#even if they're basic bitch carnivores

[gascreates]

them :) dino refs finally complete, so now i can make all the joke comics i want

design thoughts under the cut

aang- second hardest design to ge through. at first i couldn't decide on a species, and then i couldn't get the colors to work. believe it or not, bright yellow right next to bright blue is painful to look at. so instead i opted for an all orange color pallette. does he look like a candy corn? yes. and we love him for it. puny lil candy corn avatar

katara- sweet baby so easy, love her, perfect design, no tears shed except for joy. also GIGANTIC. non negotiable part of her design tbh. and aquatic dino!! spinosaurus was the only choice. the sail is meant to look like her necklace! isnt that cool. im so cool and talented.

sokka- nanuqsaurus is! maybe a cold weather dino. possibly. so we did that. he's smaller than his sister and he's mad about it :) also, him face is warriors paint!! and i know that atla water tribes didn't really have anything to do with orcas, but I love orcas and i wanted to give sokka some recognizably hunter-y pattern. so, orca white markings.

toPH- i am ENDLESSLY SUGFERING. do you know how many times i flip flopped on toph's species. do you understand how many hours i spent debating over the benefits of triceratops vs protoceratops?? ankylosaurus vs. pachysephalosaurus???? my agony is unending. im still unsure. sacrificing the concept that toph could take down a t rex (trike) for the small n unassuming character theme (proto). also the badgermole looking markings are cool i guess

zuko- this is where you pretend that im bot playing favorites when it comes to dino species. why is he a deinonychus? cuz i like big raptors, that's why. go away. dont look at me. he's cute. he looks like a bird and i love that for him. also something something aang and zuko similar species that specialize differently based on how their environments changed them, zuko an echo of the potential of flight and aang an echo of the potential to hunt. flock bird vs pack hunter. same but different.

height chart:

i really cant say if it's accurate at all to the real dinos, but i was lazy and didnt want to do math, so it's just eyeballed heights. the important part is that we understand how tiny aang is and how massive katara is

[harpywritesfic]

Cool dice 🟣

why thank you! i know many facts which plague my mind! and as you have opened the can of worms that is my hyperfixation, i will share! (my special interest is animals haha). this is off the top of my head, with a healthy amount of fact checking. PLEASE feel free to not read this.

5/7 of the big cats are in the genus panthera! the other big cats are the cheetah (genus Acinonyx) and the cougar (genus Puma). one subspecies of cougar is literally Puma concolor concolor. Clouded leopards (genus Neofelis) are more closely related to Panthera than the other two big cats. Neofelis and Panthera both belong to subfamily pantherinae, while every other felid belongs to felinae (the felines!)

The difference is that pantherinae can roar, while felinae cannot. The difference is in the mobility of the hyoid bone!

carnivores can be separated by how closely they relate to canines or felines. These groups are caniforms and feliforms! here are some species that fall into each:

Caniforms: bears, mustelids (weasels, otters, badgers), raccoons, pinnipeds (pinnipeds are seals, sea lions, and walruses! pinniped means fin foot.)

Feliforms: hyenas, mongooses (which includes meerkats!), vivverids (civets, binturongs/bearcats) (wondering what a civet is? they're like long cats.)

the saber-toothed cat's genus is Smilodon, for their chompers.

see i like carnivorans more than most mammals- in large part because they are NOT marsupials or worse, monotremes. i HATE monotremes they are so screwed up they need to get out of my sight. ( i have never seen one. this is because they know i would punt them like a football. not because they're all australian.)

so, to understand why monotremes are awful, you must understand mammals are classed by reproductive habits. placentals are live-birth species like humans. marsupials birth what are basically fetuses and grow them in a pouch. monotremes, however? they lay eggs. and, as a mammal, they nurse their young. but they don't have nipples. they secrete milk from their skin. the platypus is a monotreme. how tf does an animal with a beak nurse? echidnas are the other four species of monotreme, and they have pouches like a marsupial. echidnas have a horribly unusual penis too. i'm talking four heads. and they use two. but they can alternate which two they use. they also have a very large penis to body size ratio. i don't know whether or not to recommend googling it, so make your own conclusion. the platypus is also one of very few venomous mammals (other venomus species include certain vampire bats, shrews, and the slow loris). platypus males have a venomous spur on their legs. the correct way to lift one is by the tail to avoid the spurs. the venom won't kill a human but it'll hurt like a bitch.

more horrible reproductive facts, you ask? how about one for the placental mammals? the baculum is a bone in the penis of many placentals. even most primates, but humans haven't got them. the walrus has the longest baculum of any species. i'm talking TWO FEET. (that's 61 centimeters, kitty.)

less horrible reproductive facts, you ask? actually, i need to go to sleep.