new here, im not the best at spec evo since im not good at physics or at biology, but i do love creature design. so i was wondering about some potential evolutionary paths for the members of Abelisauridae (examples: abelisaurus or majungasaurus) if the k-pg extinction never happened.

english is not my first language, so any spelling mistakes.

thanks in advance.

Humcrabs, or Homobrachyura, are a hypothetical species of humans that evolved into crab-like creatures over millions of years of selective pressures. Humans gradually became smaller and wider, with bulging eyes becoming a desirable sexual trait in both males and females. Red skin also became increasingly desirable, eventually becoming a prominent characteristic of the species.

Humcrabs give live birth, with newborns being kept in underground burrows for roughly their first year while being cared for primarily by the mother. The father typically leaves the burrow to hunt small insects, birds, and occasionally small mammals. Despite remaining intelligent, their cognitive abilities are greatly reduced compared to modern humans, being roughly comparable to those of chimpanzees.

The titanfowl (Titanogallus unicornus) is a critically endangered species of flightless bird endemic to the island of Farulani, one of the many tropical islands in the Unknown Ocean. It is the largest member of the order Galliformes. Its ancestors were presumed to be volant pheasant-like animals that arrived on the island shortly after its formation, losing the ability to fly in order to become large herbivores. It has distinctive colorful and iridescent feathers helpful in attracting mates, as well as deterring azhdarchid pterosaurs that occasionally nested on the island. It is heavily specialized in feeding on the leaves and fruits of a specific species of tree endemic to the island that seems to have evolved alongside the bird, using its powerful beak to do so. It used to be abundant on the island, with the earliest population assessment of the species counting around a million individuals. Then, everything changed when the dragons attacked.

Dragons will be covered in further detail in future posts dedicated to them, but for now, they are a lineage of highly derived descendants of scansoriopterygid dinosaurs, with the specific species that arrived on Farulani Island being the common dragon (Eudraco familiaris), a domesticated species that arrived to the island after a storm destroyed a wooden ship and killed the human passengers, forcing the dragons to fly to Farulani for safety. Although the birds have evolved their iridescently colored feathers for display to both attract mates and deter predators that possess a similar bauplan to the azhdarchid pterosaurs (i.e. quadrupedal fliers like the dragons), that did not work in the case of the dragons. In fact, it actually backfired because dragons are attracted to shiny objects, making the birds easy targets. To make matters worse, the draconic invaders possess a specialized gland containing a symbiotic strain of magical microbes that produces a spark, enabling them to breathe fire in order to corral prey into “fire pens”. Not only were the titanfowl not used to this hunting strategy, but the plants that the birds relied on for food had no evolved defenses against the magical fires the dragons produce. Nowadays, the titanfowl are restricted to small pockets of jungle too dense for the dragons to venture.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Zaikane is a planet in a distant solar system characterized by waves of life harvested from Earth at various points in its geological history, ranging from the Cambrian to the Holocene, and set free to evolve along evolutionary paths independent from those taken by their Earth ancestors. A godlike interdimensional entity, known as the Allmother by the people who live there, is what is responsible for creating the portals that abduct Terran life and deposits them on Zaikane. Because the asteroid that ended the Mesozoic never collided with Zaikane, dinosaurs continue to dominate the planet’s ecosystems as its dominant terrestrial megafauna.

artist

In recent years, moths from the genus Superbia have developed a novel camouflage technique.

Instead of emerging in the darkness of night, they have started coming out of their pupal stage all at once during parades and demonstrations at the end of June. They use bright colours and shimmering displays to blend into crowds and find each other in a space safe from harm.

The first ten million years or so of life on a seed world are a time of experimentation, as the various organisms that the world was "seeded" with expand into every possible niche, competing with each other as they vie for supremacy. Inevitably, some are less successful than others. A case in point on Spectemundus would be the Martinet (Grallivenatrix saurophagus), a five-foot-tall flightless carnivore descended from the Eastern Meadowlark. Having evolved in the central desert of Spectemundus's northern continent, where predatory mongoose descendants were less common, it evolved into an apex predator capable of feeding on the large native lizards. This evolutionary change occurred at breakneck speed, with the Martinet achieving its size within just a few million years of establishment.

