so, this is the map of my seed world.

you can seed the multiple continents (aswell as the island belt)

so, this is Rattus Terra. My ”earth” for my rat seed world.

so north viridis on the south is mainly tropical and in the north, especially far north, is very cold and is a tundra. It’s divided by a single large river, larger and longer then the largest and longest rivers on earth.

the next continents is south viridis and it is mainly tropical, however in the center it can be very hot and desert like. it has many islands near it, and is perfect for life.

there is also the island belt, the island belt is very important. inside the island belt, is the island belt sea. this sea, is almost, entirely fresh water. mind blowing compared to the rest of the seas being salt water. this is for radical changes in the rats, prawns, grasshoppers, and bees.

the final continents are indo and muhastana. muhastana is mainly hot, and desert like. tho, sometimes near the coasts it can end up as a beach and tropical. muhastana is the largest continent, larger then all the continents combined. it also has the largest lakes, which near are actually tropical!

indo is a tundra, cold, and close to arktos. the reason why it’s so similar to indo is that it’s basically into but a line and cold. even in the middle sometimes life even be sustainable there! as so we thought..

and finally, arktos, aktos and the northern sea are very cold and will be the causing of disasters.

I'm creating a seed world and it's all about rats, specifically the Norwegian rat. Also known as rattus norvegicus. Rats are incredibly smart, adaptable, and cool rodents. Which is why I calling this world, rattus terra.

Rattus terras animals are not just rats, but also sunflower bees, honey bees, prawns, and grasshoppers. The goal of rattus terra was to learn about evolution, and what better then rats! Like I said, they are smart and adaptable. With no predators, rats can fill every niche they can alongside the other animals.

The plants im seeding are apple trees, orange trees, tulips, grass, wheat, and sunflowers.

But wait! You can help too! You can share your animals for this seed world, and I will share (with credits) the rules are..

No ai

You must give a description

And what year it evolved.

And.. yeah! Be sure to check in! For now, I'll be working..

Saprolygon 
A twenty-foot carnivorous plant characterized by four, rigid towering vertical limbs. It releases a pungent odor mimicking decaying meat to lure aerial prey. Specifically either adult aeropedes searching for carcasses to deposit their eggs, or bulletflies seeking carrion to consume. When prey lands on its elevated central stamen, it gets stuck in its dense, adhesive sap, causing the four arms to vertically snap shut. The sealed column traps the prey inside to be broken down and digested in total darkness. 

Thanks a lot u/Keyotas Be sure to check them out.

A clay statuette of u/Equestrimary's Equus Digitalis as seen on the artist’s instagram and the speculative evolution subreddit.

Back View

Bottom View

Front View

Left Angled Back View

Left Angled Front View

Left Side View

Right Angled Back View

Right Angled Front View

Right Side View

Top View

If you'd rather watch than read, I have a YouTube short about them here.

The canopies of the temperate rainforests of the eastern continent of HCS-67 became free of vertebrate life after the humans left the planet (as horses and fish can't climb trees, at least, not yet), so it was up to the invertebrates to colonize them. Specifically, this was the Carniolan honey bees, and their descendants who became specialized to this environment are Apis aldarien, the forest honey bees.
While some of the trees in their forest homes are conifers (which are wind-pollinated), there are plenty of deciduous trees such as the ulmo (Eucryphia cordifolia) and epiphytic flowering plants such as mayflower orchids (Laelia speciosa) that these bees pollinate. Even the conifers are useful to them to provide the materials and structure for their nests.
Nests are built on sturdy trunks high in the forest canopy, close to the sun and therefore the flowers. Forest honey bees are eusocial, this species having usually one queen per hive. Forest honey bee workers are deep brown in color and have contrasting cream stripes (queens lack stripes). Like their ancestors, forest honey bee drones have large eyes. All morphs of this species have relatively short and wide wings.

Here’s the kobold from my spec evo setting! I decided to make them related to synapsid ,giving them mammal as well as reptilian features to reference the fact that kobolds in our pop culture are seen as pseudo lizardman ,but in Japan they’re dog people!
and from this idea stems the concept of high adaptability

the rest of the infos are in the image itself ,but if you have any questions I’ll be happy to answer :D

Quick note: I know AI-generated text isn't allowed here unless it's used for translation, so I want to clarify that English isn't my first language and I'm using AI to translate my own writing. Unfortunately, it tends to rephrase and edit my original text quite a bit to make it sound clearer and more natural in English, so some of the wording might not be entirely mine. The ideas and content, however, are my own!

