Welcome to my Tumblr for the speculative evolution project Palubolígo. On this account I will be sharing more of my random ideas and the NSFW parts of my stories which I can’t post on Instagram.
Calling the previously undocumented behavior one of the most exciting scientific discoveries of the decade, biologists from Yale University confirmed Tuesday that they had observed geese eating tools. “We normally don’t think of birds as tool eaters, so it came as quite a shock to witness multiple Canada geese from a flock in coastal Connecticut swallowing these remarkably sophisticated implements,” said Professor Sarah Rasmussen, adding that some of the tools the geese had consumed actually exceeded what a human third-grader would be able to eat.
Another old comic from 2022, unlike the one yesterday, this one shows real behaviour. The Sarkorapt and Lignosaurus are no longer canon species, as they were created by a then-friend with whom I have parted ways after he started following Andrew Tate and became a transphobic, misogynistic asshole.
The Rule of the Jungle being “Sharing is caring” is found among Palutheropoda, Palusauropoda and even Draconia.
Palutheropods tend to share more often with smaller predators that are more likely threats to their young, but will share with megatheropods too. In some cases the injuries are deemed too damaging and the healthier animal quickly kills the injured one, in this case the dead beast is not eaten, but dragged to a close shrine so that the Blood God - Shelle the Creator may accept the flesh.
Palusauropods tend to help out each other, other species of Palusauropods and will even help out Palutheropods. Should a Palutheropod start stalking a herd out of desperation for food, the Palusauropods tend to locate a herd of Elephants, Rhinos or other large mammals and kill some so that the predator may have a different food source.
Draconia is the clade which contains Wyverns, Dakes, Minokawas and Tetrapterids, all of these animals are very compassionate towards at the very least conspecifics and in case of Wyverns it is common for many species to form a hive where food, water and other necessities are shared.
Blakgai is a Sophont Aid, which has domesticated it's nest parasite the Ground Hawk, also known as Common Tricksterbird and Anthropocissorine, which has developed strong protective behaviour by living with the Blakgai.
The Palubolígolian Forest Vrtich is known to live alone and hunt sick, injured or young animals. In this case it attempts to invade a Gore nest, which are built into hills in a way to prevent flooding.
This old comic from 2022 was my first and only comic entry for the
Longsnouted Sleek Tyrant (Barathotyrannus Simanarborus) is a cursorial predator and member of Gracilotyranni. This animal is known to hunt fast moving prey and does so by chasing deer, ratites or Ratitomorps into dense bushes, where it deploys a fatal bite to the neck. In a sprint this predator can reach 60km/h and in long distance pursuits it prefers to run at about 35km/h.
While solitary hunters, the Longsnouted Sleek Tyrants are quite sociable, living in groups of multiple individuals of both sexes, mating year round, though only laying a single clutch of about 3-5 eggs a year. In very abundant years the females leave their courts after a few months from laying eggs and look to mate with a distant male, these females then return to their territories and give birth to a live chick. It is very uncommon, only about 20% of females manage to do so more than once in their lives. The whole court takes care of any chick or shreel (word used to describe juvenile Palutheropods), even if they are unrelated.
The court lives inside a dome-like nest which is woven from bamboo and covered in mud, bone and hide. Largest courts consist of about 7-12 individuals. During initial colonisation of Palubolígo, a research group was forced to hide inside one of these domes after crash landing, luckily the resident court was more intrigued than aggressive and no people were harmed.
While being quite skittish, these animals are willing to Fate, it is believed they have been quite close to the Korvid Folk during their evolution, but the Chacarzo won out the domestication.
Giant Airhead (Tapejanodon Gigas gigas) is a medium sized Paluazhdarchid, member of Cassicraninae, which lives in large flocks across western Archipel and northwest to the eastern shores of Hech. These flocks are solely for protection in numbers, as these animals either forage alone or in mated pairs.
Mated pairs bond for life and cheating is unheard of, these pairs only divorce if one mate dies or their eggs fail to hatch multiple seasons in a row. It is not uncommon to find same sex couples, and perhaps surprisingly these pairs take in a young, freshly mature member of the opposite sex, which learns proper mating behaviors and is actually more likely to find a mate the next season. Adults are very good parents and will adopt orphaned young and even help to feed neighbour flaplings.
As all known Airheads, the Giant Airhead readily Fates with humans, though they avoid native sophonts and rarely if ever fate to them.
The Toothed Shrieker (Odontodactylus Odontobeccus) is a medium sized Odontorostran Palupterosaur of Archipell. This animal tends to be mostly terrestrial and flies rarely, but it is very skittish and is not well known. So far only a pair of specimens has been collected, their diet is unknown, they behaviour is also not truly understood.
Burrowing Slime New (Pituitasuchus Archipelii) is a poorly understood Palubolígolian Newt found in small holes filled with mucous slime. It is not understood as to why the newt does it, nor why if removed it will never make a new hole and will die even in captivity.
This animal is unstudied beyond anatomical description and its only behaviour is known from the few individuals disturbed during the building of Apokalypsa. The local sophont - Chiguenii - know nothing of this animal as they know nothing of the Palubolígolian House Pigeon.
The Mountain Dangerfowl (Skruukiri Giganteus) is a large species of Resiliuntbeccid found in the higher platoes of the Siman Mountains. This animal is usually solitary, preferring to feed on vegetation and occasionally on carrion, but during winters these large beasts are known to attack the settlements Palubolígolian Orcs (large species of Palubohomo belonging to the genus P. Priscus, which are known for having two pairs of arms and lower average intelligence to other genera like P. Palubolígolensis).
In general this animal is slow to move and doesn’t hold a territory, if it encounters other members of its kind there is usually no altercation, which cannot be said should a larger predator, like a Kingslayer be encountered. In such case the Dangerfowl will violently attack a potential threat.
