Goldeen and Seaking

 With short, round bodies and long fins, these unusual cichlids are commonly found in coastal river basins, ranging from slightly brackish streams to inland wetlands, slow flowing rivers, and lakes, where they feed mainly on invertebrates and small fishes. Adults are often solitary or rarely seen in loose schools, while juveniles form large swarms in shallow vegetated waters.

The largest species in the genus, C. rex, differs from the typical short and round body plan by having a more elongated shape and reaching nearly twice the size of its relatives. During the mating season, it develops an intense red coloration with black splotches and a white nuchal hump. These fishes also possess strong teeth used both in fights and for a more durophagous diet of crustaceans and mollusks. The more typical morphology is seen in C. aurea, in which males display a cream-colored body with peach splotches, a smaller hump, and bright blue eyes.

The Ceratochromis are often sought after by aquarists due to their coloration and behavior, with individuals capable of recognizing and interacting with their keepers. A few derived varieties selected by specialized breeders vary in color, body shape, and fin length, and hybrids are a slow—but growing—trend within the hobby. Within their native range, they are also targeted by local fishermen, making them a common sight in fish markets.

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Creative notes: seaking was one of my first real Pokémon done back in 2021(?), but never got an updated version (until now)! The idea of a nuchal hump was one of the many solutions to avoid the single horn since many gen 1 pokémon have it (arcanine, dragonite, seaking, dewgong, nidos, rapidash…) and I plant to go on different routs on each of them.

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For the next week Cryogonal and maybe some other guys with it!

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See also: Venusaur and its line; Houndoom and Houndour; Paras and Parasect; Reuniclus and its line

Arxaosuchus is a genus of Prepaleoedenian-Paleoedenian semi-aquatic crocodylomorph that lived in the Caracaian Islands from 60-53 MYA. Weighing in at about half a ton,or 1100 lbs,these reptiles could not run that far and could only catch prey if one got too close,Meaning they ambush their prey. Baby Arxaosuchus are kept in areas close to water for moisture,When they hatch,The mother is highly attentive while the father sets off a journey to find as much food as possible for their health. Mothers scoop them on their mouths to keep them safe from threats into the water.

Bombiterra is a low gravity planet, roughly the size of mars, aka 13% bigger. Bombiterra's atmosphere is incredibly similar to earth's, except with higher amounts of nitrogen and oxygen, plus the larger amounts of h20 in the atmostphere and from the ocean,making the planet significantly humid. With only medium-sized, small and tiny landmasses, there aren't enough adequately sized continents, forcing terrestrial organisms to not grow too large both in population and sizes.

All animals on Bombiterra belongs in a kingdom yet to be scientifically named called Bombia, which consists of amoeba-like organisms to simple ciliates and radial disc-like organisms. A few billion years passed, and bombian cellular organisms learned to group together into a cluster as living together in groups multiplies the chance of surviving, and soon evolved into multicellular organism.

Phylum Leptoriza, Aplostoma and Ctenozoa are significant phylum present on Bombiterra, which would consist of dominant land multicellular life and 60% of aquatic life.

Leptoriza is a phylum consisting of the dominant plant and fungi analogues, and radial worm-like animals. They're fairly a simple phylum, albeit a young clade that existed prematurely, only existing in early Peiramatikocene, before the first beaked fishes existed on Bombiterra, and green algae developing a symbiotic relationship with sessile leptorizan worms that would eventually lead to true plants, aka the Symplegmaphytes. Vermiformes are derived from basal leptorizans, usually staying radial or evolve adaptations that would force them to become bilateral. They usually inhabit wet areas, aquatic environment, and the underground, being very simple animals that doesn't need excessive adaptation unless a significant shift in the environment forced them to. Although there's already terrestrial vermiforms, aquatic Bipterygian worm larvae possess gliding rays and powerful tail muscles to spring out of the water, taking flight to escape predators. Eventually, these aquatic worms undergo neoteny and became air-breathing flyers, filling in flying insect niches in the middle Terracene, with larger more bird-like terrestrial group following up in late Eozoic.