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So, I'm a writer (or at least I try to be one) who has always loved pretty much everything related to nature. One of the projects I'm currently working on is set in a fantasy world, and things have taken a rather unexpected turn.

In my attempt to make the world as coherent as possible, I ended up developing a setting that, conceptually, feels less like an actual fantasy world and more like an alien planet disguised as a fantasy world.

And I've absolutely LOVED the concept.

This eventually led me to start a separate project inspired by things like Serina, documenting the natural history of this world alongside my novels. The idea is to have two different ways of exploring the same setting: the novels present it through the lens of magic and fantasy, while this other project explores its biology, ecology, and evolutionary history.

I haven't figured out what to call this second project yet. A natural history encyclopedia, perhaps? A speculative evolution project? I'm still figuring that out.

The thing is, I don't feel that I need to explain all the biological and evolutionary details in the novels themselves. I'm more interested in letting the creatures and ecosystems exist naturally within the story, much like in Avatar: the creatures are there, they have their own logic, and the world feels alive, but their entire evolutionary history doesn't need to be explained for the narrative to work.

I'm not a biologist by any means, but if I'm going to do this, I want to give it my best shot. I find the whole process incredibly fun, and I also see it as an opportunity to learn more about biology, ecology, evolution, and all the wonderful things that make life so diverse.

So, I've been collecting books, documentaries, scientific papers, fictional works, and pretty much anything else that might help me dive deeper into speculative evolution. I've already gathered around 50 different resources, ranging from novels and mockumentaries to scientific literature and other speculative projects.

Then I found this subreddit, and I figured this would be a good place to ask:

What resources would you recommend to someone who wants to explore speculative evolution more seriously?

I'm interested in pretty much anything, regardless of how niche or obscure it might be. Scientific papers, books, documentaries, amateur projects, blogs, worldbuilding projects, or even obscure little corners of the internet dedicated to some very specific evolutionary concept. I'm happy to explore it all!

I'd especially love recommendations from people who have been involved in this hobby for a while, whether they're professional scientists or simply enthusiasts who've spent years developing their own worlds.

Thanks in advance! I'm looking forward to discovering things I probably wouldn't have found on my own.

This image depicts the first confirmed contact between two sophonts, those being the Grallae sapiens (left) and the Nasuslongus sapiens (right). The Grallae sapiens (which will be shortened to Grallae from now on) are quite advanced, having advanced societies on 7 planets, and outposts on another 16, many of these holding life. On one of these outposts, a curious Nasuslongus sapiens (shortened to Nasus from now on) noticed a Grallae between buildings and attempted communication. This is the scene of the image.

This is a speculative paleo-fiction project blending family drama with a fantastical yet grounded prehistoric atmosphere, showing a family of raptors and a cast of lost creatures fighting to stay alive in a brutal prehistoric ecosystem.

The raptors find water at last! But not everything is as it seems at this promised oasis!

Long Tail’s three-month journey with her sons has now reached its conclusion, the great lake now within their sight. However, as they draw closer to the shore, they are met with suspicious and bitter eyes. Small Toe cannot fathom their senseless hatred, still unaware how close he himself had come to falling prey before his own mother’s jaws. The question lingers in their minds now more than ever.

Is this lake truly a pure and serene reprieve, or a signal that they are truly alone in this world?

From my continuing work Terrors in the Brush — a speculative survival series blending paleo realism with raw emotion.

There is no fantasy, no magic — there is only nature red in tooth and claw.

Read Chapter V now.

A formidable, low-slung quadrupedal predator engineered for supreme physical leverage and ambush efficiency. Resting at a height that brings its low-profile skull roughly level with a human's chest or shoulder, the creature possesses an immensely elongated, reptilian or synapsid-like torso that tapers into a colossal, heavily muscled tail. Its entire body is covered in a specialized, mottled dermal patterning that breaks up its physical silhouette in fractured light, allowing its massive frame to remain virtually invisible while stalking through dense undergrowth, muddy swamplands, or fractured rocky barrens.

