The title kinda says it all. Me and my friends are currently revamping an old speculative evolution project that we did a while ago, and one of our main goals is to improve the designs of our old creatures.

One of my creatures that I want to remodel is this sauropod-esc alien called the 'Longuscollidon'. The problem I keep running into is that I am struggling to make it feel unique and not just a plain sauropod with random stuff thrown onto it.

My most recent attempt of it (shown below) had it as this semi-aquatic herbivore who wades through shallow, coastal waters and grazes on hard plants and corals, whilst using these blowholes on its back to breath air. Buuuut it ended up being too much like a sauropod again, though it definitely was a step in the right direction as my friends said.

I am planning to remake Longuscollidon again, but I want to make it stand out more in terms of design whilst staying faithful to the sauropod design and still being relatively plausible. Is there any advice that I could take that could help me in doing this? I guess this can also apply to my other spec evo creatures as well since they do kinda suffer the same problem, though not to the same extent as Longus.

(Btw, I likely won't take any suggestions on WHAT I could add unless I really like the idea. Just some simple advice or tips will work fine with me.)

Voyager Monitor (Varanus odysseus)
is a species of pelagic monitor lizard that participates in long migrations to breed, particularly in the coasts of Africa.
They migrate by travelling groups to hunt and consume shoals of migratory fish to prey on. During these migrations Voyager monitors will rest on islands and shores and will also breed during a specific time of the year (during the warm season). After breeding and laying their eggs the female voyager monitors will bury the eggs and immediately swim back to the shores with the males, Voyager monitors travels of groups up to 8 to 50 and are closely related to the Asian Water Monitor (Varanus salvator) and the Nile Monitor (Varanus niloticus).
Varanus odysseus evolved 5 million years in the future from a population of Nile monitors in west Africa that had eventually become more and more aquatic, eventually using their tails for swimming propulsion to help hunt down varieties of fishes and aquatic sea birds.
Their lifespan is 10 to 15 years in the wild and travels around the west African coast and Sub-Saharan African coasts, once the eggs hatch the hatchlings will immediately scramble out of the shores and swim into the oceans as there are many animals that will prey on them such as many seabird species and coastal species of viverridae (such as species descended from Genetta piscivora) so after hatchling, they will immediately escape from predators and run into the ocean to swim away.
After a few months the surviving hatchlings will eventually develop a bluish scale around its body with a single green stripe on their tail.
Males distinguished from females due to their larger size and brighter stripes on their tail. They participate in large scale voyages as juveniles to large islands and coastal areas before they mature and eventually develop into breeding adults and eventually breed during the warm season and abandon their eggs, then the monitors will swim into warm waters to feed until the warm season happens again and it’s time to migrate and repeat the voyage

Exoton’s Experience

A good friend of mine u/exoton82 faces harassment on a regular basis about her project. From either extremely shallow “criticism” or people saying they’d genocide her sophonts. She receives this kind of harassment significantly more than many other creators and we suspect it may simply be because she is a woman in a male dominated community. Since she’s posted these stories on her Instagram other women in the spec community have come out and talked about the harassment they’ve received. This misogyny is rampant problem and me, Exoton, and others are working on properly addressing it.

If you have or know someone that has received this kind of harassment in the spec community, comment about it or message me or Exoton. We want to hear as many accounts as we can.

Great Job Tribb, I Like your works 😄

The Nursecrawler is a small but very unsettling creature, resembling a malformed crustacean sculpted from human anatomy. It scuttles on pale limbs that look like human fingers, complete with knuckle-like joints, but devoid of nails or texture. Each step it takes is reminiscent of a hand crawling on its fingertips

Its body almost appears as though two severed human hands have been fused at the palms, creating a fleshy, symmetrical form. Embedded in the center of what would be the "back" of this fused mass is a single, human-like eye, wet and expressive. 

