(for optimal viewing, please use a computer and blog address ^^)
This is a ground-up speculative evolution project that focuses on the evolution of life on a planet called Novinitum D, a planet that's similar to Earth, but different in a few ways.
This is the homepage of the project where you can find various links for further reading about the solar system, planet, animals, etc. and other information such as the most recent editions or updates.
Please peruse the blog at your own leisure and feel free to ask questions, frequently asked questions will have their own dedicated page in the future if needed (which I doubt).
(This blog is still very much under construction so please forgive the lack of content, in the future the following hyperlinks will actually link to pages in the future)
This is part 4 of my list of the 43 canonised taxa I had in the #Paleostream #LemuriaChallenge going environment by environment and showcasing their original submissions, you can find part 3 here
This is part 3 of my list of the 43 canonised taxa I had in the #Paleostream #LemuriaChallenge going environment by environment and showcasing their original submissions, you can find part 2 here
Temperate Pluvial Forests:
Tetraomegaversae zloverum and Karuppupampu karuppu
Wollemia Open Woodlands:
Wollemia petiteae and Botrolathyrus concessum
Bushlands:
Arboramplector linteo
Subterranean:
Wollemia petiteae (repeat!), Ianiasaxa sp., and Fistulasuchus sp.
Imparamus emlyni (Zamites xericensis) (Williamsonia mqxineae) (Weltrichia maiae), Incustoditainillepollina crinitaranamaxillae (retcon: can land on higher plants to pollinate now rather than exclusively pollinating ground plants), and Aurisofina katu
Cold Deserts:
Malefakaphyllum petiteae (repeat!)
30 image limit reached, one lucky last in Part 4 (link to Part 2 if you wanna go back)
This is part 2 of my list of the 43 canonised taxa I had in the #Paleostream #LemuriaChallenge going environment by environment and showcasing their original submissions, you can find part 1 here
Karstic Stone Forests:
Kavacapuella sp., Hominevespertilio versteegi, and Lithosaltator kangae
Rivers:
Eoelops robustus
Grass Rafts:
Ceratophyllum lemuriensis, Aquaballare motus, and Potatorpaed crypticus
Nothing in Tropical Rainforests :)
Tropical Rainforest Canopy:
Corlingua sp., Virgarubus rigida, and Microparvo brevi (retcon: females also found in canopy)
at least when it comes to streams! In 19 pieces we canonized over 800 taxa, probably closer to 900. So here they are again, the Oligocene of Lemuria, laid out for you! Let me know which are your favorite!
Coral reefs
Snail reefs
Seagrass meadows
Coasts
Mangroves
Karstic stone forests
Rivers
Tropical rainforest
Canopy
Leaf litter
Pluvial temperate forests
Open woodlands
Bushlands
Subterranean
Hot deserts
Cold deserts
Central wetland
For people not aware: Lemuria is a spec evo project of the #paleostream community. It follows the evolution of organisms living on the fictional continent of Lemuria (fusion of Madagascar and India) from the Cretaceous to the Pleistocene. We are in the Oligocene #LemuriaChallenge
I have to thank the team behind the organisation of this challenge, our Lemuria council as well as the many many people who submitted their work to be included.
Thank you to everyone who submitted an organism to this phase of the challenge, community spec challenges like these wouldnt be possible without participation!!! As one of the people on the team organising the challenge and helping create the world it's set in, it means a lot to see such energetic enthusiasm towards it.
This is a part 1 of a list of the 43 submissions of mine that were canonised going piece by piece along with their original submissions! (a link to part 2 will be at the very end)
Coral Reefs:
Sua kimae and Absconditocollum milleri
Snail Reefs:
Regalijester jevili and Terebrochleanus sp.
Sea Grass Meadows:
Bihodos reticulatus, Testudodens regina, and Jain doe
More radiosilence from me, but this time I can say that I have been working on Novinitum D behind the scenes!!! But also I feel that this space would be better suited as a compendium for all of my speculative evolution and speculative biology work, not just one thing.