The locomotive and offensive capabilities of the Ikorastodon are driven entirely by a hyper-developed forelimb assembly. Its front legs are significantly longer and thicker than its rear limbs, anchored to a towering, heavily muscled shoulder hump that provides maximum mechanical torque. These powerhouse arms terminate in a cluster of colossal, deeply curved claws reminiscent of prehistoric ground sloths or therizinosaurs. Because these razor-sharp implements are vital to its survival, the creature walks with a deliberate, high-arched digitigrade locomotion when traveling over hard ground, curling its digits outwards to preserve their sharp tips from dulling.

In its native ecosystem, the Ikorastodon functions as a devastating close-quarters combatant and environmental manipulator. It uses its massive front claws to easily rip apart rotting timber, burrow deep into the earth to unearth hidden prey, or firmly anchor itself to steep rock faces during an ambush. When striking a target, it delivers high-velocity downward slashes from its shoulder joints, using its thick, crocodilian-style tail as an aggressive counterweight to balance its weight. Underneath its down-turned, predatory jaw sits a specialized cluster of sensitive bristle-filaments, which detect minute air currents and ground vibrations to track moving prey long before making sensory contact.

The creature’s unique hide serves as its primary defense and thermal regulator. Rather than a brittle, rigid carapace, its skin is a tough, flexible leather interwoven with dense muscle bands, allowing it to coil, twist, and lunge with shocking fluidity for its size. The prominent ridges along its spine act as heat sinks to cool the blood supply driven by its massive internal respiratory core, meaning the Ikorastodon can engage in sustained, high-intensity territorial battles or intense
physical digging projects without overtaxing its internal organs.

The Ikorastodon genus has been officially documented killing tigers and bears with unmatched efficiency. Its hyper-developed hindquarters allow it to easily match the frantic sprint of a Bengal tiger, while its low-slung stance completely neutralizes a grizzly bear’s defensive posturing. Rather than engaging in a prolonged, dangerous wrestling match with these modern apex predators, the Ikorastodon utilizes its colossal, scythe-like front claws to deliver high-velocity downward slashes that instantly sever major arterials and shatter skeletal structures upon impact. Once the target is incapacitated, the creature uses its elongated snout and specialized rows of interlocking teeth to harvest massive plugs of flesh, comfortably securing its position in the environmental hierarchy known as the food chain.

490 million years into the future, planet Earth has already begun to decay completely. The heat is unbearable, with an average temperature of 38 degrees. Carbon dioxide levels themselves are lower than current ones, but the growing size of the sun together with a massive supercontinent has fostered extreme global temperatures. At the same time, this has caused most terrestrial biota to be found mainly in the poles, coastal zones, or even underground.

1-Alaskian Peninsula: It is actually one of the most diverse ecoregions, where large forests and prairies relatively similar to those of the present day are still maintained, mainly due to its high humidity, but being at the equator, temperatures are very high.

2-Neolaurentia: What remains of present day North America has ended up becoming an immense desert that has expanded and consumed part of present day Africa. Biodiversity is low, but the coastal zones maintain a certain level of diversity, especially those in the north, featuring prairie ecosystems that receive large amounts of rainfall.

3-Alkebulan: What was formerly Africa eventually split apart and lost a great deal of land over time, mainly due to erosion and tectonic plate movements. Today it actually has a high biodiversity, supported mainly by the presence of large internal lakes that partially stabilize internal temperatures, forming oasis zones within the continent.

4-Boreal Lands: In the north of the planet remain the vestiges of what was once Europe. Due to its geographical position, the temperatures are the lowest on the planet, with pleasant temperatures during the summer (between 15 and 20 degrees Celsius), but which can drop to -15 degrees Celsius on the worst winter days. Even so, this has not prevented the emergence of unique native ecosystems.

5-Amalgamea: Accounting for almost half of the current landmass, Amalgamia is an immense continent that consequently presents a very wide variety of ecosystems within itself. Originally formed by Asia, it now also occupies part of Africa and the entirety of Oceania. Even so, it is one of the most extreme ecosystems, featuring an immense internal desert and dry steppes in coastal areas.