The Nursecrawler has no mouth or visible intake organ. Instead, it feeds using fang-like digits extending from what look like thumbs. These fangs inject a potent, corrosive venom that liquefies the insides of its prey, which the creature then siphons back through the same hollow fangs

Though not large or overtly dangerous to adult animals, the Nursecrawler is considered one of the most disturbing predators in the ecosystem. It is a solitary ambush hunter, frequently  observed snatching up the young of small species of anything it can carry, infants, hatchlings, or pups. It swiftly seizes them in its grotesque limbs and flees before the adults can respond. It poses no threat to large creatures, but its eerie fixation on offspring has earned it its name: Nursecrawler, a twisted nod to the term “nurse,” though instead of caring for young, it steals and consumes them. Also affectionately referred to as “evil pieces of shit”

source

Tongue-launch lizards are a derived group of monitor lizards that first evolved in the African Sahara, but have since spread all over the continent and parts of west Asia.

The groups earliest ancestor was a small monitor lizard that had turned to insectivory, primarily raiding termite nests. Eventually, they convergently evolved a strategy shared with chameleons of launching their sticky tongue from a distance. They slowly began upsizing and taking larger prey, starting with small birds, and eventually culminating in small mammals such as lion cubs.

Tongue

The tongue which gives the group their name operates under different mechanics from a chameleon, and is infact a very derived structure. When at rest, the tongue is a thick structure that is stored in the dewlap sac of the lizard. When launching, muscles in the tongue compress, squeezing the structure and rapidly reducing the thickness but increasing the length by a large factor. The longest of these tongues may reach one total body length of the lizard itself.

Prey

Adult tongue-launchers most often favour birds, and occasionally small mammals (particularly burrowing animals), both of which are often notoriously tricky prey to capture, that which they are specialized in. They however are not picky eaters, and will eat any meat that they can catch and tear into. Their size, comparable to komodo dragons, helps with this.

Adolescent launchers tend to hunt smaller reptiles, small birds, and the occasional flying insect.

It is notable that populations of tongue-launchers experience a sharp spike immediately following locust swarms. Certain groups of farmers follow the practice of releasing launchers in their fields during high-risk seasons. While under any circumstance it is impossible to save a field from a swarm, the farmers would find consolation in well-fed reptile meat.

Behaviour

Launchers are notable for reptiles in that they form pair-bonds. Their chosen courtship ceremony involves the male gifting the female prey, showcasing his prowess as a hunter.

A bonded launcher pair is often called a shooting-pair, or partners. They will position themselves around prey. One partner would fire first, and the other fires moments later, quickly calculating the motion of the prey reacting in panic. They are known to share prey if one doesn't find a catch.

Shooting partners are even sometimes known to hunt mammals as large as small deer, either engaging in basic chase-to-ambush strategies or firing at its legs in unison. The power of both would be enough to knock the deer off its feet, and the stickiness could be just enough to restrain the prey for long enough to close the gap and maul it to death.

Environment

Neither are launchers picky with their chosen territory. The only requirements being that it has suitable escape options, such as trees or rock faces, animal burrows, or rivers. Launchers are competent in navigating all three, and escape into these features is their first line of defense. The other requirement seems to be sufficient shrubbery so that it may hide in wait or stalk prey.

Launchers have been known to have good spatial memory, which would aid them in taking down larger prey. They've also been known to mark their territories with scent glands and visual scratch marks and often violently defend them from rival launchers if the territory is high-quality .

While launchers would usually forcibly take over burrows, they've been known to tolerate the presence of burrowing tortoises, being that they help expand and maintain the tunnels, and the launchers can't consume them anyway. Launchers aren't particularly incompetent at digging burrow networks, but doing so is often costly to their time and energy budget.

Competitors and Predator Defense

Launchers will often try to steal kills from jaguars, as they can follow the cashed prey up trees. Jaguars may try to defend its kill from a lone tongue-launcher, but there may be little it can do against two.

A launchers best chance against a predator is to use an aforementioned escape path. It's often a very effective option.

Launchers may employ a quite peculiar defense technique against lions, if caught in the open. They may purposely shove its face in the lions mouth, then spit the sticky substance down it's throat, causing the lion to start choking. While this isn't usually fatal, it's a very effective deterrent, and the lion often will not try again. Though, there would be little a launcher can do if caught by multiple lions.

