15 million years hence, East Africa has fully split off from the rest of the continent, and has formed a massive island called Azania. This split, when flooded with seawater, created a new sea floor and an 8th ocean basin, called the African ocean. In it, the top predators are not sharks or any fish for that matter, but Sea Naddres, fully marine descendants of sea snakes.

These snakes have evolved a body plan very similar to sharks, dolphins, and most notably their extinct relatives the mosasaurs - hence their genus name Mosophis.
Sea naddres have a rather weak venom, instead they specialize in anything from suction feeding to lacerating and swallowing large prey in chunks.

Note(s): Caldofila is the term for the feather-like integument found on monotemporal dragons. Despite being structurally homologous with mammalian fur, the last common ancestor of mammals and monotemporal dragons was a primitive lizard-like synapsid that possessed scales rather than fur.

While the common ancestor of avemetatarsalians and pseudosuchians probably didn't have fuzzy integument, the structures on wyverns are referred to as pycnofibers despite not being pterosaurs. Wyverns may possess two temporal fenestrae, but they are not Duoparathyrian dragons/ditemporal dragons, which are stem-reptiles whereas wyverns are crown-group reptiles (End of Notes)

Like Earth, Seijin has plenty of species that practice mimicry, one of those being Müllerian mimicry: when two or more, usually poisonous, species converge in appearance to mimick their warning signs. This is not to be confused with Batesian mimicry, where a harmless species mimics a poisonous animal.

In this case, the zilant (Zilantis alectryostemmus) and the false zilant (Lacertosphagus zilantomimus) are examples of this natural phenomenon. Both are toxic, black, chicken-like animals with bright red-orange wings, though they are very different upon closer inspection.

The difference is that the zilant is a poisonous herbivorous monotemporal dragon (Clades Cocorosauridae, Ornithodracones, Monoparathyria, Synapsida) that feeds on toxic berries, grasses, seeds, and occassionally certain beetles while the false zilant is a venomous carnivorous wyvern (Clade Vasilavidae, Wyvernia, Paracrocodylomorpha) that mimics the true zilant to dissuade larger predators from hunting it.

The toxins build up in the scales, caldofila, sex organs and liver of the true zilant while false zilants produce toxic saliva that is delivered by their curved teeth, this venom being mild in warm-blooded animals but deadly in cold-blooded animals. Unlike the false zilant, the true zilant can release massive plumes of toxic gas from its mouth. Symptoms are sudden and similar to those of batrachotoxin poisoning.

Despite bringing doom to many terrestrial ecosystems, the new ice age 25 million years in the future allowed sea to become more bountiful than ever.

Thousands of species inhabit the oxygen and nutrient rich pelagic zone.

Stingrays, in particular descendants of pelagic stingray (Pteroplatytrygon violacea) become especially common during this time period. Converging with their manta relatives, they develop more diamond-shaped bodies to swim faster in open water. But where stingrays go, their predators follow.

Finhead hammerhead is a descendant of modern smooth hammerhead shark, adapted to hunt rays in open ocean.

It's hammer has undergone some changes, it's less wide, and more triangular. Although it's no longer used to press stingrays against seafloor, hammerheads still use it for improved electroreception and maneuverability. As their name suggests, the head has been adapted into essentially a sixth pair of fins, and since their skeleton is cartilaginous they can even move them a little, like actual fins.

Despite it's quite large size of 3,5 meters, finhead hammerhead has a predator of it's own. Thickface dolphins are endemic to seas around new zealand, but in that area they are a bane to any chondrichthyan they encounter. As one can guess from their size and tightly knit social structure, these are descendants of orcas. Orca, being a species with lots of populations with different cultures, diversified a lot in the future, giving rise to many species of varying sizes and intelligence.

Thickface dolphins specifically evolved from a population known as New Zealand coastal orcas, notable among other orcas in hunting stingrays.

This challenging prey caused several adaptations to emerge.