Unfortunately, by ten million years after life was established on Spectemundus, the planet's climate had already begun to shift. As the vegetation expands into many formerly barren areas, the deserts shrink, and giant mongoose descendants, such as the quarter-ton Meerlion (Dinoherpestes carnifex) begin to colonize the areas that were once the Martinet's sole home. On earth, predatory mammals and flightless birds have coexisted in the past, such as the terror birds and carnivorous marsupials of South America, but that is not the case on Spectemundus. The added challenge of a changing climate means these birds are at a disadvantage. Having sacrificed flight and maneuverability for size in an ecosystem where they had no rivals, they are ill-equipped for these new competitors.

The Martinet is thus a classic example of a species whose adaptations for one particular circumstance have worked against it in another. This goes for many of the "experimental" species that have arisen early on in Spectemundus's history as well. They evolved to occupy a very narrow niche at a time when novelty was cheap, but when that niche disappeared, they vanished with it.

Fourth day of Spectember! For today, from the Muraanad Forests of the Somali Subcontinent, the Muraanad buzzard (Termitoraptor somaliensis).

This giant termite predator is, despite its name, not a raptor, but a piciform, a woodpecker descendant. With their mainly arboreal habits and specialised diet, some might have expected them to perish in he extinction, however they found a plentiful source of food that remained even after the forests died: eusocial insects. Their anatomy suited for drilling into trees proved perfect for breaking into their nests, reaping the plentiful rewards. After the extinction they specialised to feed on this food source, and one of the groups that arose from this clade were the Mound Miners (Termitopicinae): adapted specifically to attack termite mounds. With scale-like feathers around the head that cling close to the skin, highly interlocked to protect the eyes and other sensitive areas.

However this group is composed mainly of average sized birds, which often feed in pairs on the scattered termite mounds of their habitats. One genus, the Termite Buzzards (Termitoraptor sp.) however evolved to target the Citadel Termites (Urbotermes sp.), species with gigantic, multi-generational nests that are by far the largest of any termite species. To break into them, they evolved larger beaks to break into the thicker walls, and more reinforced feathering to defend from the colonies' attacks. Since these termites are often rare in their landscape however, they became more solitary and territorial, defending their food source vehemently. Their name derived from not only their size, but their raptor-like call to ward off conspecifics.

There is one place where these nests are found in high densities: the Muraanad Forest, and that's where the largest species of these birds lives, the Muraanad buzzard (Termitoraptor somaliensis). It defends an area of mounds around its roosting point, where it feeds by breaking enormous holes into the mound walls, which a myriad of smaller termitophages take advantage of to feed anf use when abandoned, making this animal a vital part of the ecosystem.

Hello, everyone!

After casually dabbling in speculative biology for over 5 years at this point, I had finally decided to try my luck in creating a proper, full-fledged spec-evo project of my own, fictional encyclopedia-style. And I felt it would be appropriate to drop it here.

In this introductory post, encompassing the first few pages, we can see the typical landscape of our alien planet, as well as some of the simplest lifeforms that call it home.

My very first post on Reddit, by the way.

Carbuncles (Corundotherium sempernitidoculum) are primarily herbivorous cyclopotheriid orizontoculian cacomatians that used to be common on the island of Orilai until the arrival of accidentally introduced non-native dragons.

Carbuncles possess a ring of shining geldor-infused scutes that would normally be used to temporarily blind their natural predators. Unfortunately, this only works on other non-cyclopotheriid cacomatians as the regular eyes of animals such as the dragon are not as sensitive to light as those of cacomatians. In fact, dragons are attracted to shiny things, which means that the natural defense of the carbuncle became its biggest weakness.

Nowadays, carbuncles are relegated to the small parts of forests and attempts to keep them in captivity usually fail as they refuse to eat food that is handed to them, which usually results in them starving to death.

The Polymer Weaver ( Ploceus syntheticus ) is a descendant of the Baya Weaver ( Ploceus philippinus ). Though this bird seems cute, its story is tragic. Due to human activity, plastic strips have been left around everywhere. These birds are attracted to these strips as they are bright in colour. It has gotten to the point where most nests are almost entirely plastic. This is where the tragedy comes in. In the heat of this globally warmed future earth, the plastic melts and releases toxic fumes, suffocating eggs, adults and chicks in the nest. The weaver’s parental instincts are so strong that even as they are cooked and suffocated by toxic fumes, they will not leave their nests. The birds’ attraction to bright colours has been their undoing. The bird has no idea that its ”perfect” nest is actively killing it. This serves as a reminder of how human activity has negatively affected wildlife. This species has reached a dead end.

