#spectember

[theantiazdarcho]

The Lancetfish is a species that looks like it comes straight out of a realistic fantasy world building project.

[alphynix]

Spectember/Spectober 2023 #10: Tree Goat

An anonymous submitter asked for an "arboreal goat with grasping sloth-like claws":

Cluraix cephalula is a distant descendant of feral goats in a tropical forest environment, representing a small tree-climbing offshoot of a specialized chalicothere-like lineage.

About 70cm long (~2'4"), it clambers around in the high tree canopies, with its forward-facing eyes providing good depth perception in this complex three-dimensional habitat. Its long hooked claw-hooves are used both to cling onto branches and to hook-and-pull clumps of foliage towards itself, stripping the leaves with its flexible fleshy lips.

[dragonthunders01]

Spectember D29: Speculative Biome

Is not an oddity for geologists to look at some strange landscape formations, many caused by singular events or just by erosion, but the most particularly perplexing ones have been made by what is not considered to be a thing from this world...

North America seems to be dotted with dozens of these structures and the remains of already fallen ones, looking like gigantic towers of more than a kilometer in height, structured like a strange tree shaped form, it rises like a testament of the biggest terrestrial organism known, a monster tree made of stone and shaped by the millions of years of constant growth by part of a singular organism.

In Wyoming there is the most intact and oldest specimen of such beings, bein nicknamed Heaven’s Tower, unique megaorganisms formed by thousands of  individual slime like organisms that behave like a stromatolite as it accumulate over layers over layers of sediment and material it built its structure, the way it do it seems to comprehend a system of vessels that transport the material from the terrain, often hollowing the terrain below forming a large cave chamber system that accumulate water and organic matter, preserve itself from erosion protected by a microbial layer product of the same organism. The tower seems to often renovate itself by the use of a special slime covering every century based on studies of change of texture and viscosity in the tower surface, but from what accounts on different expeditions into the inner cave system denote that the whole Tower formed dozens of millions of years ago, from mining expeditions around the chamber as well drilling in the main structure it was found it preserved a decent amount of data in the form of layers created by the accumulation of minerals by the slime into the main structure like a terrestrial stromatolite, this giving a possible date of the formation of the original tree around the late Eocene or early Oligocene.

As well seems to be every 5 to 10 million years there is a process that allow the introduction of surface fauna that always ends up into the lower chamber, to be eventually isolated which seems to last for few million years until there is a occurring a total extinction of the inner fauna, caused by the replacement and collapse of a old layer as its being replaced by a new one of almost 20 m of thickness, so far from fossil record the last breach occurred around the late Pliocene, isolating the fauna that lived upon that time.

The way one of the Heaven’s Tower specimen grow or originate is pretty much unknown for the very long span of time it takes to even start forming, is believe one of these might find a specific and rich place to feed its structure, more or less an old volcanic region and slowly accumulate to form the megastructure that feed symbiotically by chemosynthesis from the igneous rocks and photosynthesis, as well there has been identified fossil remains of older already fallen Towers that also expose similar patterns of growing. The Heaven’s Tower of Wyoming is the last intact structure as many seems to have been destroyed by the last ice age, and will take millions of years to recover, this itself is a testament of a paradoxical being that is still investigated, as this being for many accounts seems to not share any significant relationship of any living organisms.

[jfs-worldbuilding-and-art]

Specposium's Spectember day 30: Your favourite spec critter!

I like many spec projects but one that i like the most is @iguanodont Birgworld here on Tumblr. The birgs are simply so charismatic and nice to draw so i used this as an exercise with gouache, i like it, in the middle of the process i hated it but it came out nicely after the lineart. Not sure about birg's color variety tho.

This was a nice spectember challenge and it was a good exercise at spec and art, looking forward for the next one. Back to the normal posts now.

