I do not like the white background.

I was thinking it would have a singular taproot for the stem cluster.

I will edit that.

Thank you, I will replace it

I cannot seem to access a regular jpg version of this from imgur.

Added diagram of pouch system

Mmm, there's teal hostas and conifers.
Wouldn't say they're quite that shade though.

The title lacks a number

Does this matter?

Wait really? It's tropical Riparian?

I didn't know that specification existed, that might need to be edited on other entries.

This is cute

I think Endoskeleton (Jointed Wood) would be support for this, right?

Dreaded Bugbear Foetormelis iocusvenini

Creator: colddigger
Ancestor: Needlewing
Size: 40 cm Tall
Habitat: Ichthy Tropical Riparian, Dixon-Darwin Boreal
Support: Endoskeleton (Jointed Wood)
Diet: Omnivore (Vermees, Minikrugg, Silkrugg, Teacup Saucebacks, Neuks, Dartirs, Sapworms, Mikuks, Feluks, Berry Arbourshroom (berries)), Photosynthesis
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Heterotherm (Basking, Muscle-Generated Heat)
Reproduction: Sexual, Two Genders, Pouch

The Dreaded Bugbear split from its ancestor, the Needlewing, and spread into the surrounding Boreal regions. They have taken on a semi-nocturnal method of living, typically active during dusk or sunset until midnight, disappearing in the early morning until next evening. Their visibly eyes are nearly all pupil, and their eyes have developed tapetum lucidum for increased ability to see in the dim light of the evening and night.

Hunting is perform mainly by scratching away at leaf litter with their feet and beak, and quickly slurping up prey with their tongue. They may pry open rotten logs, or poke around with their beak in deep leaf litter to search for prey as well. Prey may experience simple mastication toward the back of the beak, before being swallowed.

The skin of the Dreaded Bugbear is very wrinkly, it's a combination of fatty tissues and excess skin growth with some fluid underneath. This provides more energy reserve space and more malleable thicker skin less likely to take severe damage during an attack. It also replicates the skin of the poisonous Wood Wraith, though lacking any deadly poisons itself.

Mimicry has actually driven a lot of developments in their body. Their front limbs have become broad and paddle-like for the purpose of replicating ballooning limbs. The ends, however, lead to sharp hardened thorns used for defense as well as side swiping during jousting between combatants. Several parts of their body are marked with blue spots to further their caricature of a Wood Wraith, these markings are created using rayleigh scattering. The ends of their wings have blue as well, though this is a true pigment derived from chlorophyll. Their wings have fused their needles into thin green strips, with the supportive length thickening and becoming woody. Though they can be clacked together to make sound this isn't normally don't, and if it is there's no rhyme or reason to it.

The butt nostril is adorned with a handful of long needle sharp splinters of wood. These can number up to seven, fewer being more normal, and are individually shed and replaced over time. Behind the legs and beneath the butt nostril is a bump of tissue in which a concentration of gland-like tiny bladders may be found. They're similar to the deeper workings of the typical plent excretory pores, which can still be found throughout the skin of the Dreaded Bugbear, though these bladders are larger and more elongate.

The inner end of a bladder forms a small partial chamber, into which their nephrons lead. The tissue alongside the nephron contributes to the tube contents, seeping a cocktail of simple odorous lipids and thiols into the stream. This occurs to the other more typical nephrons, but at far lower activity. The outer end of the bladder forms the majority of the organ, a long barrel stuffed up against others, with the bundle wrapped with muscle. This muscle squeezes the entire structure to rapidly squirt out it's contents through multiple pores. This is unleashed on would-be predators or perceived dangers, including one unfortunate Naucean plent enthusiast.

Dreaded Bugbears have loose territories that they maintain for a few weeks to a year which they defend as mated pairs before abandoning it and ambling off to establish a new one. In these territories they will dig shallow burrows to sleep in during the day. If an intruder is discovered in their territory the pair will confront it aggressively. They will flash their large front limbs, displaying their thorns, coincidentally reminiscent of the displays performed by Wood Wraiths. If their threat isn't heeded they will rush their target and slash across them. The thick skin of the species gives some opportunity for the assaulted to escape without too serious of injury if taken early. If not then they may lose an eye, or the cuts will deepen.

