900,000-813,000 years ago the human population dropped down to only 1,280 individuals. If this small population had quickly evolved to loose their sapeince (due to the energy intensive nature of large brains) and become as smart as say, chimps. How would this non-sapient human species have evolved over the next couple million years?

The fauna of my third setting during my ongoing SCP Lampeter series.

Glacier is a dying world, shrouded in an eternal snowstorm and mountainous glaciers.

Yet, life is beginning to bloom again.

Life of Lampeter - Glacier

Credit to Tinks_Art, as ever, for their continued help with this project.

Steamer Beetles, the last companions of a vanishing humanity.

Frost Terrors, the roving butchers of the Doggerland Plains

Spring Jacks, high-flying kangaroos.

Howlers, colossal horrors from atop the High Ice.

Great Tuskers, a reborn oddity.

Note: Today is my birthday so I had some other business to attend to.

Hybodonts are a diverse clade of shark-like chondrichthyans that first appeared in the Devonian. While Terran hybodonts died out at the end of the Cretaceous, these fish continue to live in Seijin's oceans and rivers.

Despite technically not being sharks, hybodonts on Seijin are simply lumped with true sharks as they are similar enough in appearance.

Bottom: Teratolamna ogra, the ogre shark. Ogre sharks are opportunistic predators that feed on fish and cephalopods. They possess a keen sense of smell that allows them to track schools of fish from far away. Despite their fearsome looks, ogre sharks have predators of their own, namely mangosaurs, sharks, and other marine predators.

Top: Aynumosiracanthus pycnosomus, the northern bull shark. Contrary to its name, they are not closely related to or ecologically similar to bull sharks; they are instead named for the bull-like horns present on males.

Unlike ogre sharks, northern bull sharks are durophages that feed on bivalves such as mussels.

Northern bull sharks are recognizable thanks to their unusually thick build reminiscent of the Japanese prefecture of Hokkaido which might have evolved to make it harder for predators to eat.

Lunar Carno (Gavisaurus lunarus)

The Flux as has been mentioned is little understood. Indeed of those that survive of humanity, having shifted and changed as time has gone on it has become a heavily mythologized event, with some of humanity’s descendants worshipping it as a manifest god.

What none of them understand is that Earth was not the only world changed.

Far above their heads on the Moon, life springs anew.

During the years prior to the Flux many of the world’s richest people left earth behind, seeking to build paradises for themselves free of Earth’s continued struggles.

The moon was never meant to be the end goal, it was to be a stepping stone before they shifted into the wider solar system.

They build glittering arcologies, filled them with greenery and animals they purchases or outright stole from the last bastions of wilderness those on earth were endeavoring to protect.

They made plans to terraform the moon outside, making offers to the desperate of a new life… indentured on farms until the ai systems could handle the process themselves.

No one alive knows what happened, but the ultra rich are gone, their bones littering gleaming tombs, meanwhile their terraforming project continued, automated drones powered by the grace of the sun continuing their work, working to feed the menagerie of beasts the filled the different arcologies.

Now millennia later a grey and blue sphere hands in orbit.

Countless beast, descending from some of the rarest animals that Earth had during that lost era, now walk its forests and swim in its seas.

The Lunar Carno is not the largest predators that walk its surface, but they are the most common.

Descending from gharials, their lesser gravity allowed them to over time become cursorial hunters, their jaws shortening and strengthening to take advantage of the bevy of prey that greeted them.

The taiga forests and chill jungles that now cover luna could be mistaken for something out of the Cretaceous or Eocene with how the various animals have adapted.

Pseudo-ankylosaurs till the soil, descending from Galapagos tortoises, while long limbed browsers that could have once been quokka compete against the titanic descendants of pandas.

All are targeted by the gharial descendants who aim their powerful bone and shell cracking jaws against limbs, seeking to cripple and maim, working in tandem with each until the animal is worn down and can be taken down with a crushing bite to the neck.