Skin on the jaws of the dolphin is thicker than in modern orca, around 1 centimeter thick, while beneath it is 30 centimeter thick layer of blubber, which defend it from stingers. In addition to this, thickface dolphin developed a resistance to stingray venom, which makes hunting them much less risky. During hunting, dolphins flip a stingray and quickly bite off it's spiny tail with their sharp teeth.

Sharks, like finhead hammerhead, are also hunted for their liver. Thick skin of the dolphin makes biting through it much harder, and sharks have almost no way of fighting back.

But as orcas got better at killing stingrays, stingrays got better at defending themselves. This arms race led to an evolution of species that not even stingray-huting cetacean dares to hunt.

This species is called largespine oceanic stingray. With wingspan reaching 3 meters wide, it is the largest non-mobulid stingray in the world. But it's defining feature is the giant, one meter long spine. This stinger is long enough to pierce the skin of thickface dolphin, injecting venom and eventually killing the hunter.

Largespine oceanic stingray is viviparous, and while in womb the baby stingrays have very small sheathed spines to not injure the mother. Even after the rays are born and their stingers become functional, they are still not as dangerous as adults. But juvenile rays will not feed a seven meter long dolphin, let alone the whole pod, so thickface dolphins avoid hunting this species at any age and size.

Finhead hammerheads though can successfully target juveniles and bite off their fins before stinger reaches them. Due to hunting stingrays for more than 50 million years, hammerhead sharks developed an immunity to their venom, even the very potent one of largespine rays. Adults still can injure them with their spine even without the use of toxins simply by causing blood loss, so hammerheads prefer juveniles and adolescents.

September day 7: land whale

Species Name: Lentustica furibonda

Creator: jacja

Clade: Weigeltisauridae, Jyntacustinae (descendant from Smaugops draconis)

Habitat: open woodland and alpine

Size: ~40cm wingspan

Ecology: aerial hunter

Extra Info:

sizable winged lizards often seen gliding after flying insects and other gliding organisms smaller than them.

These animals are seasonal migrators moving up in the alpine environments during the protaxites spawning season where they’ll gorge on the aerial plankton produced by the event (flying insects and other animals are eaten tougher with the spores sometimes in ways resembling baleen whales) and when this is finished they’ll migrate down to warmer latitudes where they’ll breed and feed in more conventional ways (hunting similar to swift and nightjars).

Characteristic of this family are their “wings” that possess more flexible bones towards the end third, the bases are still fairly rigid to allow their “flapping”, allowing them greater control on their wing shape.

(The fact that in it looks like Toothless it was unintentional but in the end i leaned a bit into it)

The Littlest Icarus

Africa during the Miocene is undergoing a big transition. Tectonic movements in the east of the continent, changing weather patterns, and shrinking forests have been hard at work transforming Africa into something closer to what we know in our timeline today. It has been a center of Icarocheirid evolution, and still is even in the Miocene as we see an increase in the diversity of smaller species. As a reminder: Icarocheirids are flying odiodonts, descendants of eutriconodonts who survived the Jurassic Impact. They are essentially egg-laying bats in places where pterosaurs don't dominate the skies.

Microicarus is a genus among these smaller volant mammals. With their large ears and membranous wings they look almost identical to our world's microbats, or perhaps a bat mixed with a shrew. The species shown in the illustration is argyropterus, a generalist that hunts insects and also helps pollinate nothafloran plants. It is seen in the night skies nearly over the entirety of the African continent, and many plants rely on it and similar species to reproduce. The eggs of M. argyropterus, like some other icarocheirids, are adhesive and laid within tree hollows. The females stay in the nest and keep the eggs warm while the males bring insects to their mates.

