Dive into your creative stream
I dont know much about sea stars and didn´t know what other animal I could make with the word star (and the timeframe)
The Barnacles Star (Balaenaasteroidea Caeruleuma) Is an parasetic starfish that will attach themselfs to whales or other large marine animals with their spiked legs and then proceed to peel of and eat their skin.
--Source: Reddit--
--The second entry for the Aquatic April challenge--
The Ever Youth Dragonfly Is unique among Its kind, when other Dragonfly species only spend their juvenile stage fully aquatic,
The Ever Youth Dragonfly never developes lungs and thus remains In water for Its entire life.
It posses sturdy hairs on Its legs making them work like flippers.
These hairs are also found on their back acting like a dorsal fin
and to top It of they posses an extention of their abdomen that works like a fluke.
--Source: Reddit--
This month Im attending an Spec Evo challenge. :D
--Source: R/Speculativeevolution--
I cant ensure I´ll be posting every day, but I´ll try anyways.
For day 1 I came up with a species of Kelp called the Keelp (Anguillapiscisalgarum Sp.).
The Keelp has the coloration of eels to fend of herbivores that might try to eat It.
This unique coloration although also come at the cost of not being able to do very efficient photosynthese, thus the Keelp has an symbiotic relationship with many aquatic plants.
The plant provides the Keelp with nutrients and In return the Keelp keeps them safe from plant eaters.
(20 Million Years P.E.)
The Middle Origocene saw the rise of the Mausbies, small rodent analogues, In the niche of seedeaters or small scale omnivores.
But now In the Late Origocene the Mausbies saw alot more diversity trying to cover still avaible niches or make a living In new Habitats.
The Beavalis are descendants of the Rattuffs which have adapted to an semi-aquatic lifestyle.
Similiar to the Shell-Fishers 10 Million years prior they have adapted an mechanism that allows them to seal their pouch when underwater, preventing their joeys from drowning.
The Greater Beavali (Flumenmus Nonaustralianus) Is one of the more basal species.
Their strong incisors are perfectly adapted for crushing the hard shells of mussels and crustaceans, but also for breaking wooden bark. Similiar to earthern Beavers, the Greater Beavali builds dams which can controll the river streams, giving them the perfect conditions to build their nests, find and store food as well as giving them an safe place to rest.
The Grey Bilbypus (Macrotisornithorhynchus Griseus) Is an fellow widespread Beavali species, It posses long sensitive whiskers which It uses to find arthropods and other goods hidden under the river bed.
Another clade of Rattuff are the Hampters, as their name suggest they have heavily converged with earthern hamsters.
They posses an small, round body with an short tail, but those are not all features they took from the earthern hamster, as they also have the hamsters signature trait, cheek pouches.
Their flexible cheeks help them to hord all of the goods they find, saving time foraging, which makes them visible to predators.
The Field Hampter (Pseudocricetus Ager) Is an plains dwelling small-scale herbivore feeding on seeds, roots, vegetables and various grasses. Field Hampters are one of the few unsocial Mausby species, not forming family colonies and only interacting with another when mating.
The Greater Dwarf Hampter (Nainuspseudocricetus Maxillutus) Is pretty similiar to Its larger cousin, although they are not herbivores but rather omnivores, eating seeds, roots and insects.
They also havent completly abondend their colonies, althought the family bonds are very loose and tend to fall apart quickly.
Talking about unsocial Mausbies, we have the Terrisquis, an clade of Squruffies, solitary Mausbies that by now have become incredibly territorial and even straight up aggressive animals.
Similiar to the Hampters the Terrisqui have found an way to take their food to go, but instead of developing cheek pouches, they used an feature they already possed and have just modified It a bit, as the Terrisquis use their marsupial-pouches to store their food.
This alsomeans that both the males and the females posses pouches to store food, we see something similiar In earthern Yapoks, marsupials In which both males and females posses pouches.
Also similiar to the Yapok they posses an mechanism that allows them to seal their pouch, the same Shell-Fishers and the Beavalis posses, this prevents their food from accidentally falling out of their pouch.
