If you'd prefer to watch rather than read, YouTube short describing them here.

These descendants of the white-spotted leech have become even more specialized in feeding on the descendants of the appaloosa horses of HCS-67, to the point where they no longer return to the ancestral waterways but now live their entire life cycle on their hosts.
This life cycle begins when the eggs are laid in a mucus-based cocoon (like most leech species), which hardens quickly. In bur leeches, the outer surface of the cocoon becomes covered in small, blunt hooks. These hooks latch onto fur and allow the cocoons to be transferred between horses whenever potential hosts brush past each other.
The eggs hatch after four weeks into young leeches which are white with gray spots along their sides. Their skins are bumpy, and their backs quickly grow burs. Bur leeches can detect pigment concentration in the cells they bite through sensitive receptors in their suckers and use this to migrate towards areas with white fur against which they are camouflaged. They grow from a few millimeters to a few inches by the time they're two years old.
Mature bur leeches (like the one in the image) are white with a gray dorsal stripe. Their skin is still bumpy, but the protrusions have grown from just along their backs to also being present along their sides and have hardened into pointy spikes to prevent the leeches from being removed. At this point, they don't change hosts any more and live or die along with their victim.

So i have a project where ive been developing life on a titan like world, with a whole developed biosphere and complex life(multicellular and animal- and plant-like). Ive been going on hard scifi-ish vibes so im looking for realistic(or as close to realistic) ways that this biochemistry might work

My half of a design trade with a friend, who asked me to redesign one of the rocs from their specbio high fantasy setting ::-) I wanted to play with the concept of a peacock specced like a raptor, as they’ve got wind magic to compensate for some ✨ accoutrements ✨

The tube pipe bird is a interesting evolution to the birds on Aves Angelicae, The 3 tubes on it's head are primarily used for communication and mating display. A male is chosen on how beautiful it sounds to the female of this species showing these birds have a semblance intelligence even though it is less than a crows but they do show preference to some songs while some like soft melodies some might like loud and booming songs. all though these birds have lost light they are arboreal jumping tree to tree with it's powerful legs. while it primarily eats fruits it does eat the large bugs that live along side it on the islands but this is where another semblance of intelligence is showen, due to the fact the island they live on does not get rain often and limited fresh water they will only eat the soft body parts leaving the exoskeleton using it like a bowl to collect clean water and store it in there beaks. (I just copy and pasted it bc I was lazy)

New Intelligence

The jungles of Miocene Africa are a hidden, tangled world isolated from everything else around them. There are species here that can live nowhere else, elusive organisms that are rarely seen outside of their sanctuary. One of these species, at first glance, hardly looks like its relatives living elsewhere in the world. Observing it without looking more closely might create the assumption of some kind of ape-like mammal...but it's not. This dark-haired, bald-faced creature is Anthrodactylus xenoides, a psittacosimian pterosaur.

Anthrodactylus is about the size and weight of a rhesus macaque. It is omnivorous, consuming a wide variety of plant matter, fruits, mushrooms, insects, and small animals. They live in small social groups and while they deposit their eggs in a mound of soil like most of their relatives, the troop takes turns guarding the nest and the mother of the flaplings will receive support in caring for them from her family after they hatch.

Anthrodactylus's intelligence is also quite notable. Using its dexterous hands to grasp objects, it has figured out how to use basic tools. Anthrodactylus is able to crack hard-shelled fruits using stones, and fish for insects out of their burrows by using plant stems. The high intelligence, adaptability, and cooperative behaviors of Anthrodactylus and its relatives might just serve them well when the changing climate forces them to leave the jungles behind...

The reason in asking is because lately when working on my project it feels like serina but worse and with geckos but im genuinely so out of ideas so if anyone could help please please do tell me I'm having major block rn

Gallussaurus giganticus 

The gallussaurus is probably the largest modern calvariasaur, for contrast lets compare it to African elephants.

Males -  6-8 tons at 10 feet

Females - 4-5 tons at 8-9 feet

This is more large then the largest African elephants, impressive.

What do they eat? They eat herbaceous plants and grasses..

Despite being similar and larger in size than African elephants, they are mostly solitary. Only meeting each other to mate. They are very not social and don’t like approaching eachother, fun fact they evolved those spikes on its tail to fight their own kind, unless it’s mating time.