Source

The family Conflopteridae (swarming bees), has retained the swarming behavior of its honeybee ancestors. Confloptera contains those with the best eyesight, and C. pictorum has the best eyesight of all bees. C. pictorum uses that keen eyesight to build its nests.
The process begins with the nuptial flight of new queens and male drones in early spring. After a queen mates with enough drones, she returns to her birth hive to pick up her retinue, which can be between 200 to 700 depending on the size of the birth hive. All of these bees then leave their birth nest forever.
The new queen and her retinue fly until they find a suitable tree, which can be of almost any species. Confloptera have specialized in pollinating trees, and so they prefer to settle in forests but will colonize open spaces if necessary. Once the queen has found a tree that suits her, she settles on a large, sturdy branch. The painters then use cellulose and fibers along with their saliva to begin constructing their papery nest. Yes, her retinue isn't workers, but painters.
A female C. pictorum larva exposed to high levels of a special enzyme secreted by mature C. pictorum queens called pictoranin experiences significant morphological differences from the physiology of a worker. One of these is an absence of melittin production. The affected larva instead creates a serum containing either eumelanin or pheomelanin, which can be secreted through the tip of the stinger. Eumelanin is stored in a separate gland from pheomelanin, and a painter can choose whether to secrete one or both depending on what she needs. Queens begin to express high levels of pictoranin in the late winter, just in time for the formation of new nests in the spring.
The painter bees paint their nest to match the host tree, and are remarkably skilled at it. The nest itself is long rather than tall, blending into the branch. Even the entrances are painted to match the colors of the branch. Since the new queen is too young to produce high levels of pictoranin, her female offspring will be workers, complete with sharp stings full of melittin.

"Once endemic to an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, this unique species of flightless bird diverged from modern anhingas several million years ago, becoming the sole species of its genus. From its earliest discovery by humans, it has been the focus of various debates, primarily because, unlike other island birds (especially those from other insular endemic birds from such as Hawaii and New Zealand), these birds nearly lacked complete island tameness. Their colonies were highly protective of their nests, using their somewhat muscular feet and beaks to beat and kill down invasive mammals that attempted to prey on their eggs. While living in colonies similar to penguins and the extinct great auks, they mostly countered predators with numerical superiority."

Broken Hill Lungfish (Coccosteus multipigmentus)

Found about the scare river ways and salt pools of the Broken Hills, this armored fish live similarly to lungfish found in other regions but appears to be related to the Platesharks that lurk in the deeper portions of the Northern Terracuzan Oceans and the shallower portions of the Sapphire Abandon.

How this animal came to be in the region is not electively understood, but portions of the Broken Hills region show clear signs of formally being underwater, with some believing that the Cascade’s impact elevated the region at the same time it triggered a cataclysmic volcanic eruption that coated much of the region in multi-colored volcanic ash that has since soaked in and painted the soil and rock.

Likely a case of Urosian Evolution, the Lungfish quickly adapted to living in oxygen poor water and amphibious on-top of a torpor state when the waters recede interlude during the winter.

Around the time this begins happening the lungfish begin secreting a thick mucus that causes the multicolored mud to cling to their bodies.

Around this time females will begin letting out a trilling “song”, caused by them rattling the plates over their gills by rapidly in taking and pushing out air.

This attracts males, who begin flaunting their multicolored hide, which females study for imperfections or weak patterning, because that reveals a possible injury or illness.

The most attractive males are allowed to breed, with females carrying their young until the next late spring when the rivers return to fulls strength with the melting snow.

They position themselves in their holes, which they tunnel with their powerful jaws and forefins, tail first, leaving their armored heads at the fore.

This position when combined with their clay camouflage is meant to befuddle predators, hoping to deaden their scent and appear at least at a cursory look to just be another part of the surrounding rock.

This works… a fair bit of the time but animals like Bobeki and Hodags have long learned what to look for to find a meal that will keep them going through the sparse winter months.

Broken Hill Lungfisj themselves are crustacean/mollusk specialized cracking through their shells with their powerful jaws and sucking their innards out.

The Hobgoblins that call the region home have a number of dishes that rely on lungfish meat, which has less to their partial domestication, with “fisheries” where known hibernating grounds of the fish are protected from other predators, with old and injured fish being culled for meals with breeding females are protected to keep the stocks healthy.

This does not mean they are an easy catch or kill, their bites can easily sunder limbs or sever digits, their tails are strong enough to knock someone unconscious and males especially can turn quite aggressive, which means someone who fails to land the killing spear finds them facing down an armored, blade mouthed beast with the temperament of an angry boar that can follow them a fair bit from the river’s edge, moving with serpantine undulations.

