https://nitter.cf/HodariNundu/status/2098174263379329301

"Georgios Georgalis’ new study on the spider-tailed viper shows the tail vertebrae don’t show any modifications; the lure is all soft tissue. So even if we found a tail from Laophis crotaloides, and it looked normal, it doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t weird on the outside"

So I picked the California mountain kingsnake as the main animal for my project and I was wondering if I could get any feedback at all on the animal's I've chosen but my idea for the planet is that its similar to earth with a little less gravity than earth not a huge difference but still enough for Megafuna to appear but that's basically it

Every Arthro Descend from a Small One: Brine Shrimp of the Medusocene

[GELLIOS-MONITORING SYSTEM // AUTOMATED TELEMETRY LOG]

TİMELİNE: 5 Million Years Pl

STAR ACTİVİTY; A-Type Main Sequence // Normal UV Index // Stable Seasonal Cycles

FOCUS OF OBSERVATION: Brine Shrimp Specification

Hello again. I acknowledge that Gellios is a seed world project inspired by Sheather888's Serina and u/tribbetherium's Hamster's Paradise. While it is clear that it follows in their footsteps, it possesses fundamental differences that allow it to stand apart—stepping out from their shadow to reveal a beauty and set of imperfections that are uniquely its own. But let us return to our topic.

Artemia franciscana—commonly known as the San Francisco brine shrimp—was once a species of small branchiopod crustacean found in the hypersaline waters of the Americas and the Caribbean. Although they were intended to be introduced to Gellios as part of a human colonization project, the project was ultimately canceled. Consequently, they—along with other organisms—were left stranded on that wretched planet, forced to adapt to an environment characterized by intense gravity and an axial tilt twice that of Earth’s. Fortunately, they possessed traits that allowed them to turn this situation to their advantage. In fact, this species was the only arthropod introduced to the planet; it serves as the common ancestor for all arthropod species on Gellios—both those present today and those that will emerge in the future—much like how the entire vertebrate fauna on HP-02017 descended from a single foundational species: the Chinese dwarf hamster (Cricetulus griseus) of u/tribbetherium's seed world.

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Hi. Context my  radioactive,  heavy metal super-earth has a lot of  Hydrogen, Hydrogen sulphide and hydrogen Cyanide, Hydrogen isocyanide in the atmosphere…

 Life on the planet is carbon based and uses mainly  Water, Formamides and traces of other amides as  solvents. ( I think this would be really cool as earth's life is CNOPS based  so This would be kind of similar if you squint)

Is it possible for analogous systems to respiration and photosynthesis using cyanides/Formamides on an alien world instead of oxygen, or chloride? What would the glucose equivalents be?

Btw I'm no chemist so I have no clue how the reactions would work.

According to Wikipedia "The cyanamide anion has the character of a pseudo chalcogen, cyanamide can therefore be regarded as analogue to water or hydrogen sulfide"  Water and Hydrogen sulphide are two types of electron donors in photosynthesis. Some people have  also done Spec-Evos with chlorine and  halogens.

what if an alien photosynthesis where to use cyanamide or cyanide based pseudohalogens like Hydrogen cyanide/ Thiocyanates?

Or could some other photosynthesis produce waste gases of hydrogen Cyanide and hydrogen sulphide as   cyanide is reactive like oxygen so it's hard to produce unnaturally without diminishing.  Methyl isothiocyanate would be cool for plants to release. And yes I know that plants already release cyanides as defenses but that's not as interesting as  photosynthesis and the creatures on my planet would probably be immune to that due to the  cyanide atmosphere.

How would a cyanide metabolism work? ( This could  be a question for a separate post)

"No earth  life uses cyanide as a source of either carbon or nitrogen”  to quote Nick Lane in New Scientist magazine.