The Osteofokia (critter, creature, bomblet, or goober as nicknames,) belongs in the phylum Aplostoma, chordate analogues on Bombiterra, and as you may see on the image already, the bomblet is a terrestrial vertebrate analogue. Their skeletal structure, unlike tetrapods', are made up of plates like placoderms. And the only type of rod-shaped bones present are the back legs' limb bones, and their ribs running down to their thorax to their tail. Their "eyeballs" are plated eye bones with a hole in the middle covered in enamel derived from sclerotic rings in their fish ancestor alongside ring-shaped muscles around the eye bones change the direction of the eye by retracting and expanding each one, rotating the eyes around like actual vertebrate eyeballs. The actual eyes, encased inside the eye bones, are tube-shaped ocelli that can't move independently on it's own, so their highly derived sclerotic rings to the work of eye motion. Strangely enough, their leg structures are extremely different from each other, mainly because their front legs are made up of bone plates and feather-shaped feet structures derived from their aquatic ancestor's only front fins, and their back legs are one toed, and the structure is uncannily similar to tetrapod limb bones, for the exceptions of digits and zeugopods, replaced by a new structure called deuteropod and an adigitipod. The truth behind the 2 types of limbs is that their fish counterpart, the Rhamphocetaceans, only has a single pair of fins, being ray fins. On their tail, however, are tail flukes, with 3 bony parts, and rays of cartilage sticking out along the tissues and flesh to hold the structure together. Most of these fishes are shrimp-like or dolphin-like, but their bony flukes would be a significant reason why bomblets even have 2 pair of legs in the first place, as their transitional land ancestor, the Ambulofokia, turned their flukes into limbs that looks oddly similar to chicken wings. Although they are lucky enough to have an extra pair of limbs, the obvious downside is still present, being the fact that their back legs doesn't have any digits to specialize further, so most bomblets use the vestigial cartilage rays as toes when evolving digitigrade limbs. All bony aplostomes possesses thin sensory hairs that runs from their face to their back and thorax except their limbs and stomach, and terrestrial clades repurposed these sensory hair as hearing organs for detecting noise, with some clades enlarging these hairs into extra appendages like antennaes, mandibles and extra limbs. All bony aplostomes possess 4 pairs of spiracles located at the middle of their tail/torso, and in rhamphocetaceans, they swim very similarly to cetaceans and shrimps, which boosts the amount of air taken into their body, allowing them to outgrow their usual size limit, which the ambulofokians, the predecessor to osteofokians, have evolved breathing muscles to be able to manually breathe and stay in place instead of needing to constantly swimming to take in oxygen. Tentaclopods, mobile neotenous tentaclobrachids, are ancient lobopod-like ancestors of swimming rhamphocetacean, their mouth possessing a single lip-like structure with a cartilage extension of their mouth at the top. And rhamphocetaceans modified their lip into a finger-like appendage with digit bones and a beak at the tip that they use to feed, which pretty much is an extendable jaw. The beak jaw follows up to bomblets, and is now tucked neatly near their throat, with the first bone being short and Y shaped like a thin jaw, designed to move the second bone forward, which the second one being long enough to shoot out to targets by moving up or down slightly and hook it up. Most bomblet descendants specialize their beak jaw movement patterns and shape for specific adaptations.

Usually when an organism is asymmetrical or proportionally varying, it mostly lands on sessile or slow moving organisms like plants, bivalves, and snails. But Bombiterra has a phylum that breaks the rule, kinda. Ctenozoa is a phylum that crosses between the line of plant, fungi, and animals, mainly due to how they grow and form. Basal ctenozoans are round swimmers with multiple cilliates, pores that absorb nutrients and release gametes, and a clusters of simple gill follicles at their back. Ctenozoans grows like plants that has nowhere to hold its body on, so it has no specific symmetry, only structure, so their larvae resembles a blob with a single tail before maturing, with their body developing more structures and a slight change to their structure, but are deformed enough to be able to individually tell them apart from each other, unless if there's too many individuals to work with. The ptilopods specialized their gills further, and turned them into feather-shaped tails. Developing a mouth and stomach derived from one of their pore will allow them to eat instead of absorbing nutrients in, and fortunately lost the pore's gametangia in the process. The reproductive and breathing pores come in pairs placed asymmetrically, usually having 4 - 16 pairs for the breathing pores, and 3 - 6 pairs for the reproductive pores. Soon, 2 new clades branch off ptilopoda, the first being monoformes, free swimming ptilopods with a torpedo-shaped body to slice through the water, and broader feather-tails. Their photoreceptive cell patches on their body splits into 2 eyes, which allows them to simply detect light and "see". This group eventually evolved into terrestrial insect-analogues named leptopodia (doodlebugs, stickmen or thinmens as nicknames,) turning their tail into a many-legged stickbug-like body called a morphocaudate. Due to their plant-like physiology, they can have different heights, amounts of legs, amounts of pores, and the direction of where their morphocaudate is turned at, allowing them to quickly develop multiple legs without complications of not being able to turn the tails horizontally. The second group that branched off of ptilopods are polyformes, colonial siphonophore-like ptilopods that, without a doubt, has the most diverse clades ever in general, due to one key factor that allowed them to specialize and turn into a very weird group, their reproductive pores. In polyformes, a single zooid, specifically basal ones, possess 2 types of pores that produces different types of cells. The first one is the reproductive cells, which their specialized tube systems that connects to all the pores allows them to transport and create a new zooid at any direction. The second one has a modified gland, which produces tissues for holding the entire colony together. But due to their physical plasticity, they can specialize and modify their glands for different purposes, for example, the stomach zooid fold's it's body inside out into a sealed taco shape, and the pores inside the stomach can secrete digestive acid and absorb the nutrients into their tube systems and share it to the entire colony. Some species, like the Swabbie o' Sail, a polyform with an appearance almost identical to a sail boat, but it gets obvious that this is an animal by looking underwater. Multiple swimming tail zooid and long feeding zooids keeps the colony alive and moving, with the sail helping it move along the ocean and collect any scraps or organism that gets tangled in their dangerous vines. The land is a much more special place for polyforms to evolve on, as the next clade is going into the ground zone. Aslyidatheres (chainmen, clustermen, or toybeasts as nicknames,) are terrestrial polyforms that gets the weirdest in polyformes history. Since much more niches and specializations are available, plus the low gravity, they quickly adopt extremely strange forms such as flying forms, browsing forms, serpentine forms, and even aircraft-like forms that glide through the air. Their zooids gained a third type of gland, bone gland, which produces a tree resin-like goo that hardens into resin-colored bones inbetween zooids and tissues.