Not much else is known about these elusive animals, they seem to share habitat with similar genera like Phoenix Gangerfowl. Supergenus Skruukiri may be ancestral to the Krankel, a domestic war mount of the Vraaa.
Luca’s Flesh Conure (Gorgoavis Aratinga ponelis) is a medium sized Palubolígolian parrot found across the great plains of the Ponelis Savannah. These birds live in large flocks and are known for a very odd behaviour - these birds swarm like locusts. After breeding the adult birds lay eggs in huge numbers all around the vast open plains and then fly long distances until they die of exhaustion. This behaviour is likely done to keep predator attention from their eggs and on the large amount of dead birds. This is done at the start of the growing season, the Ponelis grass creates walking roots during this period and each plant moves a few centimeters, this burries the eggs slightly bellow the roots. The chicks hatch nearly 200 days later as the grass seeds are ready and the chicks gain flight in a manner of about 2-5 days. After which they make great swarms and feed on (and spread) seeds of grass and as the months go on start to breed. Palubolígo is an oddly exact planet - it has 25 hours to a day and 360 days to a year, the Conures spend on average 180 days in egg and 180 days alive if they are females, males about 150.
The name Flesh Conure comes from the fact that after breeding the dying males become the main source of nourishment for the females, which is doesn’t feed them that long. The females sometimes feed on larger animals by overwhelming them in numbers, but it is not exactly commonplace. After laying their eggs the females start flying in random directions and will not eat until their perish.
These birds were described by Luca Tumbler, the Queen of Yss whose interest in odd Palubolígolian fauna lead to a great expansion of Furiosa Thralls, Luca being a human and not a Furiosa has had a much greater inventiveness than his compatriots and has surpassed the previous record held by King Marder multiple times over. Luca has been known to utilise the knowledge his Royal Consort Pí the Teacher has brought to the scientific community by describing the various species of Maneaters found across Hech.
Something something Erid is a high-pressure, no light planet with liquid water and bioluminescent, lure-based, energy efficient ocean creatures could develop; something something Eridians have close to no spatial memory and therefore worse scale? memory; something something Eridians are the apex land predator specifically.
(All that, and I forgot the suit. Ah well. Point is, they deserve a buddy comedy ending.)
Grace and Rocky, giving a tour of the Hail Mary to fascinated Eridian scientists and diplomats.
Pointing at things and explaining what they are and how the ship works, lots of awed and appreciative noises are made.
Until one of the visiting Eridians points out a specific item. “And that?”
It’s a strange, circular thing, a xenonite disk mounted upright on some sort of pivot so it can spin freely, but around the edges it has… spokes? Pegs? Sticking out of it, that hit against a stiff flap that would slow down the spinning.
It is also separated into sections decorated with crude etchings of a human and an Eridian.
“Ah,” Grace says.
“That,” Rocky says.
“That’s. Um.” Grace seems somewhat embarrassed. “That’s the sacrifice wheel.”
The Eridian visitors clearly do not know what to make of that. “We think we misunderstood Savior Grace’s word,” they say, apparently hoping this is a vocabulary mix-up. “Explain (question, polite)?”
“Didn’t misunderstand,” says Rocky, sounding very sheepish. “That is sacrifice wheel.”
“So. While we were on our way to Erid, we might have gotten… anxious about each other’s well-being,” Grace says, which everyone is already very aware is a wild understatement. “And, well, you heard what happened at Tau Ceti, and after. There were a lot of unexpected dangers for the whole trip that required a lot of, at least, attempted self-sacrifice to solve. We ended up almost dying for each other several times. And we had an argument about what we’d do if another crisis like that came up. And we couldn't agree.”
“Grace argued that Grace already was unlikely to survive long-term on Erid, so he should be the one to do any potential deadly but necessary maneuvers to make sure I was able to bring taumoeba back,” Rocky says.
“Which made sense.”
“Did not make sense! Grace already sacrificed so much for me and for Erid, wouldn’t be fair to make you do it again—“ Rocky cuts himself off with a huff. They have obviously had this conversation before. “So sacrifice wheel was compromise.”
“Yeah,” Grace says. He spins it to demonstrate; it whirls around in a blur and a rattle of the flap hitting the pegs, then eventually slows down, and stops—pointing at the segment depicting a very bad but very clear image of an Eridian. “Rocky made the wheel, I spin the wheel, and whoever it lands on, that’s who gets to sacrifice themself to save the other and the other person does not get to argue. This way, we wouldn’t waste time debating who does the self-sacrifice and who survives, it’s just a plain fifty-fifty chance. Or, eighteen-eighteen chance in base six. But the point is it could be either of us and we would have to accept the outcome.”
Rocky started fidgeting while Grace was explaining. When Grace finishes, proud of the equitable solution they came up with to allow them to die for each other fairly, Rocky says, “Now that we are back and we don’t need sacrifice wheel anymore… I have confession to make. About the wheel.”
“What about the wheel?”
Rocky doesn’t answer. Grace frowns, first confused, then suspicious, and spins the wheel again.
It lands on Rocky again.
He spins the wheel again, and again, and again, and it lands on Rocky every single time.
“Rocky!”
“I weighted the wheel,” Rocky admits.
“Rocky the whole point was that it was equal, that was why we even made it—“
“Never was necessary so doesn’t matter anymore!”
“But you WOULD have!”
“And you never noticed because you were hungry and cranky and distracted and so would have done bad job on heroic self-sacrifice anyway!”
“I would not! I would have done fine!”
(The Eridian scientists and diplomats are still here watching this btw. Slowly dawning on them that 1) these two are extremely not normal about each other 2) if Erid ever does another space mission they NEED to send a therapist aboard because this is what happens when they don’t)