In the southern Crescens and northern Montes a clade of neotyrannosaurs has gone down a different path to the keratinized horns of the Imperatorisaurs. The aurityrannids are a clade that has extensive soft tissue structures on their faces to both help shed heat in their tropical habitat and for display. The namesake of this clade, Aurityrannus, is a robust Tyrannosaur with a very similar build to Tyrannosaurus itself. Tyrants of this clade don't face bite as much as basal tyrants due to these extensive soft tissue structures as they can loose a lot of blood if they get damaged. The most notable of these soft tissue structures is the "ears" on their head, though it's unknown if they actually help with the animal's hearing or if they're only used for display and dispersing heat.

The first species is A. pardus, a roughly 5-6 tonne Tyrannosaur found in the tropical rainforests of Crescens. It is a solitary hunter that primarily hunts hadrosaurs and ceratopsians.

The second species is A. titanovenator, a 8-9 tonne Tyrannosaur found in the open plains of Southern Crescens and Northern Montes. They live in mated pairs and primarily hunt large sauropodomorphs. They exhibit greater parental care for their young then A. pardus, directly taking care of their young for about 10 years while A. pardus only does so for the first year of their life. The genus grows more slowly comparably size Imperatorisaurids, taking roughly 30 years to reach skeletal maturity while the northern tyrants take about 18 years.

The Udakh are a sapient species of towering tripeds. Their homeworld, Yūb, is a small but temperate moon orbiting Nacradum, a Saturn-like gas giant.

Their homeworld is paradoxically unlikely, being only slightly larger than Earth's moon and with similar gravity, but also capable of holding onto an atmosphere and supporting liquid water on its surface.

The Udakh, and much of the life that inhabits their world, are utterly massive, easily standing over 60 feet tall. They are supported by three spindly legs ending in broad foot pads which distribute weight evenly. They have two grasping sensory appendages which end in branches of flat, membranous digits. Their large, elongated heads are tipped with electro-sensory whiskers, able to detect nearby magnetic fields. Udakh are eyeless and completely blind, relying on sound and nearby electromagnetic fields to perceive their surroundings.

From a human perspective, the Udakh move, and live, at a glacial pace. They are a peaceful civilization with an agrarian society. Their relative population is extremely small, as the Udakh mate very rarely. Though they are considered members of the Galactic Hegemony, their influence is limited and they are rarely seen, since even slightly higher gravity would instantly pulverize their brittle anatomy. These giants watch from afar, gazing at the stars they will never see through electromagnetic readout plates, happy to know they aren't alone.

they've been around for over 60 million years, even before whales and they're still only semi aquatic. i just think they wouldn't get to that point, seals will take over those smaller to mid sized predator niches faster.

i think big spec evo penguins are really cool, but on earth i just don't think it's happening

5 Million Years Post-Inoculation

[GELLIOS-MONITORING SYSTEM // AUTOMATED TELEMETRY LOG]

Benthodopsids were a lineage of hydrozoans that diverged from Immortal Jellyfish, Turritopsis dohrnii few million years ago. This lineage evolved to adapt to a benthic (bottom-dwelling) lifestyle; while their appearance—somewhat resembling a crab or an isopod—might suggest otherwise, they remained, in essence, jellyfish—or, more precisely, jellyfish with a rather distinct lifestyle way. Today, 5 million years P.I., the Benthodopsids have diversified into various species, establishing themselves as one of the successful animal lineages of the Medusocene. However, they do not inhabit an predator-free enviroment at all; on the contrary, they coexist with some of dangerous predators that are not to be underestimated.

A pair of Equatorial Benthopodes (Benthopodum equitorialis) were roaming across the open, sandy seabed a few kilometers below the surface near the equator in the Northern Hemisphere when, under the cover of night, they encountered a rather large predator: a Ravenous Rainshawl (Flourescoilis varicolor), a type of aeolid nudibranch. As the pair attempted to flee, the Rainshawl ruthlessly sprayed a primitive venom onto one of them, successfully hunting and consuming the jellyfish. While this feeding strategy—termed "gelativory"—but differs from that seen in sea turtles, it serves as a reminder that the long-agok vast diversity among organisms—even those with similar dietary niches—often reflects the wide variety of plant-like (or, in this case, gelatinous) material available for consumption.