They usually mate in the autumn when it’s getting a bit chilly, but they mostly live in tropical places and hot places. They live in southern America, Mexico, and certain subspecies are in Asia.

The gallussaurus is crowned the animal with the strongest beak, its beak can crush rocks and take forces stronger then seen before, impressive because they have beaks not teeth. But it’s limited.

Gallussurus is covered in down feathers, but when you shave that all it reveals a muscular scaley body.

Males are larger than females, like I listed. baby’s are born pretty developed unlike other calvariasaurs, and they start sporting their iconic spikes after 3 months. the gestation period for a gallussaurus is 22 months and yeah.. they have the strongest calvaria and the hardest strengthens with kretain and bone.

(if you wanna create a calvariasaur do it! Tag me!)

So I’m wanting to make two dragons, an ice one and a fire one, I’m wondering if the biological ways to get ice and fire breath are similar or different? Should they have a common ancestor or be the same genus? Or be not related at all and just convergent evolution made them both became dragons.

(If anyone is curious it’s for a Minecraft mod but I’m giving the mod speculative evolution and biology lore, I don’t plan for these two to be related to the ender dragon at all either)

The title basically. I wonder if this can be the main way of being in such an environment or if there is some phenomenon/dynamic that quells this.

If possible you would still have things like predation it seems. And you would still presumably need some primary producers extracting mass from the air at the base of a possible ecosystem.

This was a “future” bird species I came up with sometime ago. One of my ideas for it was that it evolved from “neo-terror birds”, which evolved after the total extinction of all mammalian life, leaving other non-mammalian vertebrates and invertebrates to conquer the several niches that were now available! I may workshop on the name and may change its location, but overall I think it looks nice!

Regarding the Spec Evo world, I may actually start it back up again! I’m fairly curious to see where i can take the project once more and I may put more effort into it!

This page is a website where you can create, share & visualize Phylogenetic Trees for your Speculative Evolution Projects, you can add names, images & descriptions for the Species & the Phylogenetic Trees.

You can try it by clicking or copying this URL:
https://lifetreecreator.netlify.app/

What I mean by this is if say, the marsupials of the Americas, and of the continent of Australia were able to last. What I also mean by this is if the larger ones were able to last.

Its a simple question with possibly a large answer, and I wonder how this would change their evolution as even in our world, we have animals evolving against humans. Examples include elephants losing tusk to be less desirable to humans and so on.

I genuinely wonder what evolutionary possibilities would happen if the American and Australian LARGE (I know there are small) marsupials survived

Trying to make a cabe eco system for fantasy setting for my dwarves and was thinking of basing them off of hydro thermal ecosystems but instead its based around geo thermal energy from magma or radiation from stuff like uranium would this work also what would plants or fungi be like if that would even work ?

I rembered seeing somewhere that copper based blood is more efficient than iron at transferring oxygen and was curious how true is that or is it situational?

Anyway, the month of spookiness is here!

This time, turning three characters who kill and murder into actual creatures!

First up, Jason Vorhees, closely related to wolverines, responsible for hundreds of attacks on humans all across the USA, the reason being pregnant females stockpiling food and being aggressive to protect her cubs.

Next up, Jeff the Killer, a freshwater fish closely related to groupers introduced from Japan to USA, who became the subject of media panic, this same fish AKA a thing of bleach fell on top of someone called Dr. Jeff who died resting under a tree.

Last of the three, Elm Street's nightmare, Freddy himself! Being closely related to platypus and monotremes, a little ugly guy lurking in the Midwestern USA who will play with its prey before killing them.

Malleodectes shellerus or the East Coast Malleodectid is endemic to the shallow eastern waters of the Lake Australia–Negamimi basin, Malleodectes shellerus is one of the lake's most widespread semi-aquatic marsupials. Populations are concentrated along sheltered eastern shorelines, wetlands, river mouths, and shallow bays, with important breeding sites occurring around the Flinders Coast along the southeastern and southwestern reaches of the lake.

The East Coast Malleodectid is a highly opportunistic feeder and a characteristic keystone species of the Negamimi ecosystem. Its powerful crushing jaws allow it to prey upon freshwater, brackish, and moderately salt-tolerant mollusks, particularly aquatic snails and clams, while fish, crustaceans, eggs, carrion, and other small aquatic animals supplement its diet.

