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Marine Slurpabill (Slurparynchos polaris)
Ancestor: Slurpabill
Creator: HethrJarrod
Habitat: Wind Polar Coast, Wind Polar Beach, Voyager Archipelago, Voyager Archipelago Polar Beaches, South Sagan 4 Ice Sheet, Yannick Polar Coast, Oofle Archipelago Polar Beaches, Fermi Archipelago, Fermi Archipelago Subpolar Beaches, Arctic Subpolar Beach, Arctic Subpolar Coast, Scifi Subpolar Beach, Scifi Subpolar Coast
Size: 2 meters long
Support: Endoskeleton (Bone)
Diet:Omnivore (Greyblades roots, Umbrosa roots, Dalmatian Spinetower roots, Candletower roots, Greysnip roots, Saturntower roots, Bonespire sapling roots, Razorbark roots, Branching Bonespire sapling roots, Bangsticks roots, Beach Colonystalk, Cocobarrage sapling roots, Obsidibend roots, Mainland Fuzzpalm berries and sapling roots, Fuzzpile berries and sapling roots, Bonegrove roots, Qupe Tree sapling roots, Fuzzweed, Baebula sapling roots, Carnosprawl, Segmented Carnofern, Beach Carnofern, Mangot fruit-leaves and sapling roots, Fermibyss, Fermibyss (Eggs), Southern Gillfin, Speckled Spinderorm, Slender Seaswimmer, Uksip Lazarus, Rockshellion)
Respiration: Active (Lungs)
Thermoregulation: Mesotherm
Reproduction: Sexual, Two Sexes, (Soft-shelled Eggs)

The marine slurpabill has moved further south, and then some. It has even crossed the south Sagan IV ice sheet into the Voyager archipelago, gaining a taste for meat along the way. It has grown slightly, increasing in size from 1.4 meters in length to 2 meters in length. As a result of dealing with the colder temperatures, and its diet having more meat in it, it has become a mesotherm. Subcutaneous layers of fat and gigantothermy help to keep the marine slurpabill warm while swimming in the cold waters.

Because of the increased salt intake from its diet and drinking seawater, it has had to evolve an ability to expel excess salt from pores in its tail.

It will sometimes wander inland to find food, but always returns to the shore. It has also spread many of its favorite foods along its habitat. This is because it will bury an unfinished meal, but later sometimes forget where it buried it. If it remembers, it will dig it up and continue eating it as it travels. It does this with meat as well. It will scratch a small pit in the ice, burying the seafood, and cover it back up with ice.

Fermi flora that have spread to the polar habitats of Fermi and Wallace, creating local polar and subpolar adapted varieties of:
- Greyblades, Umbrosa, Candletower, Greysnip, Saturntower, Bonespire, Razorbark, Bangsticks, Mainland Fuzzpalm, Fuzzpile, Bonegrove, Qupe Tree, Fuzzweed.

This post has been edited by HethrJarrod: May 21 2023, 12:17 PM

you forgot the ancestor

Added

Image:

There are some stray lines on the cheek, around the throat, between the two biggest spikes, and possibly around the eyes and the spikes. Admittedly, those lines might actually indicate light-green natural markings, and it might have conspicuous white parts on the ends of its tail spikes. I’m not sure why it would have conspicuous white parts on the end of its tail spikes, but those parts are so small they would surely have little effect on survival or plausibility, and so technically don’t need to be corrected. Similarly, some of the spikes on its back aren’t fully filled: the ones on its shoulders are particularly glaring.

These issues aren’t bad enough to stall approval, but since it would be a quick fix, I recommend correcting it anyway.

Template:

Oofle Archipelago Polar Beaches, plural?

Description:

More Important Feedback

How does it spread its “favorite roots”? Since the spore-bearing structures are far from the roots for most of them, it’s hard to imagine it would store spores from its favored flora in its mouth while eating roots. I’m not sure how many, if any, of its favored flora can grow back from root fragments.