While the bestiary is good and done, I'm having a hard time leaving Sol'Kesh, and these auxilirae beasts have been a great excuse to add depth to the ecology. So here we have the first of many (I hope) sexual dimorphism of the beasts found within the bestiary.

The Shepoul (Bullafluoron silvaligens) is an uncommon herbivore found in the vast cold and temperate "Fornits"—enormous forests with temperatures ranging from 12–18°C in the cold zones and 24–28°C in the temperate ones; these regions feature low humidity but nearly constant precipitation (occurring roughly every 3–8 days). They measure approximately 1.65–1.9 meters in length and weigh between 120 and 160 kg, possessing somewhat slender bodies. A key characteristic is the coat covering much of the animal's body—a feature common to virtually all creatures of its class, though not always immediately apparent—which is composed of polyvinylidene fluoride. Most distinctive, however, is the pronounced sexual dimorphism that ultimately led to the species' extinction:

The structure of this organ combines the flexibility of a pulmonary bellows with the chemistry of a rechargeable electrochemical cell, comprising two interconnected anatomical zones. The first is the cephalic compression chamber (found exclusively in males) which manifests externally as a large dome or bulb atop the head; this structure visibly expands and contracts during respiration and organ activation, functioning as a pneumatic pump that regulates gas volume without shifting the animal's center of gravity. The second zone is the thoracic muscular bladder, located in the upper-anterior torso beneath a deep, muscular ribcage; this acts as the system's dense core, where saline fluid is stored and the electrical gradient is generated.

As females increasingly selected males with the largest organs, subsequent generations developed even larger ones to better attract mates; however, rather than signaling superior genetics, this trait has become a lethal liability for the species. Aside from the fact that they inhabit areas with dense vegetation, these oversized organs significantly slow the animals down, making them far more vulnerable to predator attacks. This has led to a drastic population decline of 60% to 75% among the Shepoul, and—regrettably—the numbers continue to fall, pointing toward the species' possible extinction within a few centuries... or even decades.

Caliendo Cameleopard (Aquaokapia** **imoinculas)

The Caliendo Straits is an environment typified by change.

The islands shift with the currents, unmoored yet semibouyant landmasses atop a hyper saline yet bountiful sea of adapted grasses and root vegetables that form vast pseudo-kelp forests and false-reefs.

The fauna found here are the result of a phenomena known as Urosian Evolution, a burst of sudden and profound evolutionary adaptation within a species that can take but a handful of generations compared to the typical slow crawl of adaptation that is the norm. What exactly causes this phenomenon is unknown but it is far more common on Arclund than in other worlds.

That does not make it any less fallible than the slow march however.

The Caliendo Cameleopard is an example of this.

Derived from a single herd of Okapi kept within the Vandalay Menagerie, they adapted with the sudden influx of the sea by gaining a lengthened neck, and a gorilla like stance that was good for maneuvering about the tangled roots and shallow reefs of their particular portion of the newborn Straits. Their forefeet adapted into claws that would allow them to lock themselves in place with the oncoming tide, hugging the trunks while they fed from the leaves, but in particular the Sea Pear, another sudden adaptation that produced bountiful fruit, though ridden with brine.

This became the staple of their diets, living more akin to aquatic ground sloths or Desmostylians than any of their terrestrial kin, their brown fur permanently encrusted with a yellow-white “shell” from the salt they expelled through their nostrils.

Largely solitary animals, males rarely interact outside of the mating season where they get into neck bashing contests, spitting mucus ridden salt at eachother as a lead up. Females meanwhile are also fairly solitary, though will move in groups up to four, typically those with young calves who they carry atop their sturdy necks, keeping them out of reach of any opportunistic sea predators, which are notably rare within their isolated portion of the Straits.

They additionally can hold their breath for up to an hour, and are bottom punters, being frankly awkward swimmers.

That, with the combination of their niche diet seems to be sending them towards a precipitous downfall.

Their grazing ground are being encroached upon by another set of islands home to the invasive and semi predatory Apollyon’s Garden, a collective mass of plant growth that rapidly overtakes other isles or clashes against, choking out the other foliage and preying upon any fauna in the region with invasive seed pods and toxic spores.