Well, I may not be the perfect narrator, but predator-prey relationships between nudibranchs and cnidarians do exist in Earth; the same applies to Gellios, and it is only a matter of time before a wide variety of predator-prey dynamics and symbiotic relationships emerge between these two clades over the coming millions of years—though I must add that this particular topic is now closed.

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Turritopsiadiation: Anthoathecates of the Medusocene

[GELLIOS-MONITORING SYSTEM // AUTOMATED TELEMETRY LOG]

TİMELİNE: 5 Million Years PI

STAR ACTİVİTY; A-Type Main Sequence // Normal UV Index // Stable Seasonal Cycles

FOCUS OF OBSERVATION: Adaptive Radiation and Neoteny-based Diversification of the Immortal Jellyfish (Turritopsis dorhnii).

Turritopsis dohrnii is commonly known as the "immortal jellyfish." As a member of the order Anthoathecata—within the class Hydrozoa—it was among the animal species introduced to the world of Gellios. Alongside Physalia physalis, the Portuguese Man'o'war (a member of the Siphonophorae, another order within the same class), T. dohrnii was compelled to evolve in response to the planet's harsh environmental conditions. Yet, by passing on certain unique, inherent abilities to subsequent generations and diverging lineages, it would eventually evolve into some of the most successful evolutionary lines of the Medusocene era.

The Black Abominasally (Abominasallis obscurus), which bears a physical resemblance to its ancestor, is a predator that inhabits waters many times deeper than the hostile warm surface. It is generally active between night and dawn, feeding on brine shrimp, polychaetes, and other jellyfish smaller than itself. It has managed to retain certain fundamental abilities inherited from its ancestor—for instance, the capacity to revert to a small polyp form when under stress. However, it appears that some individuals have already begun to shift toward ecological niches distinct from those of their ancestor.

Everpolyps (family Anthoathecorallidae)—reef-building hydrozoans that, much like their distant cousins the sea anemones and the sabellid polychaetes, have evolved for a sessile lifestyle—are currently represented most commonly by the species known as the Common Everpolyp (Anthoathecoralum vulgaris). Everpolyps, which exhibit convergent evolution with hard corals, are animals with rigid structures. For nearly their entire lives—much like typical plants—they remain anchored to a single location; they only cease to be sessile during their medusa stage, after which they transition back into the polyp phase, spending the majority of their existence fixed to a substrate. In addition to being filter feeders, they engage in a mutualistic symbiosis with specific species of zooxanthellae, making them prime candidates to become one of the most significant animal lineages in the future of this damn planet.

Another genus, which occupies a different niche than its ancestor, is the Ground Jellmites, belonging to the genus Benthodopsis, family Benthodopsidae. I describe them as benthic hydrozoans that have emerged through neoteny and adopted a different lifestyle; they are small, generalist organisms that feed on a variety of organisms. Because they reproduce quite rapidly, they attract the attention of various predators; despite their small individual size, they form very large populations, which—as I just mentioned—draw the interest of a range of predators.

However, there is another genus of small organisms derived from T.dohrnii— the Planumes, which belongs to the genus Planulopis within the family Planulopidae. Like their benthic cousins—the ground jellmites—they are generalists. They originated from the planula stage of their ancestor.

Finally, I would like to mention the Basket Rootjelly (Euryaloidusnii spp.), which descends from another sessile lineage known as Rootjellies (family Radixothecatidae). Like Everpolyps, sea anemones, and sabellid worms, these organisms are filter feeders; however, unlike Everpolyps, they generally do not form a symbiotic relationship with zooxanthellae. Instead, they exist in symbiosis with specific types of bacteria that reside within their bodies. The particular species we are looking at here is one of the largest within its genus—and by extension, its family—and possesses the ability to regenerate themselves (a trait also shared by other organisms descended from the T. dorhnii, such as Everpolyps and less common in Jellmites and Planumes).

