Gentonna (Canusvibrissae altilis)
Ancestor: Giant Leatherback
Creator: Coolsteph
Size: 2.5 m long
Habitat: Fermi Temperate Beach, Driftwood Islands Temperate Bank (rare), Driftwood Islands Temperate Shallows (rare; foraging), South Temperate Jujubee Ocean (Sunlight Zone) (rare; on rafts)
Diet: Herbivore (Twinkiiros, Twinkorals, Mangot fruit-leaves (rarely), Journeying: Colonial Bobiiro, Lediiro, Ouchiiro)
Reproduction: Sexual, Two Genders, Ovoviviparous (Non-Nourishing Pool Organ)
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Gigantotherm; Blubber
Support: Endoskeleton (Bone)

Gentonnas fulfill a aquatic vegetation-eating role on Fermi Island, similar to marine iguanas. Like marine iguanas, a Gentonna is good at holding its breath: it can hold its breath for about 10-12 minutes. Gentonnas are most common in colder southern latitudes of their temperate range, where dark grey to black “blackflora” are more dominant. Juveniles tend to sleep near large masses of shed Bonegrove leaves. Gentonnas move by waddling, wading and paddling. They bask on warm sand, rocks, and occasionally abandoned seafaring shrog nests. They live in large groups, with juveniles in the interior of the group.

Feeding

In eating Twinkiiros and Twinkorals, it avoids the intense competition for small, tender blackflora (e.g., Sunstalks) in its habitat. Gentonnas forage mainly in the low intertidal zone, though they can forage even deeper or farther from the shore. Rarely, they eat Mangot fruit-leaves that have gotten on the ground.

A Gentonna requires substantial calories to build up blubber, but its metabolism is fairly slow. It can survive without food without any ill effect for three days, drawing upon its blubber for energy, and takes twelve days to starve. (slows down metabolism for feeding?)

Physiology



Gentonnas have tough, leathery skin with a layer of fat underneath. The fat is often an unappetizing greyish color. Older Gentonnas tend to have thicker shoulder-spikes and rougher, somewhat pebbly skin, the former of which reduces their sense of hearing. Unusually for thornbacks, Gentonnas can hear. Its shoulder spikes sit on a primitive tympanic membrane-like structure. The spikes move as vibrations as carried through the air or water, giving it a weak sense of hearing and a sense of wind direction, which gives them some crude warning of poor weather that could send them out to sea. The spikes can also detect eddies in the water, something like that of a sea lion's whiskers, though much less sensitive.

Eggs are laid internally in a non-nourishing pool organ. The young metamorphose from fish-like larvae to reptile-like newborns inside the mother, and are "born" (nudged along by muscular contractions) when about 12-13 cm in size.

Its jaws are fairly weak, but due to its diet of fairly tender vegetation, they don't really need to be strong.

Like their ancestors, they make mating displays using brightly-colored throat patches.

Predator Interactions

Like [[Sayront]]s, they are most active at dusk and nighttime, helping it avoid [[Seashrog]]s and [[Velocidohve]]s. [[Shantak]]s are their chief predators, as they are much faster and also mainly nocturnal. They almost always stay near the water's edge: their predators are slow swimmers, when they have any notable swimming abilities at all. Their thick skulls and blubbery necks grant them some resistance to the skull-cracking swipes of Shanktaks. They are most vulnerable to predators while young and small, with weaker bones and thinner layers of blubber.

[[Snapjaw Sandcrock]]s and [[Stonebeak Phyler]]s are rarer predators. Snapjaw Sandcrocks attack them up on the dunes of the beach, where they rarely venture. A Gentonna typically does not die from the trauma of being gored by its shoulder-spikes, but instead of blood loss when the predator rips out chunks of its flesh.

Stonebeak Phylers only attack them if they wander onto the Fermi Temperate Coast, such as by boarding pieces of driftwood, "rafts" made by Raft-Building Cone Puffgrass, or abandoned Seashrog nests. Occasionally, Stonebeak Phylers lodge themselves into a Gentonna’s thick, blubbery flesh with its claws and try to bite it to death, only for the Gentonna to flee into the water, drowning the predator that can’t extricate itself in time.

As they are nocturnal and Seashrogs are diurnal, Seashrogs are only a rare predator. As adults are so large and blubbery, they often survive one hit from a shrog spear, and are able to flee into deep water where shrogs find them inconvenient to pursue. Mated pair Seashrogs attacking together are more likely to kill them. The juveniles are especially vulnerable to shrog attacks, and thus are even more strongly nocturnal than the adults.

