Hello everyone, after a realization and second review of the atavism rule, I’ve realized the crystal gremlin is legitimately invalid as its ancestor’s ancestor would land on the monket rather than the fluttering spardi, so, I guess it’s just denied from here.
I gave it a good shot and I still think that the arguments brought up were not sufficient to refute its concept but it’s also literally rule-breaking so its run ends here.

Sorry if there’s a clear reason that’s gone over my head but, why exactly is the beak hypertrophied to the extent seen here? Is there a specific manner in which it’s hunting that necessitates it? It doesn’t seem to be really reaching into anything too often, and there are better proportions to have for pushing its way through foliage to catch prey.

I’d also recommend just offhand that the tip of the beak should probably not have a flesh covering over it as seen here, since it will likely be brushing up against things a lot and may end up quite irritated or even injured, plus if prey fights back that area provides a possible spot to target and cause pain as opposed to having it be just beak there and thus less vulnerable to retaliation.

QUOTE (Jarlaxle @ Apr 29 2023, 06:26 PM)

QUOTE (Oofle @ Apr 9 2023, 03:21 AM) how exactly does a small flagellated eukaryote manage to move a mass of slime like this? Each individual cell, when incited to do so by light and a drop in temperature (changes in the environment typically associated with ejection from a host), will secrete a different form of biofilm, a slime, and begin to gather together, quickly forming a mass of cells suspended in this slime. As these cells beat their flagellae the slime around them begins to move, held together by proteins and surface tension, this causes the slime to sort of ‘overturn’, slowly sliding across the ground as the bottom of the clump moves back and then to the top, and then is moved to the front of the mass as it goes under again, essentially rolling the slime. The slime is rather sticky and the mass usually does not weigh much, so this action allows it to climb even upside down, this is basically an all terrain vehicle for the hacksnot payload inside, kept lubricated and replenished by the constant secretion of new slime as well, though it is easily dehydrated and will desiccate quickly if exposed to dry air. I feel like this is distinct and critical enough of the species that it needs to be depicted in action, even if its just a little corner showing the flagella rolling the mass of slim I like the lecture presentation style, I had a prof who did the guiding question speech pattern with literally everything, I can easily imagine it as a presentation for first year Sagan epidemiology class.

Alright, so among some other minor fixes (alongside the removal of the subtropical woodland from its range), I did make a small gif to help make what’s going on clearer…even if it’s rather simple to be frank, it’s not my proudest work but here’s just a weirdly big hacksnot with a sand grain or something caught in its mucus (and sped up a lot) I suppose.

More technically this also does present the realization that they’re kind of moving backwards, which is a bit funny, but it probably works either way I imagine, since on a macroscopic scale they’re still moving whether or not it’s ‘backward’ or ‘forward’. I don’t know if a more detailed depiction would be preferred or not (and I am unable to remove the flipaclip watermark at this moment) but for basic elaboration’s sake I think this works, right?

Could we get a look at a cross-section of a feather? Is there anything weird going on in there or is it just kind of empty?

Velishroot right now, probably to Clarke: (I got permission to post this here)

Name: Hacksnot (Proparapestilentia auxilioinvicea)
Ancestor: pestilence
Creator: Oofle
Habitat: Fly Tropical Beach, Hydro Tropical Beach, Oz Subtropical Beach, Time Subtropical Beach, Time Archipelago Subtropical Beaches, Barlowe Tropical Mangal, Oz Subtropical Mangal, Time Subtropical Mangal, Barlowe Tropical Rainforest, Barlowe Subtropical Rainforest, Time Subtropical Rainforest Archipelago
Size: 20 micrometer wide cells, 2 millimeter long ‘clumps’
Support: unknown
Diet: parasite (tamchuck, marine tamow, tamhook, beach cheekhorn, longjack, spiny dwarfjack, malladact, longjake, quillyn, little manjack, stowaway harmbless, hang-gliding pinyuk, tamkor, leemalla, xatakbrak, burrowing tamjack, shrogre, carnofern grubnub)
Respiration: unknown
Thermoregulation: ectotherm
Reproduction: binary fission