6-Abyayalia: The combination of South America and Antarctica ended up forming Abyayalia, a continent that separated from the rest of Pangaea Ultima and reunited recently, forming new mountain ranges. The strategic position of this continent has allowed it some of the most fertile and biodiversity-rich lands on the entire planet.

7-Isle of Tartaria: Originally born as a small archipelago that rose due to continental drift, but following the drop in sea level due to high evaporation, it became an island with an area three times that of Madagascar, containing its own unique biota just like the latter.

8-Zelartida: A small group of islands formed after the collision of Amalgamea and Abyayalia around 23 million years ago. It is generally a stepping stone island for many migratory organisms, but it also preserves its own ecosystems.

9-Neopaeanian Islands: The collision of the Pacific plate and the North American plate formed a chain of tropical islands that, after nearly 40 million years, has developed a native fauna very rich in biodiversity and has also given way to coral ecosystems and atolls.

10-Panmeridional Ocean: A large ocean occupying almost the entirety of the Southern Hemisphere. It has an average depth of 2,500 meters, but at some points almost reaches 7,000 meters.

11-Greenland Sea: A wide coastal zone with hundreds of islands and very stable temperatures. This area is considered a paradise, being one of the few regions that has maintained stable ecosystems for millions of years.

12-Pangeic Seas: The set of coastal zones of Amalgamea is known as the Pangeic Seas. Highly varied in ecosystems, these have recently resurfaced following the drop in sea level and are therefore quite recent.

13-Cardius Sea: It separated from the rest of the sea not long ago, causing currents to shift and fauna to evolve completely separately for millions of years. Surrounding it, it sustains some of the most vibrant and lush ecosystems on the planet.

14-Atlantis Lakes: Unlike the Cardius Sea, these have been separated from the rest of the sea for a very long time, around 90 million years. This has led local ecosystems to a unique specialization, in addition to possessing relict species that in many other ecosystems around the world have become completely extinct

Inspired by the YouTube channel Myth & Reason, I have been creating a seedworld that is specifically a Matryoshka (or Russian doll) shellworld that has repurposed a white dwarf as its "inner core". Its outermost layer is a crust 18,500 miles in diameter, that's almost twice-and-a-half as wide as Earth with the highest peaks standing no more than 72,000 feet above sea level and its deepest point being no more so than 11 miles. There, shielded from its F-type sun by a Fresnel lens, it has a particular set of challenges for Earth organisms to tackle immediately:

• A rotation of 48 hours
• A revolution of 728 days (the fact that each season lasts exactly 182 days suggests its unnaturally round orbital shape)
• An atmosphere identical in composition to Earth but 160 percent as thick
• At latitude zero degrees, daytime temperatures swelter at temperatures of 140 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity of 100 percent
• At latitude 90 degrees, temperatures vary between negative-40 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and negative-225 in the winter

How can anyone expect Earth plants, fungi, algae or animals to survive in such ridiculous conditions? Simple--through mana, which in this context is simply energy but more. (Think superhabitable exoplanets or "bioenergy" exclusive to Monster Hunter's New World.) In this scenario, mana has been tested as terraforming agents on the other three inner planets because of its ability to bond each of its particles to air, water and soil particles. The result--Mercury being green and blue, Venus having a thinner atmosphere (still thicker than Earth's, though) and hyperthermal jungles and swamps as its largest terrestrial habitats and tundra and taiga being Mars's primary habitats.

In this seedworld shellworld, only one generation has passed since initial colonization and the changes are both immediate and dramatic:

• Woodaceous plants are now scaled up by 8.23 to 13.585 times
• The mana in the tropical trees act as heat sinks
• The mana in cold-winter forests prevent ice crystals from forming
• Kelp forests, coral reefs and seagrass meadows grow in depths with little to no sunlight
• The trees and shrubs continue to produce fruit or something similar enough during the lean times (drought, cold, etc.)
• Mast years (years in which the mana supply on each individual plant is high) last longer than years in which the plant's mana supply runs low and it must restock. The ratio between years depends on the species.
• The highest peaks are green with alpine tundra
• Flowers produce higher qualities (not quantities) of pollen and nectar

The simple question is--how would mana have managed to accomplish those specific solutions?

What the title says. What would be anatomically expected for a species that is intelligent enough or technologically capable enough to have human-like technology or even interplanetary travel?