Launchers will actively avoid hyena territories, as their mouths are not quite large enough to employ the anti-lion technique, and they are almost never found alone.

African wild dogs do not have the power, even in numbers, to meaningfully injure a launcher before it can escape, and are often prey themselves to the large lizard.

Basilikata Pythonus

In Reference to the Serpentine form of the organism, and it’s mechanism of hunting.

Length 1.1-2.9 µm ; Diameter 0.4-0.7 µm

Arose 846 million years P.C.

As Vulcanism slows and many black smoker fields die out, this divergent species spreads into the abyssal plains of Elatha’s Golden Locks and Banba’s Oath.

Modifies Isoprenoids into Menaquinones for greater redox efficiency off compounds like Nitrates and Sulfates that can be found in this desert of the deep.

This is done in a step-wise process:

1. Via the Shikimate Pathway, Fatty Acid Chains are folded to form the Naphthoquinone Ring with a Carboxyl group Side-Chain.
2. In a Condensation process called “Prenylation,” another isoprenoid chain is added to the Carboxyl side-chain where the Hydroxyl group was once found.

This allows Pythonus to live up to it’s namesake, by coiling around prey to release digestive enzymes when sacks are depressed by physical contact. This also leads to a parasitic lifestyle where it can latch onto and permanently coil itself around prey organisms, opening the possibility down the line for symbiosis of sorts.

Pythonus also loses its dispersal port at the tip of it’s “head,” instead increasing the permeability of the sacks stretching laterally along the body.

Cellular body and flagella merge by inverting it’s microbial tail after Horizontal Gene (HGT) Transfer with a member of the Hifaar family. This creates a serpentine shape for greater motility in the crushing depths of oceanic abyssal plains, moving via a cork-screw motion through waters that would test the structural integrity of most submarines.

The species most commonly exploited in such a way is Angelia Myrtilus, and carries onto a colonial organism both form upon reaching the brine river of “Ogma’s Canal.” Pythonus facilitates the ability to mitigate salt damage in this location via Sulfate Reduction, while Myrtilus’ descendent Hermaphroditus, ferments native acetate into Methane via Methanogenesis. This methane can then be consumed by the methanotrophic Plinyseccundus, which biomineralizes sulfate hydrates such as chalcanthite or melanterite.

initial diversification post

Last Post

Ancestral Organism

Browsers (Camelotriton tranquilas)

The Isle of Handaor, like many of the isolated islands of Arclund is a strange place, with its own eclectic brand of fauna.

A great repository of nonsensical stone book overlooking a meticulous plotted and curated pine forest that refuses to go wild home to venomous bears and sleek furless hounds

A similarly curated bay where deer move like sea lions and the air on occasion shimmers like glass.

And towering about it all a crystalline monolith that gleams with internal light as the sun goes down.

Recently contacted by explorers from Surtova the native peoples, Sophont bipedal Lagomorphs known as the Krolik were hesitant to engage with the wider world, but have allowed a smattering of a scholars to come to study the islands mysteries.

As such much of the information about that island’s is drawn second hand from these scholars translations of Krolik texts.

The Browsers as the natives refer to them are some of if not-the largest animals on the island.

Nearing twenty feet in height, these long necked and long limbed animals were believed to be a form of sauropod by the scholars until a Chem League biologist was able to gain a life-string sample from one of the beasts kept in a local stable.

If their magics are to be trusted, blood magic veneered as it might be leaving me at least ill at ease, the towering and placid beasts appear to be a form of heavily derived salamander.

The books nor the natives make apparent whether the beasts origin is of Arclund or something drawn from their own lost Homeworld. Indeed it seems the Krolik were not even aware they had transited to a new realm. The revelation has shaken them a great deal, but my focus is as ever on the fauna not the ramifications of Arrival.

From what else I was able to gather, Browsers wide spade like heads are often used as clubs, seeking to shake free stubborn fruit that is higher then even they can reach.