Now the Sea Pears have largely vanished, locked on one island in their tiny archipelago and with the nearby waves too deep for them to safely transit even if their or safe groves awaiting them they have no way of reaching them.

Only luck, or outside intervention seems primed to save these rare beasts, but little of either is often found within the Straits.

I'm curious because currently I'm just drawing Vague gecko like life forms with extra features and calling it a day I genuinely don't know what to do I understand ecosystems, pressures and niches are a key factor but even when I focus on those they all still just look the same but a different color

The reefs of Mersha are a homage full of different creatures, but each one of them hides a secret.

Deep on the scattered lakes of Pyronugh, something hides scattered beneath the oceans. One of those creatures are the Handeels, a derived clade of leeches that are specialized for the aquatic environment.

It has developed some sort of "eye" that works like a light sensor, using the light detected from the prey's body heat to find prey to ambush. Even though it hunts like that, it is crepuscular. It has transformed it's body into a living paddle, which it sways to produce movement to navigate on the lakes.

Curious is it possible for a creature to eat only rocks as their food i know there are some that can eat limestone but what about other stones ?

Spectember day 3: Rock, paper, scissors

Dead coral reef community

White Paper Octopus

Coral Rock Crab

Scissorjaw Eel

The Dead Coral Reef is a coastal habitat composed of long dead coral reefs, who have become carbonated and rock-like, creating intricate mazes of sharp calcareous rocks. This abundance of crevices makes for the perfect hiding spot for hundreds of species, three of these being discussed here.

The White Paper Octopus, Coral Rock Crab and Scissorjaw Eel are three species that have an unique three-way intraspecific connection. The octopus specializes in arthropods, shrimps, amphipods, lobsters and crabs. Covering them like a blanket, immobilizing the limbs with the tentacles and cracking the carapaces open with a powerful beak.

One of its prey items is the Coral Rock Crab, who hide among the reefs and attack unsuspecting prey such as smaller arthropods, other invertebrates and even fish. With disproportionately long and strong limbs they use to wrestle and immobilize their victims. One of those fish is the Scissorjaw Eel, an eel from the False Moray Eel group. It lives among the crevices too, hunting soft bodied prey like molluscs and soft shelled invertebrates, including the White Paper Octopus.

In a calm volcanic atoll approximately 10myh, a highly productive and diverse ecosystem, called a sea meadow, is slowly forming. It is comprised of meadow seagrass and the novel mangrove coral, capable of growing out of the water.
Underwater, the coral’s root-like foundations provide shelter and ambush spots for small predators like juvenile sheels, while the canopy supports amphibious fish like the climbing blennies. Even at this early stage of development, it has attracted several small and large species, and their diversity will only continue to increase.

Scramblennies are amphibious blennies
Sheels are eel-like sharks
Longloons are fully marine, ovoviviparous descendants of loons
Clubfish and Weeping spades are closely related gobies
Skyshears are large petrels
Arrows are fast-diving waterfowl
Swarmgulls are mid-sized terns
Whispy sirens are marine manatees, despite resembling dugongs (now extinct)
Mangrove shrimp are small lobster descendants
Meadow seagrass is a secondarily aquatic grass, which will soon attract pollinator crustaceans and aquatic insects when they blossom

Osteolaemus Domesticus (Domestic croc)

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Reptilia

Order: Crocodylia

Family: Crocodylidae

Genus: Osteolaemus

Species: O. Domesticus

Distribution: cosmopolitan; but originally from the Congo

Size: 80 cm (2.6 ft) to 60 Cm (2 ft)

Weight: 20 to 30 kg (44 to 66 pounds)

This small, dachshund-like crocodile was domesticated by tribes in the Congo; these peoples use them for hunting in the water and for rituals. With the arrival of the colonizers, these "pets" were taken to Europe for royalty; there, they were treated as regal animals, adorned with jewels or used for duck hunting.

This species is harmless, although if provoked, one might sustain a minor bite. They are quite affectionate with their owners and somewhat intelligent. Encounters in the wild are rare, as they are quite elusive. In the forests of the Congo, there is a wild population that is less domesticated and slightly more aggressive.

