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Gobospork (Respiratoped nocticollus)
{leg-breathing night-neck (latin)}
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Fluterump
Habitat: Bot Tropical River, Bot Tropical Riparian, Bot Montane Riparian, Bot Swamp, Bot Tropical Watershed, Bot Montane Watershed, Glicker-LadyM Montane Watershed
{4 flavors (river, wetlands, riparian, watershed ) & 2 types (mountane and tropical)}
Size: 30cm Long
Support: Soft-Bodied (Hydrostatic Skeleton)
Diet: adult: Omnivore ((Rockybloom, Hitchhiker Stickymoss, Ambrecandela, Tesseleaves, Warmbuns, Grapplebuns, Lurkroufos, Flopleaves, Spardiflies, Scale Knightworms, Prongleg Scaleworms, Nimblemites, Purple Spheres, Myserchen, Ghost Mycostrums), Larvae: Filter-Feeder
Respiration: Active (Limb-Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm
Reproduction: Sexual (Spawning, Hermaphroditic)

The Gobospork has split from its ancestor, striking an amphibious life in the relative safety between Bot Mountain and the swamp. Its lower front arm evolved into a spork while its upper front arm acts as a fork, grabbing vegetation, uprooting mycostrum and even catching the occasional unlucky prey with its flexible toes, throwing it all down the barrel and keeping its large spork limb over its mouth. Adapting to nocturnal life to extend its stay out of the water though it's not uncommon to venture out of the water long and still survive, often causing desiccation cracks along the skin.

Visual communication
To scout the land before they emerge out of the water, their eyes have shifted up the top front arm. While each is still a simple cup eye, they have adapted to nocturnal life by evolving tapetum lucidum behind the eyes, as well as a small visual processing ganglion that lets them increase the resolution by storing and overlaying multiple frames, triggering instinctive reactions to more complex recognizable visual patterns like threatening movement, large mouths, sources of water and potential food and memorized territories.
Along with the eyes, their bioluminescent spots have also shifted along the top front arm and increased in size, letting them communicate over larger distances. When seeking mates, one will initiate a pattern of blinking lights, others will repeat what they saw and each adds their random color note, which will be repeated by the initiator and other viewers, showing their fitness through the strength of their bioluminescent display and the competence of their visual memory. Some will be invited to spawn in many ponds or river banks, while others will fumble through patterns and spawn only on their own.
Like their ancestors, they are hermaphrodites, though they will most spawn eggs within their own pond and spawn sperm in ponds they are invited to, as the latter are less costly to produce in quantities.

Respiration
Adapting to the oxygen crisis, each of its hind lung arms carries a set of air sacks covered with extensions of the gut tissue. Using the limb muscles like a diaphragm, it breaths in and out by raising and lowering the leg, sucking in air from pipe openings between the lung-limb toes. They will take in more air than they need when on land, storing oxygenated blood within spongey material around the air sacks. Underwater they will use the lung-limb toes to close the pipe opening, supplementing passive diffusion with oxygen reserves, and sometimes even tapping the oxygen reserved within additional air sacks maintained in their limbs.

Circulation
To carry the oxygen throughout the body, some of their reproductive gonads at the base of the oxygen pipes have specialized in producing a type of infertile sperm as a hemoglobin carrier. Taking the same mechanisms they used to find their way when spawned into ponds, they use flagella and chemical signals to actively swim and find their way within an open circulatory system, carrying oxygen and nutrition to where it's needed. Hemoglobin and oxyhemoglobin are carried from the outer cell walls further into the cell, increasing the blue light scattered which mixes with a red light reflected by the red oxyhemoglobin molecules, while carbaminohemoglobin is transferred to the outer cell wall, reflecting red with a blue hue. The result of mixing both in an open circulatory system is dark purple blood, varying within a blue to red range.

This post has been edited by Jarlaxle: Jun 15 2023, 05:30 AM

Oh gosh. I might want to speed up any development of Fluterump descendants in overlapping ranges before the Generation is over. I was working on some land-gobs recently, and one even has mostly-complete art.

I'll have to look over this more thoroughly later.
Incidentally....the "2" in "B21" is hard to read. It looks like a Z. Making it curve down a little would make it easier to read.

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Mar 24 2023, 12:28 AM)

Oh gosh. I might want to speed up any development of Fluterump descendants in overlapping ranges before the Generation is over. I was working on some land-gobs recently, and one even has mostly-complete art. I'll have to look over this more thoroughly later. Incidentally....the "2" in "B21" is hard to read. It looks like a Z. Making it curve down a little would make it easier to read.

Fixed it so it doesn't replace it within its range. I figured It's a small range and currently on the sparse side but local replacement isn't critical for the concept and there are only 5 spots left.

This thing's face might be a little too yonic. While Sagan 4 isn't specifically targeted towards kids, we can't really ignore its historic appeal towards a younger audience, and this design may push the line.

There does need to be a line, somewhere between disallowing anything with lateral mandibles or folds to allowing thinly disguised alien smut, but where I would recommend drawing that line is around the Georgia O'Keeffe zone. Going closer to the south than Georgia O'Keeffe is a no, but anything north of it should be able to pass.

I do see it, and I've actively made changes to some of the initial plans to avoid this, as a larger spork or gradual lip transition makes it more suggestive. The two elements are critical for its now and future mouth anatomy - the clutching of the mouth tip by the neck and the spork after which it is named - make it difficult to work around. I would still argue that this, along with the much more pornographic camel spiders and irises, would be close to the Georgia O'Keeffe territory but still north of it.

This post has been edited by Jarlaxle: Jun 14 2023, 10:47 PM

I disagree that it's to the north. It still looks like a vagina after the glance, which Georgia O'Keeffe's work does not, and more so than the examples you provided.

The yonic look could be reduced by lessening how dramatic the shadow created by the dip in the middle of the spork is. I suggest making the background something other than white, as white backgrounds intensify shadows.

Of note, you also messed up the shading of the inside of the mouth--it should not have a bright ridge directly under the dark edge of the lip, which would be casting a shadow on it. Fixing that shadow would make the part showing between the prongs of the spork look less like a literal protruding clitoris.

QUOTE (Disgustedorite @ Jun 15 2023, 07:00 AM)

I disagree that it's to the north. It still looks like a vagina after the glance, which Georgia O'Keeffe's work does not, and more so than the examples you provided. The yonic look could be reduced by lessening how dramatic the shadow created by the dip in the middle of the spork is. I suggest making the background something other than white, as white backgrounds intensify shadows. Of note, you also messed up the shading of the inside of the mouth--it should not have a bright ridge directly under the dark edge of the lip, which would be casting a shadow on it. Fixing that shadow would make the part showing between the prongs of the spork look less like a literal protruding clitoris.

Updated the image. Is it sufficiently devolva'd?

Yeah, that's better