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Name: Lutolisk (Parasiluro reptolimus)
Creator: Cube67
Ancestor: Scarletshell Sandhopper
Habitat: Cube Tropical Watershed, Glicker-Rhino Tropical Watershed, Bot Tropical Watershed, Glicker-LadyM Tropical Watershed, Cube Swamp, Bot Swamp, Glicker Tropical Rainforest
Size: 38 cm
Support: Exoskeleton (Bone shielded by keratin)
Diet: Adults: Carnivore (Mattebelly, Fluterump, Villati, Common Namnder, Strontode); Larvae: Scavenger, Detritivore
Respiration: Active (Unidirectional lungs)
Thermoregulation: Ectothermic
Reproduction: Sexual (Oviparous, 2 sexes, Internal fertilization)


Finding themselves in a strange new environment, the sandhoppers of Glicker were forced to adapt rapidly. Within only a short amount of time, one population of them began to deviate relatively quickly from the ancestral form. The result of this, while not particularly different from its ancestor genetically, may be one of the most strange-looking organisms to date on Sagan 4: the Lutolisk.

Physical Adaptations

In order to better serve as a proper walking lumb, the lutolisk’s frontmost pseudo-toe has hypertrophied into a long spike, allowing it to pull itself across dry land and riverbed alike. In order to facilitate this mode of locomotion, a new exoskeletal plate has evolved on the bottom of its caudal fin, forming a bony “sled”. This feature has a similar genetic basis to the small bony knob on the end of the grovestalker’s tail fin, with its curved shape serving to keep its precious reproductive-tied anal fin from scraping on the ground. Additionally, the tail has truncated significantly in order to further reduce friction with the ground. This also has the positive side effect of reducing the amount of bare skin on its body, meaning that it doesn’t dry out quite as quickly. However, the adult lutolisk’s strange body shape and rigid exoskeleton makes it a poor swimmer, so when they are fully submerged underwater they usually just crawl around on the bottom. Their torso is roughly barrel-shaped (except slightly laterally compressed), with a somewhat flatter area on the underside.

To suit their slightly more terrestrial lifestyle, lutolisks’ lung chambers have become larger and more vascularized, albeit with a smaller external plate. Though their gills may atrophy away as they age, lutolisks retain large gill chambers into adulthood, which now store additional air much like a Terran bird’s air sacs. As with the scarletshell sandhopper, the gill chambers (or, in this case, air sacs) are connected to the dorsal lung. Also like their ancestors, lutolisks retain two pairs of chamber openings nestled between the lung plate and thoracic bone. However, unlike their ancestors, all of these openings are primarily used for exhalation, while the nostrils are used for inhalation. This innovation allows lutolisks to breathe unidirectionally, much like their grovestalker kin.

Hunting and Feeding

Because of its cold-bloodedness and somewhat awkward, jerky locomotion, the lutolisk is primarily an ambush predator. Its purple-and-black-striped shell helps it blend in with stands of purpleflora, concealing it from its favored prey: terrestrial carpolantaians. When an ill-fated carpolantaian (or a small namnder, which are similarly soft-bodied) comes too close, the lutolisk quickly grabs it with its tentacles, using its sharp teeth to puncture and hold onto its prey. If the prey is too large to swallow whole, the lutolisk will use its firm grip to dismember it. While the lutolisk’s gut is slightly more specialized for its diet, it does not differ too much from its ancestor’s, mainly because their ancestors already had a diet consisting of fully and partially soft-bodied prey, including aquatic carpolantaians.

Behavior and Perception

Lutolisks are solitary, only ever spending time around each other in order to mate. While lutolisks do not have defined territories, they are usually aggressive towards other members of their species as adults, especially if they are of the same sex. If two lutolisks do encounter each other in the wild, they will spread out their tentacles and slowly wave them around, intimidating each other with their sharp teeth until one of them retreats. This is used as a warning signal in order to avoid further conflict, comparable to baboons baring their teeth, cats arching their back, or iguanas bobbing their head when threatened.