[insectghost]

Some more wips of world-stave wildlife

[fablegaze]

Spectember day 17 - evolutionary history of dragons

yet again reusing old art because i am still too tired to draw new stuff

all modern dragons are descended from a hexapodal ancestor; the salamander

(all further drawings show the nostrils on the head which was a mistake oops. they're not supposed to be on the head but i also haven't decided where they should be yet)

dragons have split into a multitude of clades, and I'm focusing on wyverns (flying dragons) & drakes (bipedal, arboreal dragons), but there are also lindwyrms (long, serpentine dragons), hydras (dragons that have turned a variety of limbs into false heads), and sea serpents (aquatic dragons)

wyverns started out small, gliding from treetop to treetop with a membrane that stretched between their limbs and tail. somewhere along the line, they started evolving powered flight, and the two outer fingers on their middle legs grew to accommodate this

eventually this grew into the fully fledged wings that wyverns have today. sapient wyverns have, on average, a wingspan of about 15ft (4.5m). larger wyverns do exist, but the vast majority of them are smaller than this

the history of drakes is a lot simpler than wyverns: they learned to climb trees. they're like the monkeys of the dragon world, helped along by thumbs on every foot & a prehensile tail

they love to scamper and scurry and scuttle

[memociownking]

Hypothetical transitionary form between Lagerpetids and Basal Pterosaurs

Day 11 Spectember, Paleo Conspiracy

[tribbetherium]

The Emperor Zouyu from Batterymaster's Athyrmagaia, for Spectember!

[luxudus]

A Spectember art piece that took me most of the month to make. Showcasing a Batesian mimicry ring found in China some 7-10 million years in the future.

    The northern snakeheads have diversified into several families of amphibious fish that are all highly successful in the Chinese subtropics. Overall, they now possess primitive feet derived from their pectoral fin.     One such species is the Violet Deathhead (Rutrumaput pharmaphyrous). A species of semi-aquatic and semi-fossorial snakehead that uses its shovel head to dig up a wide variety of prey. What makes the Violet Deathhead stand out is its iconic purple, black, and orange patterning used to warn predators of its potent venom-tipped rays.     The Violet Deathhead's infamy would spread throughout China's ecosystem. Its colors became an iconic warning of certain death. Something so iconic it spawned a variety of mimic species, all possessing the same patterns to ward off predators.

    One of the first notable mimics isn't a snakehead or a fish altogether. But a sailfin lizard. Its ancestors rafted here from the Philippines during a particularly nasty southwest monsoon. They became so successful they spread across the entire continent.     This mimic species is known as the Shamfin Lizard (Zhonghydrosaurs purvexicauda). They are a species of arboreal herbivores with a slight tendency to feed on insects.     As their name implies, their tail takes on the same purple, black, and orange patterns used by the Violet Deathhead to present itself as such to trick predators. They even go as far as to develop fake eyespots on their back to match the model species' heads.

    With as much speciation also comes the weight of extinction. And it is no different in this ecosystem as well. During this period, many species of Cranes and herons had to migrate away from China or go extinct altogether. However, this opens a new niche for an unexpected group of birds to flourish.     The second mimic species is the prism-winged Stiltit (Hydorbaino porphypteros). They are a species of wading piscivores that descend from the white-browed tit warbler.     They retained their ancestors' coloration but now for a new purpose. It's now within their underwing and patterned in the likeness of the Violet Deathhead's sail.

    The third mimic species is the Mockfry Mawed Moth (Stekoprosteros mimeofry). They are species of flying pollinating moths that retain their proboscis into adulthood. They are surprisingly social and live in large flocks their whole lives. As their genus name suggests, their resting state has their forewings erected upward, unlike other moth species.     They possess similar colors and patterns to the Violet Deathhead but seem to mimic their species' young. The moths and fry are around the same size and live in large groups. Plus, Deathheads have their iconic coloring during their entire lives.

    The final mimic species mentioned isn't a vertebrate or even an animal. Instead, the Fool's Death (Coleus teleinephos) is a species of Eudicot flowering plant. The stem of the Fool's Death grows into an arc, with the upper stalk resting in the giant leaves of the plant's base.     The Fool's Death's signature green and purple leaves allow it to mimic the patterns of the Violet Deathhead. And since their ranges overlap the most of all the mimics. The Fool's Death is surprisingly the most effective at being a mimic as it gets avoided most of any of the mimicking species.

[selkra-souza]

Wanted to prioritize a Spectober/Spectember post before getting to asks.

The masaka share their evolutionary tree with countless species of four-legged (sometimes two legged) small invertebrates, adapted to all sorts of ecological niches. They have their brains and eyes on their posterior side, and the cephalothorax with mouth on their anterior.

Donelja's a big fan. Their career in desert conservation on the terraformed masaka moon largely involves studying how the insects are doing (insect herbivory, population surveys ect.)

[feshstuff]

Spectember Day 5) Flying Eurypterid... I had a lot of fun drawing this one. And really like how it turned out.