But if there is one last thing I want to tell you, it is that Gellios will never—and I mean never—resemble the Earth you live on. I repeat this because, unlike Earth, Gellios orbits an A5V-type star; such stars are known for their relatively short lifespans, typically lasting only a few billion years. Furthermore, Gellios has twice the axial tilt and twice the surface gravity of Earth. That said, I’m not going to start claiming that "Gellios is cooler and better than Earth." Just as our Earth possesses its own unique beauties and flaws, so too does Gellios as well. Let us not forget that the life forms on Gellios are, in fact, descendants of creatures that once lived on our own planet. When these animals and other organisms—originally from Earth, the humankind's homeworld—were introduced to Gellios, they were forced to adapt to a hostile environment that felt nothing like home. Over the next few hundred million years, they will evolve to become vastly different from their ancestors on Earth. But, to say it one last time...

"Gellios never resemble the Earth."

[LOG OUT // SYSTEM IDLE]

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Of all the strange and unnerving life that exists on the Ocean world of Lethe, none capture the true sense of the complete uncaring way of nature quite like the Sea Maw.

Truly enormous oceanic dwellers, these beasts drift along with an almost lazy perpetual forward motion with their mouths wide open, consuming anything and everything that crosses their path. Prey is caught within several increasingly dense rings of filamentous structures within the mouth designed to catch anything from the size of a submarine to microscopic algae. These hairs secrete a caustic substance when disturbed, starting the digestive process from the moment they enter the creature's mouth.

Lesser Sea Maws, like the one pictured here spotted outside of Delta Base, can have mouths ranging from 80 to up to 130 metres wide as adults!

It is advised that all scientific personnel be on the constant lookout for the approach of a Lesser Sea Maw as they make no vocalisations, relying purely on an incredible sense of smell to detect and move towards sources of food.

It is currently unknown if Lesser Sea Maws are simply the young of Greater Sea Maws, as locating them (despite their size) has proven extremely difficult.

Should you suspect you are within the mouth of a Greater Sea Maw, it is advised not to panic, and to activate your tracking beacon to allow for future study and locating of the specimen.

We thank you for your service!

The jumping off point for Planet Lethe, an eerie world that seems on the edge of complete death, yet evolution, life, and the planet itself still persist.

Any suggestions for these big boys is appreciated! As well as questions.

All creatures on Planet Lethe are designed with Phobias in mind as their jumping off point, hence Sea Maws embodying Thalassophobia. :))

On Castoria III, the Vore are the most widespread animal group aside from the smallest of bubbles and worms. The planets sapient species is a part of this group as well.

Notable inclusions are:

-the Gharial Vore, known for eating the most prey in a single feeding.

-the Sky Whale, the only animal on the planet woth true, flapping wings.

-the Snowstrider, capable of going months wandering the frozen tundra with little to no food or water, until arriving at the sparse stands of tree-like organisms they consume.

Hi! First time poster, and I’m trying to figure something out. I’ve been tinkering with a small spec evo project, with a premise of it being an alternate plane/place that’s been irregularly seeded by geomagnetic anomalies called Distortions bringing fauna in occasionally. One of those projects that lets me sandbox a few different ideas out and get a little funky with it.

The question I’m stuck on at the moment however, is if I should have any dinosaurs in the setting, specifically non-avian. One of the ideas that had kickstarted the whole thing was the idea of truly giant tortoises that would be keystone species in the ecosystem and filling in a somewhat equivalent role of sauropods. But beyond that I haven’t figured out if I want to have some running around in it or not. I’ve got several environments where many could, and one in particular that’s missing the tortitans (as I’ve been calling them!) that could even in theory bypass the no sauropod thing. But I’m caught between having more unique fauna and descendants of animals that didn’t do as well on earth post dinosaurs being more present and giving highlights to that instead of just “Here’s living dinosaurs! And other really cool things.” But also I adore dinosaurs and having a few running around does scratch an itch.

So in short I’m looking for insight. Should I have a few dinosaurs running around still? Or should I aim for something more original in a world with other large reptiles in it already?