The Colorbark Terrisqui (Colossciurus Fuscusanrufus) Is an pretty basal member of the Terrisqui family.
The females sport an camouflaging brown color, while the males are alot more eye-stinging. As territorial as the Terrisquis are, the males have evolved an brighter fur color to make their presence clear to rivals. The males also posses the ability to make the fur on their back stand up, In turn making them appear larger to predators and rivals.
Back to the more peacefull and social creatures, we have the Wabillies. Plains dwelling descendants of the Jerbaroos.
Normally the desert Is the kingdom of the Jerbaroos, with the plains dwelling individualls standing In the shadow of their relatives, but the Wabillies managed to stay relevant amongst the competetion.
As of right now the Wabillies are the largest Mausbies to ever exist, turns out, living In the plains among swarms of Pterobats of prey, being big has Its benefits.
The Plains Wabilly (Subterranotamacropus Fodiens) Is the most common species of the rather small Wabilly family.
They live In huge family colonies and burrow equally huge, complex burrows. They are omnivores eating whatever they can find, vegetables, seeds, insects and even the occasional small marsupial.
10 Million Years P.E.
0 Million Years P.E.
1 Million Years P.E.
20 Million Years P.E. (The Late Origocene)
The Whoapossums, an lineage of Betabies that took to the trees and became quite the skilled climbers, with an semi-opposable thumb and an flexible tail, now In the Late Origocene they have become even more skilled, with an even more flexible tail and fully opposable thumbs.
The Bright-Eyed Nightpossum (Simiadidelphidae Oculislucidis) Is an skilled nocturnal insects hunter, using Its sensitive, big eyes and ears to detect insects amongst the darkness.
An Whoapossum that went Into the different direction tho Is the Capped Fruitpossum (Fructusdidelphidae Caputgerens), an frugivore that climbs amongst the treetops In search for brightly colored fruit, which they fortunately can spot with ease, as similiar to the Monarch Pterobats the frugivorous diet of the Fruitpossums favored the developement of color vision.
But the most unique of the Whoapossums of this time would be the Fossums, the Pocket-Paw Fossum (Ungulatus Marsupialiscattus) Is one of them, while Whoapossums started to get more comfortable In the treetops, the Fossums started to settle on the ground again, they are still amazing climbers, theres no doubt In that, but they will also spend alot of time on solid floor.
Fossums are excellent small game hunters, they especially shine In hunting Pterobats, Mausbies, Scoppels and even Shrish.
As you might have noticed, the Fossums favor the similiar prey as the earthern cats and this Is not where the convergence ends.
They posses carnassial teeth as molars and retractable claws.
Their retractable claws are a life safer as they rely on them alot to catch prey and climb.
Them moving on rough surfaces could risk the claws trimming to much to be usable for their tasks.
20 Million Years P.E. (The Late Origocene)
The Nomwats were the first large scale herbivores and thus faced great success, the success of one specific Nomwat species Is incredibly well reflected In their descendants.
The Womboars are descendants of the Koala-Nosed Nomwat, and species that has specialised In eating though vegetation, as more and more herbivores emerged the plants got only thougher trying to shake of the herbivores, but the Koala-Nosed Nomwats were already In the niche to graze the though grasses, thus It was an easy adaption to feed on these new world grasses.
The Womboars most recognizable trait are their tusks which have formed from their molars, their molars grow throughout their entire lifes, kinda like the Mausbies incisors, this helps them to chew trough the tough vegetation.
The tusks are used for self-defense, rooting up plants, display and fighting rivals.
The Plains Womboar (Ivoriumvombatidae Campi) Is one of the most dominant grazers of this time, males have harrems of females over large territories, If territories are overlapping the males will fight, whoevers tusks break first will loose.
Plains Womboars also posses long tuffed ears which they use as flag posts for communication.
These flag post structure usually evolve from tails, but Womboars have too short tail to be utilized, so the ears are the next best thing.
An smaller Womboar species Is the Peanut Butter Womboar (Silvavombatidaeaper Enuxarachidis), these forest dwellers are smaller but also more agile, this although does not mean that they wont use the tusks when backed In a corner.