The Rocketeer Armora is a species of Eurypterid native to the southern continent of my world. Its name comes from the way it shoots itself out of the water to escape predators. This method of rocketing out of the water also helps it catch prey above the surface of the water, such as any large gulls and pterosaurs. The Rocketeer Armora lives in the many giant rivers and lakes on the continent as well as hanging about the coastal regions and many islands in the continent inland sea...

[theantiazdarcho]

The Takin is such a whimsical herbivore, like God commissioned Dr. Seuss for this one.

[alphynix]

Spectember 2023 #06: Some Big Reptiles

An anonymous request asked for a "large ankylosaur-like herbivorous notosuchian":

Mitafosuchus pachysomatus is descended from Simosuchus-like notosuchians in Madagascar that survived through the K-T extinction.

Highly convergent with the now-extinct ankylosaurs, it's a 5m long (~16'4") squat tank-like herbivore with hoof-like claws, and a wide short snout used for grazing on low vegetation. Heavy interlocking osteoderm amor covers most of its body, protecting it against the big carnivorous crocodyliformes that also still survive in this version of Cenozoic Madagascar.

———

Another anon wanted to see a "giant warm blooded lizard":

Atopohippus zestamenus is a descendant of invasive Argentine giant tegu lizards that became established on an island archipelago. At 2m tall (~6'6") and around 6m long (~20') it's an example of island gigantism, and occupies a high-browsing-herbivore ecological niche similar to giant tortoises and prosauropods.

Its ancestors' seasonal endothermy has become full endothermy in this species, partly due to young individuals having a very rapid growth rate and metabolism – their main defense against the predators on their island home (primarily carnivorous tegu-descendants and large birds of prey) is to simply get to a big body size as fast as they possibly can.

[dragonthunders01]

Spectember D22: Interspecific display

In the late Jurassic of north America, where titanic sauropods, ferocious theropods and a myriad of different dinosaurs should roam there I instead titanic dicynodonts and derived elephant sized Traversodontids wanders on the forests, hunted down by a variety of predatory Mammaliaforms and diverse cynodonts, and below many minor other synapsids and small new diapsids roams as middle size fauna, this world never saw any archosauromorphs rise as they became extinct in the Permian, leaving the Triassic and Jurassic to be fully dominated by the second wave of synapsids after the great dying and the minor constrains of an even weaker Triassic/Jurassic mass extinction.

With that and the time given it allowed some groups to diversify in ways they couldn’t have done in our timeline, specially for dicynodonts which apart of being the largest terrestrial animals here they also have been experimenting in other niches as aquatic herbivores, scavengers and even some small carnivores, and so many herbivores developing different fighting or extravagant ornaments in order to show their strength and good gene pool for any possible mate. This is where the Branched Warmcorns (Calenocristas multichromus) comes into play, coming from a lineage of more gracile forms than the usual beaked behemoth, they are around 2 meters long and they are the largest most flamboyant animals of the forestall regions, the young males and females are often dull colored with only a handful of prominent minor crests and horns, but an adult male in their peak would expose a series of very large ornamental crests and horns that bright in very warm colorations, including a variety of yellows, pinks, oranges and reds, all reflecting from a light blue face up to the back of the head. The bright adult has often to be dealing either with predators as well with other large males or just recently grown younger individuals that defy their domain over specific territories, normally with constant head ramming and even biting. They live in groups of 20 individuals, often a bull male is surrounded by different age females and just young individuals, which males reaching certain age have to leave before the main male could threat them or even kill them.

[jfs-worldbuilding-and-art]

Specposium's Spectember day 12: Alternate history

Wasn't sure about what to do today so here is a fun idea:

Mammaln't: In this universe mammals never evolved, yet cynodonts persisted trough the jurassic into today, evolving live-birth, endothermy, good hearing, erect limbs, everything that we seen in modern mammals, all but mammary glands themselves.

Instead of giving birth to altricial young who needs to feed on milk during their early stages, mammaln'ts have either a longer gestation period, giving birth to precocious young. Or giving birth to altricial young who are fed crop-milk or prey by the adults, much like birds.

Depicted is a wolf-like(in appearence) mammaln't.

[insectghost]

Little sketch of a large omnivore from the dwarves homeland, the exterior of the world-stave. No name for it yet, but the name the dwarves use translates to “sapper” or “the one who is a sapper” named for their burrowing, which is extremely destructive to architecture.