u/RedMagicUltra

this post specifically looks really interesting to me with all the freaky islanders. i'll let someone else do all the other posts

okay, so basically everything from the hothouse age was just released today. that means we're finally getting some more final stretch stuff soon

Waiter, oh waiter! More Pangeacene posts, please!

210 MPE

Temperate Forests (Stehvlandea)

~~~

The once green woods have begun to fade to gold and brown as a hot, sunny summer turns to damp, dreary autumn. The birds who can do so, those with wings or long legs, begin to consider migration about this time each year: many will avoid winter altogether by traveling north to greener climates. But not all can go - some must call the temperate forests their home all year round, not just in their midsummer's prime but through their coldest, darker days as well. Sniffling along in the thick forest underbrush, the socksnout is named for the curious appearance of its featherless snout, resembling a limp sock puppet as it flops along with every step it takes. It is a small and stocky bird, entirely wingless and entirely ill-quipped either to run or to fly far away. It is busy preparing for a winter it must endure. To survive it, it must fatten up on anything it can find. With the breeding season past, and any young born now independent, a ravenous appetite now drives its daily activities.

It wakes near dawn and dusk, when the light is dim and its poor eyesight is of less consequence, to sniff out insects and worms, nuts and fallen fruit, and perhaps the last and latest nests of birds' eggs with its keen nose and a snout covered with slithering, sensitive appendages that resemble small tentacles. It is a rhyncheirid bird, a descendant of the "water" snuffle, but it is now far removed from its swimming ancestor and spends practically all of its time on dry land. It retains abilities from its precursor, though, such as the capacity to detect with its nerve-rich snout the faint electrical signals made by its prey as it moves. A wet substrate conducts electricity better than a dry one, and so it hunts most effectively in damp soil and leaf litter - it is most active of all during or just after rain, and durin droughts will still return to ponds and streams and hunt in their margins. In the middle of night and at high noon, it returns to its burrow and naps, sleeping twice each day, and so reduces its time spent active while many larger predators of both diurnal and nocturnal habits are out. Though it eats mostly invertebrates and some plant matter, occasionally the socksnout becomes a predator itself, pouncing on smaller animals like tribbets and fledgling birds not yet learned to fly. It crudely chews large morsels in its hard, duck-like beak that is hidden beneath soft tissues when the mouth is closed, but lacks any skill at this endeavor, and its jaws only open and close, crushing its prey but not effectively dismembering it. It is swallowed battered but still intact, and to help digest this as well other hard foods like nuts and snail shells, the socksnout often swallows gravel and stones as gastroliths to help break up food in its gizzard.

When the last leaves fall from the trees in the coming weeks and snow covers the woodland in a silent blanket, the fattened socksnout will retire underground and rest. It will enter a torpor-like state, not quite hibernation but not far from it, for days or weeks at a time to conserve energy, and its body temperature will dip to just a few degrees above freezing each time. On warmer days, it will sometimes wake up and leave the burrow, searching for a midwinter's snack, but for the most part it will spend the cold seasons quiet and largely hidden from view. Winter at this latitude is now cold, but still not extremely long. In a couple of months, the trees will begin to bud again, and a new season will arrive bringing new challenges and goals for the little socksnout. Mating season occurs before the last snow has thawed, and the males - like this one - must be at the lekking grounds before the girls arrive to claim good locations to whistle their love-songs and stomp and dance to catch the eye of a mate. Pairs will form for only a short time, abandoning usually solitary lives for just long enough to ensure the survival of two or three small, fast-growing chicks who will go off on their own by the end of summer. And then the couples, too, return to their own quiet burrows.

And so it goes, year after year, seemingly the same. But the world around them is always changing, if too slow for any one of them to ever notice.

And the socksnouts, little by little, will be changed by it just as well...

A fun mixture of threatening, cool, and weird monster designs. They're also regular people (and villains) that used USBs containing the Earth's memories as family-friendly super-drugs to transform into monsters. Great show.

Shimomura probably just thought it would be funny to have a random Kirby imposter in the game tbh

I've only finished Gundam 0079 (TV series still holds up very well btw) so far but I'm amused by how weirdly stubby this mecha is compared to basically everything else. A lot of people will probably disagree with me but I really like the show's mixture of real and super robot designs. Zakrello is peak mecha design.

i like that they serve to retain the setting's earthly familiarity even when every other birds are becoming stranger than ever.

As typical for any media with Akira Toriyama as the main artist, the robots are superb. The franchise still remains 95% fantasy RPG themed and that's what makes these guys all the more memorable when they do actually appear. Gotta love the mix of medieval and sci fi elements in these designs.

Fun Facts: The fairyfly (Mymaridae) family has about 1400 species and can be found everywhere. All the known species are believed to be parasitoid, targeting other insect eggs. Kikiki huna is found in Hawaii, Costa Rica, Nagercoil (India), and Trinidad.

Believe it or not, this species isn't even considered the smallest insect ever. That honor belongs to Dicopomorpha echmepterygis, which is also a fairyfly. The average males are only about 0.139 mm (0.0055 inches) long. To put things in perspective, this is enough to make the males (the females are much bigger) even smaller than a Paramecium amoeba.