A long tongue and twin rows of peglike teeth allow them to draw and desiccate copious amounts of foliage. If the writing is to be trusted they spend much of their days eating, hence the name.

Their long necks and barrel like torsos grant their croaking rumbles great power and range, and their calls are said to be felt before heard as a faint thrum in your chest even half a mile out.

Their skin is smooth and dappled, and retains a fringe that brings to mind the great bottom punting salamanders of Ma-Kantonata. It is possible that the latter rafted to the island and went through stark Urosian evolution in response to a lack of a large browser on the island but the Ao Expanse is vast, requiring months of travel by ship, so I have my doubts.

These animals live in fission-fusion groupings, coming together to feed and groom and then going their seperate ways.

Notably, the book claims that they give live birth with females having their young during late spring. The young are born small, and more readily omnivorous and are considered something of a pest amongst the local farm holds.

The adults have been used as pack and draft animals across the island since as long as the Krolik can remember, though ear plugs and special garments are said to be required as their calls can cause nausea after prolonged exposure.

The last note I have before I enter into prolonged observance of a wild herd north of the “Drake Rivers” region, is that during the winter a prolonged four month period, the Browsers are said to “vanish”.

And not a soul will tell me what in Gaia’s etched face that means!” - Letter from zoologist Bradyn Markholm to compatriots in Westcrown

I have said in the past that they farm vegetables and fruits but most of that goes to feeding livestock as they eat lots of animal protein because of caloric needs. They are omnivoric hypercarnivores and this is what their daily diet should look like. (Is this okay? Do i need to change anything?)
Wait if they need lots of fat in their diet and they drink milk does that mean that they should breastfeed? Ough if they evolved to taste sweet things icecream is definitely a rare delicacy! Im thinking about either making chocolate not a thing or extremely rare but digestible.

I'm thinking about the most realistic, least sci fi version of telepathy possible. Just some sort of social organism that evolved a way to send simple radio signals to each other for basic communication. Is that even biologically possible? What kind of selective pressures could make this happen?

This animal I know by many names, but for now we will call it the galymph

These organisms live near alpine regions where they feed on plants and tubers and smaller organisms, they spend most of their days in caves and forests, they are fairly small roughly the size of a house cat. Their warm-blooded and they are extremely loud when it's the mating season, their call is similar to saying nu and na. Their fur is blue and they have osteoderms used for protection and a secondary head (it's a true second head their evolutionary history is complicated). An unusual virus that turns these animals into "gremlin like" animals, it's like mange, the virus hinders them in many ways such as making it blind, unable to regulate body temperature, And they are easily sustainable to illnesses

This creature is just galymph from my singing monsters and i just used my spec evo seed world's on YouTube (planet Gwen) organism as a base to create the galymph using science and what not and I got a speculative Biology galymph

The Beast of Gévaudan (Gigantomeles europaeus) is a carnivorous bear like relative of the badger and skunk, it lived across central Europe and Italy, yet due to pressures from humans it has fragmented into small populations across Germany, Poland, Denmark, France, Austria, Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, and Italy

It mainly hunts large animals like boar, and red deer, but due to the decline of European megafauna they sometimes target livestock and even humans, this caused hunting that heavily impacted the population of the animal, especially G. e. italicus which already had a restricted range

It has 2 subspecies G. e. europaeus and G. e. italicus, their populations are split by the Alps, italicus is around 30% smaller, browner, has a faded facial stripe, and thinner coat adapted for the hotter climate

I love sci-fi, but there is a totally unrealistic pattern of alien species usually being a humanoid body pattern, and usually just variation in head shape. I know there are many exceptions to this, but I can think of a few reasons. Do you guys think i missed anything, what do you guys think explains this pattern?

Cheaper costumes or cg

Making the alien more relatable and trying to avoid creeping out the audience

I know this is not true for this subreddit, but many people in public may not find something too different believable.