Been building a sandbox OSR for people who enjoy the weirdness and raw energy of the Borg scene but want a more open-ended exploration experience.

STONEPUNK focuses heavily on:

• surviving a strange world
• uncovering ever stranger locations
• faction-driven sandbox play
• procedural encounters
• long-form emergent campaigns

Less scripted adventure paths.
More dangerous exploration and player-driven stories.

The site finally launched today (wohooo!).

Still rough around the edges and deep in development, but Early Access is now open for anyone interested in following the project closely, accessing the beta manuscript, and helping support the experiment while it grows.

https://stonepunkrpg.com/

>The snake lunges at the air filtering bird. They are in a high speed chase. The snake has low usuals of energy, but the bird is fluttering in many beats.

At the end Holocene, the Ural was flooded with mud, creating dense, nutrient wood. In this era, plants have consumed the area. Greenwood ferns are giant gymnosperms which has overgrown the muddy landscape. leaping on the branches, you will find a peculiar sight. A snake, with arms. How did THIS thing evolve. Here’s how.

The slender monkey (Tegiserpens Paridoxicus) is a medium pythomorph which lived in the mid Calderan and went extinct in the Frigicene, although its descendants lived far into the Thermocene. They live in the Ural Mountains’ bog, Siberia (Tegiserpens Paradoxicus Siberiensis) and parts of Canada (Tegiserpens Americanus), basically in the northern hemisphere. They have long claws, prehensile tail and a strange joint.

Tegi has a strange anatomy. They evolved legs from pelvic spurs. If you do not know what these are — the Python Regis (royal python) has reminence of hind legs. They are not connected to the main skeleton, and this is how they evolved the strange joint. It can turn nearly 480 degrees to grab onto higher branches and swing like a monkey (hence the name of slender monkey and its Latin name meaning ‘strange, swinging serpent). Another very strange thing is that they are warm blooded. Most of these traits are derived from its broader class known as ‘snakes with legs’, there are many different ways snakes have used the spurs, from being like stegosaurus or being praying mantise, these are a diverse group of snakes.

I was watching through some of artifiexans video and I enjoy the way he sets up his reference documents, I was wondering if anyone knew what program was used to create this, or if there was any tutorials to do a similar thing?

A creature I designed for Subnautica 2: the Hycean! Inspired by pelagic snails like heteropods and siphonophores.

Telam Achlys

Named in Honor of the Greek Goddess who was the Personification of “The Mist of Death.”

Cell Diameter 0.4-1.5µm

Arm to Arm 0.7-2.1 µm

Arose 813 million years P.C.

Taking advantage of the low pH found in Hydrothermal fields, Achlys does not neutralize, but instead actively gathers whatever acid is present.

Like a Tai-Chi master using their attacker’s own momentum against them, Achlys uses the refined proton pumps present in its cell membrane, IBZ, and membrane threads to soak up and concentrate whatever acid is present. It then floods it’s web nets with said acid to assist in dissolving whatever prey it captures.