What the hell, man.

For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kikiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairyfly

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicopomorpha_echmepterygis

DESCRIPTION FOR IMAGE 1: It has been a hard night out for one luckless blubbering beachblob, a species of oceanic burdle which normally comes to land only to lay and brood its eggs. But the nesting season ended two months ago. It is not normal for her kind to still be hauling out at this time of the year; the huge, crested males that guarded the coast have gone, and with them has left all semblance of safety for the dainty, plain females like her. But this female was recently wounded by some sharp-mandibled monster of the undersea, a hunter that she just barely slipped from the jaws off, escaping with a series of deep, bloody gashes along her left side that cut through her body fat and directly into the muscle of her abdomen. Several days have passed, and her wound has now become infected. Every movement now is painful, and too tired to swim any longer, tonight she has washed ashore to try to gain some rest on the fringes of a finguin nesting colony. Her stay could only be a brief one in the best of times - the sunrise will quiet the raucous shrieks of the bickering tribbat couples as they come and go from their burrows hidden in the beach grass, and all life will need to retreat either underground or below the water by midmorning to avoid the deadly radiation of the angry sun.

But tonight, the wayward burdle will not get much rest at all, for as she lays prostrate, her face down in the sand, her lack of strength has not gone unnoticed. She has been spotted. High above, in a sky pitch black below the nightly storm clouds, a small, dark bird flutters by on pointed wings, and its eye falls upon her. Unknown and unseen, the scout then swiftly careens around in a circle, and returns in the direction from which it came at a hastened pace.

Minutes later, the burdle is awakened from a drowsy semi-conscious state by the fluttering of wings around her and a jabbing, irritating poking on her backside. She turns and bellows, her undulating call like a deep, sad sobbing, and the little brown bird, no larger than a seagull, flies up off of her back and circles back into the dark sky. She then lays back down, closes her eyes, and begins to drift into an uneasy sleep, when she is bothered again by fluttering. Now two of the birds have alighted nearby her, and attempt to snap at her hind feet with vicious, hooked jaws. They are already more confident together than the first was alone, and her bellows do not disturb them any more, only causing them to step quickly a few feet away into the shadows, and to return the moment she lays her head again. Worse - another one, and another, and then still more begin to arrive and drop down onto the sand beside them. Soon she is surrounded by bothersome, nipping birds, which become louder with each joining individual, filling the night air with shrill screams that carry even beyond the constant chattering din of the finguins all around her.

It is not long before the swarm of birds are emboldened enough to begin attacking the helpless beachblob, and now there are simply too many to keep them at bay. She stands and tries to face her assailants, but they are far too fast and agile, and always avoid her snapping beak. The small ones jump onto her back and rip strips of necrotic skin from around her lacerations first, but progress to gouging out beak-fulls of muscle meat from deep down inside, a sensation like being sliced apart with hot knives. She realizes now that the first birds, which were strong fliers, have been joined by slightly larger, more powerful ones that run circles around her and lash her with their jaws, producing new wounds that the little ones flock to drink the blood from. Then, as she struggles against the growing tide with all she has, a single, even larger demon emerges from the darkness; too big to fly, its feathered wings hang in useless tatters as it runs toward her. It is a teenager, with all the violent enthusiasm of its young siblings, but much more power behind it. It rushes her, causing its fellows to move aside, and immediately begins ripping flesh from her still-living body in long, gory strips. This is the last new arrival she sees, however, for by now the smaller birds have successfully latched onto her head and begun to blind her, gnawing her eyes from her sockets. Her wails by now have captured the attention of the tribbats all around her, which fall quiet, but do not flee down their burrows, for they know now that they are safe. Their night terror, which might come for them any other night, will on this dark evening be satiated on a different prey.

As at last the adult grasps arrive at the kill site from their roost in a rocky hillside over two miles inland, the finguins watch on with morbid curiosity, but no fear. For they know that after this feast, these predators will not need to target another for several days. Having been alerted of an easy target by their scout, they followed the raucous calls of their youngest offspring down the beach to deliver the final killing blows to their victim, already partly dismembered, but not yet killed, for the bites of the younger grasps are too shallow to cause immediately fatal wounds. Approaching slow and methodical compared to their eager children, the adults get to work with an experienced efficiency. Cutting deep into the throat of the dying burdle and severing her windpipe before they join in the meal, the grasps end her suffering at last. By dawn, what remains of her will be hauled back up the beach and down below the earth in their dens, and the sun will scorch a beach silent and vacant... until the night falls again, and this hellish world is re-animated with the hardiest and most ruthless of lifeforms that still call it their home.

