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This is a topic for asking the community for moderate description and concept help for half-finished submissions. It's good to use if one feels one's submission is too bland or basic for one's tastes, because just one or two things are missing or underdeveloped. It is also useful if one doesn't feel a submission is quite developed enough to fill up a work-in-progress slot on the submissions board, or for using between Generations for upcoming submissions.

If low on ideas, please see other topics, such as the Submission Ideas topic, or browse the wiki.

Quillboll
Original description idea, which I can change:

Click to expand

Dixon Tropical Scrub
Ancestor: Prongoli

Quillboll

Short, thick fuzz-leaves which grow in cottony clumps. Vestigial, gritty thorns among its leaf clusters. Grows best in soils high in sand.

Quillbolls have dense, fibrous stalks, like weak, lightweight wood. Quillbolls live for two years, reproducing with spores in the second year. Quillbolls grows best in nitrogen-rich soil with good drainage.

It stores nutrients at its thick, swollen stem base, hidden underground, which fuel its rapid regrowth when herbivores eat it or when fires periodically burn its habitat.

Coincidentally resembles Quaxacas.

(I wonder how to make those Quillotestudo flora develop sexual reproduction..I'm surprised they still don't do that.)

I’m thinking of making this a Quaxaca, Quassagule or Prongoli descendant, and spreading it from Raptor Volcanic to Wallace Savana and West Wallace Veldt, and perhaps Raptor Plains, too. (Raptor Plains has no local organisms.) Annual cotton plants could provide inspiration for its physiology. I was going to use cottongrass as inspiration, but they live in colder, northerly climates.

It would be useful as a foodstuff for my antelope-like Rainforest Buttpiper descendent, which I’ve mentioned before in the Works in Progress topic, but have since elaborated on in my ideas document.

I'm thinking it could be a herbaceous/semi-woody annual or biennial. It seems to have well-developed, shallow roots and a small rhizome. That might suggest it lives in thick soil, or somewhat thin or rocky soil. As typical for its lineage, it would probably be capable of nitrogen-fixing because of its microbes, and it might have tiny, hard-to-digest thorns hidden among its leaves which gradually wear down herbivores' teeth. If it's a Quassagule descendant, it might be notable for turning a washed-out reddish-purple when it dries, when most purpleflora turn pink or champagne when dry. Raptor Plains has no other local flora, so if it gets that far, it would probably have to be adapted as a pioneer species.

An interesting opportunity is making it so dominant in Raptor Plains with its unusual dry-season coloration that it creates selection pressure for any species or locally-adapted subspecies that come in to also have its unusual dry-season coloration, at least until more typical purpleflora come in.

I probably could make a passable description by stringing together generic traits from its ancestors with brief life-history and soil conditions descriptions, as well as spelling out the implications of its being common in certain habitats, but I would like my flora to be a little more original and interesting.

^ That makes me wonder if anyone has ever done an autumn sagan 4 diorama

If my rockshorian descendants pull through, I'm interested in doing a R/P/S rockshorian complex. rockruiser females could sneak into bobbysoxer bull's harem & share their neotenic male larva with other females, while a 3rd WIP "Austin rockshorian" monogamous decedent would be protected from such deceit but their males would be under threat from invasions of the competition-specialized bobbysoxer bulls, resulting in a combined pool of physical characteristics and dominant/recessive traits.

I'm not entirely sure how to go about this. Can I make a hybrid of 3 species saying they are closely related? Should I go 2 hybrid species and make the complex a hybrid of those two? And how do I present that complex, should it count as a genus submission?

This post has been edited by Jarlaxle: Jan 2 2023, 05:33 PM

I honestly wonder how such extreme dimorphism between the bull and neotenic males could remain viable during genetic mixing, you'd probably end up with scrawny bulls that never make it beyond their teenage development or something.

What would the resultant females be, too?
They seem sorta specialized enough that mixing could also result in a weaker hybrid.