In the tropics of Barlowe, a new form of pestilence has emerged, and it has a slimy little trick up its metaphorical sleeve for finding itself new hosts, but it would be wise to cover the basics of its lifestyle first.
Hacksnot is a respiratory disease that finds its way into the lungs of herbivorous and omnivorous carpozoans, usually shrews, the causative agent of the disease is a pestilence derivative called Proparapestilentia auxilioinvicea, but this will also just be referred to as hacksnot. Hacksnot, like many pestilences, forms a biofilm in the host’s lungs and attacks the cells within with a cocktail of toxins, creating extensive irritation, which usually causes a couple of symptoms on its own including chest pain, coughing, shortness of breath, and can even lead to pneumonia in extreme cases. The host’s body, meanwhile, usually responds with wheezing, labored breathing, excess mucus production, and, in endothermic hosts, a fever, the wheezing and labored breathing being an indirect result of the reduced function of the lungs due to the infection, meanwhile the fever is an attempt to overheat the hacksnot (which is overall ineffective as hacksnot is oftentimes more heat resistant than its hosts) and the mucus tries to flush the respiratory system. Overall, it resembles a fairly bad cold, and while a fair number of hosts may die, especially the young, old, or previously infirm, most manage to fight off the infection in a couple of weeks, though it can remain for an extended period of time in a more latent, less aggressive form with milder symptoms.

So now that we know what’s rather ordinary about hacksnot, what is extraordinary? Well, hacksnot is often quite loose in the lungs, great big chunks of yellowish biofilm will often accompany sputum and phlegm, but a most disturbing thing takes place over a course of hours; these globs will begin moving around and searching for a nearby object to climb up. Before we go over why this happens, how exactly does a small flagellated eukaryote manage to move a mass of slime like this? Each individual cell, when incited to do so by light and a drop in temperature (changes in the environment typically associated with ejection from a host), will secrete a different form of biofilm, a slime, and begin to gather together, quickly forming a mass of cells suspended in this slime. As these cells beat their flagellae the slime around them begins to move, held together by proteins and surface tension, this causes the slime to sort of ‘overturn’, slowly sliding across the ground as the bottom of the clump moves back and then to the top, and then is moved to the front of the mass as it goes under again, essentially rolling the slime. The slime is rather sticky and the mass usually does not weigh much, so this action allows it to climb even upside down, this is basically an all terrain vehicle for the hacksnot payload inside, kept lubricated and replenished by the constant secretion of new slime as well, though it is easily dehydrated and will desiccate quickly if exposed to dry air.

Why then, does this pathogen bother with such a complicated strategy? Well, while it can be spread normally between hosts through the air (albeit is often too heavy to stay suspended for very long), many of its hosts are not particularly social, so spreading between them is often an issue. Hacksnot alleviates this by utilizing its clumping ability to climb flora and usually will sit on the underside of leaves or fruits (to protect from drying out), and will remain semi-dormant in an attempt to conserve energy, only able to remain very infectious for about a week, but still capable of infecting hosts that eat it for up to 2 months. When the slime enters a host’s mouth, almost always by being incidentally eaten alongside the flora it is sitting on, it will quickly dissolve in the saliva, aided by often being masticated. When this happens, the cells inside will quickly swim through the mucus lining the throat, though many will be swallowed into the stomach and die, and attempt to settle in the lungs, forming a biofilm and starting the cycle all over again. If they are consumed by a plent or other non-carpozoan, they will typically swim about for a bit in the esophagus, rather confused as the other kingdoms of fauna common to their range have lungs that are not attached to their digestive systems, and tend to die rather quickly, only occasionally causing a minor sore throat and dying off in spite of their efforts in a couple of days if they settle down regardless for one reason or another.

This is the most beautiful Sagan 4 species to exist yet, it truly brings a tear to my eye to think about it, this deserves to win prime specimen, hands down.

QUOTE (Disgustedorite @ Mar 26 2023, 03:45 PM)

The problem isn't dollo's law, the problem is pressure to regain primitive anatomy when it was clearly headed down a path where it wasn't useful. What pressure was this organism under that made going back to this form advantageous?

