Spec Bio - Blog Posts
Begging the void I'm shouting into, to post pictures of lizards and reptiles edited to have external ears.
Worst kind of ears only, please
Spec Evo Challenge: Aquatic April - Day 3 (Star)
I dont know much about sea stars and didn´t know what other animal I could make with the word star (and the timeframe)
The Barnacles Star (Balaenaasteroidea Caeruleuma) Is an parasetic starfish that will attach themselfs to whales or other large marine animals with their spiked legs and then proceed to peel of and eat their skin.
--Source: Reddit--
Spec Evo Challenge: Aquatic April - Day 2 (Bug)
--The second entry for the Aquatic April challenge--
The Ever Youth Dragonfly Is unique among Its kind, when other Dragonfly species only spend their juvenile stage fully aquatic,
The Ever Youth Dragonfly never developes lungs and thus remains In water for Its entire life.
It posses sturdy hairs on Its legs making them work like flippers.
These hairs are also found on their back acting like a dorsal fin
and to top It of they posses an extention of their abdomen that works like a fluke.
--Source: Reddit--
Spec Evo Challenge: Aquatic April - Day 1 (Producer)
This month Im attending an Spec Evo challenge. :D
--Source: R/Speculativeevolution--
I cant ensure I´ll be posting every day, but I´ll try anyways.
For day 1 I came up with a species of Kelp called the Keelp (Anguillapiscisalgarum Sp.).
The Keelp has the coloration of eels to fend of herbivores that might try to eat It.
This unique coloration although also come at the cost of not being able to do very efficient photosynthese, thus the Keelp has an symbiotic relationship with many aquatic plants.
The plant provides the Keelp with nutrients and In return the Keelp keeps them safe from plant eaters.
Treasure The Rodent - Mausbies Of The Late Origocene
(20 Million Years P.E.)
The Middle Origocene saw the rise of the Mausbies, small rodent analogues, In the niche of seedeaters or small scale omnivores.
But now In the Late Origocene the Mausbies saw alot more diversity trying to cover still avaible niches or make a living In new Habitats.
The Beavalis are descendants of the Rattuffs which have adapted to an semi-aquatic lifestyle.
Similiar to the Shell-Fishers 10 Million years prior they have adapted an mechanism that allows them to seal their pouch when underwater, preventing their joeys from drowning.
The Greater Beavali (Flumenmus Nonaustralianus) Is one of the more basal species.
Their strong incisors are perfectly adapted for crushing the hard shells of mussels and crustaceans, but also for breaking wooden bark. Similiar to earthern Beavers, the Greater Beavali builds dams which can controll the river streams, giving them the perfect conditions to build their nests, find and store food as well as giving them an safe place to rest.
The Grey Bilbypus (Macrotisornithorhynchus Griseus) Is an fellow widespread Beavali species, It posses long sensitive whiskers which It uses to find arthropods and other goods hidden under the river bed.
Another clade of Rattuff are the Hampters, as their name suggest they have heavily converged with earthern hamsters.
They posses an small, round body with an short tail, but those are not all features they took from the earthern hamster, as they also have the hamsters signature trait, cheek pouches.
Their flexible cheeks help them to hord all of the goods they find, saving time foraging, which makes them visible to predators.
The Field Hampter (Pseudocricetus Ager) Is an plains dwelling small-scale herbivore feeding on seeds, roots, vegetables and various grasses. Field Hampters are one of the few unsocial Mausby species, not forming family colonies and only interacting with another when mating.
The Greater Dwarf Hampter (Nainuspseudocricetus Maxillutus) Is pretty similiar to Its larger cousin, although they are not herbivores but rather omnivores, eating seeds, roots and insects.
They also havent completly abondend their colonies, althought the family bonds are very loose and tend to fall apart quickly.
Talking about unsocial Mausbies, we have the Terrisquis, an clade of Squruffies, solitary Mausbies that by now have become incredibly territorial and even straight up aggressive animals.