You could probably pull off your idea without hybridizing or mixing the species, just doing a more conventional R/P/S like what's found on earth. The bobbysoxer by itself could pull this off, and given the females lose their tusks you could make males that mimic females to infiltrate harems, monogamous weak tusked males, and harem forming strong tusked males your game.

Giving them behaviors that woo the ladies, and also childrearing aid, would make this even better since that would mean the mimics can woo while in the harem, females would be happy with the weak tusk males that help with the kids, and the harem males are just... the usual.

This post has been edited by colddigger: Jan 9 2023, 11:16 PM

QUOTE (colddigger @ Jan 10 2023, 07:07 AM)

I honestly wonder how such extreme dimorphism between the bull and neotenic males could remain viable during genetic mixing, you'd probably end up with scrawny bulls that never make it beyond their teenage development or something. What would the resultant females be, too? They seem sorta specialized enough that mixing could also result in a weaker hybrid. You could probably pull off your idea without hybridizing or mixing the species, just doing a more conventional R/P/S like what's found on earth. The bobbysoxer by itself could pull this off, and given the females lose their tusks you could make males that mimic females to infiltrate harems, monogamous weak tusked males, and harem forming strong tusked males your game. Giving them behaviors that woo the ladies, and also childrearing aid, would make this even better since that would mean the mimics can woo while in the harem, females would be happy with the weak tusk males that help with the kids, and the harem males are just... the usual.

what if the neotony wasn't as gradual of a process?

rather than favoring specific less and less developed males over time, what if it was more along the lines of growth-inhibiting genetic conditions like Kallmann syndrome becoming advantageous and spreading within the population? this way the male neoteny would be an on/off situation rather than a gradual one, maybe a matter of needing two growth-inhibiting chromosomes alongside male chromosomes.

this does create a space for decay and mutations in the bull-specific genetic sets which don't get manifested in the neotenic population. maybe I can use that instead of the hypothetical 3rd species? create a stable hybrid population as the monogamous ones and use that as the bridge species, made out of rockruisers that got impregnated by bobbysoxers giving birth to males with a non-neotenic chromosome but not having all the intact bull genes that a regular bobbysoxer bull would have gotten from his mother's side (or vise versa), thus living more like a female and taking advantage of that to more closely guard his partner.
over time they might have gained further advantages within that lifestyle, maybe using the "shoes" as flippers, or little rocky shell nubs that help the older larva grab the outside of the shell thus allowing males to aid in childcare

Would that be viable?

This post has been edited by Jarlaxle: Jan 22 2023, 02:30 PM

On the subject of autumn, is autumn the season for nuts on sagan? We have a lot of flora with nuts but I'm not clear on the seasonality, though autumn makes sense and seems to be the common case for earth.

(Information needed for a completely different nutty species concept)

Oh that might make sense, larvae need hormonal triggers to develop their mature forms, and silenced responses exist.

The syndrome you refer to may not be the best choice if you do use an example in a description, since it seems heavily associated with lacking sexual development as well if I read right about it.


Late summer/fall is commonly the time for large plants in temperate regions to produce seeds meant for overwintering, nuts are included in that. And with that I would say yes, fall should be the time when nut bearing Flora produce mature nuts in order to overwinter and begin germination in the springtime.

This is mainly based off of plants that have one crop that develops on them, which is fairly standard for fruit trees. There are exceptions to this, for example cherry trees which happened to fruit comparatively early.


Alongside that I suppose "nut tree" is not actually a singular category and just refers to any tree that is mainly used for a hard piece of food. It's not like almonds pistachios hazelnuts acorns chestnuts cashews and walnuts are all exactly related.



This makes me wonder now about frugivores in temperate regions, such a diet would have to be either very sprawled across many kinds of sources, or very seasonal and is represented by a period of bounty as well as a period of sparseness in regard to fruits. Think of bears in temperate regions that need to hibernate, there's a period of time when there's lots and lots of berries for them to eat, but also there are periods Between these during which they will be feeding on other things.