What does this mean? It means that this page won't be focused on just Novinitum D, but also all of my spec work past, present, and future. For those who've been following me else where this will include stuff such as the Atlantis and Lemuria PaleoStream spec challenges. This will also mean that there will be less inactivity from here (hopefully).
I'll continue to use designated hashtags, and each project will have their own dedicated category in the website view (which as always is the recommended viewing experience of this blog).
(for optimal viewing, please use a computer and blog address ^^)
This is the third Novinitum D crelog! (a.k.a. creator log. I know, very creative). These are basically like devlogs but for my specevo and worldbuilding projects. Entries where it's me updating yall on the behind-the-scenes stuff and also asking for feedback on occasion, maybe even a poll, we'll see.
It's... been a bit lol. After a lot of radiosilence from me for the entire year, I'm happy to say that I've still been chugging along with the plate tectonics, although I sit at a crossroad now.
I have lost passion for the seedworld concept.
It sucks, but it's happened. However I am very passionate about a ground up spec evo concept (evolving a biosphere from scratch), all hope is not lost for spec! So here's my question to the 35 lovely people who decided to take a chance on me (the number will probably go down as a result of this but that's fine there's no obligation to stay since the project is changing):
Do I change this blog into the space for the new project (the name will also change accordingly)
Do I?
yes
no
other (comment pls)
Voting ended onNov 14, 2024
thank you once again for supporting me through intense creative block regarding this
Hello, Is there an artist who can simulate a realistic planet map on gplates? I need this for my project and I can pay for it.
yes actually! worldbuildingpasta takes commissions, you can contact him through [email protected], but on his blog (which i linked earlier) he gives this general guideline:
Projection help/small jobs/general advice: 20 USD
Climate simulation or Resource mapping: 100 USD
World maps (basic coastlines and topography): 200 USD
Full tectonic history or Detailed Terrain: 800 USD
(for optimal viewing, please use a computer and blog address ^^)
This is the second Novinitum D crelog! (a.k.a. creator log. I know, very creative). These are basically like devlogs but for my specevo and worldbuilding projects. Entries where it's me updating yall on the behind-the-scenes stuff and also asking for feedback on occasion, maybe even a poll, we'll see.
It's been a while! Happy 2024! In this entry I'll be discussing some major changes about the planet + a tentative list of seeding taxa! It's very brief but I think I owe it to the very small handful of people who've shown interest in this project.
sneak peak into what this crelog features
Previous crelog [#1] <- [#2] -> Next crelog [#3]
🗒️Crelogs🗒️
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the state of the world map at 0 MY (the massive blank space is part of a plate which is too big for gplates to render)
The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that not only is this an entirely different map, but that I'm starting from an entirely different method. Instead of starting with a super continent which splits apart - like in Worldbuilding Pasta's method (link to his blog here) - I've started from the oceanic plates first, essentially starting the world from scratch. The map at 50 MY will be seen when I reveal the name of the first time period.
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This list is very tentative but most likely will stay the same:
Animals:
Operculaurisichthys
made up fully pelagic Grimothea species
reef building oysters
scallops
copepods
made up Argyroneta species
clam shrimp of marine and freshwater varieties
made up thalattosuchian genus
made up starfish genus
made up Ptychoceras species
made up Squalus species
made up lanternfish species
made up pycnodont species
Plants:
Zostera marina
indeterminate algae
Valonia ventricosa
indeterminate phytoplankton
Fungi:
marine lichens (I know these aren't true fungi but for simplicity's sake they're here)
That's all for now! There should be more coming soon since progress has been incredibly quick since the change in plate tectonic method
(for optimal viewing, please use a computer and blog address ^^)
First Novinitum D crelog! (creator log, i know very creative). These are basically like devlogs but for my specevo and worldbuilding projects. Entries where it's me updating yall on the behind-the-scenes stuff and also asking for feedback on occasion, maybe even a poll, we'll see.
