hosts. While many parasites are host-specific (e.g., elephant t ticks sheep keds), some, like black-legged ticks, hav a broad variety of hosts. Even black-legged ticks have preferred hosts, though. Is its list of hosts ranked in preference?

In the words of one source on underground water ecosystems (though limited to just one state in the U.S.):

"Available food [in karst aquifers, the variety most hospitable to multicellular life] is constantly recycled among the organisms, with only occasional additions from the outside. These underground ecosystems have a very low carrying capacity. They can only support a few individuals of any one species, and these individuals do not grow very large."

For comparison, accordingly to Wikipedia, olms, one of the biggest exclusively aquatic-subterranean animals, are 20-30 cm long, with some specimens growing up to 40 cm.



Ramul's water table seems to be smaller than Ramul itself, and, in any case, it does seem unlikely the caverns would be connected to each other, and, if so, to the extent a 90-cm-long organism could forage between them. The rules (as they presently exist) do say: - "Water Tables can connect to any water source on a continent", but whether something as big as 90 cm can fit through them to forage is still questionable. The rules also cross out "You cannot have air breathing species in the Water Table", oddly enough.

Ramul Water Table Check:

Unless it's receiving significant nutritional output from nutrients passing through Sublyme Livestone Sea Caves or aquifers with large above-ground access (e.g., Jacob's Hole, an artesian spring), some of the organisms are implausibly or even impossibly large.

Aquatic Earback: 60 cm long. It also swims quickly, and they seem to scare each other off using aggression, which would surely be energy-intensive.
Ghost Crystal: 70 cm tall, though it's a flora and could perhaps be excused.
Vicious Volox: 75 cm long, and unless one of its habitats has significant pockets of air, the adults having lungs would make no sense, and growing them would surely hinder them in this environment.
Ghostsnapper: 95 cm long, and uses lung-based breathing.

"Pupils are able to" should provide the sufficient clarity.
The oddity about the excessive (by what standard?) wrinkles is that it relates directly to a mucus environment and its poison. I don't recall any poisonous animals that have extensive wrinkling specifically as a poison storage mechanism.

Installing Grammarly for Google Chrome, pasting the description into an email, and then correcting the things Grammarly has highlighted should reduce the number of grammatical errors in the description. I checked, and it can still help significantly simply by highlighting things in the email form: signing up isn't necessary to make some use of it. For comparison, LibreOffice (which is similar to Microsoft Office) only highlighted one error. Other text processors may have similar error-detection capabilities to Grammarly, however.

---

"day time": Daytime.
"arsenic based"
"it's availability"
"over all larger"
"bowing.The" (needs a space)
"otherwise the air" (needs a comma)
"trade offs"
"females territory"
"However it also" (needs a comma)

---

Manually-inspected errors:

"to take on". That suggests purposeful action and an aim, which is discouraged.

"entire visible surface area of their eyeball" That's a pluralization error. It does seem unlikely the pupils would take up nearly the entire area of the eyeball at all times, as the phrasing suggests. Now, tarsiers do have very big pupils at night, but whether that's "nearly the entire area" is subjective.

"Once captured" "One captured,"

"their body" Its body.

The "mucus environment" needs some elaboration.

It's a large description, so I'll have to go over the rest later.

"Tagma" is so obscure I had to look it up. I recommend providing a parenthetical explanation.
"electrochemicle" Electrochemical.
"aproximatly": Approximately.
Capitalizing all the words in the template at the top is customary.

That's some nice art. I like the speckles. This almost looks like an "Earth clone" of some not-quite-right lizard, like a now-extinct Mesozoic lizard lineage, until one sees the six eyes.

"Those that would be better resistant"
"Those that would better resist" you mean?

Unless "chromanke" is oddly pluralized, like "deer" or "sheep", there's a pluralization error in the first sentence. "the robust chromanke are" also suggests unusual grammar, as does "the robust chromanke can still change their colors" and "robust chromanke laying their eggs".

"their head". Its head.

"sagunisuchian[...]their". You mean: "its".

"their skin" Its skin.

"robust chromanke's robust jaws": Repeating "robust" twice sounds odd. I recommend "well-developed".

"the tadpole will seal themselves" That's a plural error.

"it’s tissues". Its tissues.

