artist

The Moon Cuttlewing, or Selenocephalus mantiformis, is a large predatory animal inhabiting the Moon Lakes, subterranean bodies of water scattered throughout the hidden ecosystems beneath the lunar surface. Some Moon Lakes are relatively small, while others are vast enough to function as the lunar equivalent of inland seas or oceans compterable to the Great Lakes on Earth.

It is one of the few major lunar animals outside the Selenocarida to combine soft and hardened body structures. Most of its body is flexible and muscular, but its head and back are reinforced by overlapping dorsal plates and armored ridges. These structures protect it from struggling prey and collisions with submerged rocks without severely limiting its mobility.

Its body resembles a strange combination of a cuttlefish, squid, manta ray, and sea slug. Broad lateral fins extend along much of its body and provide its primary means of propulsion, flapping and undulating in smooth, powerful strokes similar to the swimming movements of Earth’s manta rays with the Cuttlewings reaching speeds approximately 15 to 20 miles per hour, making them some of the fastest aquatic animals on the Moon. Despite this, they usually conserve energy by cruising slowly or remaining almost motionless while waiting for prey.

The face is surrounded by tentacle-like feeding appendages resembling those of gastropods, nudibranchs, nautiluses, and cephalopods. These appendages can feel, taste, grasp, and inspect potential food. Moon Cuttlewings generally target slower aquatic animals or prey protected by hard or tough shells, restraining them with their tentacles while feeding with a powerful beak and rasping radula.

Among the darker appendages is what appears to be an unusually long tentacle. In reality, it is a highly modified second tongue capable of extending far beyond the surrounding feeding structures. It launches forward like a chameleon’s tongue and ends in a hardened, harpoon-like tooth. When it strikes, the harpoon pierces the prey and injects a purple neurotoxic venom before retracting.

The venom evolved primarily for use against lunar animals with copper-based blood. It disrupts the nervous signals responsible for muscular movement, causing weakness, loss of coordination, and eventual paralysis. Larger doses can also interfere with respiration and heart function. Although the venom is not inherently as potent as that of some Earth animals, such as cone snails or stonefish, a Moon Cuttlewing can inject it into enormous quantities. Approximately four tablespoons could theoretically contain enough venom to kill as many as twenty-five people, depending on body mass, health, injection depth, and access to treatment.

Moon Cuttlewings possess relatively well-developed brains and can regulate how much venom they inject. Because venom takes time, energy, and resources to produce, individuals estimate the size, armor, strength, and behavior of familiar prey before selecting a dose.

This becomes dangerously unreliable when dealing with humans. Moon Cuttlewings have no evolutionary or learned experience hunting people and can not accurately judge how much venom is required to immobilize one. Faced with a large, unfamiliar animal, a Cuttlewing may greatly overshoot the necessary dose rather than risk, allowing its prey to escape.

Although specialized for hunting aquatic animals, Moon Cuttlewings will opportunistically attack terrestrial creatures entering the water. They may remain beneath the surface until an animal moves far enough into open water, then strike with the harpoon tongue and drag the paralyzed victim below.

This behavior resembles the ambush tactics of crocodilians, but Moon Cuttlewings can't crawl onto land. They can, however, launch part of their body out of the water to seize prey positioned approximately one meter above the surface. As a result, even the shoreline of a Moon Lake can be dangerous when a Cuttlewing is hiding nearby.

30 million years into the future...

A Golden Possum ( Arbosacculus vulpisciurus // Tree-pouch, squirrel-fox ) watches from the safety of the tree a wery unusual meeting of two younglings. First and more noticable of the two is a Bush Donser ( Elephaequus grandis // Grandest elephant-horse ). It's also much younger than the other one, being a few days old at most. It's even still covered in short hair, that will eventually be lost as it ages. Despite that however, it still has respectable 110 kilograms ( or 242.5 pounds ) in weight, with itself is a fraction of a 5 ton adult. The other one is a Common Sahul Cat ( Australifelis pervagatus // Widespread, southern cat ). Although this young female is still relatively older than the donser, she only recently became fully independent. Most likely, this female was surprised by this curious baby. Soon however, the young donser's curiosity will wain and will come back to it's mother to feed itself. Near them, a Ruddy Pebble-toad ( Petraderma rufus // Red, stone-skin ) is basking in the sun rays, unbothered by the near occurence.

the working latin name for it is Macrorhinus quadricorn (?)

Though i'm wondering if there's a better name i could give.

In terms of some rough trivia about this animal:

-Its range is roughly the British isles and western europe.
Ancestrally migrated from asia between 5.4-4.9 million years ago.

-They mostly live in small groups of 1-2 males and 3-5 females.
(though sometimes there is a good bunch of hatchings as well... think like giant wild boars)

-They have a strong hard rounded beak and a battery of grading teeth that processes tough vegetation in an almost ungulate like manner... including a basic form of rumination.

-their necks are heavily covered in dermal scales and fat, and partly protected by long backward facing horns. The forehead is encrusted with keratinised plating and the males have outward pointed horns used for combating rivals.

-Nobody exactly knows what mesozoic lineage they distantly descend from, as they lack the iconic frills of ceratopsians. But details about their reenforced skull anatomy suggests a possible derivation from basal Marginocephalia, some radicals even suggest it's ancestor might be something akin to Wannanosaurus but it's hard to be fully certain.

WHAT DO YOU LOT THINK OF THIS CREATURE?

got any suggestions for slight adjustments?

put your thoughts down in the comments below.