In this entry I'll be discussing the progress I've made on the first taxon of the project, the infamous fish I've been spamming on my socials for the past week (it finally has a name!). And I'll also be discussing my process on the map and fleshing out the geological past and future of Novinitum D.
sneak peak into what this crelog features
[#1] -> Next crelog [#2]
🗒️Crelogs🗒️
~~~~~🐟🐟🐟~~~~~
Operculaurisichthys pelagicus, the type species of Operculaurisichthys (yes that's the name people, write it down write it down!!!)
Enter Operculaurisichthys, the 'eared operculum fish'. This entire project only exists because one night I sat down, drew a made up fish (this one) and thought to myself "what if I started a seed world with this fish?". Now this figure is actually slightly innaccurate now but not noticably so to most people so I think it's fine using it in a crelog, updated figures will be used in its dedicated taxon article anyways.
I wanted to talk about it because 1. it's awesome, and 2. phylogeny.
As many of you know, I created this fish without any intention of clade in mind, that said however, I very much had pachycormids on my mind at the time because they sparked my fish anatomy hyperfixition (fish people will know why I've shot myself in the foot doing that). This means that I unknowingly made its anatomy nearly identical to a generalised pachycormid as pointed out by Sky Jung in a VC (check him out on twitter: @HBivittatus and insta: @teleostei_art). Jumping off of that observation, I created a modified phylogenetic character matrix based on the first matrix in Cooper et al., (2022) in Mesquite.
A little look into the character matrix within Mesquite, 130 characters and 30 taxa in this one
I'll go more in detail in its dedicated taxon article about what exactly was modified in some sort of phylogeny section probably.
After sorting out all the characters for the Operculaurisichthys spp. (yes there are multiple species, more about that in a future crelog probably) I imported the .nex file into TNT which I used to create the majority rule consensus tree you see below.
Everything before Euthynotus spp. is part of the outgroup, so I wouldnt pay them much attention, as you can see, this majority rule consensus tree is the result of 24 most parsimonious trees
The inclusion of Operculaurisichthys didn't break Pachycormidae to my surprise, which is incredibly impressive for a fish that was made with no clade in mind. As you can see its firmly nested within Hypsocorminae in a polytomy with Simocormus and the more derived hypsocormines, which I find incredibly interesting for the afformentioned reason.
Anyways that's all I'm gonna talk about regarding Operculaurisichthys, so if you just came for that now's your chance to leave. Onto GPlates stuff and plate tectonics!!!
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A sneak peak at the GPlates project file, just the sea side tho can't give everything away too early can I now ;P
What is GPlates? I think their website puts it best "GPlates is a plate tectonics program (where you can) manipulate reconstructions of geological and paleogeographic features through geological time." What I'm doing is simulating the plate tectonics through geological time to give my world a realistic look and assure I can keep that same realistic look throughout the course of the project.
I'm using the GPlates portion of Artifexian's worldbuilding series (link to the playlist here) mixed with referencing Worldbuilding Pasta's blog (link to his blog here) which the GPlates portion of Artifexian's worldbuilding series derives from. Artefixian simplifies a lot of stuff to suit his workflow - which is valid - while Worldbuilding Pasta's original method is closer to the level I like, so I cross reference a lot of stuff.
One of the many island arcs on the planet
However one thing I do which is different to both is create the continental shelf portion of my island arcs every 50 million year timestep. This sounds stupid and tedious, but makes sense when you take into account the fact that I'll be making multiple of these maps every 50 Million year timestep or so (still deciding on that). So having that reference and being able to simulate the building of terrain over time is incredibly useful.
Ontop of this I'm also adding an accurate amount of terrain using the equation: (island arc length * age of island arc in MY) / 2 (which is taken from this Artifexian video). This is an incredibly tedious process but imo worth it in the end.
Earlier version of the above island arc showing that it's all one connected element, please understand how tedious this is lmao
So yeah! That's pretty much all I'm willing to reveal right now, hope this gives yall an idea what you're in for and also a look at my creative process (aka my flavour of autism). There will definitely be more crelogs in the future, and more frequently as I continue to make more progress in developing the major parts of the world.