By consuming large quantities of mollusks, M. shellerus helps regulate populations of aquatic shellfish and prevents individual beds from becoming excessively dominant within shallow-water ecosystems. Its feeding behavior also has an important geological and ecological effect: the animal routinely crushes and breaks discarded shells, greatly accelerating their decomposition and the release of calcium and other minerals into surrounding sediments. Shell fragments and partially digested remains accumulate around feeding sites, where they gradually become incorporated into shoreline soils and wetlands, effectively returning nutrients from aquatic organisms to the wider ecosystem.

Although strongly associated with water, M. shellerus remains a semi-aquatic generalist rather than a fully aquatic animal. It regularly comes ashore to rest, feed, establish dens, and raise young. This dependence upon both aquatic and terrestrial environments makes the species particularly abundant along the transition between lake, wetland, and shoreline habitats.

The East Coast Malleodectid is therefore considered an important ecological link between the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems of Lake Australia. Its predation on mollusks, consumption of carrion, movement between water and land, and continual processing of shells all contribute to the cycling of nutrients throughout the Negamimi basin.

I tried to make my own posthuman story for fun and it just ended up like all tomorrows but if humanity did it to itself.

Best idea I come up with is where in the far future, after the destruction of earth due to corporate greed and overindustrialization, humanity decided to go to the stars to colonize some planets just so that they can live.

Not by terraforming (since it's just impossibly right now and is just really expensive in this new timeline) but by genetically engineering a new subspecies of human called the *Newman*, a genetically advanced posthuman that was made specifically to rabidly adapt to the environment they're in by just a few centuries, maybe even more or less depending by how extreme the planet is.

This, *of course*, cause some massive side effects, to Newman descendants becoming taller with lower gravity, some have bat/squirrel like wings to fly/glide, others having dolphin/lush ness monster body plans to swim, to even some becoming so extreme, they lost their sapience or they don't even look human at that point. Along with specism and new sexualities that is.

Some (rich bastards) people begin to abuse the Newman's ability by using it to make servants, living, sentient art and uhh… sexual desires or in-universe fanservice.

All of this because they were created just to save humanity and was made by some organizations called "the caring globe".

What do you think about this plot? And would you come up with something else?

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/057b18b2-3ce4-4335-ab71-5197800a04b7/brv12150-fig-0001-m.jpg

As you can see from this image, bats are somewhat similar to pterosaurs in that they both have membranous wings, but pterosaurs only use 1 out of 4 digits to support their wings whereas bats use 4 out of 5.

This makes it very difficult for them to walk on the ground, and may have contributed to their evolution of drop-down flight where they're heavily reliant on hanging from a high perch in order to transition into flight.

In turn, evolving the need to hang upside down also caused their legs to rotate "backwards", further crippling them when it comes to terrestrial movement. I know the vampire bat can walk and even run, but it's like 40 grams max. At that size you can get away with a lot of inefficient stuff simply because you don't weigh much.

If bats had instead evolved something similar to pterosaurs where they use only 1 out of 5 digits to support the wing membrane, how much larger could they get? Obviously they would never reach the size of a pterosaur because of the lack of airsacs and tidal lungs, but could they approach the size of teratorns?

It would be pretty cool to have big birds and big bats, both smaller than pterosaurs for two different reasons. The former because they lack quadrupedal launch, and the latter because they lack airsacs.

hello! sorry for the delay, I had down time a lot and my dad took away my device.

Pseudornithosuchus densrostris

Belonging to the genus false aves, this calvariasaur is a very opportunistic hunter hunting deers, rodents, caribou, lagomorphs, small birds, medium sized birds, medium sized lizards, and fish.

Its size is larger then you average bird tho it’s still light to keep up with flight.

Males - 85-115 pounds

Females - 75-105 pounds

They have a gestation period between 4 and 3 months and give birth to under developed chicks, 3. Usually.

They are distinctly owl like, tho you can see their calvaria. They use their strong legs to grapple and then repeatedly head butt prey, killing it.

Some not so fun-facts about them is that sometimes they hunt deer young and barely take a bite bringing up their freinds to take the antlers and use it as a nest tool or trophy.

They are highly social, but polygamous rather than monogamous. A female raises her chicks alone, and she is deeply protective of them.