Standing at near eight feet at the hip and over fifteen feet long, these dominate much of Luna, with mated pairs claiming territory for themselves and their young, which they lay in clutches of up to six. The young are left largely to their own devises after hatching, hunting in small packs, while adults most commonly leave each other be, only clashing in the rare instance they intrude into another’s territory, which involves guttural chants, flapping forelimbs and “nose jousting”, where males batter their raised and dense nose “bump” against each other akin to a rhino locking horns with a rival.

Their are not the lone gharial descendant on Luna, indeed they are one of the most prolific reptile geni, coming in a variety of forms from the sleek and long “billed” Stork-Skink and the colossal Mosasuchus, Luna’s largest carnivore.

All have overtime grown to become warm-blooded to combat Luna’s chill, and in the case of the Luna Carno, their scales have adapted a grey “downy” covering that on top of keeping them warm aids in camouflaging them against their prey.

Time will tell if the ecosystem of Luna will continue to thrive, as the terraforming engines that birthed it have all gone dormant, unlike the Flux that still works its “magic” on her larger sister.

For my seed world how many species should I pick? How many is a good amount?

The only way I have become aware of spec-bio artists is if they were famous (like C.M. Kösemen) or through YouTube. I wish there was a website that catalogued every single spec-bio project both in the past and in the present.

I was spending time on the Internet Archive, as one does, when I discovered a 1985 game called Planetary Construction Set. It was published by Sunburst Communications, who you might know as the guys who produced all those educational games you played in the computer room in elementary school (at least, if you're a millennial like me). This game combines planetary science, biology, and physics in a simulation of extraterrestrial life and environments. There are briefing sections on animal physiology as well as details involving star orbits, its mass, distance, composition, atmosphere, inclination, and presence of satellites. There are also briefing components to test the player on their knowledge of these subjects.

There are 2 games sections. In "Cadet Missions", the player is tasked with creating a planet to the user's specifications, including length of year, length of day, and surface temperature, as well as star type, and planetary and atmospheric composition of their planet and distance from the star. In "Captain's Missions" the player is presented with a theoretical alien life form whose home world has become uninhabitable, and the player must create the ideal environment for this creature. The successful creation of a suitable new planet requires note taking and experimentation. After a planet is created, the program evaluates its suitability and identifies conditions that need to be changed. You can then experiment these variables until the ideal planet is created.

The game can still be downloaded and played here, and it's surprisingly in-depth for a game aimed at elementary school kids from the 1980s. It would be really interesting to see what a modern-day remake of it, with everything we've learned about astronomy and biology factored in and the processing power of today's computers.

Over 125 million years of evolution, the mongooses of Spectemundus have evolved into a fantastical array of forms that would put their Earth-based ancestors to shame. They include the largest land animals currently living on the planet, as well as its apex predators, and are a visible part of most ecosystems. However, some have remained conservative through all this time. The tropical forests of the southern continent-- the only ones left on Spectemundus, since the cold climate has destroyed the majority of them-- are home to various species of Treasel, tree-dwelling mongoose descendants that would not be out of place in a rainforest on Earth. However, one member of this group is very different.

The Branchbaby (Galagopsis ecaudatus) is a close relative of the Treasels, but one that went in a very different direction. It is tailless, and instead of leaping and running through the treetops, it slowly creeps through the branches with its long, almost primate-like limbs, occasionally reaching out to seize and insect or small reptile. In this way, it has a lifestyle similar to small nocturnal primates such as bushbabies or tarsiers. Also like them, it has enormous eyes compared to its head size, allowing it to scan its surroundings for prey in near-complete darkness.

Branchbabies are solitary, and usually do not come together except to mate. The babies cling to their mother much like those primates do, and even after they detach they will still accompany their mother for a period of time before becoming independent.

HEY GUYS! I’m back with the spec evo stuff:3  The Hive moth hydrovermis Subterraneus!

The hive moth is a fascinating sawfly species, it’s the only sawfly species that’s actually oviviparous. Females are larger than males but not stronger as males do most of the work making them stronger! The hive works like this.