Well, technically they were making do with a regular atavism, but I think a good point would have to be that the adult’s form allows for higher agility and thus the capture of quicker prey but also evasion of predators, which is important in more open environments like the ones the leaping gremlin’s ancestors settled in somewhat.

To address the other comment: I must ask if there was really anything else you’d expect from an atavistic leaping gremlin? Some previous comments you had made make this sound like the expected result of that frankly, and I must admit that its atavism does mean it basically evolved from a more fluttering spardi-like form. But it wouldn’t make sense for it to look like a crystal goblin descendant like it wouldn’t make sense for, as an example, a neotenous tadpole that atavises its adult stage back to look like a descendant of a neotenous tadpole as an adult. I did try to make it distinct from the fluttering spardi, but when you’re working with admittedly basically a fluttering spardi it’s inevitable that it’s gonna look a bit like a fluttering spardi no matter what you do. However, in my opinion, its lifestyle sure lines up way better with the crystal goblin than it does with the fluttering spardi, I think the main reason this seems so drastic is just because the ancestor is neotenous and so it evolving to have an adult again would obviously make it look extremely different, but if you have a different reason besides it not looking like and acting 100% like a crystal goblin I would be happy to hear it.

I will also bring up that there are species with perfectly functional but functionally unused adult forms like telephone pole beetles, and they don’t struggle to walk in the rare cases they do metamorphose. In my opinion it makes sense that the brain would probably develop the ‘knowledge’ on how to move its legs with metamorphosis, like how frogs don’t just flop about uselessly wiggling a tail that doesn’t exist anymore for a bit before they realize they’re not a tadpole anymore, and likewise don’t really start using their legs until they are fully ready, though I suppose I am ought to look more into that to see if it is linked to metamorphosis or not, but I don’t think most larvae know how to function as an imago until they actually do metamorphose.

QUOTE (Cube67 @ Mar 14 2023, 03:34 PM)

Grammar time! As with some of your stuff in other spec projects, I noticed some sentences with more than one independent clause. QUOTE In Darwin, a strange beast lurks, it has the body of a rivet, but the mind of a crystal goblin, what could it possibly be? QUOTE There was an issue for this life, the rivet was a major competitor and even possible predator, though they partitioned their niche somewhat, they were still forced to grow smaller, and headed inland to drier climates where rivets were less common. QUOTE Genetically, it was not entirely intact, even these initial mutants were missing a lot, they had small, useless fluttering membranes, and their lateral mandibles never developed their teeth, remaining soft and flabby and small. I'm not sure exactly how you want the other sentences to turn out, but I'll put here where I think the commas could be replaced on the first one: In Darwin, a strange beast lurks. It has the body of a rivet, but the mind of a crystal goblin. What could it possibly be? ---------- Some other things I noticed and wanted to mention, criticize, or ask about: - The edges on some of the crystals look very highly curved. The inner lines on the deep green phyte on the right should converge below the upper tip instead of curving upwards to meet it. The eroder phytes also look too thin; the tip should be less narrow and all the side faces should be the same width as the front face. They're meant to look thicker and stouter, after all. - With all that out of the way about oddly-depicted neurocrystals, there's a good attention to scale here. Everything seems to be correctly sized to a tee. - I'm curious as to why the lateral jaws would be toothless and flabby. - What's in the gremlin's mouth?

Aside from the grammatical stuff, I can answer most of those questions!

Yeah I suppose that it went a bit weird there, I’ll try to fix that sooner rather than later, it’ll probably be more of a patch over than a complete fix though.

The lateral jaws are toothless because they lost the genes to necessitate the growth of the lateral jaw tooth, so instead of developing into the ‘mandibles’ seen in most other stinzerstars they retain the pedomorphic state seen in its ancestor and most larvae.

A nimblemite.