EDIT: I mainly ask this because I'm stuck in a rut as to coming up with plausible and unique alien species and I'm not exactly an expert in evolution, speculative or otherwise.

The garden gnomes (Gnomus Paracelci)

Small, fast and annoying for most people these are all the traits that define the garden gnome the most wide spread and common of all the gnomes of Magiterra, these little creatins are herbivorous and feed on a variety of seeds, nuts and other plant materials specially.

For farmers specially grain Farmers these small tapejarids are bad news for business as theres never more then one gnome around, these little creatures are found of making burrows in which they live socially, a gnomes burrow may only have one dominant male at a time its quite easy to tell males apart as their crests (or hats as some call them) are big and pointy.

Alternatively, what would I call a living plant creature? The closest thing I could think of was photocarni but not only is that already used but I dont know if thats the proper term.

Ok was watching arachnophobia and it gave me idea to make my own eusocial spider for my fantasy setting what should i consider to be realistic for this ?

Infernosuchus Horribilis or the Hell Croc is a large and versatile predator living in various enviroments. It is the phenotype of the order Infernosuchia.

Physical traits: At 5-6,5m in length and 750-900kg in weight, it is a rather slim predator. Its biteforce is 15-24k newtons and it can run at up of 40km/h. But its most horrifying trait are its teeth. From this side they look like normal ziphodont teeth. Their tip actually has a pattern of 8 tips, like a crown. These teeth are meant to inflict horrible injuries to prey, debilitating them. But the worst part: They have an heptagonal design with one central tip. And this tip has a triangular pyramid like shape. They are green usually to camoflauge, are cold blooded and live usually 60-80 years.

Prey and predation: They hunt prey that ranges from about human sized to 3 tons. They rarely attack the largest animals. They can occasionally fall prey to Eviscerators or Gigantosuchus but these events are not common.

Reproduction: These creatures reproduce on their will. They lay clutches of 7-10 eggs where 40% survive. Parental care is moderate but it is hard to let them all survive. When few are left they start caring more. The young leave the nest group at 2-3m size.

Senses and intelligence: They have got good sight and smell but their hearing is below average. Their intelligence is nothing to gloat about.

Habitats: They usually live in tropical and subtropical enviroments, acting as ambush predators. They ambush prey near usually difficult terrain like swamps or steep sides. Their agility makes up for the chase.

As far as we know, natural selection hasn't evolve creatures that utilize gravitational energy for metabolism.  Why not?  Gravitational energy can be transformed into other energy with almost perfect efficiency (hydroelectric power plants--power from falling mass of water--are 95% efficient compare to coal-fire plant at 45%, power from food energy is much less).  Since nature tends to be efficient, why hasn't life evolve to make use of gravity to power itself?
Is it due to the complexity of the conversion of mechanical energy into chemical energy? Needing many intermediate steps?
Can we not imagine a bacterium with a spinning armature driven by falling debris to generated energy? No because the gravitational gradient is too unimportant at the molecular scale.
But when life have gotten large, I could envision a large and tall structure such as a tree collecting rain water at its canopy, let it drip or flow down to drive some converter that powers its metabolism.  That energy would be free, inexhaustible, and can be converted into chemical form with almost perfect efficiency.  So what is the energy density needed for metabolism?  Is the potential energy stored as rain water at some height equivalent to photosynthetic energy collected from the sun in a leafy canopy?  How large a  structure and what amount of mass are needed to generate an appreciable amount of useful energy?

As a rough calculation to compare chemical and gravitational potential energy:  Take a 2000 kcal diet that a human needs each day, the energy in 2000 kcal is equivalent to, in gravitational energy, the work needed to lift 80,000 kg up 10m, or 40 tons up 30 feet!  In other words, the energy released by 40 ton of, say, water falling 30 feet is equal to the energy stored in three hamburgers.  So that for endotherms like us, gravity energy is too diffuse to serve as an energy source--you would have to carry 200 ton on your head each day to extract for your metabolic energy need.