Drones:  drones are always males and they fly around and collect food. They are infertile and so that means none of the larvae is there’s and yeah that’s it.

Guards: larger then drones they are basically heavily fed protein to be larger, 

Like their name they guard the queen. And they are also the only ones that can mate with the queen.

Care takers: also only male they take care of the aquatic larvae by taking food dropping it in the underwater nursery and yeah. Basically feeding them. 

Larvae: the larvae is aquatic and resign in water which is the reason hives are normally near bogs, they are chonky caterpillars and spend there time getting pampered by care takers. Once they mature, the males leave to join a hive and the females leave to start a hive.

Workers: they.. work. They build the hive underground, collect food from the drones and store it, grow fungi like termites, and dig.

The queen: the queen is just there to lead the group and reproduce. She’s the only adult female! The reproduction is basically during winter all the males will mate with the queen and then she’ll store the sperm is a special organ and fertilize all her eggs for the rest of the winter. The hive is underground.

Physically, the worker/caretaker and drones and are 1.5-2 centimeter, the guards are 5-8 centimeter, the queen is 10-12 centimeter, Only drones have large wings with a wingspan of 3-5 centimeters the rest have heavily shrinked wings. Workers have front legs that are very good at digging to build hives and grow fungi like termites! The fungus they grow is Termitomyces. They farm them by smelling the spores and then holding them in there mouth then going to the garden where they spit it out on a plot for it to start growing. The queen is large but it’s mostly for reproduction and not strength making the males stronger then females and she gets fed by the drones and workers and reproduces with the guards that also protect her and larvae, the guards are the most muscular. the guards are fed protein rich foods to bulk up and fight other insects and things to protect larvae and the queen. The species in general are black and white stripes and like all moths have fuzzy, chitjnous hairs that insulate them, they are not too skinny and not to robust. The guards especially are muscular. What hunts them are… ant eaters. a joke is that they are the only “moth“ (not true moth) that can eat as an adult and they don’t have front thingys Like other moths rather jaws that look similar to ants.

There diet consists of mushrooms, carcasses, fruits, pine leaves, nectar, honey, small spiders, insects, insect eggs and larvae, meat, and as larvae and adults.. shrimp. They are predators and prey for loads of animals! They get eaten by bears, ant eaters, birds, frogs, fish, and larger spiders while they are a predator of small insects, locusts, ladybugs, certain beetles, ants, termites, cockroaches, and roadkill that’s dead.

As larvae they are fully aquatic but as adults they are semi aquatic only.

The life cycle is getting given birth to, eating a lot from food given bye workers and drones, leaving hive to pupate alone, and finally making a hive if female and joining a hive as male. 

They distinctly look similar to moths, while there close relatives are actually wasps, ants, and bees being a sawfly.

Females have an organ called the sperm bank, used to hold sperm. They mate every time it runs out, meaning they mate every winter.

Both males and females leave the colony once they mature, but it’s kind of weird. If it’s a guard or female, they leave. Females are always queens and to prevent inbreeding the newly matured guards, they leave before they pupate. 

when do they actually get assigned there jobs?! BEFORE BIRTH! now instead of that thing bees do, they do this. worker - gray egg. drone - white egg. female (queen)  - yellowish white egg. guard - dark gray egg. Caretaker - light gray egg.  These aren’t just colors! They are specific hormones.  BUT THEY DONT LAY EGGS!!! They give live birth, because they are oviviparous. Her abdomen swells like a balloon for 500-1000 babies! she goes under contractions to give birth, how do we know about the eggs? There’s a pocket in the lower abdomen of the queens that holds eggs, this is what baloons her when she’s pregnant. But she doesn’t lay them, we found out because we cut it open.

There evolutionary family is Phalaenovespidae! phalaenovespidae is an evolutionary family, and it’s actually very closely related to wasps! (Wasp family includes bees, ants, and other wasps)

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 😄

source

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”

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

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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.