Similiar to the Hampters the Terrisqui have found an way to take their food to go, but instead of developing cheek pouches, they used an feature they already possed and have just modified It a bit, as the Terrisquis use their marsupial-pouches to store their food.
This alsomeans that both the males and the females posses pouches to store food, we see something similiar In earthern Yapoks, marsupials In which both males and females posses pouches.
Also similiar to the Yapok they posses an mechanism that allows them to seal their pouch, the same Shell-Fishers and the Beavalis posses, this prevents their food from accidentally falling out of their pouch.
The Colorbark Terrisqui (Colossciurus Fuscusanrufus) Is an pretty basal member of the Terrisqui family.
The females sport an camouflaging brown color, while the males are alot more eye-stinging. As territorial as the Terrisquis are, the males have evolved an brighter fur color to make their presence clear to rivals. The males also posses the ability to make the fur on their back stand up, In turn making them appear larger to predators and rivals.
Back to the more peacefull and social creatures, we have the Wabillies. Plains dwelling descendants of the Jerbaroos.
Normally the desert Is the kingdom of the Jerbaroos, with the plains dwelling individualls standing In the shadow of their relatives, but the Wabillies managed to stay relevant amongst the competetion.
As of right now the Wabillies are the largest Mausbies to ever exist, turns out, living In the plains among swarms of Pterobats of prey, being big has Its benefits.
The Plains Wabilly (Subterranotamacropus Fodiens) Is the most common species of the rather small Wabilly family.
They live In huge family colonies and burrow equally huge, complex burrows. They are omnivores eating whatever they can find, vegetables, seeds, insects and even the occasional small marsupial.
Macroterra - The Middle Origocene
10 Million Years P.E.
Macroterra - The Early Origocene
0 Million Years P.E.
1 Million Years P.E.
Possum Cat - Whoapossums Of The Late Origocene
20 Million Years P.E. (The Late Origocene)
The Whoapossums, an lineage of Betabies that took to the trees and became quite the skilled climbers, with an semi-opposable thumb and an flexible tail, now In the Late Origocene they have become even more skilled, with an even more flexible tail and fully opposable thumbs.
The Bright-Eyed Nightpossum (Simiadidelphidae Oculislucidis) Is an skilled nocturnal insects hunter, using Its sensitive, big eyes and ears to detect insects amongst the darkness.
An Whoapossum that went Into the different direction tho Is the Capped Fruitpossum (Fructusdidelphidae Caputgerens), an frugivore that climbs amongst the treetops In search for brightly colored fruit, which they fortunately can spot with ease, as similiar to the Monarch Pterobats the frugivorous diet of the Fruitpossums favored the developement of color vision.
But the most unique of the Whoapossums of this time would be the Fossums, the Pocket-Paw Fossum (Ungulatus Marsupialiscattus) Is one of them, while Whoapossums started to get more comfortable In the treetops, the Fossums started to settle on the ground again, they are still amazing climbers, theres no doubt In that, but they will also spend alot of time on solid floor.
Fossums are excellent small game hunters, they especially shine In hunting Pterobats, Mausbies, Scoppels and even Shrish.
As you might have noticed, the Fossums favor the similiar prey as the earthern cats and this Is not where the convergence ends.
They posses carnassial teeth as molars and retractable claws.
Their retractable claws are a life safer as they rely on them alot to catch prey and climb.
Them moving on rough surfaces could risk the claws trimming to much to be usable for their tasks.
The Ivory Of Life - The Womboars
20 Million Years P.E. (The Late Origocene)
The Nomwats were the first large scale herbivores and thus faced great success, the success of one specific Nomwat species Is incredibly well reflected In their descendants.
The Womboars are descendants of the Koala-Nosed Nomwat, and species that has specialised In eating though vegetation, as more and more herbivores emerged the plants got only thougher trying to shake of the herbivores, but the Koala-Nosed Nomwats were already In the niche to graze the though grasses, thus It was an easy adaption to feed on these new world grasses.