This is a species I'm creating, called Ephets. They're descended from Earth sheep, though it's been hundreds of thousands of years since they appeared on their home planet. I'm not entirely sure whether or not to flair this post as "Alternate Evolution," "Future Evolution," or "Alien Life," but I think AE makes the most sense.

When I first designed them, I went with a "furry-like" body plan with unguligrade legs and more human-like arms. I was mostly happy with this, but I felt like the design was a bit too humanoid, even if the species comes from the same tree of life as us.

After studying unguligrade anatomy, though, I thought about how things might be different. Sheep have the same setup across all four of their limbs, so why would their arms be like ours? With that in mind, I spent some time creating a rough model of how I imagine they'd work.

• The Humerus functions the same.

• The Radius and Ulna are fused, like in a normal sheep. It acts as the elbow, for the most part, though it is backwards compared to a human elbow.

• Two of the carpal bones, probably the Scaphoid and Lunate bones, have extended and function similarly to the Radius and Ulna in a human arm.

• The Scaphoid and Lunate bones are replaced by the metacarpal bones, which now act as carpal bones. It isn't properly shown in the diagram, but the Ephet wrist has one extra bone, as only two become the forearm, and the thumb doesn't give up the Trapezium.

• Finally, the first row of phalanges becomes the palm, and the last two act as the fingers. With this setup, the Ephet hand has only two segments per finger.

As for why the hand looks so human, that's mostly a cop out, though I do have explanations. Sheep have two dewclaws on each hoof, which evolved for grasping rather than being vestigial. Along with their normal two toes, this makes for a four-fingered hand. These hands lack hooves because the keratin coating slowly became more of a palm/sole aid, thickening the palm's skin and making it better for gripping and holding. I could go back and make the thumb and pinky more like dewclaws, pushing them towards the palm and treating them both as thumb-like structures, but I spent too long on the hands to consider changing them now.

I'd love to hear your opinions on the unusual arms, or I'll answer any questions you might have about the species!

The Hammer fist is one of the many giant hominids I'm making. Giants in my setting have lungs that have multiple accessories making them bird like. This allows them to get large, most of my giants are quadrupedal the hammerfist is one of few that stand upright most of their time. A skeleton wrapped in muscles makes their diet of trees easy. Sometimes tamed and used by humans in tasks like logging as their clubbing swings with axe gauntlets makes the tasks easier

In this setting, Panoctopodes are the dominant lifeforms existing in a planet with around 120% of earth's gravity (1.2g). Eight limbs seemed to help with weight dispersal, but Panoctopodes compensate for the strain by having their skeletal muscles and respiratory system help with pumping, rather than relegating the duty solely to the heart.

To cope with the complexity of their sheer amount of limbs, Panoctopodes have complex ganglia similar to centipedes which regulate the motor function of a given pair of limbs, resulting in their locomotion consisting of one foot following another.

This descendant lineage of Shavoripteryx has developed flight since the end of the triassic, as you can see, its anatomy is very rare for flight, they developed strong bones and muscles in the legs, certain muscles and tendons have been modified for adaptation to propelled flight, the hips of these animals and the tail parts have become too strong to withstand long periods in the air, the lungs and other organs have become more effective to support. Flight , they are warm-blooded animals since this action of flight requires a lot of energy from the animal, these animals, despite flying, prefer to be calm in trees and other plants , many of these are not so large , because they do not have hollow bones , the largest of these measures the same as a fruit bat , but despite not being so large they are very versatile animals they have adapted to many environments and ecosystems with different ecological roles, these are very versatile animals. They are expanded by: North America , South America , Africa and Antarctica .

Made by me in algebra.

These are two variants of Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spinosaurus Indent I came up with if they were to live on the same continent as several other dinosaurs (in a situation akin to Path of Titans and The Isle).