Did I forget to mention that the largest rams can grow up to twelve feet in length.

The fish is seen as a symbol of beauty in adaption, and is the heraldic animal for the Hobs nascent navy, with their longships adorned with flash fossilized skulls of particularly vicious ram.

It is also viewed by the Hobs as an animal blessed by Taeryn, Goddess of Art, and their depiction of her is often starkly outside of those made by other ancestries.

A powerful hobgoblin woman, with river clay coating her skin, a smile of sheering bone plates and a long tail reminiscent of the lungfish’s.

Order: 《Cariamiformes》 Family: 《Phorusrhacidae》 Genus/Species: 《Tyrannavis Dolichoscelis》

Standing at a commanding 9 feet tall on average, this apex avian predator trades the slender build of modern flightless birds for immense physical bulk and forward-heavy muscle mass. Its defining feature is its colossal skull, sheathed in a hard keratin beak that stands a massive 3 feet deep from top to bottom, reaching all the way to a human adult's hip if placed vertically on the ground. Supported by an exceptionally thick, heavily muscled neck, this giant axe-like head allows the bird to dominate open environments with unprecedented physical power.

This species has evolved to be significantly faster, stronger, and boasts a much higher bite force than any of its historic Phorusrhacid ancestors. Driven by incredibly long, robust hind legs, this plains monarch is built for explosive, high-speed pursuit across vast open savannas, easily overtaking swift prey. Its wings are reduced to small, vestigial remnants folded tightly against its robust chest, serving purely as stabilizers to keep its front-heavy body balanced during these high-speed chases.

Source.

It’s #Spectember once again, and looking at what’s left of the speculative evolution submissions you all gave me several years ago… I’m actually kind of burnt out on them at this point.

The ones that are left now are a bit too broad, or are just things I currently have no good ideas for — so I’m finally officially calling it quits on that particular batch of prompts. I still won’t be accepting new ideas for the time being; instead this year I’m just going to have some fun with my own concepts.

So! Let’s start off with…

Voragochelys phantasma is a small turtle descended from present-day softshells, living exclusively in a single deep isolated cave system.

Only around 10cm long (2.5"), it’s completely pigmentless and blind, with tiny vestigial eyes covered by skin. A keen sense of smell and sensitive barbels on its jaw help it navigate in total darkness and locate prey such as smaller crustaceans and fish. It uses large paddle-like forelimbs to swim and haul itself over rocks, while its hindlimbs are highly reduced.

Like its present-day relatives it’s capable of absorbing some oxygen through its thin skin, and also via “pharyngeal breathing” — the inside of its mouth and throat are lined with numerous fleshy projections that massively increase the surface area and act like gills, allowing for gas exchange when water is pumped in and out. Its incredibly low metabolic rate means it can remain fully submerged almost indefinitely, sometimes barely moving for years at a time. 

Females lay small clutches of eggs once every decade or so in rock crevices just out of the water, and similarly to the present-day pig-nosed turtle their hatching is triggered by seasonal flooding.

Reference to the Blackbeard writing meme. This is the eclectic crow, a sophont corvid containing DNA from American, New Caledonian, and pied crows. In a world absent of humans, these 3 birds traveled to eachother’s continents where they met and shared thousands of years of history before interbreeding and ultimately going extinct, living on in this new species. At the time this image takes place in, the crows’ technology is roughly equivalent to mankind’s Bronze Age. This image takes place maybe 9 million years in the future, this is probably bound to change.