Pirate Waxface Interactions

Pirate Waxfaces do not recognize them as prey, and thus do not harm them. It is fairly common to see Pirate Waxfaces and a small herd of Gentonnas living closely together near an abandoned seafaring shrog nest. Weaned juvenile Pirate Waxfaces may even stand or sit on top of Gentonnas, helping them "see" (echolocate) the environment better. Juvenile Gentonnas who have been pursued by Velocidohves are slower to approach Pirate Waxfaces, due to their vague resemblance to their predators (which prefer targeting the young and small), but lose this fear when Pirate Waxfaces are holding spears, as it drastically changes their perceived shapes. Pirate Waxfaces repeatedly adjusting their grip on their spears with their necks seems to "hypnotize" Gentonnas, but the rapid shape-changes actually just baffle them. Though they sometimes drift out to sea on shrog nests with Pirate Waxfaces, the Pirate Waxfaces don’t defend them from Stonebeak Phylers (who don’t attack Pirate Waxfaces) and may scavenge their bodies afterward.

Driftwood Islands Populations and Effects

Their habit of boarding abandoned seafaring shrog dwellings, including ones newly "abandoned" by Pirate Waxfaces slaughtering the inhabitants, has allowed a small population to spread to the Driftwood Islands Temperate Bank. The journeying Gentonnas eat stored Mangot fruit-leaves, Twinkiiros that may be growing on the ship's underside if it is decaying, and Twinkiiro relatives that are free-floating. Their low metabolisms and ability to go several days without food help them survive the trip. Those Gentonnas that end up on the Driftwood Islands tend to be slightly more tolerant of Pirate Waxfaces (which inadvertently "protect" them from any traveling Seashrogs by killing the Seashrogs) and can go without food for slightly longer, though they appear identical to other populations on Fermi. Those on the Driftwood Islands eat a greater proportion of Twinkiiros than Twinkorals.

Gentonnas' habit of living alongside Pirate Waxfaces in seafaring shrog nests has given Pirate Waxfaces more of a food supply. Though Pirate Waxfaces don't recognize them as prey, they eat what's left when other predators, such as Stonebeak Phylers show up and kill a Gentonna. Predators also include Terrorfang Hafgufa newborns, which aren't large or experienced enough to guarantee killing prey 2.5 meters long and consume them underwater: Gentonnas may escape, board the ship, and die of their wounds. Having a steadier food supply on journeys has helped Pirate Waxfaces get to the Driftwood Islands Temperate Bank. However, once there, they are confused by the geography of the small islands and cannot adapt their prey-finding behavior, and so starve to death. The only traces of their arrival are influences on the genes of local population of Gentonnas and a few microbes from their bodies.

Due to the obstacles of large beach-dwelling and submerged trees on Fermi making it difficult for shrog dwellings to drift out to sea, Gentonna colonization of the Driftwood Islands is sporadic. The rare colonization events mean the Driftwood Islands populations' gene pools have slightly different gene frequencies from a lack of mixing with the main population, though the two populations look identical and aren't even subspecies.

The Fermian population is nigh-indistinguishable from other sea-coast subspecies but for more commonly using "shapechanging" behavior to hypnotize Gentonnas. The more common behavior is simply passed on from parent to offspring, like a wolf teaching pups a locally-distinctive hunting technique.

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These might be able to get to the Driftwood Islands (Driftwood Islands Temperate Bank) by eating Mangot fruit-leaves stored by Seashrog nests and eating Ouchiiros, Lediiros and Colonial Bobiiros on the way through in the South Jujubee Temperate Ocean. However, I am not sure whether this is plausible, or whether Twinkiiros and Twinkorals are able to live on partly-decayed masses of driftwood.

I have an auto-checker for this sub-forum, so I'll be automatically alerted if the topic at the top changes.

I'm actually not sure how to re-phrase "comes into play" in a way that's not even worse, so I recommend cutting it out entirely.

A close-up of the fuzz could be useful for future descendants.

Are there any art updates?

I like the color and design.
Can you increase the contrast for the supplementary drawing?
I recommend specifying the singular ends in an S and it doesn't change with number, like "deer" and "sheep" because otherwise the descriptions seems to have plural errors.