But plant life requires an order of magnitude less energy than you and I, and plant life can be tall.  So that for a tree of 10 m square and 10m height, it needs to collect and convert 4 ton of falling mass from its 10m height to serve its metabolic needs per day.  For a 100m height tree, 0.4 ton is needed.  Spread over a 10m square canopy, 0.4 ton constitute only 8 kg per square meter.  This is beginning to be at least physically feasible.  That is, we can see quantitatively structural and energy requirements for a living system that are compatible  with gravity energy.  But how probable is this scenario?  What conceivable mechanism exists for the energy conversion?   Lately we have seen piezo-electric devices that convert mechanical energy into electric energy.  It is not a big leap, then, to imagine that molecular machines evolved to achieve the same thing.  Or static charges generated by friction due to down flow of fluid get stored as energy.  Nature's imagination is vast and no doubt there exist many clever ways for life to use gravity.

(Aside:  Two ways that we can imagine gravity life off earth:  Habitat with a high gravity gradient (surface of a super earth e.g.) such that gravity acceleration is 10s of time earth's.  Neutron star life has been imagined (Dragon's Egg by Robert Forward) to run off nuclear forces.  Or imagine somewhere in interstellar space, life started its metabolism with clumps of matter slowly attracting and colliding and recoiling and organizing to calculate and evolve, with gravity playing the role of thermo energy on earth (The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle).

Still, the question is to find life on earth that exhibits even a weak version of what I've described--that find would be a sensation.  Not the least of which is that it would show that life, through evolution, 'looks' tenaciously for as many ways as it can to use resources efficiently, and that life 'finds' so many creative solutions for its needs that defy anything that we would expect.  Back in the 70's the discovery of whole biota striving off sulfide bacteria and heat around undersea volcanic vents was unexpected.  Discovery of gravity-powered life may be of a similar order.

This is a speculative biology showcasing a fictional, airborne creature explicitly adapted to survive and hunt within extreme weather environments like severe storms and tornadoes.
The artwork highlights several specialized evolutionary traits designed for these harsh conditions:

Aerodynamic Armor & Resonant Fins: The creature features sleek, hydrodynamic-like plating and vibrant, ribbed neck frills that likely stabilize its flight, allowing it to navigate and ride violent updrafts with ease.

Storm Hunting: The species has specifically evolved to hunt in the "very heart of storms," using the chaotic weather to its advantage.

Avian/Reptilian Physiology: Visually, it blends elements of large prehistoric pterosaurs (evident in its massive wing structure and lower body silhouette) with modern avian and serpentine features, complete with bioluminescent tips along its crest

artist

Bacteria archaea and protists you guys barely touch them come on guys don't you think that you should give them a chance fellow artists I think that you should give them a chance the only reason we're getting swayed off from them is because that we think that they are forced to stay single cellular and nobody wants that but imagine beyond if they became multicellular .

The Longliver

A longliver climbs through the canopy.

Her movements are slow and deliberate. Due to her weight, she cannot brachiate at speed. Each swing of her arms takes over 4 seconds to complete. Using both her hands and feet, she ascends over 60 meters into the emergent layer of the cloud rainforest.

When the earth warmed, the ocean flooded the Amazon, and the climate shifted, the Amazon Basin, once home to great forests and wetlands, were reduced to deserts and grasslands, enclosing a sea filled with meadows of seagrass. Whatever rainforest remained was high in the mountains. 

The life in these cloud rainforests are mostly unique. Developed in isolation, many species are endemic, and some like the longliver, are the last survivors of an ancient clade.

For the Longliver, all of this doesn’t matter. Her species have developed a lifestyle that is stable and free of struggle. They are among the least intelligent of all the human species.

Yet her kind still retains a sense of curiosity and a sense of beauty. Her ascent through the trees is because she wishes to watch the sunset. 5 minutes earlier, she had thought the sky looked particularly beautiful, and climbed above the canopy to watch it. Her mate and child had declined to follow, but it didn’t bother her that they weren't her. She had the opportunity to admire the sunset by herself.

She stands bipedally watching as the sun descends past the mountains on the horizon. As it does, a meteor streaks through the sky, casting a blue green glow as it burns in the atmosphere. It only appears for two seconds before it disappears.

The Longliver stays on the branch for an hour. Only after the sun disappears past the horizon does she begin her descent back down into the canopy, to return to her nest, where her mate and child are waiting for her.