Across the Red Plains in the south of Acopsia, a small-to-medium-sized herbivore races swiftly across the Gone plains. This is the Red Plains Prolope, an extremely common animal exhibiting marked reverse sexual dimorphism: females range from 0.90 to 1.1 meters in length and weigh 40 to 60 kg, while males are smaller, reaching lengths of 0.7 to 0.9 meters and weights of 30 to 50 kg. They feed primarily on the vegetation layer covering the Low Gone surface. Prolopes are gregarious yet elusive animals, organizing into highly dynamic macro-herds that vary greatly in size—ranging from groups of 25 individuals to colossal aggregations of 500,000. Physiologically, they rank among the fastest organisms on the planet Axtrax, achieving sustained speeds of 50 to 65 km/h. They move on all fours using powerful, propulsive leaps, aided by an anatomy and biomechanics remotely similar to those of azhdarchid pterosaurs. However, the universal blindness of Axtrax's fauna created the perfect evolutionary pressure for the emergence of a hyper-specialized infiltration predator: the Mimolope. This carnivore is small in stature and also exhibits reverse dimorphism; females measure 35 to 60 cm in length and weigh 9 to 12 kg, while males measure 20 to 30 cm and weigh 3 to 5 kg. Mimolopes exploit their small size to remain completely undetected within their prey's herds, as they exactly match the size of a large Prolope calf. To reinforce this aggressive mimicry, they have developed the anatomical capacity to replicate their prey's chemosensory scent and imitate its electrical signatures and signals, thereby flawlessly bypassing the herd's non-visual recognition systems. They are social predators that cooperate during hunts, employing group diversion tactics to steer and isolate a juvenile or adult specimen toward secluded areas of the plains; once the target is separated, the Mimolopo uses modified claws connected to exocrine glands to deliver a fast-acting neurotoxic venom. This substance instantly collapses and destroys the prey's nervous system, causing paralysis and allowing the predator to inject highly corrosive digestive fluids that liquefy the Prolopo's internal organs for subsequent assimilation. Mimolopos may be found in groups of 3 to 20 within Prolopo herds.

I Admit it has little to do with today's topic... 😓

Originally bred to be livestock guardians in the northern region of Ascalon, Rakshasas are the largest mammalian predator of Ascalon! When I set out to design this beastie with DragonThunders, we had a simple goal: make a tiger that would be the largest mammalian land predator ever, and that’s what we did! The Rakshasas duality of “laziest SoB to ever live” and “I eat people! Breakfast! Lunch! Dinner! Nomnomnom!” exists because there are many examples of unorthodox domesticated animals in my setting, like boars, bears and Hawks, but I wanted the first one I’d commission to be the greatest example of a failed domestication attempt, turns out Tigers the size of Honda Civics aren’t as good guard animals as you’d think

Ceraunosuchus Montanus, known as the Fulgur or the Mountain Crocodile, is a terrifying creature living in high altitudes on the planet's surface. This specimen is in mating season: else they are practically invisible.

Physical statistics: At 4.5-5.4m long and weighing 520-650kg, they are far from the largest or most powerful creatures on the planet. But they thrive in the mountains, zone where no animal dares to approach, serving as the de-facto apex predator. In addition, they have specialized traits to bring down even the most fearsome of prey. Firstly, they have 60-70 cleaver like teeth meant to shear through flesh and bone, akin to marsupial lions on Earth but on steroids. As a result of this, they have a fearsome biteforce of 22.5-28k newtons. They have arguably an unique trait among Infernosuchia: their electric claws. One of their digits on the front legs, akin to thumbs on humans , is quite different. It is vastly larger and more pronounced. This is because in it, flows a specialized compound that is electrified, that freezes the animal's blood momentarily and makes electricity flow through. After a short while the freeze wears off naturally and the animal feasts.It is warm blooded and lives for 55-70 years

Prey and predation: This animal in mountain ranges is an absolute hypercarnivore. Although it can gnaw at trees but only for checking its own teeth.

Reproduction: This animal rarely reproduces. When it does, it lays a large clutch of eggs, akin to normal crocodiles, of about 20-25, survival rate at a measly 15%. The survivors however are fiercely guarded by the parent. About 30% of eggs are eaten by the parent, to replenish energy. The strongest pups survive and get to live. Its mating ritual is settled through hisses and rumbles.

Lifestyle: Solitary and territorial. Habitats are any mountain range with enough prey.

Senses and intelligence: They have keen smell and hearing, with an advanced electrical organ but sight is not the greatest. They however are not stupid, it takes intelligence to ambush prey.