This species doesn’t really burrow anymore, but do partially conceal themselves in mud or sand when there isn’t many purpleflora to hide in (or if the only kind around is purple spheres, which it does coincidentally resemble when only its knees, eyes, and lung are sticking out).

The lutolisk has vertical slit-shaped pupils, giving it highly motion-sensitive vision. Its color vision is only mediocre, being most sensitive in the red range in order to discern its blue prey from surrounding purple flora. It is also able to quickly discern between dull and glossy surfaces, so that it does not get lost in patches of crystal flora where it is most visible. Lutolisks’ eyes are placed high up on their heads and are angled slightly forwards, allowing it to get a good look at its prey and not have its vision be obscured by its legs. Lutolisks have an excellent sense of smell, using it as their primary means of detecting prey and predators from afar. This is to compensate for their lack of ears, as the only way the lutolisk is able to ‘hear’ is by detecting vibrations in the ground using its tail bone.

Life Cycle

Like their ancestors, the lutolisk is still bound to the water by its reproduction, although due to improved osmoregulation they are now able to have their offspring in brackish and freshwater. They mate belly-to-belly, partially or mostly submerged in water. The female lays many small eggs into a small depression underwater and then covers them with a small pile of sand using her tail. The larvae initially look like a slightly rounder and more truncated version of their ancestors’ larvae. Like the larvae of other amphibious siluros, lutolisk larvae have a dorsal lung, but it’s small and filled with water from the gill chambers. As in their ancestors, the larvae take time to develop their exoskeleton. Only when their shell is partially grown do they start showing the signature traits of a lutolisk: their front finger starts to elongate, their tail shortens even more, and their lung plate takes on a slightly conical shape. It is during this stage that they stop swimming as much and begin to switch to a lifestyle resembling that of their adults, although they are not considered fully mature until they stop eating carrion and grow twofold from there to reach their full size. Lutolisks can live for around 20 years but usually die before they reach that age.

(Supplementary image of head)

(Sketch of isometric and front views for the gallery)



POST-SUBMISSION NOTE: this thing is supposed to camouflage within stands of Stellafrutex so maybe approve that first

This post has been edited by Cube67: Mar 6 2023, 02:21 PM

Review

ART
Art Present?: Yes
Art Clear?: Yes
Gen Number?: Yes
All Limbs Shown?: Yes
Reasonably Comparable to Ancestor?: Yes
Realistic Additions?: Yes

NAME
Binomial Taxonomic Name?: Yes
Creator?: Yes

ANCESTOR
Listed?: Yes
What Changes?: Several
External?: Better adaptations to terrestrial living, vertically-slit pupils, and additional exoskeletal plates.
Internal?: Gills mostly atrophy by adulthood.
Behavioral/Mental?: Adapted better to land, mostly incapable of swimming as adults.
Are Changes Realistic?: Yes
New Genus Needed?: Already applied.

HABITAT
Type?: Tropical
Flavor?: Watersheds, Swamps, and Rainforests
Connected?: Yes
Wildcard?: N/A

SIZE
Same as Ancestor?: No
Within Range?: Yes
Exception?: N/A

SUPPORT
Same as Ancestor?: Yes
Does It Fit Habitat?: Yes
Reasonable Changes (if any)?: Yes (better adaptations to terrestrial living)
Other?: N/A

DIET
Same as Ancestor?: No longer omnivorous, purely carnivorous
Transition Rule?: Yes
Reasonable Changes (if any)?: Yes

RESPIRATION
Same as Ancestor?: Adults no longer retain gills, young do
Does It Fit Habitat?: Yes
Reasonable Changes (if any)?: Yes
Other?: N/A

THERMOREGULATION
Same as Ancestor?: Yes
Does It Fit Habitat?: Yes
Reasonable Changes (if any)?: N/A
Other?: N/A

REPRODUCTION
Same as Ancestor?: Yes
Does It Fit Habitat?: Yes
Reasonable Changes (if any)?: N/A
Other?: N/A

DESCRIPTION
Length?: Good
Capitalized Correctly?: Yes
Replace/Split from Ancestor?: Not specified.
Other?: N/A

Opinion: An excellent species with delightful color patterns. As Cube67 says, though, this shouldn't be accepted until the flora it mimics with its coloration is as well.

