Since it doesn't seem as if Solpimr will ever respond...yes. Three front toes and two hind toes.

I'll go over the rest of it once it's finished.

I don't see any reason why Cryorashers would be justified in having just one toe on each foot. I was able to use the horse excuse for Duramceris and Duramboars, but that won't work here. Giving it two toes on each foot would be easier for me to draw once I correct its ancestors' art, but I can't justify it losing even a single toe. Small rodent-frog things would likely have multiple toes, anyway.

Other than Cryorashers not having color-changing signalling patches, I have no input on its coloration.

P.S. You meant "ecothterm in a tundra environment". Being an endotherm would be a good thing for it.

Here's a quick response. I'll go over the rest later.

The perspective of the hand looks off. Adjusting it slightly up and to the right should help. The leg musculature and joints is also a little hard to read: it's like the foot is splayed away from the belly. Assuming even ground, the leg farther away from the viewer is also slightly too far up, or more widely-spaced than its small size would suggest. The shape of the tip of the tail suggests it's laterally flattened, like a sea snake's tail, but it's probably meant to be a roughly circular diameter, like a lion's tail.
Generally, sizes are listed without resorting to beginning with a zero. Some exceptions are organisms about 0.5 cm/5 mm in size, although that might have been just Beta. Listing it as 60 cm is more appropriate.

Are its forelimbs well-proportioned for knuckle-walking? Wouldn't palm-walking make more sense?

You could say the genetic mechanism which suppressed development of its cheek spikes was deleted or rendered nonfunctional, causing the ancestral trait to re-emerge.
Since I'm not sure if plent babies are even born with sacs or membranes, making them born with tiny nubbin-spikes or soft, flexible spikes would work. The soft, flexible spikes could be at a length long enough to be somewhat useful for small predators early on its life and might harden enough to be useful earlier in life.

It's capable of:
*Understands Gentonnas eat Mangot fruit-leaves
*Learns that Gentonnas can be lured away from the herd using bait (green herons can bait fish, but aren't particularly intelligent; mugger crocodiles bait birds)
*Observes Gentonnas are distracted by rapid shape-changing
*Coordinates/moves concurrently in a strategic way so one or more distract the herd while another lures a Gentonna away to kill it
*Uses tools to kill Gentonnas
(Updated conception)
*Uses 1-2 tools: variants of the same tool
*Uses a spar
*Slightly modifies tools using its teeth. Often takes pre-made tools.

It has no language, not even name-barking, and doesn't make nests. Beyond family groups, they are not social, and even then they aren't particularly social and adult offspring don't remain with them (a detail I'll add later). Its diet (though now unspecified) wouldn't be so broad as that of a Wolvershrog. I think they would be somewhere in upper C-tier or lower B-tier.

I know they lack an external sauce. The spur would grow from the sauce itself, emerging from the skin. If it's more plausible, I could make it a hardened skin growth, like a horn.

"before you get to the neck," I recommend "before one gets to the neck".
If "Terra" is used as a substitute for "Earth", why not capitalize "Terran giraffes"?
"redeveloped" Can you elaborate a little on this? I know the Frilled Greenscale, the ancestor of its ancestor, had a cheek spike, but specifying how "redevelopment" occurs could reduce the likelihood of something happening along the lines of a Carnotaurus redeveloping useful fingers just like its ancestors.
"one youngster" I recommend "offspring" or using a species-specific term (pup, cub, foal, calf, etc.). "Youngster" is somewhat anthropomorphic, like the Youngster Trainer class of kids below the age of 10 in Pokemon.
When you say the tail spikes are "underdeveloped", do you mean they're nubbins, don't break through the skin, are absent, or are smaller and softer? For reference, when hedgehogs are born, their spines are covered in a fluid-filled membrane, and when porcupines are born, their spikes are soft and bendable.

Does this seem more realistic? I could use the crab-eating macaque as the closest intelligence match instead of a chimpanzee.