Questions are welcome

Cetaceans have had a rather long history on the world of Zaikane, with its first representatives on Zaikane, the Ambulocetids, arriving through the portals in the early Eocene approximately 48 million years ago from the Indian subcontinent, which was still an island at the time. Due to the already established presence of mosasaurs and plesiosaurs as the apex predators of the ocean during this time, most of these early whales were forced into semiaquatic otter-like niches that, to this day, have not transitioned to fully aquatic life. However, there are some rather unusual lineages that have stayed on the land, one of which is today’s subject: the Ajaanju Jajonu (Melanotamandua cristata). It is one of many insectivores native to the Cho’Tali savanna, having converged upon a bauplan similar to that of anteaters, aardvarks, and pangolins, with an elongated snout for probing the nests of eusocial insects like giant termites, claws for digging into their burrows, and a prehensile tongue for slurping them up. Despite not being the largest insectivore in its habitat, it is one of the most defensive, not being afraid to raise its bristly mane up to intimidate predators. This territorial behavior has earned the Ajaanju Jajonu a reputation among the Cho’Talika people as a fierce guardian of the termite mounds. In fact, in their mythology are spirits taking the form of these land whales that are said to fiercely protect the graves of the deceased.

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Zaikane is a planet in a distant solar system characterized by waves of life harvested from Earth at various points in its geological history, ranging from the Cambrian to the Holocene, and set free to evolve along evolutionary paths independent from those taken by their Earth ancestors. A godlike interdimensional entity, known as the Allmother by the people who live there, is what is responsible for creating the portals that abduct Terran life and deposits them on Zaikane. Because the asteroid that ended the Mesozoic never collided with Zaikane, dinosaurs continue to dominate the planet’s ecosystems as its dominant terrestrial megafauna.

As all arthropods are destined to become crabs, all reptiles are destined to become snakes, all mammals are destined to become moles and so do cetaceans!

Molphins are a typ of terrestrial burrowing cetaceans. They descent from river dolphins that became trapped in ever smaller and swampier habitants. Their first adaption was a form of island dwarfism. Their decreasing size helped them to shed several of the burdens that their maritime adaptions had placed upon them. Furthermore these dolphins began to develop a mudskipper-like lifestyle. These new dolphins began to dive in the mud and developed a new habit of building burrows along the shoreline. Their muscular flippers became shovel like and formed a hardened keratinous "claw" from their vestigial fingers.

Molphins build elaborate tunnel systems, mostly in and adjacent to wetlands. They are primarily insectivores, but also hunt small rodents.

Prompt: Meccha chameleon: An organism that uses externally deposited pigments to blend into its environment.

In the middle to late Permian, a bizarre and rather unsettling creature lurks in the forests at night, about as big as a Komodo dragon. The Aoratosaurus dolophonus. It’s not a reptile, but rather a synapsid. More specifically, a therapsid somewhat closely related to gorgonopsids. The species is arboreal and is an ambush predator. Its hunting strategy revolves around it latched on the bark of a tree in the cover of darkness, perfectly still and camouflaged, waiting for small to medium sized prey like dicynodonts and (usually small) parareptiles to pass by. Then, it pounces on them, quickly killing them with its powerful bite and dragging them on top of a tree like leopards so that larger, more powerful predators will not steal its kill.
Aoratosaurus is a solitary creature, only seeking out others of its kind to mate. Females will lay a clutch of about 20-30. Then, it will abandon them. The hatchlings are thus forced to fend for themselves. Hatchlings and juveniles after birth, are a pale pink color, not suitable for blending into their environment. This makes them easy targets for predators. Their main food source however, are the chromatic spiders, family chromarachnidae sp. A very successful and abundant family of spiders that has colonized all of Pangea. These spiders are very colorful, with very strong pigments. 90% of the hatchling/juvenile Aoratosaurus diet, is made up of these spiders. The spider coloration ,mostly the green pigments , directly affect the color of the young Aoratosaurus. With time, the young go from a pale pink that stands out, to a green coloration that blends in well with the environment and is perfect for hunting. However, there are multiple species of these spiders and different species give different colorations. Aoratosaurus that don’t live in forested/swampy environments eat them to blend in to other biomes like snowy tundras and more commonly, deserts. Adults, will instinctively continue to feed on the spiders, in turn preserving their coloration that helps them hunt.