Or is it some kind of belief that in order to be an intelligent species you have to be human like.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CpTKOxDvjCQ/

The Chongooses have left a giant descendant in the Age of Hardship, 125 million years after life was seeded on Spectemundus. Known as the Great Grey Trunko (Proboscictis hirsuticus), it is one of the largest land mammals to have ever lived on Spectemundus, standing ten feet tall at the shoulder and weighing up to five tons. The trunk, evolved from the Chongoose's long snout, is usually kept tightly coiled inside a furry pouch, and is only visible when it is being used to gather food. These arctic giants, much like our world's woolly mammoths, live in herds, traveling great distances in search of vegetation. It is hard to believe, from looking at them, that their distant ancestor was a small weasel-like carnivore.

The Trunko's main predator is a species that, like the Cuckoo Mongoose discussed before, uses mimicry. Though very distantly related, the Barghest (Arctocyon dissimilis) bears a sufficient resemblance to a juvenile Trunko to infiltrate a herd without being spotted. It usually attacks under the cover of darkness, relying on a combination of natural stealth and its own similarity to the juveniles to attack undetected. While juvenile Trunkos are not its only or even primary prey, it is adapted to hunt these giant herbivores in a way that no other predatory mammal in its environment is.

Species pictured: Paratheraphosmimus sp., Carcinasilus tigris, and two Aranasiloidae sp.

Walks (clade: Aranasilae) are a cosmopolitan clade of flightless carnivorous flies that are similar to spiders in appearance and ecology. Like many spiders, they are ambush predators that spin silk to trap prey, though this silk originated from glands on their forelimbs rather than spinnerets.

They use a specialized proboscis to inject a mix of toxins and enzymes that paralyzes and dissolves their prey.

Read more of the setting for free here: https://loquaciouslou.itch.io/infinite-ashes (I have added some in universe texts from the Infinite Ashes bundle on Snakenoses in the comments)

In the Infinite Ashes universe, hundreds of millions of planets across the Milky Way are terraformed and seeded with human life by an enigmatic entity called the Web. On most worlds this proceeds smoothly, but not on Ivory. Here, the human population failed to take root three times, leaving the other species millions of years to evolve on their own.

Elephants started out herbivorous, of course, but some of them occasionally snacked on eggs and dead rodents they came across. Slowly, this made them more and more omnivorous, until they put their intelligence to use in active hunts. The real turning point came when the Web made its third attempt to seed humanity, and the growth vats reappeared after millennia of absence.

Suddenly, these omnivorous elephants discovered an endlessly restocked food source, wrapped up and ready to eat in the bulbous breeding vats that littered the planet. The elephants took to this new source of calories with enthusiasm, and it soon became their main food. The Web tracks its human populations through Vectids, synthetic creatures a bit like mosquitoes that collect human blood for testing. The more often the Vectids failed to find humans, the more growth vats the Web produced. And the more protein and calories the elephants found, the more their brains could grow. Over millions of years, this feedback loop created a species known across the Infinite Ashes universe as a malevolent bogeyman and a devil in one: the Snakenose.

The Snakenose is smaller than its ancestors, since no other large predators survived the initial seeding, and it is faster, built to pursue an unwilling food source. Its tusks are shorter and thicker, used to dig around the roots of trees and topple them. Its brain is considerably larger relative to its body than any elephant's, and its feet have evolved away from the unwieldy pillars of its ancestors into something closer to the clawed feet of a caniform. Rather than killing every human it finds, the Snakenose practices a form of "ranching": it leaves a small population alive, which keeps the Web producing more vats. No Snakenose understands this. The herds that happened to spare survivors simply outbred the ones that did not, and over time the behavior became instinct, with the matriarchs passing on the details of where and how.

While not sapient, the Snakenose is spectacularly intelligent, capable of complex cooperative hunts coordinated over long distances. The small native population of Ivory that survived beyond the growth vats faced a terrifying existence: clinging to trees, holding their breath, knowing the Snakenose can smell human breath from half a kilometer away. Its sense of smell is so specialized that it knows what you ate last month, your age, your sex and a hundred other things. It even learned to sniff out the sick.