Leaping gremlin (Inopinasterus nulladens [no toothed unexpected star])
Creator: Oofle
Ancestor: Crystal goblin
Habitat: Darwin Tropical Rainforest, Darwin Monsoon Forest, Darwin Tropical Savanna, Darwin Subtropical Woodland, East Darwin Chaparral
Size: 15 centimeters long
Support: Endoskeleton (bone)
Diet: Carnivore (Rolyknights, Shed Knightworms, Spardiflies, Darwinian Crestgills, Flopleaves, Nightworms, Nimblemites, Paneltopedes, Plentmowers, Wortopedes, Prongleg Scaleworms)
Thermoregulation: mesothermic
Respiration: active (lungs)
Reproduction: sexual (male and female, live birth)

In Darwin, a strange beast lurks. It has the body of a rivet, but the mind of a crystal goblin. What could it possibly be? None other than the leaping gremlin! But how did such a strange beast come to be? To find that out, we must go far, far back, to the birth of a very strange crystal goblin, or rather, a few. A mutation in the genes controlling the hormonal system of the neotenous spardis unleashed something that had been hidden away for a long, long time; their adult form. Genetically, this imago was not entirely intact, even these initial mutants were missing a lot of features from their time as neotenous ground-dwellers, they had small, useless fluttering membranes, and their lateral mandibles never developed their teeth, remaining soft and flabby and small. Though they were physically very abnormal, their behaviors were unaffected by the change in form, and so while they were mostly built like an arboreal and actively hunting fluttering spardi, they continued to hide amongst low-growing crystals and ambush small prey.

There was an issue with this life regardless, the rivet was a major competitor and even possible predator, and though they partitioned their niche fairly well, they were still forced to grow smaller, and headed inland to drier climates where rivets were less common. Leaping gremlins still hide amongst crystals like their ancestors, which helps them somewhat with avoiding dehydration in the dry parts of its range, as well as providing protection from predators. Leaping gremlins are particularly fond of neurocrystal colonies, as they are often quite extensive, both in the wetter parts of their range and drier parts, attracting plenty of prey for the gremlin to eat. However, these do not provide complete safety, and as such the leaping gremlin has reused what were once fluttering muscles in a familiar way: it hops along the ground, like a frog. The leaping gremlin can use this ability both to quickly escape from predators and also to make rather acrobatic attempts to snatch flying prey mid-air, the powerful limbs can also allow it to lunge rather quickly at prey after it creeps close enough for an ambush.

Leaping gremlins are not particularly socially complex, though they do express some aggression in crowded or harsh environments, so long as there is sufficient space and prey they do not tend to get into scuffles. Leaping gremlins do not tend to coordinate their breeding, and in the warm and humid parts of their range will often produce small, radial larvae that resemble their ancestor the crystal goblin year-round. In the more seasonal parts of their range, however, they tend to prefer mating whenever it is more humid, as desiccation is more threatening to the larvae than low temperatures. Like in their ancestors, the larvae are precocial and able to take care of themselves, though tend to hunt more actively than the adults, chasing smaller prey that they spot rather than waiting for it to come to them.

Alpha:
Golden sauceback
Mancerxia carniflorapod

Beta:
Tigris dagger
Thornant

I’ve added hethr’s edits, is there anything else that needs to be addressed?

I must ask, why exactly do they need a mouth-end brain initially to develop eyes at the front and not simply develop a ganglion after the eyes become advanced enough to require it? It isn’t like sea snakes have a brain in their tail to support the light-sensing functions of it, though admittedly they don’t have full fledged eyes there so that may be a considerably different situation, but, still worth note I think.
'Seeing' tails help sea snakes avoid predators

QUOTE (colddigger @ Nov 15 2022, 11:16 PM)