"and buck-tooth" Buck-toothed.
"prevent them getting" "Prevent them from getting" sounds more natural, somehow.
"source food" You probably meant "source of food".
"requires to tierracolmillos" Requires the tierracolmillos.

That's a good point about the food sources. If migratory ocean-to-freshwater species can't bring in enough vanadium, a minor plague would be best.

I intended to give the Sealsaycer a unique way of breathing inspired by air-breathing fish, namely the air-breathing catfish. Is it possible to allow it to breathe from air using some kind of buccal or esophagal pouch? If not, would some kind of primitive labyrinth organ-esque structure derived from extra "neck-ribs" (gill arch-esque structures---its ancestor doesn't seem to have bony gill arches) work? The fact it lives in a river, which is probably oxygen-rich, should allow it to plausibly compensate for any inefficiencies inherent to just evolving the trait.

P.S. I'm still on vacation, so my activity will be sporadic.

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.

"their camouflage" That should be "the shadow buttpipers", plural, or "its camouflage", representative singular.

I like its color scheme and pose.

"grabnubs patterns" "Grabnubs' patterns" or "grabnub's patterns".

"known as the gnawsferatu" doesn't have a full enter-key paragraph spacing afterward.

"purpose now" I recommend "function".
"their hand" Their hands, or "its hands"?
"rear most" should be "rear-most" or perhaps "tail-leg".
"due to the face" What does that mean?
"Their tail leg" uses a singular they, which isn't appropriate here.

The easy spread between temperate and tropical rainforests shows just how much subtropical environments are needed.

I like the color gradation and skin folds.

"The two digits on their hand have become long with large claws to help pull down branches for their mouths." I recommend: "The two digits of the hand have become longer with large claws, helping them pull down branches to their mouths."

"using their large claws" Its large claws.

I like the color gradation and design.

"Hunters wear camouflage to sneak up on deer" suggests purpose and intention. Hunters know they won't get spotted by deer, or at least not as quickly, if they wear camouflage. "Tigers evolved stripes to hide in grass" suggests tigers had purpose and intention and a choice in the matter, as if they all collectively directed their evolution by magical means or ensured the stripy individuals had the most babies. Intention and purpose through the course of evolution are common misconceptions in popular understandings of biology, although the stakes are admittedly low in a speculative evolution project like this. On a related note, with the surge of chimpanzee/corvid-level-using tool-using fauna lately, it may be especially useful to mark out when a behavior is deliberate and when it just appears to be deliberate, like bees making wax cells or spiders making webs. (Though that doesn't apply for this organism)

It could probably be justified after the fact by consulting the various uses of melanin in tissues, although it's unclear exactly what pigmented plent "bark".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin#Other_organisms

It's possible that, whatever benefit melanin gave its ancestor, camouflage was a superior benefit with its new lifestyle or size.
" it is retained as insulation, as its structure traps heat fairly well." That suggests it is useful, but it only lives in tropical environments. (Admittedly, subtropical habitats don't exist in Alpha yet, and having some insulation would probably help for those.) Do the small babies lose heat faster, especially in shaded environments, simply due to their small size, and the bark helps counteract that? If so, it's odd (but still excusable) it's not on the legs, since the legs would cool faster.

"Because it evolved its long legs so quickly," Can you elaborate? Did it not have much time to change up to this arbitrary point in time? Did it have a bunch of lucky, drastic leg-lengthening mutations spread rapidly through the population, rather than gradual, whole-limb transformations?

" to blend in with the dark trees." That suggests intention, which is okay for Shrogs making spears or other intelligent organisms, but not here.

I like the art and design.

"Psittacosaurus" should be capitalized.
"for digesting" suggests purpose or design, so I recommend "which helps in digesting all kinds".
I like the shading and texture.

"live off of" is superfluous. See Merriam-Webster's definition:

QUOTE

Definition of off of : OFF "The of is often criticized as superfluous, a comment that is irrelevant because off of is an idiom. It is much more common in speech than in edited writing and is more common in American English than in British.

Here's more information: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions...cally-incorrect

In short, using "off of" is nonstandard American English, though it's an expression with a long history. Given the fairly formal and proper grammar of Sagan 4 entries, I would recommend changing that to "off", but it's such a minor nonstandard variation or error it should be fine if you don't alter it.

The art looks very nice. I like the multiple surface textures.