“As a result of dealing with the colder temperatures, it has become a mesotherm”. Not every animal that experiences cold temperatures in its native habitat becomes a mesotherm. Some frogs in Canada endure winter through being frozen alive, for example. This therefore should be re-phrased. It would also help to draw inspiration from real mesotherms to explain this change. It’s so large gigantothermy could apply, although it might lose heat through its spikes. A rete mirabile might also keep its body temperature elevated, and a layer of blubber or fat would reduce the rate of heat loss to the environment, whatever its internal heat generation was like.

Plausibility/Encouraged Elaboration

It’s a bit odd it should be aquatic and yet not feed on anything underwater or at the water’s edge. The spikes would also create a lot of drag, slowing it down in the water. (Admittedly, the spike-like finlets on a tuna’s tail do have a hydrodynamic function.) I suppose, though, if it’s a slow-moving underwater creature like a manatee that spends most of its time low in the water column, being heavy and unaerodynamic wouldn’t matter.

With its short legs, it would surely not be fast on land. It is well-armored and has a thagomizer, though. Its survival odds on land might depend on how its young live. Does the mother abandon them shortly after they are born? If they are aquatic, do the females no longer seal themselves in their burrows with their eggs? If the young are abandoned shortly after they are born, their short legs combined with smaller body sizes might make them easy prey for any predators that can handle their spikes and thagomizers (e.g., shrogs; I didn’t specifically check all the habitats, but shrugs are so widespread they’re probably found in some of them). The most obvious workaround for this is sea turtle-style reproduction.

Archipelago beaches are plural, as the biome encompasses many.

QUOTE (Coolsteph @ Apr 6 2023, 08:53 AM)

Image: There are some stray lines on the cheek, around the throat, between the two biggest spikes, and possibly around the eyes and the spikes. Admittedly, those lines might actually indicate light-green natural markings, and it might have conspicuous white parts on the ends of its tail spikes. I’m not sure why it would have conspicuous white parts on the end of its tail spikes, but those parts are so small they would surely have little effect on survival or plausibility, and so technically don’t need to be corrected. Similarly, some of the spikes on its back aren’t fully filled: the ones on its shoulders are particularly glaring. These issues aren’t bad enough to stall approval, but since it would be a quick fix, I recommend correcting it anyway. Template: Oofle Archipelago Polar Beaches, plural? Description: More Important Feedback How does it spread its “favorite roots”? Since the spore-bearing structures are far from the roots for most of them, it’s hard to imagine it would store spores from its favored flora in its mouth while eating roots. I’m not sure how many, if any, of its favored flora can grow back from root fragments. “As a result of dealing with the colder temperatures, it has become a mesotherm”. Not every animal that experiences cold temperatures in its native habitat becomes a mesotherm. Some frogs in Canada endure winter through being frozen alive, for example. This therefore should be re-phrased. It would also help to draw inspiration from real mesotherms to explain this change. It’s so large gigantothermy could apply, although it might lose heat through its spikes. A rete mirabile might also keep its body temperature elevated, and a layer of blubber or fat would reduce the rate of heat loss to the environment, whatever its internal heat generation was like. Plausibility/Encouraged Elaboration It’s a bit odd it should be aquatic and yet not feed on anything underwater or at the water’s edge. The spikes would also create a lot of drag, slowing it down in the water. (Admittedly, the spike-like finlets on a tuna’s tail do have a hydrodynamic function.) I suppose, though, if it’s a slow-moving underwater creature like a manatee that spends most of its time low in the water column, being heavy and unaerodynamic wouldn’t matter. With its short legs, it would surely not be fast on land. It is well-armored and has a thagomizer, though. Its survival odds on land might depend on how its young live. Does the mother abandon them shortly after they are born? If they are aquatic, do the females no longer seal themselves in their burrows with their eggs? If the young are abandoned shortly after they are born, their short legs combined with smaller body sizes might make them easy prey for any predators that can handle their spikes and thagomizers (e.g., shrogs; I didn’t specifically check all the habitats, but shrugs are so widespread they’re probably found in some of them). The most obvious workaround for this is sea turtle-style reproduction.