The Peanut Womboar Is an herbivore which feast on the forest grasses, seeds and roots.
20 Million Years P.E. (The Late Origocene)
While Macroterra Is a planet of Bilbies, the invertabrates, which have been seeded to sustain the ecosystem, have changed over the years as well and the most succesfull and dominant ones would be the Shrish. Descendants of Planktonic Krill, they have come to dominate the oceanic ecosystem.
The Shrish started out as shrimp like swimmers that propelled themselfs through the water with feathery legs, Shrish like these still exist, the OJ Reefer (Pseudocaris Citrinasuccus) Is an good example. But some didnt bother to actively swim and become bottom feeders, like the Gravel Trilokrill (Trilobitacaris Fundusmaris).
Although some Shrish have optimized their swimming abilities,
some Shrish would eventually develop a shorter and more streamlined body, and give rise to active swimmers that propelled themselves with undulating waves of their abdomen and tail. Becoming a more efficient means of propulsion, these shrish would eventually modify their rearmost swimming legs along with their tail fan into a caudal fluke of sorts.
But these fluked Shrish didnt just stop there, as another adaption proved efficiency, pseudo-jaws.
These pseudo-jaws are formed from their elongated barbed rostrums and first front legs.
With these they can easily catch slippery prey an apply pressure to crack their hard shell.
two of these jawed Shrish are the Great White Shraw (Pisciscaris Magnusalbus) and the Cherry Shrimpede (Centipedecaris Cerasus).
Both are fearsome predators In their own right, the Shrimpedes are small slender Eel-like ambush predators, while the Great White Shraw are rather large at 1 meter In size they are true giants among the arthropods.
But not all of those jawed Shrish are predators, the Green Weedpicker (Herbariumcolligens Viridis) Is an rather peacefull grazer, using their jaws to pluck and crush tough algea, seaweed and corals.
10 Million years P.E. (The Middle Origocene)
10 Million years into the history of Macroterra many descendants of an single animal, the Greater Bilby have risen and fallen.
Lurking In the shadows of various succesfull lineages there Is one that seems like It Isnt going to stick around that much longer.
The Betabies (Family: Betamacrotidae) were one of the lineages which emerged relatively early In Macroterras history and given rise to even more lineages like the Hedgey´s, Whoapossums and Bilcoons. The Betabies themselfs though are kinda victims of their own succes as they find themselfs In tough competetion with their relatives.
As of the Middle Origocene their Is only one Betaby species alive, the Sandy Betaby (Betamacrotis Arenosus).
It manged to stick around as an oppurtunistic desert dweller, but know there are other oppurtunistic more adapted species like Jerbaroos and Needle-Manes.
While It Is tragic that the Betabies will soon fade away from the face of Earth, or Macroterra, this Is just life, extinction Is the rule and evolution Is the exception.
But the Betabies managed to produce descendants that do quite well for themselfs, so while they themselfs will be gone, their lineage will be continued.
10 Million years P.E. [The Middle Origocene]
The Tearlings, an species of Bilby that has reinvented the predator-prey armsrace, as the first true predator on Macroterra, the world belonged to them, but times change and the Tearlings, like every other Bilby, evolved.
Their descendants are know as the Crybeasties, canide like predator and quite fearsome ones on top of that.
The Forest Foxstrider (Vulpesambulans Silva) Is an farelly basal Crybeastie, small game hunters akin to earthern foxes.
Their prey of choice are usually Scoppels and small Bilbeelopes, which they grapple with their sharp teeth and wait for them to bleed out.
The Break-Neck Crybeastie (Clamabestia Collumfrangens) Is quite the opposite of the Foxstriders, as they are rather big game hunters.
as the largest carnivores on Macroterra as of right know, they will go after big prey, their prey of choice are the larger plains dwelling Bilbeelope and Nomwats.
Break-Neck Crybeasties will aim for the neck, using their sharp teeth to penentrate their preys lung, quickly sufficating them.
I love sophont characters that don't look remotely humanoid like a mile tall monolith that doesn't look at all biological can have petty grudges and opinions on which type of weather is best wow life is beautiful..
Me if I did James Cameron navi avatar design or something idk