---

For tools, uses only spars of wood. A long, sharpened one is used for hunting big things or repelling would-be competitors. Smaller ones with broader tips are used to uncover food in the sand or silt or to flip over stones. Other than sharpening or narrowing the tips using its teeth, it has little ability to modify tools and often takes them pre-made from local Shrogs.

Does not herd Gentonnas or pull down Mangot fruit-leaves for them. It's often associated with them, and Gentonnas do not often fear them. It protects them only inadvertently: predators that would eat it are also threats to its young and have overlapping diets with it. Gentonna flesh is particularly consumed in the winter due to its fattiness, relative safety to obtain, and the fact their body condition worsens less rapidly than some other Fermisaurs.

Reduction or removal of spur on braincase.

In the rush to make this a functional work-in-progress, I forgot to mention the changes in its foot structure which made it feet somewhat like camel feet. It still has callused cartilage pads, but it's surrounded by a broad pad of softer tissue that helps it spread its weight on sand. Given it moves on beaches and not dunes, though, and the beaches have plenty of flora (even if not much generic "beach grass"), it might not be very justified.

How would I reduce its intelligence, but still make it a herder and "hypnotizer" of Gentonnas? Should I reduce the typical number of tools from 1-2, instead of 1-3?
I designed it specifically to somewhat improve is ability to handle tools, so seriously reducing its tool use may warrant image changes.

Leaves? Leaves?! I know these are small, but I don't think there are any leaves even close to looking like a female Fourmaw Sauceback. Antarctic fur seals do try to mate with king penguins, and repeatedly, but at least they're warm-blooded and moving.
Now, Fuzzpile leaves might be fuzzy, but I doubt they're a similar shape.

I wonder how long it will take until a flora creates leaves that tricks them into mating with it, like bees and bee orchids.

I recommend not using "shrewbacks", even though they are more like shrews than most "shrews", simply because "shrewback" suggests an association with Sagan 4's "shrews".

"ectotherm (hiberation)" looks odd in its uncapitalized form.

Hypnotizer Waxface (Latrotherium pseudodentium)
Creator: Coolsteph
Ancestor: Pirate Waxface
Habitat: Fermi Temperate Beach
Size: 3 meters long
Support: Endoskeleton (Chitin)
Diet: Carnivore (Tilepillar, Sayront, Acucravat (mostly juveniles), Spinebacked Probeface (mostly juveniles) Gentonnas (mostly in winter) Blubber Flapper, Shorelance, Shailnitor, Chitjornpecker, young Flumpus (rarely), Hockel (rarely)) Scavenger
Respiration: Active (Microlungs)
Thermoregulation: Endotherm (Feathers)
Reproduction: Sexual (Male and Female, Ovoviviparous, Crop Milk)

Hypnotizer Waxfaces are an intelligent species, roughly on par with crab-eating macaques. Their use of tools gives them an advantage in taking down large prey or splitting apart meat from a carcass, though its advantages are limited due to its poor ability to actually craft tools.

==Diet==

Similarly to polar bears, their preferred foods are fatty, large fauna that get their food from the sea, but it's adaptable enough to eat all sorts of things. Tilepillars, Sayronts, Acucravats, Flumpuses and Gentonnas are its favorites, which aren't necessarily the most common in its diets. Gentonnas' thick blubber, starvation resistance, cold resistance, anti-predator adaptations and unique diet among large Fermian fauna mean they are, deep into winter, often the fattiest, otherwise in good condition, and the most available of all its suitable prey.

==Tools==

Their solitary lives seriously constrain the spread of new ideas, much less any community culture. Indeed, the only way their ideas spread much more than a genetic trait would is when one Hypnotizer Waxface is the model for a behavior to its mate, and the mate may, if their offspring are grown and its mate dies, take another mate and demonstrate that behavior to another.

Hypnotizer Waxfaces use spars of wood as tools. These tools are separated into two types: sharp-spars and broad-spars. Long, sharpened spars are used for hunting large prey or scaring off would-be competitors, though it is occasionally used for stabbing at the limbs of especially large and durable carcasses, functioning as an inefficient way to cut apart meat. Smaller spars with broader tips are used to uncover food in the sand or silt, to flip over stones, and occasionally to scrape sand off a carcass. Other than sharpening or narrowing the tips of spars using their tusks or mouth-ridges, Hypnotizer Waxfaces have little ability to modify tools and often takes them pre-made from local Shrogs.