They prefer residing near or in the territories of Wood Wraiths, being drawn into the area by the curious songs their relatives sing. However they take care to avoid the strange looking source, both due to the presence of a somewhat large and eerie looking competitor when they find it, and the very real aggression it displays for the same reason; a slightly smaller eerie looking intruder suddenly approaching them. This balancing act of proximity benefits the Dreaded Bugbear through furthering association by predators with what it mimicks.

Offspring are reared similarly to it's ancestor. Females continuing to carry their young in their pouch for a period of time, while the male collects food for both. After expulsion from the pouch the young will remain with their parents until next spring, at which point they will wander away in search of a mate to repeat the cycle with, or die.

That brings to question what causes regeneration and what prevents it.

Do these scar?

I just removed the faulty name

I didn't know these were still alive.
That's fun.

Curses, I will have to change the name then

And thus I did

The stuff growing on them can be like algae growing on manatees.

Though I think it should be mentioned a bit.

Well it's ancestor is turbatusnex, and these are fairly similar but more intricate and directly descended so I slapped a neo on the front.

The rest of the name was because it's fun.

I love the mouth image

Like if a sauceback can even regrow teeth or have baby teeth and adult teeth, without disrupting the nostril?

I don't actually see anything wrong with the number of teeth, I was just surprised

Wow
That's a lot of teeth

Buhmungus Infectoids Neoturbatusnex ssp.

Ancestor: Disturbed Infectoid
Creator: colddigger
Habitat: Global
Diet: Microbes
Size: 0.05mm - 1cm long (mature), 1μm long (dormant spore)
Support: Cell Membrane
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm
Respiration: Passive Diffusion
Reproduction: Asexual, Virus-like Infection, Spores, Sexual, Budding

Buhmungus Infectoid split from its ancestor, the Disturbed Infectoid, and rapidly diversified across the globe. They can be found in any environment with moisture, from the bottoms of oceans to the damp soil of mountain springs, feeding off microbes. The various species range in size from microscopic to up to 1 cm in a few rare cases.

The colony structure is very similar to their ancestor. Their surface is shaggy with cirri, lengths of microtubules and cell membrane fused together into structures larger than cilia that act in unison reminiscent of structures found on Earth Ctenophores, which are beaten to move through the environment. Their anterior is open to sift in prey items smaller than themselves. Their inside is a hollow cavity lined with digestive cells that semi-freely extend in from the walls to lyse prey items and absorb their cytoplasm and materials as food. These cells will work together in order to kill larger prey items and share in the spoils. Material is distributed between colony members via dendrite-like appendages that extend throughout the collection.
Their outer surface is covered in a second membrane called a shroud membrane held in place by anchor chains of saccharides and microtubules. This layer is dotted with glycolipids and other metabolic tags functioning to disguise the Infectoid identity and trick observers into registering them as something less dangerous.
The posterior end of the colony gradually sloughs off dormant spores wrapped in a layer of shroud membrane.

The spore sits in its environment in dormancy, appearing to be the tiny remains of something once living based off its shroud membrane, until stumbled upon by another organism. The intermembrane space between the shroud membrane and the true cell membrane is filled with lysosomes. Once discovered by a hungry microbe the spore is devoured, and the shroud membrane will take damage. This triggers the release of lysosomes into the attacking microbe which promptly rips apart its insides. During the chaos a protective vacuole from the spore quickly latches onto the nuclear membrane of the attacking microbe, if unicellular, and engulfs it. Once inside the prison vacuole the nucleus is forced into a dormant state while the Buhmungus Infectoid gets to work assimilating the shredded cytoplasm into a new body.

