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On the prongoli descendant, when I add sexual reproduction to inexplicably asexual things, I just kinda go "the spores are sexual now". The simplest way to do it would be to have it depend on water, like a fern; if it needs to live somewhere arid, it'll need to evolve a female spore-receiving organ.

As for the ferine, the polar woodland would have significantly more open space for it to grow. (It's like those winter wonderland type environments you might've seen where there's snow and big christmas tree-looking conifers scattered throughout)

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I've been working on a concept for a brachycephalic shrog, inspired by a well-known deformed white tiger. I believe I know how it can avoid the breathing problems common in brachycephalic animals on Earth, as unlike a pug or a persian cat its face shortened gradually so it doesn't have any parts that are still growing like it has a long snout (the palate not being shrunken with the rest of the snout is a big part of why pugs have so much trouble breathing). However, I think it's still gonna get a lot of questions, as breathing problems are not the only issue with brachycephalism. What else is there that I should note/explain? Pic relevant (but very wip, probably gonna change the nose)

Long snouts provide room for filtering, moistening, and warming incoming air, and can cool outgoing air to reduce heat loss. If it has a really, really coiled inner conchae (assuming shrogs even have conchae...I don't think conchae are ever explicitly mentioned on Sagan 4) that could compensate somewhat for a shorter snout in cold or dry climates. It might have trouble grabbing food with its mouth, although that wouldn't matter if it uses its paws to push food into its mouth or can effectively suck food into its mouth (e.g., like some animals suck up clams). This one's face is loosely walrus-like, so it could help to research walruses. Spectacled bears and short-faced bears also have pretty short snouts.

When I say brachycephalic I don't just mean a short face, I mean flat, like a man. Bears and walruses don't hold a candle to what I'm going for.

Shrogs don't sweat, do they? If so, they might dissipate heat by panting or through their nasal passages, like dogs. If these live someplace that's always cool, and possibly don't seriously heat themselves up by sustained and strenuous physical activity, then the usefulness of a short snout for cooling down would be reduced. Perhaps, if it lives in one the many suggested "grand canyons", the perpetual shade would give it cooler than expected temperatures in warmer climates. Alternatively, you could have it dissipate heat in other ways, reducing the usefulness of the mouth's surface or nasal passages.

You could say it has a lengthened pharyngeal region, which conditions the air instead of the nasal passages. (I used speculation on humans as a basis.)

Are you giving it a short head and then explaining how it can survive, or giving it a short head, finding a compelling reason for it to gain one, and then explaining how it survives within that niche? Understanding the "reason" for its very short face could help. Is it "degeneration" from lack of need or adaptation to something that encourages a very short snout?

If its snout is shorter because it eats soft foods or cooked foods (perhaps by stealing from Taserflames, benefiting from cooked corpses, or "cooking" on the warm embers of their fire-pits), then you could use information from hypotheses on humans' shorter snouts relative to the closest living relatives. If its feeding style depends on placing its face very close to its foodstuff, you could use walrus or marine iguana skulls as a basis.

It's meant for a cold climate, actually.

For some more context, for a while I've been planning a three-way symbiosis between a drakeshrog descendant, a bannertail descendant, and a third species which was originally gonna be a sauceback but I've replaced it with a descendant of the taserflame; the three species become interdependent on one another to survive in a harsh polar environment, and one of the big factors locking the shrog into the relationship is the combined pressures of reducing surface area to avoid losing heat and minimizing energy wasted processing softened food shortening its snout to the point that it can't survive without the taserflame descendant's culinary skills.

I've been experimenting with drawing submissions in a different art program, Chicken Paint, which is only accessible to members of Chicken Smoothie. It's locked to a lower resolution and missing a few features I like to use, but I find it's surprisingly a lot faster than Medibang, way easier to focus. Here's a couple of species I've drawn for next gen.

The art looks nice. I like the thick, even black lines and the fur detail.

Is this just for Alpha timeline submissions? The Beta section doesn't have a work-in-progress list.


