sapientstarstuff

[sapientstarstuff]

Eurotamandua joresi lived during the mid-Eocene, about 47 million years ago, in the lush subtropical forests that covered what is now central Germany.

When it was first described in the early 1980s it was classified as an anteater due to its close resemblance to some modern species… but there were big problems with this interpretation. Anteaters have a sparse fossil record, but they're known to have originated during the early Eocene in the isolated island continent of South America – so Eurotamandua's ancestors making it all the way to Europe within just a few million years would be pretty remarkable!

Also, on closer inspection it didn't have the distinctive skeletal features of a xenarthran mammal, suggesting it wasn't an anteater after all.

Instead more recent studies have identified it as a close relative of pangolins, part of an early branch of the group that didn't have the characteristic large scales.

About 90cm long (~3'), Eurotamandua would have a lifestyle much like the anteaters it convergently resembled, using its large claws to rip open ant nests and a long sticky tongue to feed.

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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

[sapientstarstuff]

Centaur stuff 👍

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My favorite part of the book "stranger in a strange land" was when the main guy, Valentine Michael Smith, basically FOLDS A GUY put of existence. Just sorta origamis a man into NOTHING. And when someone says "what the hell did you do to that guy?" He just gets uncomfortable.

"Hey what the hell is he dead??"

Valentine *crying* "I don't want to explain"

No one ever brings it up again LOL

Valentine my dude put him back the man probably had a family 😭

Valentine really said "fuck you buddy! Get skinamarinked!"

[sapientstarstuff]

Emerges from my cave to announce I have created a new sophont

Tentatively calling swimslugs for now, as their designs mostly draw from mollusc anatomy. These small, colorful creatures dwell on a high gravity world dominated by shallow golden seas. Electrical engineering came early in their history, inspired by the ability of some of their native animals to generate electrical currents… and their own natural electroreception. The last few centuries have been peaceful and prosperous; their myriad cultures emphasize an exchange of art, culture, and friendly competition to sport the tackiest color schemes imaginable. Due to the high gravity of their world and their own physical limitations as aquatic creatures, swimslugs have a very limited history of aviation and have been generally uninterested in space travel, despite having been digital penpals with another group of sophonts for generations now…

On their biology:

Swimslug life relies on symbioses with two different organisms: a worm and a sessile “tunicate”. The worm (also simply referred to as an ‘arm’) is functionally a parasite; biting into the flank under the gills of its host early in life and fusing with its nervous and circulatory systems. This union allows the swimslug to develop fine motor control over the untethered end of the worm by adolescence. Most swimslugs only host a single arm; two or more become difficult for most individuals to acclimate to and can lead to health issues. Many genetic and cybernetic variations of the arm are available in the current era. The ‘tunicate’ (I will refer to as the Vase) is essential to swimslug reproduction; all parents spawn into the Vase to ensure a safe shelter and a steady current of oxygenated water for the developing offspring. The average swimslug has at least two fathers; the hybridization of multiple sets of gametes is essential to the proper development of their species. Family groups often consist of the egg layer, her family Vase (these can last for generations), and a 3 or 4 mates, though the particulars vary enormously by culture. Their eggs have a relatively low hatch rate; unviable eggs are consumed by surviving larvae shortly after hatching. The Vases themselves periodically produce free swimming larvae that are affectionately kept around dwellings as pets.

Swimslugs communicate by grinding and clacking modified stomach-teeth, as well as percussing on the adjacent ‘oil-sac’ organ that also serves to regulate buoyancy and store energy. They come in a dazzling variety of colors owing to both their complex hybridizations and genetic engineering. Cosmetic nanobots applied to their slime coats enhance their appearance by functioning as artificial chromatophores.

And that’s the gist of em! Many thanks to @nknatteringly for all the idea pitching and bouncing in their early development, wouldn’t have felt half as inspired without ya. Not sure how much further I’ll develop these guys, they exist mostly as a fun diversion to contrast the gritty, low-tech world of the birgs and a love letter to all the sparkly stuff I liked as a kid.

If you’d like to support my art, you check out these links here

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Patreon

Kofi

Inprnt

[sapientstarstuff]

Been workshopping an assortment of critter designs over the weeks. If you’d like to see more sketches like these, as well details on their ecology, you can find them on my Patreon.

If not, never fear, I’ll still be making polished posts and answering the occasional ask. (If you want to talk to me more directly, I am far more active on my member discord, however!)