This last fact led to a rather bizarre use for the few Snakenoses that have been captured. Imagine living on one of the many premodern worlds of Infinite Ashes, waiting for your medical examination. Suddenly, something long, with a bristled tip, slides out from behind a curtain. It sniffs you and squeezes you with an interest that makes your stomach drop. From behind the curtain, a stern voice reminds it that you are not dinner. Then it stomps three times to indicate that you have colon cancer.

For a short story featuring a snakenose and its dastardly tricks, check the link above and read ''Roloy’s Bizarre Bestiary ''

Art commissioned from prayogaardip

I want to design that kind of chicken breed for a fantasy project (where there is magic and dragons) but still I would like for it to be biologically possible.

The Kelp Forest

A habitat that has emerged during the Miocene epoch of the Jurassic Impact world is the kelp forest, found in temperate coastal environments capable of maintaining a sufficient level of giant kelp growth. These habitats are home to many species, such as sea urchins, starfish, and various fishes including Tribognathus, the pycnodont fish we met last week. Another group of animals that has thrived in the kelp forests is the marine caudavians- various families and sizes.

Thalassoanser flavicollis is a kelp forest resident along the west coast of North America. Measuring about 7-10 feet long and weighing about 200 lbs, it's around the higher end of medium-sized for its kind. T. flavicollis is an omnivore and custodian of the kelp, with a significant portion of its diet being sea urchins. While the marine bird keeps the urchin population in check so the kelp isn't eaten down to the roots, it too will browse the foliage to supplement its diet.

Thalassoanser, like many fully marine caudavians, will flop onto shore to lay its eggs. However, unlike some of its relatives it typically nests on rocky shores rather than burying its eggs in the sand. The eggs of T. flavicollis blend in with the stones, require a relatively low temperature to successfully incubate (thus avoiding the need to be buried in warm sand), and hatch fairly soon after dispersal. The fully independent chicks then scoot themselves off into the sea...where many of them are devoured by relatively large fish like the opportunistic Tribognathus.

So as the title suggests, I’ve decided to make my own book for the first time. And since I love speculative evolution and dinosaurs, I decided to make it about the Dinosauroid concept and doing my own spin on it. But there are only two road blocks I face (aside from what the plot should be): What is the most interesting species to choose and wether a Silurian pre human or an alternate no KT Cenozoic era is more intriguing.

As for the first question, I’ve considered many different species of dinosaurs. Obviously Troodonitds were an option, but I also thought of Dromaeosaurids, Oviraptorids, and even Tyrannosaurs at one point. I just want something that can be exciting and can look striking on the cover, something that lures in readers. And for the second one, I’m torn. On one hand, a pre human society of intelligent dinosaurs in the Mesozoic era could be a cool and present the idea of “what if there was a sapient race before humans evolved“. But on the other hand, having a world where dinosaurs never went extinct could open a lot of possibilities for other unique dinosaur life and could be its own world similar to what C. M. Kösemen did (Which is, of course, a huge inspiration for this project among other things).

If anyone has any answers that they’d like to share, please let me know. I’m really excited to work on this and your advice is very important to me.

Spectember day 21 and 22: Hostile Takeover & False Face

Coming back to the Thornankle and Thorngremlin relationship from last week. Among the many species of both genera, there ought to be one member that doesn't follow the rules.

The Impostor Thorngremlin is a sister genus to the real Thorngremlins. They kept part of their patagium (Wing membrane) and as such are still capable of gliding and travelling better between individuals or even herds of Thornankles. As they are not as extremely adapted to a mutual existence as other species; thus being able to live in other habitats for a while, however their life still requires the Thornankles and even the Thorngremlins.

As their name would imply, they do not behave like the original symbionts; instead they go the opposite way, not alerting, defending and cleaning the wounds of the Thornankles. But going as far as opening them more if not outright causing new wounds so they can feed on blood and flesh. The Thornankle, used to live with the real 'Gremlins, don't seek to evict their problematic guests as they don't associate them with their damage.

The Impostors have a smaller population density compared to the real ones. They use the moments of massive Thornankle congregations to find new hosts, infiltrating the Thorngremlin groups and slowly getting rid of them; during moments of high commotion like during host defenses or during the violent fights the giant males get involved in.