Approval Checklist: Art: Art Present?:y Art clear?:y Gen number?:y All limbs shown?:y Reasonably Comparable to Ancestor?:y Realistic additions?:y Name: Binomial Taxonomic Name?:y Creator?:y Ancestor: Listed?:y What changes?: External?: ventral rays for crawling on ground Internal?: all have lunged larvae Behavioral/Mental?: lay eggs in mud, larvae are nonflying and crawl on ground, adults capable of crawling on ground and do, BAD SWIMMERS THEY DROWN EASY Are Changes Realistic?: New Genus Needed?: (If yes, list why) Habitat: STRAIGHT UP GLOBAL, EVEN POLAR????? Type?: Flavor?: Connected?: Wildcard?: Size: Same as Ancestor?: N????? Within range?: Y????? Exception?: Support: Same as Ancestor?: y Does It Fit Habitat?:N/A Reasonable changes (if any)?: Other?: Diet: Same as Ancestor?:N Transition Rule?:y Reasonable changes (if any)?: carnivore now Respiration: Same as Ancestor?:y, at least the lunglike ones Does It Fit Habitat?:y Reasonable changes (if any)?: Other?: Thermoregulation: Same as Ancestor?:y Does It Fit Habitat?:y Reasonable changes (if any)?: Other?: Reproduction: Same as Ancestor?: n Does It Fit Habitat?:y Reasonable changes (if any)?: spawns in mud and veggies Other?: Description: Length?: good Capitalized correctly?: Y?? Replace/Split from ancestor?: SPLIT Other?: Opinion: Approved

I do disagree with the “even polar” assumption to be frank, they are global wherever there is at least seasonally sufficient moisture to breed, so true polar environments would likely exclude them unless they migrate (which I doubt)

^ Yeah
Like the fish that’s just called the old glory

Maybe it’s just me, but personally the shade of blue used here makes it really hard to distinguish the line art, especially the limbs (it kind of makes it look like it has limbs with two claws and the other limbs are obscured rather than four with one claw), maybe you could use a color other than black for the lineart? Or make the limbs otherwise more defined?

QUOTE (OviraptorFan @ Nov 10 2022, 11:06 AM)

QUOTE (colddigger @ Nov 10 2022, 01:00 AM) I mean on the scale of years if we're just talking fermentation. Consider how long it takes a small log to decompose in the forest with fungi actively eating it. I suggest adding some form of mechanical breakdown if you're going to have it eat entire lignified woody branches. Okay, what exactly could it do? As the teeth of the herbivorous lizardworms are not generally designed to chew, instead being adapted to nip and strip.

I mean, you could go full archosaur and give it gastroliths or something, I can’t imagine it’s too hard to evolve to just swallow suitably sized rocks after all.

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Nov 6 2022, 11:00 AM)

There are large, dark specks in both images, which are distracting. I still suggest toning down the grain of the paper, such as by increasing image contrast, but despite the fact I've repeatedly pointed this out for other submissions, the organisms in question were still approved. Much to my chagrin, these easy-to-fix issues were ignored. I've been busy lately, so I'll have to get back to this later. I can, however, note that you need to capitalize the names of prey it eats in the template, and separate the description into paragraphs.

Alright, I’ve capitalized the diet, but how large exactly do you want the paragraphs to be?

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Oct 28 2022, 05:59 PM)

Do not approve this yet. It has organizational issues, formatting issues, and minor art issues, and I don't recall going over its description, even briefly.

What exactly is wrong with the art? I don’t really doubt that I messed up the formatting but I don’t see anything really wrong with the art, is it the dot in the larva supplement? The lighting? Did I put the images in the wrong place again?

Alright, well, it’s official, they should be mostly ready for review now! How exactly do I ask someone to get rid of the (WIP) in the topic title though?