Favors Silica and barium biomineralization in white smoker hydrothermal fields because of relative abundance of said elements in such an environment. Fittingly favors sulfur, iron, and lithium for similar reasons in black smoker fields.

This further modifies the IBZ or Internal Buffer Zone. As previously stated, the IBZ is a cloud of

deactivation proteins and enzymes that break down anything not packaged with matching transport proteins, found only within the Jawaal lineage. Though initially serving as a line of defense against bacteriophages, this trait has been modified over time to serve as defense against a myriad of damage. Exposure to radiation experienced by the Kuayl species during the first age of Vulcanism (733 - 871 Million Years P.C.) necessitated the addition of repair enzymes in high concentration, as well as the addition of proton pumps to mitigate UV damage experienced during open air travel.

Dwelling in such highly acidic environments forces Achlys to form multiple layers of the IBZ around the native DNA, internalizing acid free web threads which are woven with the aforementioned proton pumps imbedded within said weave. Genetic repair Enzymes, Digestive/breakdown Enzymes, and deactivation proteins for non-Jawaal coded injections are circulated through the threads that form the membranous weave.

Internal Buffer Zone (IBZ) arranged in repeated layers around native genetic material.

In order to avoid dissolving their own capture threads, they are now composed of Fluoropolymers, a class of plastic known for its high tolerance to acids and composed of carbon and fluorine obtained from dissolved crust in hydrothermal fields.

Polytetrafluoroethylene Polymer ((C2F4)N), or more commonly known as Teflon (the coating that prevents burned food from sticking to the surface of your cooking pan), spirals in order to form the tubes that make up the membranous web nets which surround Achlys.

Dwelling in such environments quickens the developmental process and provides abundant ambient energy. This diminishes the need for the parent cell to package stored energy to offspring but increases the need for motility to avoid being carried out of said environment by oceanic currents. Some will use their nets to stay tethered to substrate, even dissolving rock in order to stay locked in place.

Life Cycle Proceeds as Follows:

1. Daughter cell forms and buds off from main cellular body at point between three web nets to avoid being caught and digested by parent.
2. Using stored and ambient energy to rapidly form cilia which are then used to stay tethered to hydrothermal habitat while undergoing energetically costly development of nets and spines.
3. Between six and thirty-six cilia form and begin to differentiate between spine quills and web net strands. Spine quills biomineralize using either Silica (SiO2) to form glass, or Iron Pyrite (FeS2), depending on the type of hydrothermal field Achlys dwells in.
4. Spines are hormonally influenced to form equidistant in relation to each other across the cellular body, and soft cilia align in straight lines and rows bridging the quills. This is done through the use of two hormones, a precipitate binding protein we will call “Gargoyle,” and a signal hormone which prevents the formation of spines, which we will call “Too-Close.”
5. While Gargoyle causes the precipitation and binding of dissolved minerals present in the environment, Too-Close is triggered to release from an individual cilium when it senses concentrations exceeding a certain threshold of Gargoyle. This prevents spines forming immediately next to each other and instead maintaining roughly equidistant formation.
6. Soft cilia branch and intertwine, merging at points of contact to form the net-like structure of its eventual capture webs.  Cilia which make contact with spines adhere and become encased in silica (or pyrite) due to ongoing biomineralization. This locks the strands to both cellular body at base and embeds the tip within one of said spines.
7. Upon the completion of web formation and embedding of soft cilia tips, a Gargoyle variant causes polymerization occurring on the outermost surface of each thread. In this case however, rather than silica or pyrite they become incased in Polytetrafluoroethylene ((C2F4)N) or PTFE. This is done by utilizing Fluorine present in the rocky substrate to which Achlys binds itself during its metamorphosis.
8. Proton pumps imbedded in membrane begin pumping acid into cellular body, where they are redirected by the IBZ into cilia. This acid floods the strands of the web net, dissolving most organic material within the threads, leaving only the PTFE coated semi-permeable membrane, on the outermost exterior of each thread. This is done at the cost of any motility or sensory capabilities the threads previously possessed, making them little more than filamentous water balloons of burning pain.
9. Acid begins to eat into the substrates which make up the spines, secreted out through the cilia tips imbedded within said quills. This facilitates the formation of intricate network channels connecting the separate threads.
10. Achlys frees itself from substrate and begins the motile adult phase of its life cycle.

initial diversification post

last post

Ancestral Organism

A few things with my sophont aliens that are all existing on one planet under some very special circumstances. Only 2 are shown here, sky and land uniima (uniima being a rough spelling of a specific culture's word for "person", not a taxon)

1. Sky uniima reference - an arboreal species mostly living on a large peninsula surrounded by many islands. They form smaller societies, often with subtle hierarchies. They are best known and stereotyped for their vocalisations and ability to learn a lot of different languages more easily than other sophonts.