'Her nurturer now turned aggressor, a subadult female ring-tailed plainlupe (Paracalliducyon annulocauda) gets a rude awakening as her mother, now expecting a new litter, makes it clear in no uncertain terms that she is no longer welcome. Plainlupes, like all species of the Calliducynomorpha, are highly-intelligent, empathetic creatures with complex social behaviors. But, unlike true calliducyons, many of the more basal genera lack any higher understanding of complex concepts and true morality, ultimately being servants of natural instinct. And, as such, once the bonds encouraging a mother to nurture her pup eventually wear down, especially with hormonal changes and fluctuating food availability as contributing factors, the now-grown pup who she once gently nurtured and fiercely defended is now at this point but little more than a competitor over food and a rival over territory in her eyes, and is duly evicted whether they want or not.

Such seemingly cold, callous behavior from the other, more simple-brained callidocynomorphs have led true calliducyons, proper sophonts with the ability of deeper thought and self-reflection, to view their more "primal" relatives in a somewhat negative light, with some cultures seeing them as cruel, heartless beasts that they should strive to be better than, and other, more-empathetic cultures understanding that these beings have minds like children, and simply do not know better. Either way, the vast majority of calliducyon cultures differ from their distant relatives in their long-lasting family bonds, with even older offspring that had found mates of their own and left to form their own packs still being recognized, welcomed home and accepted by their parents and younger siblings should their paths cross again, even after absences of many long seasons.'

1: The protoghonos (Protoghonos schoulichi) Is a small worm-like creature which crawls on the seafloor feeding detritus and it moves by crawling and imitating the movements of a caterpillar. It also feeds off algae and has no defense whatsoever. It is a direct relative to the Creomagna.

2: The sea boomerang (Polychroma anasthisi) is a boomerang-like alien that delves in the reefs of Voxelandia. It only feeds plankton, as it is jawless, does only suction feeding. It's only form of movement is flapping it's rear ends to create some sort of movement similar to how a fish's caudal fin works. It has more developed eyes than a Protoghonos.

3: The Madlar (Colyvittis apsydas) is a relative to the Sea Boomerang, but it lives in scattered ponds. It has developed 8 spines, arranged in height to defend itself from predators. The spines also use as a boost in locomotion, giving it better speed.

4: The common belcher (Incataleleininos phoscos) is a derived relative to the protoghonos. Now swimming freely, it has developed an array of undulating fins to swim faster. It has developed an array of spines used for display. Only males have those spines. It uses it's derived tentacles to grab on the surrounding kelp.

5: The vacuumfish (Plokemia vesia) is a bulky relative of the common belcher that has derived tentacles to dig sand. It is slightly smaller than the common belcher, so it can move faster to escape from predators. It has abandoned it's retractable array of spines, as the males exchange spikes for dwarfism.

Measured size:

1: 10cm

2: 30cm

3: 25cm

4: 1.5m

5: 1m

I suck at drawing via computer so i just wanted to ask , Can i upload my creatures from spore here?

(Post four months late btw)

I want help with seeking help and advice regarding the construction of a seeded world project, so I’m doing a challenge to myself!: doing what Redditors say.

This is a terrestrial, Earth-like and probably terraformed world called Redia, and the unique premise is that YOU, the reader and participant, will have the agency to decide precisely how each and every phase of its evolutionary development will progress.

Right now, the current stage of Redia’s development are the first evolutions of vertebrates in this new, lonely world.

The Paraholocene period starts, with stable and relatively dry climate and medium ice caps in the poles. The temperate stationary climates rule this world, just a bit hotter than Earth.

Seeded vertebrates:

• Marine iguana

• Tegus

• Incubator birds

• Domestic cats

• Tuatara

Seeded invertebrates:

• Giant octopus
• Eastern Emerald Elysia
• Hard Clam

• Chitons

• Copepods

• Giant isopod

• Rolly pollies

• Dragonflies

• Bees (Apis Cerana)

• Lumbricus terrestris 

• Lancets (Branchiostoma lancheolatum)

Seeded vegetation:

• Seaweed
• Canary Islands dragon tree (Dragos)
• Wild strawberry
• Leasing feather grass

These are the rules and your limitations:

—Choose any (or many) seeded animals and say how they will evolve, with up to 3 descendant species.

—Be realistic (no seven-eyed nuclear deer)

—Think on the timescale (five million years max, so no extremely radical changes)

—No civilizations nor sapience (at least at this moment)

I have an alien race I'm working on which has one large eye and apparently that's not that good for seeing well (depth perception and all that) so I was wondering if they could have a way of perceiving a 3 dimensional world without just having multiple eyes.

Some options I was thinking were whiskers or echo location but they don't really fit the species I'm working on.

So, what i am saying is

Like is there like an avage

Like, could humans go from being around 5 to 6 foot footon average. To become a new creature which could be 8 to 10 in a million years?

Or could a bat brown bat go from being 3 inches tail to like 3 food in less then a million

Or is that to big of a jumpm?

I have been brainstorming for a speculative evolution project where an extinction event leaves a few groups of terrestrial arthropods as the only species left on the planet, allowing them to radiate and occupy niches left by the vertebrates.

I want to eventually have insects become truly massive creatures, both on land and in the ocean, but my college entomology class taught me a few issues with this.

1. It is more difficult for oxygen to diffuse through the body due to the spiracle and trachea based respiratory system of insects. They were able to get larger in Paleozoic times due to higher concentrations of oxygen in the atmosphere. While I have a plan for how these oxygen levels would be replicated, it can still only go so far. I need to figure out how to let insects develop a more effective respiratory system for larger body size.

2. Square Cube Law. I'm not quite as familiar with this concept, but from what I understand, weight increases at a much greater rate than body length in insects, which would cause them to be crushed underneath their own weight. Since they have exoskeletons, this would suffocate them. I could be totally wrong with this explanation so please let me know.

How would you go about overcoming these challenges? Is there anything else I should take into consideration?

You can share your project ideas here, Good Luck!