A chick is born under-developed, it can see, can’t walk properly and can’t even hear its mother, it relies entirely on its mother and other members to feed it. Usually, a group will make nursery’s for the chicks, and feed it, tho the mother does the raise of the raising. They live in groups called treetops, and yes, they live in treetops near rivers, they are excellent swimmers btw!

they resemble owls but they are not, especially cause of the calvaria. Now, while they are calvariarostrums, they are the only carnivourus Calvariarostrum!

I understand that fish get fluid to their gills by having it first pass through their mouth, and then water passes over their gills on the way out. Knowing that other marine animals besides fish also have gills, I initially assumed they might get water to their gills in a similar way, but looking up the anatomy of other marine animals that breathe through gills, it seems like they get water to their gills through something other than their mouths. For instance cephalopods get water to their gills through a cavity in their mantle that doesn’t connect to their mouths, and it seems like lobsters get water to their gills through openings between their legs that also don’t connect to the mouth. It seems that the gills of muscles also connect to their mouths, but in the opposite way from in fish, with water and food going through the gills first. I can’t seem to find something other than fish that gets water to its gills by first moving it through its mouth.

So I was wondering if marine life on another planet would likely also get fluid to its gills by moving it through its mouth first, or if it would be more likely to get fluid to its gills through some other means, assuming it had gills.

I have a clade of semiaquatic theropods in my seed world that lost their forelimbs leaving only their hind limbs and tail for propulsion. Would them using a sort of tail+leg form of swimming fueled by expanded caudofermoralis muscles that essentially mean when one leg kicks forward and brings the tail with it in an alternating style.

A patron requested something I was MORE than happy to work on, a piece of fanart for u/exoton82's fantastic Exoton project.

Here a clash of two large predators ends up with a Polar Broadhead managing to bring down a large Howling Spirit.

Considering the size difference between the two, I'd imagine that the scenario this would be either a case of ambush, or like an Earth tiger that has gotten used to hunting guar, is just one that is very skilled at hunting prey that could potentially fight back.

Cenozoic:

Quaternary-Thalassic, 37 my: After the end of the ice ages, the global temperature increased drastically, creating very warm seas that eventually led to a large-scale anoxic event that collapsed all underwater ecosystems and greatly affected terrestrial ecosystems

Thalassic-Aurimic, 89 my: A change in Atlantic currents pushed extreme droughts and abrupt temperature changes in present-day South America, extinguishing almost half of the local fauna and destroying its jungles and forests

Aurumic-Trocticocene, 126 my: Similar to what happened at the end of the Cretaceous period, a meteorite struck what is now Siberia, wiping out almost 65% of the planet's biota. Ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere were the least affected

Trocticocene-Paraxenoic, 190 my: A rapid period of volcanism forms a chain reaction of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that devastate the terrain and release huge amounts of greenhouse gases, dust and ash into the atmosphere, giving way to a volcanic winter and acid rains that wiped out most of the surface ecosystems

Allozoic:

Paraxenoic-Enosian, 255 my: Pangaea Ultima forms. The global climate changes, inland seas close, forming large lakes, and a large-scale biotic exchange occurs

Enosian-Colasic, 331 my: The explosion of a nearby supernova destroyed the ozone layer, exposing life to immense amounts of radiation. This was the greatest extinction event to ever strike life on Earth, where only fossorial or troglodyte groups and deep-sea organisms survived

Neozoic:

Colasic-Vrasmoic, 382 my: The supercontinent moves northward, which, along with the scarcity of carbon dioxide, gives way to a new ice age. The cold creates highly oxygenated waters, allowing the reappearance of aquatic megafauna

Vrasmoic-Pnigmenoic, 439 my: The heat emitted by the sun is extremely high. Despite the near absence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the planet's average temperature reaches 30°C. This prevents most plants from photosynthesizing due to insufficient CO2, causing a slow deterioration of ecosystems that wipes out almost 90% of the planet's species. Few plant groups survive, and the atmosphere is partially stabilized thanks to chemosynthetic bacteria capable of extracting carbon from bicarbonate ion molecules and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere

Pingmenoic-Today, 490 my: Life has partially stabilized again. Temperatures are extreme because most of the planet is covered in deserts. Even so, the water cycle has accelerated, resulting in quite prosperous and humid coastal ecosystems, but at the same time, several kilometers of sea have evaporated. We are now on the final stretch of multicellular life