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Are there any crocodilian equivalent in the birgs world? Cause consider the fact that the crocodilian body plan have evolve multiple times here on earth just like carcinization

They do, but ive decided to be cheeky about it and give them jaws that function nothing like a crocodile’s.

This is far from my first attempt at designing an amphibious ambush predator, but I think this is the first iteration I’m really satisfied with. Known to the twowi as Saugu-gui, this is a family of heavily built animals that seize prey near the surface of rivers and lakes with their long forelimbs and use their own bulk and muscular appendages to drag it underwater. The actual chelicerae are small and used only for food processing after prey has been successfully dispatched. The species most readily known to the twowi is the stocky variety sketched at top, large and strong enough to prey on sheep sized organisms, through much longer bodied species are found elsewhere in the world.

They are cumbersome on land but the short bodied Saugu-gui can travel surprisingly long distances overland when searching for a mate and a suitable nursery site. Carrier larvae are fully aquatic, settling in the mud after “laying” to live as filter feeders for several years. Each one produces a few dozen tiny, predatory true larvae at the end of its lifespan, which retain the primitive ability to breathe underwater for the first few months of life.

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Put this one up for free on my patreon this week, where ive got a bunch of other miscellaneous worldbuilding for those interested

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Post-apocalyptic prehistoric art by MICHAEL KERBOW

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you’re not a true dasyuromorph disciple until you have a wild quoll walk up to you and sniff your phone

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the reason none of us can ever leave tumblr is because we've already evolved to having this be our only suitable habitat. we're the devils hole pupfish of people.

[sapientstarstuff]

Mythical Beasts of Germany

by u/NeilParkinsonMakes

[sapientstarstuff]

For a long time there were no hadrosaurid fossils known from Africa.

This seemed to mainly be due to the limits of the geography of their time. Hadrosaurs evolved and flourished during the late Cretaceous, when Africa was isolated from all the other continents, and they didn't seem to have ever found their way across the oceanic barriers.

…Until in 2021 a small hadrosaur was discovered in Morocco, a close relative of several European species, showing that some of these dinosaurs did reach northwest Africa just before the end of the Cretaceous - and with no land bridges or nearby island chains to hop along, they must have arrived from Europe via swimming, floating, or rafting directly across several hundred kilometers of deep water.

And now another hadrosaur has just been described from the same time and place.

Minqaria bata lived in Morocco at the very end of the Cretaceous, about 67 million years ago. Only known from a partial skull, its full appearance and body size is unknown, but it probably measured around 3.5m long (~11'6") – slightly larger than its previously discovered relative, but still very small for a hadrosaur. It might represent a case of insular dwarfism, since at the time Morocco may have been an island isolated from the rest of northwest Africa.

Along with its close relative Ajnabia, and at least one other currently-unnamed larger hadrosaur species, Minqaria seems to be part of a rapid diversification of hadrosaurs following their arrival in Morocco, adapting into new ecological niches in their new habitat where the only other herbivorous dinosaur competition was titanosaurian sauropods, and the only large predators were abelisaurs.

If the K-Pg mass extinction hadn't happened just a million years later, who knows what sort of weird African hadrosaurs we could have ended up with?

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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

[sapientstarstuff]

Fulgrim and his wifes

After the centuries passed recollections of their voices and their faces faded, but faint warmth of time together still remains

Small drawings I did to put into a bigger drawing

[sapientstarstuff]

The mancallines were a lineage of flightless semi-aquatic birds closely related to auks. Known from the Pacific coasts of what are now California and Mexico, between about 7.5 and 0.5 million years ago, they convergently evolved a close resemblance and similar lifestyle to both the recently-extinct North Atlantic great auk and the southern penguins.

Miomancalla howardi here lived in offshore waters around southern California during the late Miocene (~7-5 million years ago). The largest of the mancallines, it just slightly beat out the great auk in size – standing around 90cm tall (~3') and weighing an estimated 5kg (11lbs).

Like great auks and penguins it would have been a specialized wing-propelled diver, swimming using "underwater flight" to feed on small bait fish. It probably spent much of its life out at sea, probably only returning to land to molt and breed.

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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

[sapientstarstuff]

Is this a post to try and find people like this? Yes, yes it is. Am I expecting anything to come from it? Nah, not really. Regardless, enjoy these memes!

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The Angel and some Hawks :3c

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Have to be a good dad to your army of 120 000 evil vampires.

Give your army of 120 000 evil vampires a Fine Arts education.

[sapientstarstuff]

Why the FUCK didn't we get more MadMax/Fallout/Radioactive Apocalypse Core Sanguinius? We could have gone so ham

So here's Junk Sang