There's inconsistent organism capitalization here.
"Shield like base": "Shield-like base".
"filled with air but": It sounds breathless, as it is: adding a comma after "air" would improve it.
"Crorsiss": That's a typo.
"insulator, allowing": a comam is missing here.
"Notable these roots": "Notably, these roots".
"spore producing": "Spore-producing".
"Along side": "alongside", although it should be specified what they are alongside of.
"hair like": Hairlike or "hair-like", and "placenta like": "placenta-like".
"into base": Into the base.
It's remarkable how much these resemble the photosynthetic thornworm descendants of the Beta timeline.
"Sangruivore": Sanguivore.

Using "copulatory organ" or, more vaguely, "male reproductive organ" could work. If you must, it's recommended to use "phallus" instead: it's a little more obscure.
"Gonopodium" could work if it's modified from a limb. If it has flaps and hooks like that of some species of insects, "aedeagus" could work. You could go the tailed frog route and call it a "cloacal tail" if it's an extension of the cloaca, but that structure seems unique enough you'd have to mention tail frogs in the description.

"The hydrogen bubble seeds taste somewhat like onions to ward off herbivores, but this survival tactic did not work on specific species." If it didn't work, not even a little, why did it evolve? You can always say that, while herbivores do eat it, the onion taste makes it less preferred, so they eat less of it, or it is largely effective as a feeding deterrent against major pest genus groups (e.g., Minikruggs).

From Page 4:


With the Glideabovi submitted, it now makes it easier to design this other winged Dundi. However, it's still difficult to figure out what its lifestyle should be.

Does anyone have any ideas on the most plausible direction? Note that the face isn't finalized, and I initially forgot to add the spurs.

Lifestyle Option 1:
Aye aye-like. Nibbles or claws open decaying bark and pokes its forefingers in, rummaging for tiny prey. Arboreal; glides.

Lifestyle Option 2:
Lives in very dark, dense areas/nocturnal and well-camouflaged. Suspends itself from thick branches using its lengthy, claw-like hands, and captures approaching prey in its talon-like hind legs. Winglike membranes are used to disguise its shape (or perhaps glide).

Lifestyle Option 3:
It fishes at the edge of the water, using its twiglike but surprisingly durable fingers as fishing hooks. Its arm membranes allow it to leap (majestically) out into the water, away from predators, and assist it in swimming away from would-be predators. (Note: bats can swim.)

Lifestyle Option 4:
Probes small tunnels in the ground, spearing anything it finds with its fingers. Membranes are blankets it uses over its body to conserve heat while sleeping? Walks three-legged while carrying its young?

Add-on to any:
It requires sturdy fingers with long claws to slash at predators, as it's a major defense.

For reference, here's the Bloodbee image:



Other than the texturing and style, it's almost identical to the Bloodbee in looks.

"convergent": You probably meant "convergently".
I suggest you remove those tiny white specks between the bubble seeds of some branches, although they are so small this is optional.
"due to its ancestor's branches" Can you clarify what you mean by this? I suggest: "its ancestor's branches occasionally were knocked down, and as it split off from its ancestor, it consequently developed a countermeasure against the branches being knocked down."
"floating It". There's a missing period.
"hydrogen filled" I recommend: "hydrogen-filled".
Things in the template at the top are generally capitalized.

Unless its bubble-leaves are different from is ancestor's, I recommend clarifying the shape of the bubbles. Right now, they look kind of like Hawaiian halfflowers or stylized baobabs.

Are there conditions where its bubble-leaves don't float? It would appear such, judging by one branch's tip facing downward.

While functional at its size, a little more detail could improve the description, such as the function of the onion-flavored bubble seeds

"Island": should be un-capitalized.
"overtime": "over time" was meant.

Has there been any progress on this?

The grain has now been removed.

QUOTE (colddigger @ Nov 18 2021, 09:27 PM)

Thank you, I will replace it I cannot seem to access a regular jpg version of this from imgur.

Are you asking about the image URL?

It's https://i.imgur.com/NvhK8nQ.png.

Is this better?

There's some speckled artifacts not easily removed using the magic wand tool and paint bucket of GIMP, but it's subtle enough it might be fine.

"their taproot is quite long"
Do they have one taproot, collectively? "Its taproot" is the clearest.