Are the barbs on the achenes microscopic? I don't see any barbs but one on the "tail", not even as tiny, barely-visible fuzz. There are ways to justify the barbs not being visible, if you don't want to alter the artwork, such as by saying the barbs only grow in the final stage of achene growth and the sample is slightly immature, or that the barbs are easily damaged when collected and this meant to depict a collected specimen.

Its description is fascinating, and its art is beautiful.

The description seems a little small. Can you specify its growing conditions? Altitude is the most important, given it lives in the boreal habitat.

"conditions allowing" I've never heard that phrase before. Did you mean "should conditions be ideal".
It's interesting that it can change its leaf color. Can you elaborate on how it does this?

You could mention that they manufacture tools as chimpanzees and elephant can do.

If you want to make them seem less intelligent, you could say that shell shards were originally used to capture small, live prey and/or impale, disembowel, or stun them, as a modification of spear-using behavior, and adapting it to butcher fauna that are already dead is derived from impaling/disemboweling instincts.
If you want to make it seem more intelligent, you could say one hungry population encountered large, dead, spiky fauna multiple times on roj shell "middens", didn't have spears with them (it's unclear if this species still uses spears), and picked up whatever pointy tool was around, in this case roj shells, to "attack" the corpse. Finding that successful in this unusual circumstance, it became a cultural element that become widespread in the species, like a population of Japanese snow macaques that washed their sweet potatoes in water to remove any sand or dirt on it, and then later turned to washing them in seawater due to liking the salty taste.

"their head" That should be "their heads" or "its head", for more precision.

"not cause drag" Not causing drag.

"Driftwood Dasher youngsters" Unless "youngsters" is the scientific name for that species, I suggest "young" or "juveniles".

"decent cursing speed" I don't think they are capable of profanity. I think you meant :"cruising speed".

"use their tails quick bursts" Use their tails for quick bursts.

"hunting ground," Hunting grounds.

"adorned tamow" Unless this is a mass noun, a la "deer", "sheep", "elk", or to some extent "fish", you mean "adorned tamows".

Since these not only use tools but create tools through shell shards, and seem to anticipate needing those tools later, it's worth specifying their limitations and that they aren't sapient.

" late Spring." Why is "spring" capitalized?

I hope these don't get confused with the Shrogre.

"kill and each" should be "kill and eat".
"semi aquatic" should be "semi-aquatic".

"Pregnant females, however, will instead stay on the driftwood islands they bred on and begin to make a rudimentary den."

Do the females all raise their pups collectively on the driftwood islands? Or does this mean females collectively, but separately, raise their young there?

I'm pretty sure no one will be able to spell this one properly...I still don't know how to put the special marks on "Gomboc Roj". This should have a common-spelling redirect on the wiki.

Is this a new style for you? It feels reminiscent of professional science fiction novel illustrations, like the full-color versions of illustrations for the WondLa series. Perhaps it's the texture, varying line thicknesses and shading which makes it look so good.

"so as to help support their weight," That suggests a particular direction or design, so I recommend "which supports their weight".

Excellent. Now I have a predator for that Sowshrog descendant I wanted to make later. (Yes, I changed my mind about making Shrogs, but my Sowshrog descendant is kind of a joke.)

Yes, I saw it, and I had nothing else to say to response. It didn't demand a response.

The woody filaments seem pretty coarse...are they similar to tree porcupine or North American porcupine spines in texture?

For someting with enhanced wood in its beak, extra-hard foods don't rank high on its list. Am I correct in assuming that they prefer more tender foods, even if they can handle tougher foods?

"comes into play" is oddly informal.

"very little things" Very few, unless its predators are tiny.

The beak proportions of the supplementary art don't match that of the primary art. It's a small enough difference you could say it's due to genetic variations, or that the males have sligtly bigger beaks on their lower jaws.

There are other things I'd like to point out, but it's late in my time zone. I'll come back tomorrow.

"become to spread upward," What does this mean?
"them toe point" should be "to point".
Are fine-grained diet terms like lepidophagy and hemophagy still allowed?

This is a fascinating speckled leech-like organism.

" which contributes" Which contribute.
"Increases the changes" Increases the chances.
I like this fluffy, adorable alien.

I see Dundis keep popping up in predators' prey lists. It's a good thing I had some descendant ideas adapted to the new surge of predators.

Those wings look complicated. How did you make them?