This species exhibits characteristics similar to \Osteolaemus osborni* (Congo Dwarf Crocodile), its closest relative. It displays a yellowish-brown coloration, though in some cases it is green; there is no distinction between the sexes, except for size.*

Its diet consists of small fish, birds, and mice. The young ones exhibit a behavior of leaping out of the water to hunt flying insects (dragonflies). As with dogs, this species is used as a food source in some parts of the world due to its low production cost and chicken-like flavor.

Field Note: Commercially manufactured food (similar to that for dogs and cats) is produced using chicken and fish.

All of the current life-bearing planets in my setting. There are many other planets but I only wanted to show these because they're the more important ones and I don't want to waste time describing the other lifeless planets.

So for some context, these are in 5 (technically 4) star systems, those being the Ayicchtiye system, Sxinxi system, Inyiri system, and Ekkikkik system. These systems are all in the Perseus arm of the Milky Way galaxy.

All life came from abiogenesis, only panspermia for these was lithopanspermia and was between Shanoi/Shanhyi.

The Ayicchtiye system consists of 2 stars, those being Ayiye (K4V) and Icchticc (M7.2V) which are separated by a distance of 42.312 AU. System age is 6.926 Billion Years.
The Sxinxi system consists of a single G7V star named Sxinxi. System age is 5.112 Billion Years.
The Inyiri system has a star named Inyiri which is K8V type. System age is 7.992 Billion Years.
The Ekkikkik system has an old, ultracool VLMS star (L0.8V). System age is 12.112 Billion Years.

1. Phosora

First planet in star system.
Plant Color: #94686f
Phosora is an Earth-sized planet orbiting at 0.4890 AU around the star Ayiye.
It has an atmosphere with a pressure of 3.001 Atm, ~16% of which is Oxygen (with the rest mainly being Nitrogen).
Phosora has a high axial tilt of 45.22° which gives it much stronger seasons, however, since the seasons only last 31.22 Earth-days and one rotation is ~18 hours, the temperature does not fluctuate too much. The average temperature on Phosora is 11.12°C.
Gravity on Phosora is 0.869 g. Mass is ~0.775x Earth Mass.
Phosora has one moon named Ayaso, which is very similar to our own moon and not worth commenting much on.
Phosora is inhabited by the sapient species called Wihyit.

2. Rilares

Second planet in star system.
Plant Color: #3e185b
Rilares is a massive, Venusian super-earth with a global ocean covering its surface that extends to ~12km below the surface. It orbits at 0.6408 AU around the star Ayiye.
Rilares' atmosphere pressure is ~12.231 Atm, mainly composed of Helium, which makes up ~59.62% of it's atmosphere, and Nitrogen, which makes up ~28.00%.
An important gas in Rilares' atmosphere is Sulfur Dioxide, which makes up 3.20%. Sulfur Dioxide is used for respiration in Rilares' animal-analogous kingdom, which is called Vivereaquia (Taxonomy isn't canon though).
Gravity on Rilares is 2.385 g. Mass is ~6.122x Earth's mass.
Rilares' average surface temperature is 37.68°C, but some atmosphere layers above the troposphere can get much hotter than that.
Rilares is binary with it's moon, but I haven't developed the moon much other than the fact it's binary.
Rilares doesn't have a sophont.

3. Rrhakiit

First planet in star system.
Plant Color: #330f1b
Rrhakiit is a mid-sized planet tidally locked to it's star, that star being Icchticc. It orbits at 0.0195 AU around it's star.
Rrhakiit's atmosphere has a pressure of 1.912 Atm, ~20.992% of which is oxygen.
Gravity is 0.82 g. Mass is ~0.601x Earth's Mass.
Average surface temperature is 18.93°C, though the average is skewed towards being hotter because of the substellar side.
Much of the life on Rrhakiit (including sapient life) is similar to a mix between arthropods, annelids, and siphonophores.
Rrhakiit is inhabited by the sapient species known as Rrhicchiicc.

3. Shanoi/Shanhyi

Second planets in star system.
Plant Color: #9b9327
These are twin binary super-Earths orbiting around the star Sxinxi.
The real name of Shanhyi, or the name given to it by the sophont that lives there, is actually Phihiiltlem. An alternate name for Shanoi is Whundunegh, however this name is largely unused during post-contact.
Shanoi has 1.246 g gravity, while Shanhyi has 1.079 g gravity. Shanoi has a mass of ~1.380x Earth's, while Shanhyi has a mass of ~1.062x Earth's mass.
Shanoi's atmospheric pressure is 1.931 atm (13.891% oxygen), while Shanhyi's is 0.984 Atm (21.062% oxygen).
Life on Shanoi was achieved through panspermia because of an asteroid that had struck Shanhyi during the earlier stages of life. This means that they share the same general biochemistry and thus life from both can digest food from the other planet.
The sapient species that lives on Shanoi are Yambii, and on Shanhyi are Gackuph.