Here's the contrast-improved version of the art. It was simple to do: I simply toggled the brightness and contrast settings of GIMP.

QUOTE (Disgustedorite @ Nov 17 2021, 01:51 PM)

Juvenile trees exist.

Of course---I did bring them up. (see "saplings") It's simply worth specifying. Diets and descriptions usually specify juveniles of particular species or size categories of prey, after all.

The coloration and patterning doesn't quite make sense, if it's meant to be camouflage.
Judging by local conditions (genus group flora ignored for now):

Barlowe Temperate Rainforest:
Rusty-red soil

Rainforest Carnofern: saturatd reddish-brown.
Obsidian Shrub: Black.
Two cryoflora species: Cyan/glassy.
Clusterspades: Purple.
Tlukvaequabora: brownish-grey.
Barnline: trunks: dark saturated brown.
Obsidibarrage: black.
Qupe Tree: dark reddish-brown trunks.
Obsiditall: black.
Sweet red spade: bluish-purple/indigo.

Some genus group options that might make its coloration plausible:
Brown-tipped larands, in high abundance (slightly reddish brown; slightly off, but fine if it has no predators with color vision)
Tepoflora (dull brown)

The fact it's nocturnal means the need for a good match is decreased, assuming it has no predators adapted specifically for low-light color vision, assuming that is even possible. However, during the daytime, if it's out in the open it will still need decent camouflage, or can wake up very quickly to evade predators that would try to attack it while it's sleeping. (Or keep a "daytime watch" of sorts in the herd.)

There is the possibility these are, like fawns, adapted to blend in with dappled sunlight, so as they sleep in the open they are camouflaged. However, the tall blackflora trees wouldn't leave dapple-patterns in the same pattern many deciduous Earth trees do: they're shaped like palm trees. That still brings up whether it can blend in with Sweet Red Spades or Clusterspades. (And it definitely wouldn't blend in with the cryoflora.) If decaying leaf litter, whether of a particular kind of flora or all of them, can be assumed to be a drab greyish-brown, then it might be decent camouflage....in winter. Fresh purple or black leaves would likely fall down directly onto drab-colored layers.

The easiest solution is to say this is just a special impractical coloration for the males. The second is to say they're so fleet-footed, quick to wake up, and have members of the herd on guard duty that it doesn't matter if their camouflage is not quite right. The third is to say they have good color vision and specifically seek out areas where they blend in (most notably avoiding cryoflora), though that would require either nighttime color vision or knowing the colors of everything when it's daytime, despite being nocturnal.

There are some typos, too, but this is enough for now.

---

EDIT:

Scientific Queries:

Unless this eats some combination of fallen leaves or the leaves of saplings specifically, it wouldn't be able to reach those trees' leaves. Some specification of the needed size range of its trees in its diet would be useful. For comparison, white-tailed deer and sika deer do seem to eat freshly fallen leaves, if apparently on winter or when food is limited.
"but for an unknown reason are attracted to Wolvershrogs." Out-of-universe, it's obviously because it's the "Santa Claus shrog". In-universe...it's probably because they eat exclusively aquatic creatures with a little fruit, berries, and other vegetation, so they're no threat to these, even if they're huge carnivores. Great Leotams ate the ancestor of the ancestor of Prancerhorns, so logically they'd eat these, too. Wolvershrogs and adult Great Leotams are the same size, and so it's possible Wolvershrogs would view them as a threat, especially since Great Leotams do eat Longjacks, which are also in Lutrasoricidae. In other words...foraging in Wolvershrog territory means Wolvershrogs won't eat them, but may scare or fight off Great Leotams that get close. It would be similar to a species of hummingbird nesting near hawks because hawks keep away jays, the hummingbird's predator.

Wait...if they're actual antlers, they would be shed. That's unusual. Some elaboration of the physiology is in order.

Typoes and Language Errors:

Obsidibombs are extinct. You probably meant Obsidibarrage.
"showing off their antlers": show off.
"Rainforest" rainforest.

"They have grown larger and has lost another butt-nostril to help it sing its own unique song to mates"
"has lost": "have lost". "to help it sing" suggests purpose rather than function. It's important to make the distinction between each when discussing biological matters. Therefore, I suggest "which".
"Their relatives the Pronghorn Strider" That confuses the plural.
"Prancerhorn's are": "Prancerhorns are".