DESCRIPTION FOR IMAGE 2: The grasp is a descendant of the jumping jaggedjaw which has survived the extinction of the southern tropical forests thanks to a high degree of behavioral adaptability, and some unique physical traits that accompany it. Grasps are named for their pincer-like forearms, with opposable grasping hands formed by the wing claw and the rest of the wrist. The "palm' of this novel hand is lined with keratin spines that evolved in the earlier species to aid in climbing trees. Now, they are used to snatch, hold, and carry large prey. Fleeing the cold that has spread over the polar regions, the grasp has migrated north to the equator, which is now seared by harsh daytime sunlight and soaring temperatures with relief coming only after dark, when temperatures become cool, but the temperature swings bring strong winds and fierce storms.

Without large trees to live in, the grasp has adopted a ground-dwelling lifestyle. It is heavier and more robust than its ancestor, stronger but slower, with a larger skull and proportions very similar to the earlier ruffed rasp, which also spent much of its time on the ground. Grasps are completely nocturnal and lack adaptations to endure prolonged sun exposure, instead avoiding the sun completely in high caves within seaside cliffs or in earthen dens it digs out deep below ground, and only emerges after dark to hunt. It now preys mostly upon marine life that is sustained by the salty, shallow ocean but which must come ashore to breed, species like finguins and beachblobs - huge, aggressive sea burdles. The grasp emerges from cover by night like a vampire, fearing the light, and striking its victims by surprise, ripping them from their fellows and dragging them upland and back to their dens to feed. The adult grasp has lost most of its body plumage, including its wing feathers, as an adaptation to reduce external parasite loads and keep itself cleaner as it feeds deep inside large, bloody carcasses and generally lives in a dirty, unkempt environment - both the nesting colonies it hunts in, and its own dens, are filled with droppings and decaying carcasses. Rarely concerned with hygiene, the grasp does not typically preen itself or bathe in water, and marks its territory with oily skin secretions that it wipes onto rocks and other markers in its environment.

The grasp is social, more so than any other rasp, and lives in packs comprised of monogamous adult pairs and a number of immature juvenile offspring which live in an unusual, cooperative symbiosis despite the very different appearance and abilities of each life stage. Adult males and females form couples and practice parental care, feeding and nurturing multiple chicks within their dens and even making efforts to keep them apart, as they grow larger, to prevent cannibalism in their larval stages. Unlike most flickbills - but mirroring some of their other relatives, scarreots, that they coexist with along the coasts - grasps continue to guard their young as they pupate, and the juveniles don't disperse after emerging from their pupa, but instead imprint on their parents and continue to roost in the den. Though they can fly, with long feathered wings, they feed mostly on the kills made by the adults, and so can grow quickly and eat more than they could acquire on their own. But the parent grasps don't only nurture their young - juveniles also return the favor and help their parents to survive by leaving the den first at sunset and scouting the territory to locate the most vulnerable animals to hunt. These roving bands of juveniles will even strike on their own and gouge out the eyes of some animals to render them helpless, so that they become disoriented and cannot defend themselves when the adult rasps are led back to finish the job later in the night. These behaviors may seem monstrous, and to their prey, they surely are. But to the grasp, this behavioral innovation and complex sociality is the key to survival in a difficult situation where already, most who once lived among their ancestors have fallen to extinction.

It's probably because he's pretty un-extraordinary for a temporary party member but like, literally everyone else gets a name that sounds either fantastical or close enough. Though according to the wiki, his original name was apparently "Hofuman." Probably a pun on something else.

Anyway, Alena best girl.

Fun Facts: After the war (1418-1428) has ended, the emperor was boating on the lake and the Golden Turtle God had requested him to return the sword. The emperor agreed and thus, the lake was renamed from Lục Thủy (Green Water) to Hoàn Kiếm (Lake of The Returned Sword). At least, that's how the legend goes.

These days, the Hoàn Kiếm turtle is usually not considered to be a valid species. Rather, most biologists have suggested that it's actually an isolated population of Yangtze giant softshell turtles (Rafetus swinhoei).

As a Vietnamese guy, I know about the turtle's importance but I've never actually seen it in person. This is probably because the turtle population is probably extinct by now. The relatively shallow lake has suffered heavy pollution and the turtle's usual spot for burying their eggs were almost entirely paved over with cement. The last living turtle that was documented, died on January 26, 2016.

For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoan_Kiem_turtle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho%C3%A0n_Ki%E1%BA%BFm_Lake

https://saigoneer.com/natural-selection/26172-the-ugly-truth-of-the-life-and-impending-demise-of-the-ho%C3%A0n-ki%E1%BA%BFm-turtle

https://www.thenotsoinnocentsabroad.com/blog/the-legend-of-hoan-kiem-lake-in-the-hanoi-old-quarter

Fun Facts: A relict population is a population of certain species that used to inhabit a greater range. The relict leopard frog is an example.

A relict taxon (basically another way to call a group of organisms) refers to the sole survivors of a formerly diverse group. The tuatara is an example.

This species is currently classified as endangered. Like many amphibians, it is threatened by habitat loss and invasive species. Other than that, it isn't admittedly too interesting to look at.

For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relict_leopard_frog

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relict_(biology)

https://www.nps.gov/lake/learn/nature/relict-leopard-frog.htm