2. Land uniima child - land uniima are only distantly related to sky uniima, but they share many traits and a continent, on which they are found on the larger mainland. Their separate environmental niches keep their societies from much overlapping.
   This graphic has a funny dandelion child.

3. An animal sometimes bred by land unii for their fun light feature. Mimic ambush hunters.

4. Sky uniima moving around.

This concept made sense in my head, but was very difficult to explain, so it took me a lot of research, which is why I took so long to post. anyways, this is likely going to be my most complex organism. I’m actually very proud of myself! didnt think I’d be able to make something like this! honestly my favorite organism out of all the ones I’ve ever made

Drill serpents:
Tricone drill shaped head. utilize massive torque to drive three independently rotating, interlocking cone-like mandibles into the substrate to pulverize rock. Instead of a single solid boring tooth, the head would feature three conical, cone-shaped mouthparts. As the serpent twists its head, the rock's resistance would cause these cones to counter-rotate. The cones would be studded with dense, ultra-hard serrations (like tungsten carbide teeth in real drills). The downward push ("weight on bit") causes the teeth to impact and shatter the rock, while the specific offset of the cones causes a gouging, scraping action that shears the rock layers apart. To generate enough "weight on bit" without fracturing its own skull, the serpent’s head capsule would require an incredibly thick, reinforced cuticle heavily mineralized with iron, zinc, or silica (similar to the hardened jaws of some leaf-cutter ants). It has specialized, hypertrophied muscle bundles anchoring to a massive cephalothorax (or large head capsule) to drive the main drill shaft. They excrete a specialized acidic or lubricative fluid to soften the rock, combined with strong muscular throat pumps to ingest or siphon the pulverized rock dust out of the borehole. the joints connecting the rotating cones to the main skull have thick, flexible articular membranes and specialized shock-absorbing ligaments to prevent self-destruction from vibration.The drill serpent would need to secrete a fast-hardening, concrete-like saliva or silk slurry. It would plaster this fluid onto the freshly drilled walls using its abdomen or rear legs to prevent cave-ins. It would require "gripper" appendages. These would be massive, hydraulic-powered lateral spikes on its thorax that lock hard into the side walls of the tunnel, providing a solid anchor so the front half of the body can push forward with maximum crushing force. The creature would need a massive respiratory system. It might actively pump air through specialized, reinforced spiracles along its sides, or spray a continuous mist of chilled, water-based metabolic waste onto the drill head to keep the tissue from cooking. In early stages of life, the creature has features that allows it to dig the fine dust and gravel out, which is why these creatures always bring groups of younger ones with them when digging, to prevent the debris from suffocating them. 

The "gripper" spikes on the thorax act exactly like the hydraulic pads of a real Tunnel Boring Machine. When extending the drill head, these spikes lock into the tunnel walls so the serpent doesn’t just push itself backward.

The thorax/head houses the hypertrophied muscle bundles and protects the vital organs from the immense pressure.

As the serpent moves forward, its elongated abdomen follows. The rear appendages (perhaps modified, paddle-like legs or spinnerets) smooth out the secreted concrete-saliva slurry, acting like a trowel to leave behind a perfectly smooth, reinforced tube.

The reinforced spiracles along its sides double as a ventilation system. As it pumps air, it forces toxic rock dust and heat backward, away from its face and toward the tunnel exit.

The younger serpents likely possess wide, shovel-like front appendages or scoop-shaped heads (which they lose as they mature into tricone adults).

They follow directly behind the parent, scoop up the heavy debris, and transport it to the surface. This creates a literal assembly line, making the Drill Serpent a devastatingly efficient ecosystem engineer.

these tunnels are basically a network of tunnels, kind of like with ants. when multiple tunnels meet, they make large caves. these caves are usually made for resting/sleep, or are places where they put their eggs, or where they mate

Their digestive tracts house highly specialized, symbiotic chemotrophic bacteria (similar to deep-sea hydrothermal vent life). These bacteria break down the crushed iron, sulfur, and copper ores siphoned up by the throat pumps, converting chemical bonds into metabolic energy. To maintain their ultra-hard, mineralized exoskeletons and carbide-like head teeth, adults absorb heavy metals directly from the rock dust. What they cannot digest is excreted as the concrete-like saliva slurry used to line the tunnel walls.