Though the species as a whole can use various tools, some tools or techniques are limited to the populations that first came up with them, due to the lack of cultural spread, so any individual Hypnotizer Waxface only uses, on average, to 1-3 kinds of tools on anything approaching a regular basis.

Lacking a language, or even a sophisticated body language, they learn only by direct observation or experience. This is typically limited to young 'watching" (actually echolocating) their parents closely as they show how to use tools. Due to the limits of how many tools they use and how they learn how to use them, they cannot figure out how to use completely novel tools they find.

==Dexterous Physical Adaptations==

Lacking fingers or even a typical trunk, it manipulates objects using the back of its "neck" (actually a proboscis), the underside of its head, its mouth, mouth-ridges (similar to the beak-ridges of a goose) and tusk-jaws, a thumb-like spur on its back, and its toes. Changes to various parts of its body make manipulating objects somewhat easier than for its ancestor, if still awkward.

The back of its neck, or neck-palm, is bare and rough, and is used as a sort of crude arm when holding large tools. It is used roughly equivalently to a human carrying a stick by curling in an arm towards the chest. The young's neck-palms sport more feathers, but the feathers there are loose, and easily fall off as they handle large tools. The underside of its head, or "chin-palm", is sensitive. It something like a human palm, though much less sensitive. A Hypnotizer Waxface uses the sensory information from the underside of the head to adjust its grip when holding staffs, since its jaws themselves aren’t very sensitive.

For small objects, it simply sucks up small tools into its mouth, holding them by a combination of its mouth ridges and tusk-jaws. A lifetime of handling tools this way rounds down the points of its mouth ridges, but it is no threat to survival due to its use of various tools for killing prey and slicing apart meat.

A tough, calcified, somewhat bone-like spur grows like a horn from a small bare patch on its back, and early on its life grows within its body and fuses with its internal braincase, or "sauce". The spur is a sort of inflexible thumb that stabilizes the spars it grips.

Hypnotizer Waxfaces carry tools on their backs, amid coarse feathers. The feathers are softer and denser in the winter and when a female is carrying her offspring. The denser feathers may interfere with grip on their neck-palms and chin-palms, making them a little less dexterous.

==Behavior Between Mated Pairs==

When a female is carrying offspring, her mate is likely to pick up and carry her tools. More intelligent females will proactively, unwittingly use their mates as “pack animals” by loading tools on his back while she’s carrying offspring. However, they are not quite so intelligent they easily adapt to this unusual behavior: they have no language to convey the necessity of one of the pair carrying tools while the other carries the offfspring. Usually, the female of a mated pair must add tools onto her mate's back surreptitiously so he doesn’t shake off the extra weight. Similar stealthiness may be used when filching spars of wood from Shrogs, when abandoned Shrog nests are unavailable.

Their mating ritual involves prolonged observation, or "staring" (via echolocation, as they have no eyes) and “holding chins”, where they brush the undersides of the jaws together. Mated pairs periodically "stare" at each other and hold chins as a bonding ritual. They can select a new mate each year, although they commonly stay with the same one.

==Relationship with Gentonnas==

Hypnotizer Waxface often live near populations of Gentonnas, who do not fear them. Hypnotizer Waxfaces protect Gentonnas only inadvertently: predators that would eat Gentonnas are also threats to Hypnotizer Waxfaces' young and have overlapping diets. On the whole, living near Hypnotizer Waxfaces reduces predation on Gentonnas overall, especially for their young, and so fearing Gentonnas has not proven useful.

As much as Hypnotizer Waxfaces like the taste of Gentonna flesh, Gentonnas flee into the water too readily when frightened in warmer seasons, whether by a botched slaughter or predators other than Hypnotizer Waxfaces approaching. Gentonnas are also somewhat difficult to kill and dismember due to the process requiring trickery and tools.