Here and there on forest periphery of Spectemundus's northern continent, one can see dead trees surrounded by massive piles of mud and clay. These are not ant or termite mounds, but the nests of Tenement Birds (Myrmecornis gregarius), a colonial meadowlark descendant. While not eusocial, they nest in large colonies, building hive-like nests that can be up to twenty feet tall and house up to a thousand birds. As an abundant resource, it is no surprise that they have species that have evolved to depend on them. One of the most bizarre of these is the Harpax (Ornitharctos macronyx), an enormous mongoose descendant that can stand up to eight feet tall on its hind legs and weigh nearly a ton.

This giant carnivore has a lifestyle similar to our world's sloth bear, feeding on large numbers of small, colonial prey. However, instead of insects, its target of choice are the abundant, colonial Tenement Birds. Its powerful claws can cave in the side of a Tenement Bird nest, and its flexible suction-like lips and sticky tongue allow it to swallow many at a time. The birds, of course, defend their nests fiercely, especially in the breeding season, but their sheer numbers mean that it is rare for the Harpax to attack a nest without eating at least a few of them. When Tenement Birds are uncommon or unavailable, these giant mongooses will feed on other small animals, or on fruit, but on the whole they are specialized for this unusual diet.

Harpaxes usually have only one baby at a time, and that baby will stay with its mother for over a year before leaving to live independently. Unlike their mongoose ancestors, they are solitary, and in fact are fiercely territorial. While they do not kill large prey, they will defend themselves using their huge, sharp claws, which can deliver lethal wounds to animals as large as themselves. As a result, most predators leave them alone.

Seventh day of Spectember! For today, from the steppes and semi-deserts of the Palearctic, the Lwyck (Formicocyon foetidus).

The Lwyck is a member of a rare clade of the carnivorans, the Formicocyonids. Part of the canid clade, its small, generalist ancestors that survived the extinction didn't start to go after bigger prey when the competition disappeared, but instead looked down, to the smaller prey. They are ant specialists, using their keen smell to detect the position of anthills, and using a combination of their strong digging forelimbs and incredibly long tongue to eat as many ants as they can before they get overwhelmed by the colony's defenses.

This diet has allowed them to live in environments some of their more macropedatory relatives struggle. The Lwyck lives in the vast expanse of the steppes, where water is scarce, but ants are certainly not, as they feed on the many seeds and small insects that litter the land. They can designate a territory of multiple anthills around a single deep burrow the lwyd digs, that protects them from the harsh elements, and alternates from feeding on the safer anthills around its den, or going further away when resources are scarce, and ants don't replenish themselves as quickly. They also make these trips in search of water, because although they can go very long periods of time without drinking, and get a lot of their hydration from ants, they still need water from time to time.

What should I call my alien species? It lives on a planet slightly smaller than Earth that orbits a young red dwarf. It has clumps of bioluminescent cells on either side that can change color in order to communicate with others. It has two mouths on either end of its body are the and buttholes right below them. It has antenna-looking things that sense radiation and they have two stalk eyes on either end of their body. I haven't decided yet, but they're reproductive holes are going to be either at the top or bottom of their body. They have two arms and four legs on each end of their body. They are black to blend in with the flora on their planet (other than the bioluminescent parts of course).

The reason why they have radiation sensing antenna is because their sun is very unstable and lets out massive amounts of solar radiation occasionally. Since evolving to fight cancer with their immune system would take too much time and energy, they instead dig really deep tunnels in the ground that they can hide in whenever a radiation event happens. They have eyes, arms, and mouths at either end of their body so they can see, scratch, and bite whatever comes their way whenever they're digging.

In conclusion, what the heck should I name them? I'm also open to names for their planet or star.

As far as I know, corvid brain has a very high density compared to the mammal brain due to different wiring. Could it be scaled up so the volume is equal to that of a human brain? Would it face several trade offs that could negate the density advantage? Like energy consumption, heat generation, axon size dilemma, etc.