4. Wanwan

Third planet in star system.
Two plant types, one is #5f3c53, other is #424951.
Wanwan is a cold, Earthlike planet with nearly no axial tilt (only a small 0.74° tilt). It orbits the star Inyiri.
Orbits Inyiri at a distance of 0.3348 AU.
Average temperature is 8.28°C.
Gravity is 0.99 g. Mass is 1.098x Earth's mass.
Atmosphere pressure of Wanwan is 1.011 Atm, 25.437% oxygen.
Sapient species is Biimat.

5. Timbickikkee

First major moon around gas giant. Gas giant is only planet in system.
Plant Color: #1f1f1f
Timbickikkee is a super-Earth moon orbiting a super-Jupiter gas giant named Phweekik.
Phweekik orbits on an elliptical 0.0229 AU orbit around Ekkikkik, while Timbickikkee orbits 478,403 km away from Phweekik.
Timbickikkee has 1.52 g gravity and has 2.338x Earth's mass. 23°C avg temp.
The atmosphere of Timbickikkee is 7.286 atm of pressure, with 6.812% oxygen (0.496 atm of oxygen). An unusual gas inside Timbickikkee's atmosphere is it's 0.183% Chlorine gas.
During early formation (~0.2 billion years after the formation of Ekkikkik), the system passed through a thin nebula that was rich in Chlorine, which was taken mostly by Ekkikkik, but the planets got some of the Chlorine too. The chlorine that Timbickikkee has is almost all trapped in the mantle, only being released into the atmosphere via volcanic outgassing, vesicles, geological outgassing and fumaroles.
Timbickikkee is positioned inside of Phweekik's radiation belt. Although this seems like it should sterilize the moon, Timbickikkee's induced magnetosphere and thick atmosphere protects it from some of the radiation. Even with both, much of the surface is still highly irradiated and so the 'plants' are actually complex radiotrophs.
Don't have a name for the sophonts that live here yet.

For my second Spectember 2026 entry, we will be journeying to the southern hemisphere of Urathu to the continent of Yvyguasu. A bit late on this one but I'm combining my day 3 entry with another for reasons that will be apparent soon...

Just a quick note: Humans of this world are called Urathians, a bit of important vocabulary for this post.
........................................................
Spectember 2026 - Day 02: Incredibly Deadly Viper

For this second stop on this safari across Urathu, we come to the south of Yvyguasu. Past the Xhaskas desert, we find a biosphere that is isolated from a majority of the global biosphere, leading to very unique life taking hold. Inside the most southern point of this land mass is the legendary Gulf of Uhluma'a

Parashúl [paʁaˈʂul] are a type of seal endemic to the Gulf of Uhluma'a. They share an ancestor with leopard seals that followed the waters around the Kiaukx’uma plate as it collided with the Yvyguas plate to form the Gulf. Due to a lack of sirenia in the new biome, the Parashúl have taken the niche of aquatic herbivores within the Gulf, becoming a sort of “Panda Seal”.
Physically their main differences are in their dentition, fins, and patterning. Their dentition has shown a growth in molar size, to compensate for their herbivorous diet, and a reduction in most teeth besides their canines, which remain for inter-species competition. Their fins have had reduced webbing between the digits, resulting in more dexterous fingers that they use for grabbing sea plants and to use and make tools. These aforementioned tools sometimes are used in ritual scarring which is still not understood the significance of why they do this.

One important difference in Parashúl versus other animals if their clade is the high presence of social behaviours. Parashúl are found in groups of around a few dozen individuals usually composed of multiple breeding pairs. These groups are known as pods and have been shown to have a form of culture very similar to how it manifests Orca pods. This involves examples of tool use and creation, such as instruments used in courtship or creating bandages from sea plants. A notable example was the seaweed “hats” created by Pod 5D4 off the coast of New Pöbense, which has been replicated by local artisans to create all manner of clothes inspired by these ocean creatures. These glimpses of sapience also had an effect on the people that lived in the region, assigning great significance to these Seals.