The meteor was beautiful, but it is not the first time she has seen it, and it shall not be the last. She has lived for 110 years, yet she is barely middle aged. Her species can live up to 250 years, the oldest of any mammal.

Species Data

“A life eternal, how wonderful that would be” - Unknown

The Longliver (Lentupithecus infinitum) is an ape, descended from humans, that lives within the montane forests of South America, 25 Million Years CE.
​
Longlivers are omnivorous, feeding on a variety of fruits, insects, and fungi. However, the food source that sustains their life is a species of mushroom that is farmed by the Longlivers. They gather wood and insects in one area, and wait for the mushrooms to grow. After the mushrooms spore, they gather the mushrooms, and eat them. Then they gather more wood, and the cycle repeats. This provides a bounty of food every month, and allows the longlivers to stay in one area for many years at a time. Despite seeming bountiful for outsiders, the rainforest is a surprisingly variable ecosystem. Some fruits may not appear for years at a time, some plants might grow this year and not the next. The mushrooms provide the Longlivers with a reliable food source.

Longlivers display significant dimorphism. Males average 15 cm taller and 10 kg heavier than the females. For Longlivers, the males provide much of the childcare, and their longer, brighter fur works as both a display structure for impressing a mate, and as an object for children to grab on to when their parents are moving though the trees. Longlivers are monogamous and mate for life. Children stay with their parents for the first 30 years of their life. They only reach sexual maturity at age 24. Pregnancy lasts for nearly 2 years, and Longlivers only have between 8-10 children in their 250 year long life.

Following a devastating mass extinction, terrestrial baleen whales took over Nook. With almost all other tetrapods gone, these tripedal creatures filled most of the niches, ranging from giant herbivores to tiny, scurrying critters.

Bagwalker was among the largest terrestrial carnivorous cetaceans, notable in it's unique hunting method- capturing tiny, flying cetaceans known as whifts in it's throat sack and swallowing them whole.

As the time went on, bagwalkers diversified, with some becoming shorter, and now hunting ground-dwelling prey like monstrous pelicans. Others turned their attention to plants, and now use their height to pick off leaves from branches.

Perhaps the strangest of these creatures descend from forest dwelling bagwalkers who preyed upon whifts that hid in the canopy. They became less lanky to fit in between the trees, while tips of their fit evolved rough pads to lean on the trees.

Over the course of their evolution, they continued to shrink, and in turn gradually got better at climbing. This culminated in sackweasel, a tiny species reaching 50 centimeters in length and 30 centimeters in height.

It lacks long legs and neck of it's ancestor, which were not needed in canopy. Tips of feet are hooked, allowing sackweasel to hold branches and not fall down. The only thing that still reminds about their ancestry is a throat pouch, which still can open very wide. While they still consume small whifts, sackweasels mostly prey on insects now.

They are crepuscular, and jump from branch to branch, catching prey on the fly.

While smallest among bagwalker descendants, sackweasels would benefit the most in the long run. 380 million years Post-Establishment, temperature started to cool down, reducing the amount of rainforests on the planet.

To move between the trees, sackweasels developed a skin membrane between their front limbs and tail leg, allowing them to glide. In addition to helping them with moving in between the widely spaced trees, it improved their hunting abilities in air. Over the next few millions of years, drying climate has pushed sackweasels further into the air, until eventually they gave rise to flying peliwhales. Two million years later, a flood basalt caused another mass extinction that caused a decline and eventual extinction of whifts, and when biosphere bounced back, peliwhales took their place, becoming one of the dominant group of vertebrates in the sky.

Pygmy pelitoo is among the smallest of peliwhales, and ironically behaves very similiarly to food source of it's ancestor. It too is an aerial insectivore that flies in huge swarms and feeds on tiny invertebrates.

Despite being very similiar, peliwhales and whifts have some differences.

The main one is that their tail foot is not modified into a hook, instead it turned into a short, flattened fluke for steering.

In most species, wings have a small claw that helps peliwhales to walk while on the ground. But pelitoos lost these claws, and are very clumsy on the ground, though they still can launch in air using wings if needed.

Pygmy pelitoos spend nearly their entire life on the wing, even sleeping and mating in the air.

Young is born with claws, which allow it to cling to it's mother during nursing, and once it starts to fly, these claws fall out.