The initial cell membrane once belonging to what is now the prisoner nucleus becomes the new shroud membrane. The active Infectoid cell inside draws in cytoplasm, and begins forming large pores along it's surface for ease of traverse between the inner cell and the intermembrane space for particles, ribosomes, and microtubules. Specialized proteins are used to skim through the prisoner nucleus for sequences necessary for the formation of species specific surface particles such as glycolipids. This information is transcribed by Infectoid proteins and the RNA translated, if necessary, by Infectoid ribosomes. All resulting compounds, particles, and processing, is restricted to marked vacuoles and escorted along microtubules to the intermembrane space where they are eventually united with the shroud membrane to perform their identification function.

During mitosis both the Infectoid nucleus and prisoner nucleus are replicated. The daughter cells divide inside the shroud membrane, which is expanded to accommodate the new cargo. If there isn't enough cytoplasm in order to form the basic structure for the active capture of prey then immature Buhmungus Infectoid will repeat the bait-and-switch process utilizing the new shroud membrane. However rather than capturing a new prisoner nucleus the assailant simply is destroyed entirely and devoured from the inside. The original prisoner nucleus is retained and any damage done to the shroud membrane during the attack is repaired using it.

After one or two of these events the Buhmungus Infectoid will have enough mass to form their mature shape. The cells in the cluster will differentiate into their specialized roles. Branching tubes will gently pass through the intercellular spaces to maintain supply chains to those cells no longer capable of obtaining food for themselves. Just under the surface of the posterior end the cells will specialize in the formation of spores. Mother cells will replicate their nucleus, without replicating the prisoner nucleus, and bud off a daughter which passes into the intermembrane space and pushes out to become engulfed in the shroud membrane and separate into the world.

When a spore is eaten by something multicellular, whether a filter feeder or planktonic predator, it can be a real problem. Most often the spore simply perishes, or if it's lucky the shroud membrane allows it to pass through digestion or even get coughed up with minimal damage. However, sometimes just the right food processing in the mouth or esophageal tube of a predator results in cascading their infection response. This results in rupturing through some epithelial cell of their attacker and converting it into a host body. Their process is very much the same as if they were going through their standard life cycle, however they cannot bait in any new attackers. Rather, they are passively fed alongside other epithelial cells by their host. This sustenance does allow them to multiply, though it stunts their lifecycle as the medium is not adequate for maturing into their adult colonial form. If the host is small enough the infection may overwhelm it and the Buhmungus Infectoid will be able to become free to mature. If the host is large then it's a dead end and the Buhmungus Infectoid will remain in its tissue, immature and unable to reproduce, until one of them dies.

If a spore is captured by a fellow Buhmungus Infectoid then a curious thing happens. The spore is initially attacked, its shroud membrane being destroyed like any other prey. This, however, releases its lysosomes which are marked as belonging to the species. Because both participants are of the same species safety measures to prevent self digestion stops all lysosome activity. The cell membrane of the spore is exposed to be recognized, it is held stuck to the wall of the digestive cavity and a tube is formed through the extracellular space toward the posterior end of the colony from its point of contact. The spore is hoisted through this, its membrane dotted and augmented for reception once reaching it's destination. Upon coming in contact with one of the many budding reproductive cells the tags placed on the spore are used to cut its membrane open and allow the reproductive cell to take on it's nucleus. After this both Infectoid nuclei will undergo meiosis and nuclear exchange, with both producing daughter nuclei for budding.



Simplified diagram of an Infectoid cell

It's fun because inulan is not the same as starches, you need different enzymes, it could be worthless to herbivores that aren't fermenting.

So you mentioned underground stolons, I think a better comparison would be wild potatoes rather than strawberries. Wild potatoes can send out stolons 8 feet out and create a new tuber that gives rose to a new plant.

I'm very happy with the starting statement that inulan is their storage substance.

Would abyssal gigantism apply to the atmosphere

More flora in general.

I've been thinking about making one or two flora genus groups for smaller things, but I really think we should have more species specific ones, especially trees.

Cool, edits have been added.

Explain more?

I thought plents used a porphyrin ring derived from chlorophyll, which is extremely similar to heme, and probably forms the same waste products during degradation.

Or it could make phyllobilins I guess
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/artic...444639318000047

But that's not as easy to learn about.