When food is scarce (usually during winter), it lures a Gentonna away from the herd, sometimes with Mangot fruit-leaves, beyond the ability of other Gentonnas to see it, such as behind a rock. It slaughters the selected prey with a large spar (or spear filched from a Shrog) to the underbelly, usually after knocking it over first. It preferentially picks late-born juveniles or runts; they are easier to knock over, kill, and dismember.

It is more effective at luring away just one Gentonna from the herd and preventing the herd from noticing when another Hypnotizer Waxface is distracting the herd by repeatedly adjusting its neck shape on a staff in a rapid, conspicuous way. This “dance”, called “the hypnosis dance” or more humorously “the distraction dance” , varies among individuals, and even among individual occasions. For mated pairs, one may do a “group choreography” with several of its offspring (half-grown or more) all distracting the Gentonnas at the same time. Lacking a language or much ability to communicate, the sequence of pulling out and killing a Gentonna while another distracts it is often fumbled in some way.

It will attack any predator that gets too close to its Gentonnas, but especially Shrogs: their intelligence, use of spears, and good swimming ability make them the biggest threat to their "favorite foods". Populations that more frequently encounter Shrogs almost universally carry long, spear-like tools, which may be filched from the Shrogs themselves.

==Other Details==

Their waxy, waterproof feathers allow them to swim. Though their broader toes help them swim faster than their ancestor, they are not especially fast nor agile in the water.

It takes time to learn how to run without having large tools fall off its back, though, in a hurry, it will permit the tools to fall.

I see there's yet more justification to release my Dundigger and Sitting Dundi descendants in the works.

"The bill is still made of wood, however, since the boschian paardavogel’s reproductive methods have not changed at all with a female still holding her young in a pouch." Even if the jaw must be highly flexible, I don't know why that constrains the material of the bill itself.

"can breath," Can breathe.

"taxon jaws" Unless you mean the jaws of the Taxxon aliens from the book series Animorphs, I think you meant: "taxon's jaws".

" the Boschian Paardavogel can’" There's inconsistent capitalization here.

"the boschian paardavogel relies on their forelimbs" That's using the singular "they", which doesn't make sense here.

" to deal lethal wounds." That's purpose-oriented, which is not recommended.

"giving them their" This is also a pronoun error.

" larger more" Do you mean "larger" or "larger and more numerous"?

It makes sense to put both "occasionally" prey items in the last part. It's customary to sort prey roughly in order by organism preference or frequency in the diet.

Is "Dualtrunk youngsters" meant to be "Dualtrunk juveniles"?

I agree. It would be good to specify it lives only in Vivus Alpine in the summer, along with its diet details, if you would like.
I also recommend splitting the description into at least two sections. One could be "Growth & Reproduction".

Here's a first pass of any errors.

"in vivus, bubbleskins": "Vivus" needs to be capitalized.

"it avoids competition[...]they consume" the referent pronouns are confused in one sentence.

"to help avoid" would be better as, "which helps them avoid".

"move faster while" The sentence sounds breathless. I recommend adding a comma after "faster".


"In case they can't escape danger" That suggests they evolved this trait on purpose. I recommend, "The Indigallop has also, however, developed additional defenses that aid it when running away doesn't work".
"fleein" That is a typo.

"so they can" is a goal-based phrasing.
"so they can be smacked into" is goal-based phrasing.

"from the get-go" sounds a little too informal. I recommend, "from the beginning".

"time, though" I recommend splitting the part about typical litter sizes and twins to avoid a breathless, lengthy sentence.

"one-another" should be "one another".

"generalistic diet;" The semicolon should be a comma.

"until they eventually die out" should be "until they eventually died out".


---


Though it still gets energy from photosynthesis, "photosynthesis" is not mentioned in its diet.

