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No prob with the swap, this looks beautiful! It's good to see a migratory species, especially given how many there are here on earth.

The limited biome rule says a species can have up to two habitat types and up to three flavors. This lives in temperate, subtropical, and tropical habitats. Is this your wildcard? Do you have any other wildcard species, who have gone extinct or whose ranges have shrunk to non-wildcard ranges?

No, the rule is 3 types now.

QUOTE (Disgustedorite @ Aug 28 2022, 10:41 PM)
No, the rule is 3 types now.


Evidently, that hasn't gotten updated.

I've repeatedly reminded @MNIDJM to update it. I guess he still has not.

What a nice and funky little creature. The coloration makes it resemble some sort of fantasy candy animal.

One thing I found odd, though: would they really only eat ferries? I know it's a whole genus, sure, but there's nothing to indicate they're completely specialized for them. What's stopping them from exploiting the other flora in their range?

QUOTE (Cube67 @ Aug 29 2022, 08:06 AM)
What a nice and funky little creature. The coloration makes it resemble some sort of fantasy candy animal.

One thing I found odd, though: would they really only eat ferries? I know it's a whole genus, sure, but there's nothing to indicate they're completely specialized for them. What's stopping them from exploiting the other flora in their range?


You raise a good point. I think its dependence on ferries is partly an artifact of how several of its habitats (
(Wallace Chaparral, Wallace Bush, Central Wallace Tropical Scrub, etc.) have no large flora, or local flora at all. While it's plausible this could be mainly a browser (eating leaves and shoots, not "grass"), it's still odd a large, widespread herbivore could eat only Ferine leaves and fruit. Eating Ferine shoots, flowers, and flower buds in addition to leaves and fruit would be more plausible in meeting its nutritional needs through each season, although since they migrate, they don't need to meet their nutritional needs year-round in any one area. (Unless tropical populations don't migrate.)

The ancestor exclusively ate ferines, and ferries are an entire genus of flora, so I figured it should be sufficient. I could add more stuff but most of what would be in the same edibility range is in different kingdoms.

Is it 1.6 m rear to head or rear to trunk tip

QUOTE (Disgustedorite @ Aug 29 2022, 01:02 PM)
The ancestor exclusively ate ferines, and ferries are an entire genus of flora, so I figured it should be sufficient. I could add more stuff but most of what would be in the same edibility range is in different kingdoms.


If its ancestor was indeed the Dualtrunk, then the Dualtrunk also ate Supershrooms and Sapshrooms:

" Mycovore (Supershrooms, Sapshrooms), Folivore (Arid Ferine leaves) "

In fact, that's listed as the first and second thing in its diet. (Though it is admittedly improbable something so big would eat large quantities of mushroom-esque organisms in its particular habitats.)

That it eats Supershrooms and Sapshrooms may suggest they are sources of protein or other nutrients to supplement its diet of leaves. Expanding its diet to include Ferry shoots, at least, could be a good compromise, or making note of having specialized microbes that help it gain protein off just leaves and fruit of a particular genus, or granting more detail of its need to migrate with precise timing to get sufficient nutrition from new growth or catch fruits in fruiting seasons. Some of the habitats (plains, veldt, chaparral) might not have many Ferries. Yes, they would be in bush/shrub form, but I'm not sure if they would exist in enough abundance to support herds of thousands of hungry migrating Hexatrunks that eat only Ferries' leaves and fruit.

One compromise is simply to go into detail on them being ecosystem engineers, like like bison, which do not simply follow waves of fresh, nutritious growth. Like bison, they could force the plants they feed on to be locked in early-spring mode of nutrition for weeks. I'm not sure how this would go for trees/bushes/shrubs, which might be harder to cultivate to this end, but it's sufficiently plausible.

I added shoots, but note it also eats the fruit.

I've basically rewritten the migration section

does this really only eat ferries? are there no other similar purple floras that it would eat?

Ferries are readily available, provide both fruit and leaf, and are both similar to the ancestral diet and easier to eat than it

QUOTE (colddigger @ Oct 26 2022, 09:02 PM)
does this really only eat ferries? are there no other similar purple floras that it would eat?


Koalas eat only eucalyptus leaves, and from only a few species, at that. Greater glidersGreater gliders are even more specific. While most broadly comparable real animals have broader diets than that, given the diversity of Ferries species and the fact it eats multiple parts of Ferries, it's still a plausible diet. Deficiencies in nutrients in one kind of food could be compensated for in another. The description also specifies it's constantly on the move to take advantage of fresh growth, which is more nutritious.



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