The Womboars most recognizable trait are their tusks which have formed from their molars, their molars grow throughout their entire lifes, kinda like the Mausbies incisors, this helps them to chew trough the tough vegetation.
The tusks are used for self-defense, rooting up plants, display and fighting rivals.
The Plains Womboar (Ivoriumvombatidae Campi) Is one of the most dominant grazers of this time, males have harrems of females over large territories, If territories are overlapping the males will fight, whoevers tusks break first will loose.
Plains Womboars also posses long tuffed ears which they use as flag posts for communication.
These flag post structure usually evolve from tails, but Womboars have too short tail to be utilized, so the ears are the next best thing.
An smaller Womboar species Is the Peanut Butter Womboar (Silvavombatidaeaper Enuxarachidis), these forest dwellers are smaller but also more agile, this although does not mean that they wont use the tusks when backed In a corner.
The Peanut Womboar Is an herbivore which feast on the forest grasses, seeds and roots.
Blubb Blubb - The Shrish
20 Million Years P.E. (The Late Origocene)
While Macroterra Is a planet of Bilbies, the invertabrates, which have been seeded to sustain the ecosystem, have changed over the years as well and the most succesfull and dominant ones would be the Shrish. Descendants of Planktonic Krill, they have come to dominate the oceanic ecosystem.
The Shrish started out as shrimp like swimmers that propelled themselfs through the water with feathery legs, Shrish like these still exist, the OJ Reefer (Pseudocaris Citrinasuccus) Is an good example. But some didnt bother to actively swim and become bottom feeders, like the Gravel Trilokrill (Trilobitacaris Fundusmaris).
Although some Shrish have optimized their swimming abilities,
some Shrish would eventually develop a shorter and more streamlined body, and give rise to active swimmers that propelled themselves with undulating waves of their abdomen and tail. Becoming a more efficient means of propulsion, these shrish would eventually modify their rearmost swimming legs along with their tail fan into a caudal fluke of sorts.
But these fluked Shrish didnt just stop there, as another adaption proved efficiency, pseudo-jaws.
These pseudo-jaws are formed from their elongated barbed rostrums and first front legs.
With these they can easily catch slippery prey an apply pressure to crack their hard shell.
two of these jawed Shrish are the Great White Shraw (Pisciscaris Magnusalbus) and the Cherry Shrimpede (Centipedecaris Cerasus).
Both are fearsome predators In their own right, the Shrimpedes are small slender Eel-like ambush predators, while the Great White Shraw are rather large at 1 meter In size they are true giants among the arthropods.
But not all of those jawed Shrish are predators, the Green Weedpicker (Herbariumcolligens Viridis) Is an rather peacefull grazer, using their jaws to pluck and crush tough algea, seaweed and corals.
Remember Your Ancestors - The Sandy Betaby
10 Million years P.E. (The Middle Origocene)
10 Million years into the history of Macroterra many descendants of an single animal, the Greater Bilby have risen and fallen.
Lurking In the shadows of various succesfull lineages there Is one that seems like It Isnt going to stick around that much longer.
The Betabies (Family: Betamacrotidae) were one of the lineages which emerged relatively early In Macroterras history and given rise to even more lineages like the Hedgey´s, Whoapossums and Bilcoons. The Betabies themselfs though are kinda victims of their own succes as they find themselfs In tough competetion with their relatives.
As of the Middle Origocene their Is only one Betaby species alive, the Sandy Betaby (Betamacrotis Arenosus).
It manged to stick around as an oppurtunistic desert dweller, but know there are other oppurtunistic more adapted species like Jerbaroos and Needle-Manes.
While It Is tragic that the Betabies will soon fade away from the face of Earth, or Macroterra, this Is just life, extinction Is the rule and evolution Is the exception.
But the Betabies managed to produce descendants that do quite well for themselfs, so while they themselfs will be gone, their lineage will be continued.