Juvenile Drill Serpents cannot yet digest raw rock, as their digestive systems and gut bacteria are still developing. Instead, they rely on a complex agricultural system within the colony. As the young clear the gravel out of the tunnels, they scrape this bio-film and fungus off the older tunnel walls. They also act as apex predators to the other animals who live in these tunnels. This fungus provides the protein and moisture needed for rapid growth, slowly inoculating their guts with the bacteria they will need to digest rock as adults.

Juveniles use their shovel-like front appendages to bury themselves in the debris piles. When an intruder falls into the tunnel, the young explode from the gravel, using sharp, scissor-like pincers (which later fuse into the tricone head) to snap up the prey.

Adults gently vibrate their tricone mandibles against the rock face without actively spinning them. They detect the returning vibrations through specialized slit sensilla (vibration-sensing organs) on their legs, creating a perfect 3D sonar map of the solid stone ahead.

The cones counter-rotate against one another

the head capsule itself twists back and forth in a 180-degree or 360-degree reciprocating arc (clockwise, then counter-clockwise). The resistance of the rock causes the individual interlocking cones to roll and spin continuously along the rock face, crushing it without twisting the internal tissue off.

Appearance:

Adults:
The tip of the head has no eyes, nose, or traditional face. Instead, it terminates in three massive, triangular, interlocking mandibles shaped like heavy Tricone Drill Bits. These cones are a metallic, dull gray-black color, heavily encrusted with rows of diamond-shaped, tungsten-carbide-like serrated teeth. When spinning, the mouth looks like a churning, metallic vortex.

Directly behind the drilling mandibles is a bulging, heavily armored head capsule. The exoskeleton here is thick, matte-black, and reinforced with a bumpy, iron-mineralized texture. It lacks external features except for a ring of deep, forward-facing sensory pits that detect vibrations.

The front third of the body is thick and muscular. On either side of this section are two pairs of massive, hydraulic-like anchoring spikes. These spikes are thick, curved, and heavily scarred from being driven repeatedly into solid granite.

The rest of the body stretches out like a massive, armored python, covered in tightly overlapping, dark iron-gray plates. 

The very end of the serpent flattens out into wide, smooth, paddle-like plates. These flat appendages are covered in a slick, secretion-resistant coating used to smear and smooth out the wet, concrete-like saliva slurry onto the tunnel walls.

Juveniles:
Unlike the adults, the young have a highly visible, wide, spade-shaped head capsule. This flat, hard shield acts as a living bulldozer scoop for pushing gravel.

While adults are completely blind, the juveniles possess small, milk-white, vestigial compound eyes on the sides of their heads

Their bodies are shorter, stubbier, and less heavily armored than the adults. Their front legs are modified into oversized, serrated, shovel-like pincers. They use these to aggressively scoop rock debris backward beneath their bodies or to snap shut on intrusive cave-dwellers.

Drill serpent eggs exist in a form of natural stasis, awaiting appropriate hatching conditions.

Also, since they’re cnithropada, they start off without an exoskeleton when they’re born, but they develop them later on as juveniles. Just wanted to clarify this. If you don’t remember what cnithropods are, here’s their description: Cnidaria + Arthropoda analog.
Chitin exoskeleton and soft gelatinous interior like a jellyfish. They are 75-95% water, have a decentralized brain, a gastrodermis, and a protective exoskeleton made of chitin. Most reproduce sexually and lay eggs. As larvae, they do not have their exoskeleton of chitin yet and develop it as they get older. They have to molt to grow. They have an advanced system of muscles attached to the inside of their exoskeletons. Specifically, drill serpents are on the lower end of water concentration. Their bodies are 78% water.

Habitat/life span:

they live in the twilight zone, and live until about 170 years old.

Edits:
Instead of needing to internally store and spray precious water reserves, the throat pumps can continuously draw in ambient water, slurry it with the rock dust, and blast it out of the steam/vent spiracles.

The adult's drilling action, combined with its powerful throat pumps, creates a localized low-pressure zone at the rock face. It essentially acts as a dredging pump, fluidizing the pulverized rock dust into a slurry that can easily be funneled backward over its body to the waiting juveniles.