The white parts on the tail are a feature, not a bug.

• was not sure how to apply the mesothelioma. I too thought gigantothermy might apply, but wasn’t sure. Eating meat, it’d surely get some fat, but was not sure where that would be applied.

It does feed on underwater organisms, like the Southern Gillfin, etc.

I don’t mean for the legs to be shorter… they should be the same size. Depicted is swimming posture.


Thank u for the suggestions about nesting.

This post has been edited by HethrJarrod: Apr 6 2023, 12:51 PM

Image:

QUOTE

The white parts on the tail are a feature, not a bug.

I did consider that possibility in my response. This is meant to be salt crystals from pores on its tail, right? I didn’t initially consider that because I interpreted “expel excess salt from the pores in its tail” as referring to the tail itself, not the spikes on it. This seemed the most straightforward interpretation, as I figured it was physiologically similar to sweating, and animals don’t sweat from their fingernails or spikes. If you meant to say it sweated from its tail spikes, that’s good to note in its description. I’m not sure how that would work or how it would evolve, though.

The solution that requires the least image alteration is to make it clearer it has a thin layer of skin growing on the underside of the spikes, which secretes the salt. This might interfere with the thagomizer’s utility as a weapon, though. Putting the salt glands on the skin of the tail and making the white parts merely markings would be biologically the easiest to accomplish.

Description:

If you’re using this to spread some Fermi flora by the roots, it would be less work for others (and therefore recommended) to be more explicit about which species are spread, and then put it at the bottom of its description. This has happened in other Fermisaurs in a bullet-point list, although the Seashore (https://sagan4alpha.miraheze.org/wiki/Seashrog) description provides alternative formatting.

A very quick check shows several Spinetower descendants don’t mention asexual reproduction by means of roots or tubers in their reproduction template. Dalmatian Spinetowers have “nut-like tubers”, although there’s no mention they can grow back from just the tubers. As the creator of the Dalmatian Spinetower, I can say I didn’t really intend that ability.

A plausible compromise measure for spreading several Fermi flora is identifying which have seeds that could get lodged inside its mouth or survive defecation. The survival rates would likely be low if the description doesn’t explicitly mention adaptations for it, though. You could also identify which species have tubers or potential for asexual spread by fragments, and then make descendants for them, and then pair them with the Marine Slurpabill.

While a diet of meat would likely allow it to build fat more easily (provided its prey is fatty), it’s not strictly necessary. Cows, after all, are herbivores, and beef can be high in fat. (Admittedly, this is an exaggerated example because humans bred them for fatty meat, but the point still stands that herbivores can have significant fat.) The description therefore needs a little revision.

“Polar shores”: “Polar” should be lowercase.

"Bangstick": Strangely enough, “Bangsticks” is in the plural in the description even though it’s not a genus group. One can see the odd pluralization in the description. This is not without precedent: the name of the obscure pest insect, “thrips”, also exists in a single form that covers both the singular and plural. (See Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrips#Etymology)

"increasinging" This is a minor typo.

I did a brief check. Greysnips in the tundra? Candletowers in a subpolar environment? When did this happen? I might have to soft-retcon some of those with locally-adapted descendants later.

Do double-check the plausibility of spreading some of these species to subpolar habitats. Some of these are suited for cold, sandy deserts, but subpolar environments are different. Mangots, a Seashrog-spread flora, have already been spread to temperate, subtropical and tropical habitats. This isn't totally unprecedented (the wildcard rule exists for a reason), but it surely isn't plausible for it to exist in subpolar environments as well.

"Razorback" is a typo: you meant "Razorbark".

Where are its nostrils?

So why exactly did the species become semi aquatic? What were the main benefits?...

QUOTE (OviraptorFan @ Apr 29 2023, 05:53 PM)

So why exactly did the species become semi aquatic? What were the main benefits?...

It became aquatic to avoid competition from the Whiskerback. It had pushed its ancestor, the Slurpabill to the beaches, and this kinda completes the process.

Any more common this one?

A brief note before I read the description
Diet has an accidental comma before any other words in it.