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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?: larger lips, females lose tusks to form a basic non-tidal filtering system with their mouth. toe covers for catching underwater prey
Internal?:
Behavioral/Mental?: dietary distinctions between females, young, and males
Are Changes Realistic?: y
New Genus Needed?: y, new mouth and foot parts

Habitat:
Type?:3 (thank you for counting)
Flavor?: 3 (thank you for counting)
Connected?: y (I thiink so?)
Wildcard?: n

Size:
Same as Ancestor?: n
Within range?: y
Exception?:

Support:
Same as Ancestor?:y
Does It Fit Habitat?:y
Reasonable changes (if any)?:
Other?:

Diet:
Same as Ancestor?: n
Transition Rule?: y
Reasonable changes (if any)?: original diet as larvae continues to exist, females become specialized to consume smaller prey both fauna and floral, males love eating eggs and land life.

Respiration:
Same as Ancestor?: y
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?:y ??
Does It Fit Habitat?:y
Reasonable changes (if any)?: added "hard shelled" to description, didn't exist in ancestors, probably was the same.
Other?:

Description:
Length?: good size.
Capitalized correctly?: y??
Replace/Split from ancestor?: REPLACED IN RANGE
Other?:

"Bellow the water her legs" should be "Below"

"she carries her nest in her rock-shaped suace-shell" should be "sauce-shell"

Opinion: Approved,

though the two minor spelling errors I noted ought to be fixed, but I've done hella worse myself.

I really like that frilly whisker feet on the male in the picture.

Fixed
The biomes are connected, basically forming a north facing horseshoe around the Wallace shoreline, with some inward growth along the riversides.

There are a few issues that need to be addressed...

1. The chitinous backplate is too fragile if its layered like this imho.
It would break pretty easily.

If you go for a heavier shell this would also result in a change to the legs.

It would have to look a bit stockier and closer to the ground.




Thinking more like turtles/tortoises/snapping turtles

https://sagan4alpha.miraheze.org/wiki/Rockshorian

"The shell-like extension of the sauce has taken a rock like shape externally, growing layer by layer with tiny gaps in between from the inside out, letting erosion and cracks form on the surface and result in a rocky surface. "

It's not defensive beyond camouflage it sounds.

Complex flaky appearances are entirely doable. Just have a mix of living and nonliving layers.

QUOTE (colddigger @ Nov 28 2022, 10:21 PM)

https://sagan4alpha.miraheze.org/wiki/Rockshorian "The shell-like extension of the sauce has taken a rock like shape externally, growing layer by layer with tiny gaps in between from the inside out, letting erosion and cracks form on the surface and result in a rocky surface. " It's not defensive beyond camouflage it sounds. Complex flaky appearances are entirely doable. Just have a mix of living and nonliving layers.

Isn't the sauce, part of the body protecting the brain? It should not be as fragile.

QUOTE (HethrJarrod @ Nov 28 2022, 08:21 PM)

QUOTE (colddigger @ Nov 28 2022, 10:21 PM) https://sagan4alpha.miraheze.org/wiki/Rockshorian "The shell-like extension of the sauce has taken a rock like shape externally, growing layer by layer with tiny gaps in between from the inside out, letting erosion and cracks form on the surface and result in a rocky surface. " It's not defensive beyond camouflage it sounds. Complex flaky appearances are entirely doable. Just have a mix of living and nonliving layers. Isn't the sauce, part of the body protecting the brain? It should not be as fragile.

https://sagan4alpha.miraheze.org/wiki/Roofback

This i think displays the ancestral sauce outgrowths quite well.
Only the inner portion of thar connection point would actually need to be tough.

A comparison concept would be if a ceratopsid dinosaur had a delicate frill. Such a thing would grow from the skull itself but not necessarily dictate that the skull is delicate too.

Its use as armor is limited. That said, we actually use layering to the advantage of armor IRL:



We do the same with bulletproof glass, tank armor, and even ancient fortifications like the walls of Metzada layered a sandwich of bricks and sand.

A single solid structure is a medium for cracks to expand across. By breaking armor down into layers, you restrict the expansion of the damage done by impact.

Turtle armor achieves the same results differently, by letting an area crush a latticework of scaffolding without expanding the breakage to other areas past the initial impact


As a general rule, you don't design sturdy things to not break, you design sturdy things to break in the least harmful way possible.

To clarify, the main limitation of its use as armor isn't the layering but the umbrella-like way the shell grows from the sauce in the roofback lineage.

For the rockshorian lineage that's more relevant for female shells that expand outwards into nests, as the one depicted. Male shells still emerge from the sauce but are held tightly to the body and are overall thicker, mostly as a defense against each other, though venturing on their own also makes them more vulnerable to predators...

The real mystery: why do they keep evolving camouflage and defenses if nothing includes them in their diet? I believe that they are quite delicious too, with an excellent texture.

I imagine it's meat is somewhere between shrimp and goose in texture, maybe with a touch of quinoa flavor due to the prevalence of swarmers in their diet. And once you are done you have a bowl for purple salad

This post has been edited by Jarlaxle: Nov 28 2022, 10:43 PM

Naucean poachers.

Probably caught for Naucean Thanksgiving

Do you mind putting a white background behind the cross sections for this and the Rockruiser? It's a bit too confusing to have it integrated into the landscape like this

QUOTE (MNIDJM @ Dec 1 2022, 04:57 PM)

Do you mind putting a white background behind the cross sections for this and the Rockruiser? It's a bit too confusing to have it integrated into the landscape like this

Done

The neck of the adult in the middle doesn't look like it could support its proboscis's weight. I'm also not sure if the overgrown claw-toes would realistically look like that.

Jarlaxle's Rockshorian and its descendants ought to be put under substantial scrutiny, given the drastic body changes and unconventional descriptions. I will not be available to look over them myself for a while.

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Dec 1 2022, 11:59 PM)

I'm also not sure if the overgrown claw-toes would realistically look like that.

if you mean the orientation of the claw, that was a question I've struggled with when coming up with the rockshorian.If the larval roofbacks started catching prey with their claws, using it like a mantis raptorial, then the opposable segment could be more likely to grow as a heel bump from underneath the toes, which is closer to what I initially wanted for this lineage.
The problem is that their primary purpose is to grip feathers, and the initial stages of such a bump would reduce the surface coming into contact with the feather. It can be done, even now someone can take another descendent of roofbacks and do just that, but not without sacrificing the roofback's unique nesting model.
Alternatively, extending a rough area above the "knuckles" into a hook would increase the surface area in contact with the feather barbs within the plumage even before creating a gripping point, eventually leading to a tipping point where the better grip on the feather is above the toes rather bellow them. This allowed the rockshorian to evolve opposable claws while retaining the roofback nesting model.

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Dec 1 2022, 11:59 PM)

The neck of the adult in the middle doesn't look like it could support its proboscis's weight.

How much would you say a sauceback's "head" weighs compared to that of a crane, egret, heron, or flamingo? Ears and nostrils but no brain, supportive plating but no enclosed skull, a hollow oral tube with an oral ring but no jaw. You can probably easily double the size of the head while keeping to a similar weight, and it's probably still not as bad as an RL male gerenuk with fully-grown horns.

This post has been edited by Jarlaxle: Dec 1 2022, 07:23 PM