Mudfish (Lutumcetus sp. [Mud whale])
Creator: Oofle
Ancestor: Sruglettes
Habitat: global (at least seasonally sufficiently moist habitats with easy access to air)
Size: 5-20 centimeters long
Support: unknown
Diet: Adult: Carnivore (gamergate gundis, keryhs, minikruggs, mikuks, aphluks, dartirs, sapworms, eusuckers (not preferred, high iron content is displeasing), feluks, gushitos (not preferred, high iron content is displeasing), neuks, silkruggs, teacup saucebacks, vermees, xenobees, leepi meepi, belumbias (marine mudfish only), brushrums (marine mudfish only, planktonic juveniles), burraroms (marine mudfish only, planktonic juveniles), mistswarmers (marine mudfish only), common gilltails (marine mudfish only), dragon marephasmoids (marine mudfish only, not preferred due to sting), krillpedes (marine mudfish only), larvabacks (marine mudfish only, rarely), miniwhorls (marine mudfish only), polyfee (marine mudfish only, larvae, perhaps notably often fails in regards to successful predation and instead leads to being parasitized through the mouth lining), shimmering marephasmatises (marine mudfish only, not preferred due to sting), squidwhals (marine mudfish only), swarmerweeds (marine mudfish only), chainswarmers (marine mudfish only), gut anemoweeds (marine mudfish only), mudfish (smaller individuals, not preferred due to spines))
Larvae: Detritivore (organic matter within mud and soil, rotting vegetation), scavenger
Respiration: Active (lung-like gill)
Thermoregulation: heterotherm (muscle vibration)
Reproduction: sexual, spawning in mud or moist rotting vegetation, two genders

As sruglettes diversified, there was an obstacle to their expansion into some habitats, and while others simply waited for standing water or bred elsewhere, a few were more adventurous, and worked with what they had. The mudfish are a descendant of sruglettes with lunged larvae (specifically those of the subgenus protopulmonis) that became increasingly more adapted to laying their eggs in mud (and some similar substrates), as a manner of expanding into environments that did not often have standing water, and eventually back into areas to exploit the niche they’ve carved out for themselves.

Mudfish are a fairly diverse bunch, but in many ways quite similar to their ancestors, being flighted surge gilltails with a distinct and flightless larval stage. It is in this larval stage, however, where they primarily differ, not only do all mudfish have lungs as larvae (as do some sruglettes), but they usually live in mud instead of water. Whether it’s borderline muddy water after a rainforest flood, or whole flats of it out in the salt marsh, you can generally expect there to be some mudfish breeding there, this has necessitated a very special adaptation: actual ground mobility. Mudfish have modified their two ventral fins into strange structures consisting usually of just a row of bifurcated fin rays, as well as extended rays on their wing fins, allowing them to ‘crawl’ with a sort of swimming motion aided by the pectorals; their larvae also primarily use this, though also sometimes burrow into the mud, either to hide from predators or eat more of the mud, many mudfish species have larvae or even adults that can ‘hop’ along the ground with their wings for a burst of speed.

Adult mudfish tend to be more terrestrial than their ancestors, being better adapted to walk on the ground, and often having retracted fin membranes in favor of robust, spiny fin rays. Mudfish are still very capable fliers however, and some species will even use their pectoral spines to hang off of branches or rough surfaces, they are not quite so good at swimming however, and most mudfish can only manage a sort of wiggle through the water, it is not uncommon for mudfish to drown if they find themselves unable to get out of the water, as they also cannot flip over as easily to take a breath. Some mudfish do have better developed fins and can swim far better, but the majority are restricted to habitats with some sort of ‘land’. That is, apart from species that have specialized for a surprising habitat: puffgrass rafts, initially evolving from species that laid their eggs in moist rotting vegetation (and those still exist, to be clear), their larvae (seen in the middle left, just below A166) are fairly salt tolerant and capable of some limited swimming. Like most moist rotting vegetation specialists, albeit most extreme in the raft-dwelling ones, these larvae are elongated to worm their way through their much more tangled habitat, and their beaks are often a good bit stronger to slice through tough fibrous food (albeit, they cannot eat wood, lacking both gut microbes specialized enough for this and any reasonable way to evolve strong enough jaws). Raft-dwelling mudfish are the reason this genus group is global, as when their rafts wash ashore, adults can take fairly easily to laying their eggs in other stranded vegetation, which eventually moves to the mud, and then up the river to follow that mud, leading to freshwater, mud-dwelling species once more.

Mudfish often live a good bit longer than their ancestors, as they spend a lot more time resting rather than constantly exerting themselves with flight, and the average lifespan of the genus, rather than a few months, is roughly a year.