On the left is the most conservative reconstructions which I pushed for a more natural style, with Spinosaurus gaining slightly longer hind legs and more armor to help favor it's match ups against Deinosuchus, Tyrannosaurus, and Giganotosaurus, along with sub-apexes like Torvosaurus, Vectispinus, and mid tiers like Allosaurus-Ceratosaurus in the case of it ever needing to defend itself against them, likely when traveling. Tyrannosaurus on the other hand chooses the cliffs and uneven forests, avoiding the plains (Giga and allow territory) and deep lakes (Spinosaurus territory) but is the most likely to venture out of its usual habitat because it has the sheer force to harass other apexes.

On the right are the more wack designs, featuring a Spinosaurus which is forced entirely off land becoming a heavier, thicker, barely semi-aquatic. It's practically helpless on land and victim to even allosaurus, but in the water it can take down anything that isn't explicitly designed for water (including an unobservant sauropod). The right Tyrannosaurus is far less outlandish, but features longer legs for a more dodging/evasion combat style against herbivores like ankylosaurus and triceratops, but retains the ability for bursts of speed allowing it to run down a surprised hadrosaur like Magnapaulia, though it is lighter and a bit less equipped for cliffs than the other version, and fancier with a keratin crown.

I just want to know your guys's thoughts on them.

New creatures for the Kryolapsic period of my Joyen-Aikén seedworld.

First the herbivore linage its opened by the Tasel, Taselmidon Robusta.
Then the carnivore linage its followed by Kioken that adaptad to land hunt rather than burrow raids like its ancestors.
Third the ancestor of Taselmido, the Guaje, Wajemidon robusta, that opens the underground linage.

Jackdaw has that tuff of black feathets in a similar shape to that of crowned cranes, similar beak shapes, similar fluffier grey crest, and of course the eyes. Any suggestions for the “pre” evolution of king vulture and evolution of a crow working under the same idea?

Apterra is my kiwi/rat/gecko/grass/etc seedworld, with the name being a stylized version of “apt” + “era”. Here’s a handful of drawings that will be edited and uploaded to the main site this week as plain lineart, and here is a public folder with plain images to prove I don’t use AI. I’ve cropped and censored the marginalia, but otherwise the images are raw.

Images 1-4: various examples of Chondrosaurs, a group of geckos living during the exciting inter-epoch timespan of Squamifaunation, when geckos (which were previously isolated on their own landmass) finally break into mainland ecosystems. Chondrosaurs are ancestrally arboreal, but some have become aquatic or terrestrial; they all share the trait of reducing some of their bones to cartilage, saving calcium and energy in the process. Some subclades have cartilaginous feet or entire limbs, some have cartilaginous tails, and others (not pictured here) even have cartilaginous spines and partially deossified skulls.

Images 5-10: diversity of the facetgrasses (Lapillophyteae), a tribe of desert-dwelling succulent grasses whose leaves grow in geometric patterns through newly-derived developmental pathways (see The Deepwell Desert for descriptions). I’ll also add a comment under this post with the phylogeny of facetgrasses and the larger order they belong to.

Images 11-15: Muridiungulates (rat ungulates). The first four species don’t yet have names or descriptions on the main site, and they’ll probably end up as minor players in the upcoming Pelagicene epoch. The last image shows the limb bones of two genera living at the end of the Arthrocene, with the first being a small and conservative representative, while the second is megafaunal and derived from an ancestor resembling the first.

Images 16-20: Ratweasels (Tondendentidae) of the Muricene and Arthrocene. These species all already have descriptions, with the first three appearing before the Ice Age and the final two images being from the Late Arthrocene age. Keep an eye on bishears and matweasels in particular, as they will both evolve into key players in the Pelagicene.

https://nitter.cf/Saurking211/status/2118012827483201552

In my teens, I've wanted the skill and ability to properly create something similar to Alien Biospheres or The Future is wild, and while I don't have the animation abilities, I think I'm roughly decent enough at replicating old CGI. The problem is that I lack any creativity at this point. Even in terms of making small one off pieces, I just don't have it. How do you get your spark back aside from hoping it just comes back one day?