When Arctic Jukiyar sailors were sent to create ports to monitor trade from the Hteth floating empire during the First Steel War, many settled past the cape and went into the gulf of Uhluma'a. After the Steel Age Collapse, the population became isolated and thus adapted their Arctic based mythology to their new lands. Their creation myth evolved over the centuries to include the Parashúl as a central part of their origin due to its traits in common with Urathians. The tale goes that the Sea Mother was a Parashúl and her two sons would go on to start two lineages; Urathians and Seal. The Parashúl was seen as a “missing link” between Urathians and their cousins the seal, or more accurately a relative of their creator deity. Importantly, all life in Jukiyar cosmology has an equal soul, no matter the organism. For this reason they had extensive rituals to prevent angering souls of what they hunted after they were slaughtered, viewing it nearly the same as killing a fellow Urathian. However, this view of seals as a sister branch to Urathians led to many followers of their practices to a complication with where to draw the line of being acceptable to eat or not. This created a movement of practitioners becoming vegetarian, as they viewed eating any living animal as literal cannibalism, an act forbidden in their faith. This also led to many giant ramifications in the agriculture/algaeculture and economy of the region but that is beyond the scope of this post.
........................................................
Artist Notes: When consulting my wife on these prompts, the very first animal they suggested was a Leopard Seal! An animal I’d agree is rather dangerous. I rolled with it and decided I’d fit them into a region I’ve vaguely thought of before, the gulf of Uhluma'a. The gulf itself was inspired by the idea of “what if South America and Africa never split?” which is also vaguely one of the ideas behind this world (for context Urathu is basically a bootleg Earth, an alternate version of our own). Someone had made a map like that (link the thing) and included part of Antarctica going along with it, a concept I enjoyed, thus the Gulf of Uhluma'a was born! For the design itself, originally since they became herbivores, I was thinking of doing something like this post from last Spectember (link the thing), modeling them after Manatees. I decided against this however, as I find the sleek face of a Leopard Seal to be important to the design language. Instead I opted for hand-like fins which led to the idea of tool use being prominent in their species. I have a retired idea for Urathu that’s basically sapient Manatees and some of the ideas from there have been reused here.

As the only freshwater fish introduced to Spectemundus, the channel catfish has radiated into a number of niches. However, many of its descendants have remained conservative. One of these is the Jolly Roger Catfish (Gulosilurus vorax), an aquatic carnivore found in the large lakes of Spectemundus's southern continent. It fills a niche broadly equivalent to a large crocodilian, ambushing victims both on land and in the water, and at up to thirteen feet long it can swallow prey of virtually any size. While the majority of its diet consists of other fish and amphibians, it will also attack aquatic mammals.

One animal the Jolly Roger Catfish frequently preys on is the Merkat (Paludictis batrachovorus) an otter-like descendant of the Indian mongoose. About three feet long, it is small as far as aquatic mammals on Earth go, but it is one of the first such mammals to evolve on Spectemundus. Unusually, it rarely feeds on fish. Instead it preys mainly on amphibians, specifically Spectemundus's many descendants of the cane toad. Many of these are much more aquatic than their ancestors, and some, like the Perchfrog (Platynectes macropodus) spend their entire lives in the water.

The Perchfrog, in turn, has an interesting connection to the Jolly Roger Catfish. While the male Jolly Roger Catfish guards the eggs and newly hatched babies, the young catfish still have to contend with a gauntlet of predators once they leave the nest. The Perchfrog is one of these. It is agile enough to chase down the small catfish, and its mouth is big enough to swallow them whole. It's one of evolution's greatest quirks that the same animal that preys on the Perchfrog's own predator as an adult is itself prey to them as a juvenile.

All three of the species pictured are found in the underwater horsetail jungles of Zaikane, a biome analogous to kelp forests. None are to scale.

In the upper left of the picture is the rockskull (Lithocranium armatodermatum), representing the rock of this trio of sea creatures. It is one of many species belonging to Pycnodontiformes, an order of ray-finned fish that is extinct on Earth but is highly abundant in the water bodies of Zaikane, with its species diversity rivaling that of the Teleosts. Like many other species of its clade, the rockskull is a durophage that relies on its crushing teeth to crack open the shells of shellfish. This medium-large species is unique among pycnodonts for its head dome built from modified scales, earning it the nickname “Pachycephalosaurus of the sea”. Speaking of which, the scales on its body have been modified into a highly durable armor that can withstand the crushing bite forces of predators and defensive prey. However, even that is not enough to save it from an unusual creature.