One more notable group are the paedomorphic mudfish (such as the purple one in the upper left corner), though once again they aren’t monophyletic (much to the agony of the subgeneric taxonomists), they do share some unique traits, their fin rays are often much more delicate due to their smaller size not requiring robust spiny ones, these are perhaps the shortest lived mudfish, akin to some diminutive terran reef gobies (though not as extreme). These mudfish tend to be specialized toward perching on vegetation and lunging at prey rather than skittering around chasing it (though this ambush predation lifestyle isn’t unique to them), the individual shown, belonging to the subgenus Diversoculus, also shows how some species have evolved eyes on turrets to allow them to look around better.

Marine species (defined as those that nest on puffgrass rafts (with the exception of the driftwood islands) are interestingly rather good at swimming, in contrast to most species; this was a necessary adaptation because it was not uncommon for them to metamorphose and find themselves somewhere with no land or land-dwelling prey for miles, because most mudfish need to eat they had to solve this issue somehow. Marine mudfish do not tend to go for prey latching onto solid surfaces or at the benthos, but nekton and plankton are both fair game. It would seem surprising then, with how avid at swimming these marine mudfish are, that no freshwater mudfish exist, why is this? Simply put, mudfish can’t put up with competitors in these much more cramped environments, and with plenty of prey to hunt on land, they almost always adapt to hunting there instead.

While it is certainly a good one, and the image is quite nice too, I don’t think a poem is considered an acceptable form of primary description. At the least there should be a debriefing or summary on it that’s clearer if you really want to keep the poem (though I don’t know how that would fly regardless)
Overall this is a good looking submission though!

QUOTE (OviraptorFan @ Sep 15 2022, 08:47 PM)

QUOTE (Oofle @ Sep 15 2022, 09:37 PM) To be honest, I’m not too sure about how this ends up pollinating its ‘host’ flora, I suppose it may be an issue more of the flora, but why would the flower spend all of its nectar on a single batch of very limited time pollinators? It isn’t exactly cheap to make, and trapping something that already only has 7 days to live for a fourteenth of that seems like, frankly, a great way to ensure it never comes across another of your kind’s flowers before it kicks it. I feel like a more conventional flower-pollinator duo would be best in this situation, it isn’t like the nectarworm has great incentive to leave rather fast like the pollinators of other flowers that trap their pollinators for extended periods of time (iirc most of them are carrion flowers, so when the insects realize they’ve been duped they pretty much just leave, hence why the flower ‘shuts the back door and locks it’ on em). So wait, how exactly should this relationship change? I wanted to make these two taxa very similar to their ancestors still, just adapted to these new environments.

Well, probably not a lot, I just think the flower shouldn’t shut over them (though I will admit I’m not an expert so I do suppose you could keep it if you want to unless someone else says otherwise) so they can enter and exit freely and pollinate them faster.

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Sep 15 2022, 03:44 PM)

These are big for burrowing animals. A polar bear is technically a burrowing animal, as the females dig maternity dens. Female polar bears are 5.9-7.9 feet long, or 2.4 meters. However, it's possible snow is easier to dig through than soil. A wombat, which is more conventionally a burrowing animal, is about 1 meter long.The extinct wombat relative Mukurpina, which had some limiting digging ability but didn't burrow, is said to be the size of a black bear. The size of an American black bear is 4.5 feet long, or 1.3 m long. I recommend adjusting the art to give it bigger front paws that look more suitable for digging, making it smaller, clarifying that its burrows are just pits in the ground sheltered by vegetation, or that it co-opts other organism's burrows and somewhat expands the entrances.

I do think it’s important to note that there are burrows that we’re pretty sure were dug by giant ground slothes or pampatheriid armadillos, both of which are quite hefty, and all of the proposed slothes often reached 4 meters long! And as far as I am aware the only way they might’ve been cheating was creating these burrows by shoving rocks out of the way (though that doesn’t seem like big cheating to me to ne fair). And these burrows are nearly straight up caves too, so I don’t really think 1.5 meters is too big to burrow (though it probably depends on how loose the soil is too).

QUOTE

(i.e. the creature is stronger or is carrier guarded by an obstinate predator)

Is carrier a typo here? It would seem like you may have meant carrion, but I don’t know.