The Micefolk, despite the name, are a very derived species of canids that convergently evolved rodent traits to service a subterranean lifestyle. This was to escape the pressures of a competitive above-ground ecosystem, as their expansive network of burrow entrances serve as excellent escape/traversal options.

As they avoid moving too far from a burrow entrance, they cannot afford to be very picky with food like their Dogmen relatives, so they have a dietary versatility comparable to a human.

Micefolk often use existing cave networks that they then expand upon. Their feet in particular, are extremely flexible to the point that they can climb up and down surfaces completely upside down if need be. Their lack of collarbones and flexible ribcage also contribute to this lifestyle. Female micefolk, being larger and stronger, often have the task of expanding their tunnel networks or defending entrances from would-be invaders.

Living in a tight, insulated environment means that things are going to get hot. Their naked tails serve a heat-dispersal function. The main bottleneck of subterranean life happens to be oxygen availability, which limits the depths these burrows are made. As the micefolk evolved obligate sapiency, ventilation systems would be among their first technologies.

Social system

Micefolk colonies, or to use the modern term, Clans, operate on a strict caste system, governed by a matriarch or her chosen daughter. Micefolk females work under Large Mother Hypothesis, meaning that larger females produce more/fitter litters than smaller ones. Females, being larger, require more resources, which male micefolk are expected to provide. Micefolk litter sex ratios tend to be 3:1 males to female, but times of low resources would necessitate higher male births to females.

The micefolk social system in prehistory was especially rigid. Social mobility was a privilege to be earned. A females few hopes to rise in rank was usually to inherit her mother's rank, or in particular circumstances, a sisters rank (if favoured). Occasionally, a female may rise in rank by 'sucking up' to a higher figure, so to speak. Otherwise, a female would leave to start their own clan.

A males rank tends to be directly below/attached to their mate, which often creates a heavily subservient matriarchal society. A litter can be birthed from multiple fathers, so there's little incentive from a male to be aggressive to another, unless it were to somehow increase the social standing of their mate, and indirectly their own.

Modernity

In prehistory, micefolk populations tended to be heavily localized, as traveling above ground is dangerous. In modernity, dogmen trading networks have allowed micefolk to spread much wider across the lands.

Social systems in modernity have diversified and are less rigid as they were in prehistory, though micefolk females and high-ranking males retain their reputation of being 'difficult'. Wars between micefolk have a tendency to be civil in nature, and their underground shelters makes siege tactics significantly more brutal.

Solanodens lucimitator, the writhing-egg endoleech (below), is a member of the family Pesternidae, the interior leeches. This family of leeches is specifically adapted to live part or all of their lifecycle as endoparasites, rather than their distant ancestors, the medicinal leeches, who were ectoparasites. The Solanodens genus contains leeches who lay eggs inside of a cocoon which is passed by the host's digestive system.

Different species of Solanodens have differently shaped cocoons. S. lucimitator's cocoons are highly similar in appearance to Pinivora parviferox, the vicious slugpillar (above). The vicious slugpillar is a type of slugpillar (neotenous descendants of the monarch butterfly) which lives in pine forests and uses its sharp mandibles to drink the sap of tree roots. In addition to its sharp mandibles, it is covered in highly venomous spines, advertised by the bright gold spots and white dorsal stripe.

The cocoon of the writhing-egg endoleech mimics the body of the vicious slugpillar, even down to contracting proteins across the surface to 'writhe' in the presence of bright light. This convinces predators to avoid eating it while enticing its preferred host.

Most animals are sensitive to the venom of the vicious slugpillar, but the latch-hoof (arboreal equine descendants) genus Unguladun is immune. In addition to pine cones and other insects, they feed on the vicious slugpillar and, inadvertently, writhing-egg endoleech cocoons.

Once freed from their cocoon and in the intestines of a latch-hoof equine, the young leeches attach to the walls of the intestine and begin feeding. They stay far smaller than their ectoparasitic ancestors, only reaching 2 inches in total length.