Vivus Alpine, as an alpine environment, would probably require notable, specialized adaptations to deal with the cold, UV light, and low oxygen. Now, plents breathe carbon dioxide, but it's possible they still need some oxygen. Even regular Earth plants need oxygen, especially at night.
You may be able to deal vaguely with some of this by saying its photosynthesis produces extra oxygen it can use later, if it does need substantial oxygen. Making its butt-nostril have a wrinkly interior like the cloacas of some turtles might improve its ability to take up oxygen/carbon dioxide from thin air, though that may not be enough for something its size.

Altering the properties of its blood could also work, although plent blood hasn't been dealt with definitely. (https://sagan4.jcink.net/index.php?showtopic=52&st=0&#entry1072)

However, it's still a huge, uncovered, lean, long-legged endotherm up in an alpine environment. Even if bringing up giganotothermy, its forelegs and frills might still freeze. You could specify it occurs in that biome only during summer, only rarely and only during summer, or say that alpine populations are fattier. (Although that last part might go up against the subspecies rule...which has been weakened substantially)

Alpine adaptations:
http://kids.nceas.ucsb.edu/biomes/alpine.html

My vague idea of a "Woodsman Waxface" which ate captive female Twineshrogs only rarely ate them. Most of the time, it lived like a coyote. However, "Pirate Waxface descendant which lives like a coyote" or "Pirate Waxface descendant which lives like a coyote and occasionally eats captive female Twingshrogs" were either too bland or too specific for a Submission Ideas post. I'd describe a porcupine in the same way here as "herbivore which eats bones." Porcupines do, in fact, eat bones, but it's very different from how hyenas eat bones and it's not their sole diet or most obvious, distinctive trait. It's simply something interesting to work with.

I have vague ideas for some of these, but it would likely be a long time before I got to them, if I got to them.

*Pirate Waxface evo which becomes a herder of smaller fauna, possibly Gentonnas. (EDIT: done: Hypnotizer Waxface)
*Pirate Waxface which eats captive Twineshrogs in harems
*Pirate Waxface descendant with "neck-thumbs" (a la the panda's thumb) which makes it somewhat easier to handle tools (EDIT: done: Hypnotizer Waxface)
*Bloodsucking Xenobees and/or Xenowasps
*Hemoswarmer descendant with a greater selection of fauna with blood to drink
*Disease-spreading ectoparasitic insectoids
*Plent with an unusual blood color
*Marine Woollycoat descendant with woodpecker-esque tongue
*An auk/puffin-like Marine Woollycoat
*Diseases and parasites for various genus groups
*More allelopathic flora
*Hallucinogenic flora, possibly derived from the Hallucrastrum
*Something else zebra-striped, but for good reason this time

It's so fuzzy...I like the shading.

----



This is so "cursed" I had to re-draw it four times.

Description Draft:
The Hideous
Ancestor: Kugard
(Tall and conspicuous.)
(Vascularized skin on its neck appears to be melting.)
Diet: Herbivore (some kind of turkey-like diet)

(Eats leaves?)

(Consistently referred to as “the Hideous”.

By default, it will run away in an awkward-looking gait. It tends to escape would-be predators by power-walking backwards, and can roll its eyes back while walking backwards.

If cornered or pressed, such as by a pursuing predator or one that has gotten too close, it will become bolder. Though it might seem well-equipped for a bite or stab from its tusks, when it comes to fighting, it will simply get on its hind legs and backhand a foe with its foreleg.As a foe approaches, it will raise its foreleg threateningly while cackling, as if taunting a foe to come closer and get smacked. Hideouses tend to make obnoxious chuckling noises while backhanding fauna. It occasionally backhands fauna to unconsciousness, chuckling all the time, and then continues backhanding the fauna's unconscious body long past the point of practicality. A fauna backhanded to death is very distinctive: it will have a blown-open face, near the eyes, exactly the size of a Hideous backhand, for the Hideous always attacks the same location in an unconscious target.

Its mating display is, by human tastes, obnoxious beyond measure: it cackles while making strange expressions.

The eyespots on its eardrums make it appear to have six eyes, sometimes confusing predators trying to attack it by surprise. The imitation eyes are laughably crude, but nonetheless improve its survival chances, and so have persisted.