This post has been edited by colddigger: Jan 26 2023, 12:57 AM

QUOTE (colddigger @ Jan 26 2023, 08:50 AM)

Oh that might make sense, larvae need hormonal triggers to develop their mature forms, and silenced responses exist. The syndrome you refer to may not be the best choice if you do use an example in a description, since it seems heavily associated with lacking sexual development as well if I read right about it.

I should probably prepare the grounds in the Rockruisers male neoteny description already.

Would I be able to rationalize that because of the need to regulate the mutual development of Binucleus Icosahedron & Binucleus Truncated Icosahedron tissues, Binucleozoa sexual development is regulated by a more intricate system of branching hormonal triggers rather than a single dominant hormone (like testosterone/estrogen), thus allowing the full development of gonads even in individuals afflicted by a condition that prevents the production of later developmental hormones further down the tree?

Does this make sense? Would this work well with the existing examples of Binucleozoa neoteny like the sauceback larva lineage?

This post has been edited by Jarlaxle: Jan 27 2023, 04:15 PM

Axolotls are physiologically adults (i.e., can reproduce) in bodies which approximate the juvenile forms of their ancestors. While knowing how neoteny develops in Binucleozoa would be interesting, it's not necessary to elaborate on the mechanism. You can still do it, of course. It's possible the two cell lineages of Binucleozoa have been joined together for so long that they've experienced horizontal gene transfer between them, which might allow them to be receptive in some way to each other's hormones.

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Jan 27 2023, 11:20 PM)

Axolotls are physiologically adults (i.e., can reproduce) in bodies which approximate the juvenile forms of their ancestors. While knowing how neoteny develops in Binucleozoa would be interesting, it's not necessary to elaborate on the mechanism. You can still do it, of course. It's possible the two cell lineages of Binucleozoa have been joined together for so long that they've experienced horizontal gene transfer between them, which might allow them to be receptive in some way to each other's hormones.

If we had the most closely related salamander that could still breed with axolotls, would their offspring be half-way neotenic, or would it be an on/off chromosomal trigger determining whether it will be neotenic? Perhaps it is triggered in some offspring's but not others?

With the future rockruisers/bobbysoxer hybrid lineage I am aiming for the latter, which might mean i need to go into details, at least in the meta to make sure the description's explanation don't contain anything that contradict it.

Plus, you know...it's fun. Admittedly whenever we go into details about systems that weren't elaborated on in the past there's a risk of retcon, so it does need some supervision, and making sure it doesn't contradict other instances of suaceback neoteny and the ideas of the artists who made them, like the swimming larva one, but this thread seems perfect for doing just that.

Name: Leviathan
(Leviathan)
Diet: Galeone Lyngbakr, Reapermaw Hafgufa, Neptune Escape Rocket, Other Big Stuff
Size: 5 Meters - Unknown
Biome: Abyssal Zone, Twilight Zone, Surface
Ancestor: Twilight Echofin
Reprocution: Asexual 1 Gender

Features
He never stops to grow the biggest of them have reached 700 meter length and above.
The skin is very thick and strong and elastic they have no flesh inside of the body they are just skin bone and organs the Body is Hollow and Filled with Water with that he can survie the pressure down there he always sucks water in his body filter the Oxygen and then let the water out he does that to keep is body inflated.
Hunting
(Place Holder for the hunting methode and how they feed)
Reproduction
Leviathans have developed a organ in that organ they produce eggs and sperm.
If 2 Leviathans cross their way the inject each other Sperms then booth of them release a hormone where makes that the eggs will hatch then they will swim outside of the Leviathan and begin their Journey into the abyssal floor where they baby leviathans hunt.
The baby Leviathans have a grow boost in the first 4 months they will reach in that time 80-120 meters and then left the abyssal floor to the midnight zone
The Size of a newborn leviathan is 5 meters long 2 meters wide
If a leviathan dies he will before he dies release his own sperms in his egg and release a special hormone where makes that the eggs hatch and then they will eat the body of the Leviathan

the Neptune Escape Rocket is just a reference joke to subnautca RoTA mod
where is the inspiration for that "Big" thing