Cry About It - The Crybeasties
10 Million years P.E. [The Middle Origocene]
The Tearlings, an species of Bilby that has reinvented the predator-prey armsrace, as the first true predator on Macroterra, the world belonged to them, but times change and the Tearlings, like every other Bilby, evolved.
Their descendants are know as the Crybeasties, canide like predator and quite fearsome ones on top of that.
The Forest Foxstrider (Vulpesambulans Silva) Is an farelly basal Crybeastie, small game hunters akin to earthern foxes.
Their prey of choice are usually Scoppels and small Bilbeelopes, which they grapple with their sharp teeth and wait for them to bleed out.
The Break-Neck Crybeastie (Clamabestia Collumfrangens) Is quite the opposite of the Foxstriders, as they are rather big game hunters.
as the largest carnivores on Macroterra as of right know, they will go after big prey, their prey of choice are the larger plains dwelling Bilbeelope and Nomwats.
Break-Neck Crybeasties will aim for the neck, using their sharp teeth to penentrate their preys lung, quickly sufficating them.
I love sophont characters that don't look remotely humanoid like a mile tall monolith that doesn't look at all biological can have petty grudges and opinions on which type of weather is best wow life is beautiful..
Me if I did James Cameron navi avatar design or something idk
i really wanna share the current object of my interest while working on my dekorcio project, so please pay no mind to the fact this is litterally just a sketch rather than full, finished art
these are the pollicari, a sophont of dekorcio, so far there are only two, the pollicari and the kemaiko(the species of the guy featured on my PFP). im currently thinking of the pollicari being about 4ft tall, and yes that second image is of their mouth being open
I have a name for this species now, they're called the Heriheri! This is Mitra, he's a different subspecies to Watama but they're both pretty similar. He is wearing a necklace of seed pods because they rattle, and that's useful since his job is feeding/sacrificing people to the Mother of the Deep, which is a massive blind cave creature a bit like an olm (she recognises the rattling sound and knows not to eat him). The long spines on his head can move, and he wiggles them about to show different emotions. They fall off every year and he grows new soft ones. Also, don't be fooled by Mitra's cute exterior and the fact that he's only about the size of a dog, this guy is Evil.
[click for better quality :)]
My horrible son, Watama. He is a sophont living in a series of caves in a big colony along with other creatures of his species (not sure what I will call them yet) and technically he is a subtroglophile since his species has to leave the caves to get food etc (they are omnivores but eat lots of bugs. Yummy). His species is nocturnal, hence the big sad wet eyes. Also his species usually wears clothes of some sort since it's quite cold where they live, I just haven't drawn them yet. Watama is a male, but like the Kerilone who he is distantly related to, when he reaches a certain age and body fat percentage, he'll become a female, and get a lot larger and more sedentary, and lose the red pigmentation around his chest spiracles. This won't happen for him for a long while though, since he's pretty skinny for a whatever-he-is, although you can't tell because of his thick layer of plumulaceous feathers. He is quite a drab example of his species, but they aren't generally super colourful anyway - there's not much point if you live in a dark cave.
Hakiri!! I haven't drawn any birdpeople in almost a year, it's nice to get back to them. The helmet design is subject to change, though - I might make it a little more Spartan in style. :-)
This year's worth of art
Rilicai in the rain. Inspired by how rainy it is where I live at the moment. Rain is pretty common where she lives as well, but she doesn’t normally go to the forest - most of her species live in or on mountains.
@bananaruntz i think what sucks the most about it with xenofiction in particular is that when you have characters that are simultaneously nonhuman and anthropomorphic, it creates this issue where you're forced to accept any misogyny at face value and assume that it's just scientific accuracy, because nature CAN be notoriously unfair. it can't be denied that the females of many species get the shorter end of the stick, but way too many xenofiction authors seem to operate on the idea that this is innately true for the entire animal kingdom when it's just not. even if you are writing about a species where male animals generally dominate the hierarchy, that still shouldn't preclude you from being able to write well-rounded female characters, especially ones that aren't bound by suspiciously human misogynistic tropes.
xenofiction presents so so so many fascinating opportunities to really examine things like sexism and identity and biological determinism but it feels like no one has properly taken advantage of that yet. i am being so fucking serious when i say that xenofiction desperately needs a queer, trans, feminist upheaval.