An underwater boring lifestyle means the tunnels are constantly flooded with mineral-rich, oxygenated seawater or sulfur-heavy geothermal water. This provides a literal buffet for the symbiotic bacteria in the serpent’s gut. The juveniles grazing on the biofilm of the older tunnel walls perfectly mirrors how deep-sea snails and shrimp graze on vent chimneys.

the serpent would need to secrete an underwater-curing biopolymer, heavily inspired by the protein glues used by barnacles and mussels, or the heavy mucus tubes of phoronid worms. This fast-curing bio-cement would react chemically with the ions in seawater (like magnesium and calcium), sealing the tunnel walls to prevent the high pressure of the ocean floor from collapsing the tunnel inward.

The serrations on the tricone mandibles incorporate heavy metals absorbed from the rock dust—specifically iron sulfides (like greigite) or zinc.

The joints of the mandibles are lined with thick, elastomeric articular membranes and specialized protein-based ligaments. These act as biological shock absorbers

As the main head twists, the three interlocking, conical mandibles press against the rock face. The friction and resistance of the substrate force these independent cones to spin on their own internal axes. Because the cones interlock and are offset, they naturally counter-rotate against each other. This dual-action motion creates a devastating combination of compression (shattering the rock directly ahead) and shear stress (scraping and tearing the rock layers apart at an angle).

An unanchored drilling apparatus will simply spin the drilling vehicle in circles. The Drill Serpent solves this via a dual-stage anchoring cycle modeled directly after a modern TBM

1. Blue-footed Landlouper, an antilope analogue

2. Blue-Crested Squashbill, omnivore that eats 'crustaceans' and 'mollusks' of the planet.

3. Traffic Cone Squashbill, a seed eating herbivore

4. Tailed Shrikebowel, a sessile, hive-like organism.

5. Oxram, herbivore from the southern polar region.

6. Crowned Membrane Fencer, omnivore swordfighters.

In the All Tomorrows book, in the Snake People's description, Köseman states that their world had "slithering swimmers, herbivores and predators," as well. This is my imagining of what those posthumans could be like.

a design i made based on a contest that the artist sawyer lee is doing where we need to use a imaginary fossil as a base to speculate and what the animal was and his life style
so here's the lore .

it's a subaquatic abelisaur like dinosaur that evolved to live in the sea ,allthough their now fully aquatic ,they use their powerfull back legs as arms to grab prey and opponents during mating season,

wrestling each other in the open waters trying to drown their nemesis.

Their tusks are actually made of keratin and grows all their life ,they use it to gore bigger prey , and as threat display (they only uses them as a last effort during bull fights )

There are many herbivore species among the tall grasses of the Monster World's grasslands, but there is none as common as the Reedling.

The Reedling (Psiliani Kouto) is a species of bipedal lagomorph from the family Leporidae found on the SouthWest grasslands grazing in herds of up to 10 adults and their offspring.

Herds are composed primarily of females and their offspring usually with one male acting as an alarm. When a threat is detected, the male will raise its purple tail in the air and let out a high-pitched whistle, that greatly resembles the high note of a flutes. This has given the Reedling the nickname of "Flute Rabbit".

Their long legs allow them to move at tremendous speeds, with individuals moving at around 46-50 km/h (29-31 mph) to escape threats.

Even tough Reedlings prefer to flee, if cornered, they will do something called "Rabbit Bombing", where they will launch themselves at threats in hopes of sinking one of their back spines into them. This spines, one inside a foe, will release themselves from the Reedling and remain stuck. This happens because Reedling spines, much like the ones from porcupine's from earth, have an inverted structure that makes the removal of the spines incredibly hard and painful and can often mean starvation for an unexperienced predator.

Reedlings present very obvious sexual dimorphism, with males sporting a purple backside, along with small horns and fangs used in inter-species combat, but can be used to defend themselves if cornered. (You hear that David. THEY BITE, AND THATS WHY YOU LOST A FINGER!.).

Females usually give birth to one cub which is already able to walk a few hours after being born. They stay close to their mother until they no longer depend on her milk and once reaching sexual maturity, will leave the herd to join another one (In the case of females) or form a new one (In the case of males). In males, the purple coloration starts appearing once they reach sexual age. Males who do not manage to form a herd usually end up forming Bachelor Herds, where multiple males gather for safety and companionship.

EDIT: The ostrich-looking creature in the side next to the giant Anteater is called Kundi. NOT RAKUNDI

Artwork inspired by "Tranquility" Illustratedmenagerie

And an artwork of a really old and rundown version of dustbowl last point map I found on r/tf2. I lost the image so you will have to take my word on it.