An intended flora for Raptor Volcanic and/or its surrounding regions, in the lowlands. I actually have a nearly-complete description, but I figure it would be improper to put that on a work-in-progress thread in between Weeks.


A Rainforest Buttpiper descendant for Dixon Tropical Scrub which is actually adapted for that environment's coloration and can withstand predation by argusraptors better.

I decided to make a Shrubrattus descendant for the next generation on a whim. It's heavily armored, like a pangolin, which makes it somewhat more adapted to argusraptor predation. (Armor is not completely drawn in this image.) It even has spindly bark-armor pieces over its butt-nostril. Argusraptors probably could bite through the armor eventually, unless I go the "petrolignin" route. However, because they were already good at hiding in Crystal Brambley thickets and surely have life histories better adapted to high predation pressure, they don't really need perfect armoring. (Or any, really: they weren't at risk of extinction, hence why I made them on a whim anyway)

I want to make sure the leg musculature makes sense before I proceed. All its scales would make re-drawing the legs difficult, especially since I plan to give it texturing.

Disgustedorite might know about whether the legs look good, but if anybody else has something to say, I'd like to hear it.

The buttpiper's legs should be more noodly, that lineage never evolved jointed bones and still use the unjointed flexible skeleton ancestral to ambulatory plents

The beginning of what some have dubbed a "nobomination"

QUOTE (Disgustedorite @ Sep 3 2021, 12:34 AM)

The beginning of what some have dubbed a "nobomination"

You mean just you?

The lineart for the "Nobomination" doesn't look as good as your other linearts made on ChickenPaint.
Those are some interesting pipes...I wonder if they're flexible and worm-like, or hard like ram horns. I'm not sure why it would be an abomination, though. Is the bold coloration? It's certainly not as eye-searingly ugly as a Kugard.

I used thicker lines because thin lines are really, really, really, really, really hard to color in chicken paint. There's no magic wand tool and the paint bucket ignores other layers. I may experiment with solutions to that problem in the future, though.

The pipes are stiff and woody. They're tightly curled to be less conspicuous.

It's an abomination because the "mane" is reduplicated pinnae. Phyllauran pinnae are derived from their leaves, and plent leaves can reduplicate easily, so therefore duplicate outer ears are possible in any no-plent.

QUOTE (Disgustedorite @ Sep 3 2021, 07:15 PM)

I used thicker lines because thin lines are really, really, really, really, really hard to color in chicken paint. There's no magic wand tool and the paint bucket ignores other layers. I may experiment with solutions to that problem in the future, though. The pipes are stiff and woody. They're tightly curled to be less conspicuous. It's an abomination because the "mane" is reduplicated pinnae. Phyllauran pinnae are derived from their leaves, and plent leaves can reduplicate easily, so therefore duplicate outer ears are possible in any no-plent.

I looked at that thing for the first time, and I wondered why it was such an abomination. The only particularly remarkable thing about it is the 'mane' of spines.... hmm.... are they to help break up its silhouette? As a mating/display thing? Second time I was like "wait those are ears what". Seriously, though this is genius. I think people have done this before with plents, though I'm not sure if those ones are also pinna-ears. I can think of some of the sprintzillas and those weird ketters that are also basically walking shrubs off the top of my head.

What are the advantages of the duplicated ears? Are all of them functional as ears? What sort of modifications have been made to their function if any? I'm sorry if I sound a bit interrogative, I'm just really curious about this one. I'm also glad the buttpipers are getting some love, in between this, coolsteph's rainforest buttpiper descendant, and the already submitted shadow buttpiper. What kind of descendants do you have planned for this? Are you planning on doing any other buttpipers descended from already-existent species, like the grand buttpiper or the hippopotamus ones?

Only the front-most pair of pinnae are useful for detecting sound, as only the pinna is duplicated (not the middle or inner ear). The rest serve the same purpose as the bristles along an iguana's back--they help break up its shape against its environment.

I plan to make a future species that fuses some of them into a fan-like structure used for display and releasing heat.