Dance festival specific clothing for a region where thaumaturges and Mermaids live together.
A spin on a local mermaid dance, where they thrown each other out of the water and perform spins and other various acrobatics.
As years pass and the two cultures meet and costumes take different shapes, thaumaturges started trying to join Mermaids by extending walkable platforms across the rivers where they normally dance, started out as small wooden planks and eventually turned into elastic ropes.
The dance is formally preformed by 2 thaumaturges and 4 Mermaids. For the thaumaturges it involves stretching and pulling the rope be it horizontally or vertically, jumping swinging that sort of stuff. Movements vary depending on the music. They also pull the ropes all the way from one side to another to open space for the mermaids while they jump. Mermaids jump out of the water and do acrobatics as usual, but they use the ropes as well, to propel themselves but to also catch their falls. Usually a Mermaid is always left in the water to help their mates back up out of it if necessary if not they are with the thaumaturges on the ropes.
Both of them wear clothes with lots of small strings and fabric to follow their movements, there exists ocassion-specific clothing that celebrates a certain event/ocassion but they all follow the same principles of flowy garments at the extremities and middle of the body. They cant be too long tho, so that they dont get caught up on anything while performing.
Music, again, varies depending on the ocasion but its very similar to brazillian samba, theres lots of stuff happening at the same time during a performace so a strong rhythm is very important. Dance is normally not accompanied by vocals/lyrics but if it is its normally sang by the dancers.
Just a shy little spider guy steering around his floating fart fungus thing.
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(If this pops up in any tags, you can ignore this post. This is just for me)
elf types. I will do a full spreadsheet for each, but for now here are side by side comparisons.
If you’re wondering why the High Elf is grey here, instead of ginger like my last post, it’s because more High Elves are grey, I just chose orange for the other one
Finally, after a year, I’m updated my Elves. Here’s the High Elves! If you have questions, go ahead and ask! :)
In the image, the Elf is a mother, which is why her breasts are enlarged. She is feeding a baby. (I will draw the baby soon!)
There are two other Elf species I still need to draw: Wood Elves & Drow (Dark Elves)
DWARF LORE
Culturally, Dwarves place great value on storytelling, visual arts, and personal expression. Carving, painting, and storytelling are integral parts of community life, and many important events are marked with communal gatherings and storytelling.
Tattoos and braiding are also deeply significant. Both sexes grow facial and head hair, and this hair is a source of pride. It's common to see Dwarves with elaborately braided hair adorned with beads and charms. These beads carry symbolic weight, marking major life achievements like completing a coming-of-age ritual, raising children, or achieving mastery in a craft.
They live in cold climates, and their physiology reflects this: they have thick fur and tend to be shorter and stockier than humans, conserving heat efficiently. Their homes are primarily subterranean, dug into earth and rock. However, they also build above-ground structures using wood and stone. Settlements focus on function and community over grandeur.
Their diet consists mostly of vegetation and insects, though they are capable of eating meat in times of scarcity. They practice agriculture and cultivate various crops, and also keep domesticated animals — some for companionship, others for practical use like warmth, protection, or pest control.
As marsupials, their reproductive process is quite different from humans. They give birth to underdeveloped joeys, which continue to grow in the parent’s pouch. Dwarves (like some kangaroos) have two uteruses- one embryo can be carried in the pouch, while another remains in delayed development in the second uterus. This allows for a staggered cycle of birth and care. Young Dwarves gradually gain independence and are raised communally, with extended family and neighbors contributing to their upbringing.
Their social roles are flexible and can be shaped by skill, age, or experience rather than rigid gender norms. Celebrations often involve communal meals, storytelling, singing, and symbolic rituals like bead-giving or new tattoos.
(More art will be out soon! Please ask questions if you have questions!)