What's wrong with sliding on a keel other than being in a famous (but not that scientifically rigorous... which tbh hasn't stopped me from loving it or thinking it's a great book) xenobiology book?

I've heard it's not very energetically efficient.
I'd argue though that in this case it's better than dragging even more mass along the ground like the ancestor seems to

Due to a string of tweaks and retcons that have occurred in order to better explain the respiratory evolution of terrestrial siluros, I have edited this post to reflect these changes. The situation this species' ancestor turned out to be in also proved somewhat conducive to evolving unidirectional breathing (which already happened in the grovestalker), so I gave this species similar adaptations to cope with the post-EBAD atmosphere.

The design is novel and the art is pleasant. I like the shading.

In the template, there is a very slight error, or more of an oversight: reproductive methods should be capitalized.
I recommend using “its” instead of “their” for the animal threat display comparisons.
“Isn’t many purpleflora”: “Aren’t many purpleflora”.
“brackish and freshwater.” Brackish and fresh water.
“ their exoskeleton.” Their exoskeletons, but using “its” makes it easier to write.

QUOTE

In the template, there is a very slight error, or more of an oversight: reproductive methods should be capitalized.

I've been wondering, why the capitalization for all the words in parenthetical notes? They're not proper names, after all. That's also why I recently formatted the respiration as "Unidirectional lungs" instead of "Unidirectional Lungs".

I believe it's nothing more than a custom or pattern, most likely because it looks better, given the template often features multiple capitalized words (because they're proper nouns). It almost certainly wouldn't matter enough to prevent approval. I simply have a tendency for thoroughness in my reviews, provided I have sufficient time and energy.

QUOTE

Lutolisks’ livers are somewhat larger and more resilient due to the high amount of alcohols produced by the gut flora of their prey.

I made this small addition due to the fact that many gobs seem to have alcohol-producing gut symbiotes. @Coolsteph Would this adaptation be nessecary? How much alcohol do gobs produce? I want to hear your thoughts on the required amount of specialization for feeding on them.

When I designed gob species whose gut microbes produced alcohol, it was so "goblets" could have "wine". The actual concentration of alcohol per alcohol-containing gob (which I created) would be small. Perhaps the equivalent of 0.5 BAC, at most. I don't recall any gobs with a diet particularly high in glucose, such as fruit, which could plausibly make it higher. The exact amount of alcohol per gob in milliliters would be complicated to calculate, because they aren't tiny packets of watery wine. Doing this would probably involve calculating the volume of a vinagob, then its stomach, then the proportion of total volume of alcohol, and then using that value for its descendants (assuming relative stomach size and habitability to alcohol-producing microbes stays the same).

EDIT: A quick check suggests an overripe banana can have 0.2% alcohol by volume (ABV). This is a reasonable reference for something that exists in nature being high in alcohol, but not exceptionally high, like the naturally fermented nectar one tree shrew is adapted to drinking. Alcohol-free beers in the United States can contain up to 0.5 ABV. A reasonable volume of alcohol per Vinagob would be 0.2% ABV in ideal conditions. Given the Mattebelly is largely carnivorous, of the three species the Lutolisk eats, it would likely be the lowest. The three species it eats would likely have lower alcohol levels than the Vinagob, due to their diets. In other words, the Lutolisk would require very little specialization.

I probably don't need to include specialization, then?

Whether specialization of any sort is required depends on the default alcohol tolerance assumed for the lineage. The Vinegob was made when overripe fruit wasn't a possibility. However, given the low alcohol levels, unless this lineage is really sensitive to alcohol or gobbles up absurd amounts of land-gobs in a short period, just one alcohol detoxification enzyme would be more than enough. This is particularly true because eating fat and protein with alcohol slows down its absorption (in humans, at least), and they eat land-gobs whole, rather than just licking the inside of its digestive system.