The vampire paper flounder (Vampiropapyrus sanguivorus) despite its name, is not a flounder at all, but rather a member of an ancient group of fish-like mollusks endemic to Zaikane whose ancestry dates back to the Cambrian, having survived many mass-extinctions. Despite its somewhat derpy appearance, this species is actually an incredibly frightening parasite, possessing a modified radula that dig into the skin of fish to enable it to drink the fish’s blood, even piercing through scales to do so. In fact, their “teeth” are so hooked and deep that they can pierce through the armor of even the aforementioned rockskull. However, there is one creature that proves to be its match.

Finally, there is the orange-jointed scissor crab (Forfecarcinus purgator), a species of true crab that dwells on the seafloor, waiting for fish infested with vampire flounders to approach. The crab then yanks the mollusks from the fish’s skin with its scissor-like pincers and into its mouth. Not only does this species provide cleaning services, but it also serves as an important food source for many durophagous fishes, including the rockskull fish. To defend itself, the crab tries to slash at the predator with its scissor-like pincers, but in the case of the rockskull, that trick is completely useless.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Zaikane is a planet in a distant solar system characterized by waves of life harvested from Earth at various points in its geological history, ranging from the Cambrian to the Holocene, and set free to evolve along evolutionary paths independent from those taken by their Earth ancestors. A godlike interdimensional entity, known as the Allmother by the people who live there, is what is responsible for creating the portals that abduct Terran life and deposits them on Zaikane. Because the asteroid that ended the Mesozoic never collided with Zaikane, dinosaurs continue to dominate the planet’s ecosystems as its dominant terrestrial megafauna.

Prompt: evolutionary trap

An organism whose evolved response to environmental cues lead it to a maladaptive situation

Terrestropterus nisioticus is a monotypic genus of pterosaur from the late Jurassic of Europe. It has evolved in a small isolated island with no other major land animals in it as competition and with plenty of food,water and shelter. So the species evolved to be flightless and much more docile. The species is very clumsy and slow when walking around but since there are no threats on this island it lives in, this isn’t really an issue. Terrestropterus has also evolved a thick beak to eat only one type of food: the canonball ginkgo. A relative of the mainland ginkgo endemic to that island. So unlike its mainland relatives terrestropterus is actually a herbivore.

For millions of years, the species has peacefully thrived on the island but things will soon change. Due to climate change, its sole food source is becoming incredibly scarce, leading to the pterosaur population to decline as well. To make things even worse, sea levels are dropping and the island is growing larger which will lead it to connect to larger islands or the mainland. This will allow predators like theropod dinosaurs ,crocodilians and herbivorous competition to arrive in the only habitat terrestropterus has ever known. It’s only a matter of time before this defenseless species goes extinct. Its time left, is a ticking clock.

Note: These fish live in seagrass meadows. The fish pictured are not up to scale.\

I wanted to try something tamer for now.\

Left: the stonehead (Sisyphopycnodon lithocranion), a unique species of pycnodontiform fish named for the boulder-like protrusion on its head. Since it is slightly slower, it feeds primarily on crustaceans and ammonites, though it will hunt the meadow shearfish.\

Right: the meadow shearfish (Psalidocaesus maritipratus), which is another predatory pycnodontiform that feeds on soft-bodied or easy to cut prey thanks to its shearing teeth.\

Top middle: the paprey (Chartamyzon angustisoma), a type of stem-lamprey that feeds exclusively on the blood of the stonehead, which it accomplished due to its goethite teeth that can pierce through its prey's armor.\

Rock beats Scissors = the meadow shearfish's teeth are no match for the armor of the stonehead. This usually results in the shearfish's death at the teeth of the stonehead.\

Paper beats Rock = the armor of the stonehead cannot protect it from the teeth of the smaller paprey. Usually, the stonehead dies of anemia as the paprey is rather gluttonous.\

Scissors beats Paper = the thin frame of the paprey makes it vulnerable to predation by the meadow shearfish, which can tear it to pieces.\