This Artwork was a pain in the ass at the start since it took me an entire week to figure out the sketch. Plus, I had to waste like 4 pages of my sketch book since I kept ripping out old pages due to me not liking the intial product. Overtime thought I got the motivation and I was fr thinking that this artwork would be absolute shit but it turned out to be one I really enjoyed in terms of coloring. The lineart and sketching phases tho were hell lol. I say this piece was also the time I introduced myself to media series that I never bothered to checked out until now since I needed something to distract myself while drawing this [I was so close to ending this piece until I felt motivated thanks to watching Invincible season 1-2 and the Finding a minecraft world that dosen't exist series]. So far my favorite character in the series is Cecil Stedman. He the goat.

The minecraft series one I watched was also cool and I got really invested in the whole King in Yellow thing. I spent 3 days of coloring sleep deprived since I really I wanted to get this piece done before summer ends in my country. If there were a few things I would change, it would be the Modotan being slightlypushhed to the right a bit more so the tail of the Carrion king dosen't like block the rest of its body. I was also going to place some Prairie monkies but I forgot. I also originally drew the Baboon next to the anteater as a those fat tibetan macques cuz I thought it looked cute. I would change the placement of the snipes and insects near the speckled horses since they were a last minute addition and speaking of the speckled horses, I would also give them proper striping since it was really hard to get their speckled patches on along with the Ukhos which I didn't bother to put stripes. Overall, I think the artwork blew my expectations since I had really low hopes for it. I guess a factor that effects this is me experimenting on the coloration of the folliage fom the typical green since the only plant found in the Houze prairie is Houze maple and House grass.

"Question"

I’m trying to make a semi-plausible version of fairies, so I created a variant of the potter wasp that lost its stinger in order to transport mud more efficiently for building its hives/nests. However, it developed a mutualistic relationship with an extremely toxic bioluminescent fungus that gives it the ability to drive away predators with its toxins in exchange for spreading its spores while flying (the so-called fairy dust).

Now the problem is that I want to give it basic fairy-like abilities, such as a playful attitude and the ability to slightly understand human behavior and language. Nothing too complicated — maybe something similar to the abilities crows and dogs have for understanding and solving problems. I’m open to any ideas.

When humans first arrived into the Monster World, expeditions mainly took place in the ocean before research settlementss could be established across the coast lines of the large continent. This eventually led to the discovery and classification of three creatures within the same genus: The Shellbeats.

Gigafyllo is the name given to a genus of giant squid of the family Architeuthidae, with three species discovered at the moment.

The genus was first named in 2027 and means "Giant Cover", making reference to the most important feature, and the one that distinguishes them the most from the regular colossal squids of Earth, its the presence of a shell that protects the visceral hump. Along with this Shell, they also possess frills on their sides, which act as intimidation structures that raise and shake when the animal is agitated.

As mentioned before, three species have been discovered. The Common Shellbeat, The Coral Shellbeat and The Emperor Shellbeat.

The Common Shellbeat (Gigafyllo Mochily), or directly Shellbeat, is the middle child of the three. A shallow water predator, its found exclusively on the shallow seas East of the continent, where it uses its long tentacles to pull prey into itself, before using its beak to devour them. It has shown to be skitish towards larger creatures, including boats, which may hint that this predator may not be on the top of the foodchain.

The shell of the common shellbeat is spiraled, resembling that of some gastropods, but to a much larger scale.

Unlike its large cousin, the Coral Shellbeat (Gigafyllo Korallion) has actually shown interest towards the large vessels filled with strange bipedal creatures that explore its home. The smallest species discovered, the Coral Shellbeat, also called the Dwarf Shellbeat, is found on the shallow tropical waters of the Southwest sea, where this nimble predator hunts small fish and sometimes birds.

The dwarf shellbeat has been seen utilizing long rocks and floating branches to lift rocks in search of hiding prey which combined with its curiosity towards explorers and equipment, has proved to be a problem for scuba divers since their lances keep being stolen by one of this predators wanting a stick to get a meal.

The dwarf shellbeat has blueish shell that resembles a clam when seen from the front.

And finally, the largest of the three species, within the deep oceans of the outskirts, swims an apex predator. The Emperor Shellbeat (Gigafyllo Kokkitoras) is the least researched of the three species, with its diet and habitat making it particulary difficult to study.

To put it lightly, the Emperor Shellbeat is extremely territorial against other large animals, which resulted in an incident where a large male sank a small research vessel.

From what is known, the Emperor Shellbeat is a large deep-sea predator which hunts medium to large prey and that, unlike the other Shellbeat species, uses its spiked shell as weaponry, ramming into larger targets to stun them, before wrapping its tentacles around it and sinking it to the bottom of the ocean (Yes, this was discovered by the research vessel. No, we dont know what happened afterwards.)