The exceedingly ugly fauna has one saving grace: its susceptibility to a genetic deformity which makes it less ugly. It disrupts blue pigmentation, causing a washed-out, bluish gray color not so hideously clashing against mauve and dark purple. While this looks unhealthy for a male displaying, and ensures he has no chance of mating, it has no effect on females, who don't need blue coloration anyway. Therefore, the gene persists through carrier females.


A vining Violetpalm descendant.

Oh, those are nice artworks.
I especially like the Tira lighting and background, and the Bakiron sketch.

Excellent! It's so detailed!

I like the undersea meadows and forests habitats. It will definitely explain the immense diversity of some coastal habitats. (e.g., East Glicker Subtropical Beach, which was probably among the top 7 most biodiverse habitats in named species, to the point I was going to make a joke of it through a flora's name)

I'm tempted to make some somewhat cold-adapted organisms in the temperate alpine regions, while there's any cold at all.

I found a typo:
"To the east, it severed the landbridge between Glicker and Barlowe, while to the east". The second east should be a "west".

Solipmir has had plenty of time to respond. I think we should discuss the number of digits on thornbacks now. I myself have offered updated Duramboar art yesterday to take into account previous assumptions on thornback toes.

Here's the new Duramboar image, with updated toes.

Adjustment to Duramboar description:
Removal of "speed" in: "This, along with its lack of defenses, speed, and inability to hide, makes it a favorite food of large carnivores like the shantak, draneck, snapperky, and snapjaw sandcrock."

Last paragraph addition:

Over millions of years, the pressures of its constant migration and dependence on speed to avoid predators have led to thickened, hoof-like claws the loss of its toes. The third front-facing toe has become vestigial, a mere bone remnant inside its foot.

I have updated the description. Is it sufficiently plausible? I'm not actually sure if there is any parallel to this.

Odd...these don't have pink ear insides, and the official Lemupus image does. That's a showcase of the male and female color patterns, right?
I wonder if you posed them so their feet were hidden because the feet in the original image were so badly drawn. It's interesting to see both you and OviraptorFan make galley images for it. It shows off how your styles differ.
I like the fuzzy outline.

I have decided to fix those issues.
I'm going to proceed with the toe plan I suggested earlier.

"Land-breakers: Happy to live on a goddamn rock, helps break it down as well so new stuff can move in later too."
Swearing would be inappropriate for the final version. Admittedly, other countries may not consider it swearing, but it's certainly too strong for an official Sagan 4 context.

"Lichin" is a typo of "Lichen". I recommend turning "genusable" to "genus-able" or "can be turned into a genus".

"Bushes yeah" You meant "bushes (obviously)".

----

I recommend adding the following:
Vines & lianas and epiphytes (orchids, Spanish moss, mistletoe)
Hemiparasites & parasites (Cuscuta, Indian paintbrush, Dutchman's pipe)
Cryptobiotic soil crust formers (mosses, lichens) (distinguishable from "dim light specialist", and probably too small to be a typical "ground cover")
Ephemerals (henbit, chickweed, hairy bittercress, groundsel) (Weedy ephemerals in particular are distinguishable from annuals for completing their lifespans in just one growing season, although there are different types of ephemerals.)
Floating Flora (for slow-moving or stagnant water. Includes lotuses and duckweed.)

Endoliths and hypoliths (mosses or lichens that live under translucent rocks, like quartz), could be roles, if perhaps specialized types or sub-types of Land-breakers or Dim Light Specialists. They probably wouldn't be ubiquitous, though I figure they would be common in desert habitats or icy deserts like Antarctica.
There are so many ways to define "low soil-quality" that it would be useful to specify a few, such as "toxic minerals in soil, low nitrogen, low phosophorus, thin soil".

Kopout still hasn't responded on the number of toes in Thornbacks. Should I proceed to modify the art on the Duramboar to depict two toes on the forefeet and two on the hind feet, and Duramceri art to have only one toe on each foot, and mention toe loss in both descriptions?