#alternative evolution

[dragonthunders01]

Spec Evo Vault, Lank

One of the most iconic reatures in The New Dinosaurs by Dougal Dixon that inhabits the African grasslands, the Lank is an animal that surprises not only because of its derived form compared to its ancestors due to become a flightless herbivore, but also because of how closely it resembles actual large pterosaurs of similar size.

Although for us today this animal is more mundane compared to Azdarchid pterosaurs with some rare anatomical details such as its fourth digit reconfigured as an ungual foot, around the late 80s and early 90s the image of pterosaurs in general did not differ extremely from one or the other, especially when most of their morphological diversity was limited to taxa such as Pterodactylus or Pteranodon, with early representations of azdarchids like Quetzalcoatlus being crouching long-necked beasts, the lank is in such context an animal that had a quite radical set adaptations to live as a flighless animal.

The Lank in its world is a curious creature, they became the lineage that dominated the herbivorous niches in Africa instead of the dinosaurs and although it convergently evolved a form and coloration similar to giraffes, it is adapted to a different ecological niche, since they are grazers that take advantage of their tall anatomy to be able to move and see their environment properly, their tall legs move synchronized one in each side while running, their heads have long flat muzzle that resemble the ones of hadrosaurs or anatids, this help them to reach the food while keeping their eyes above the line of sight over the grass to check on threats like predators.

[aut2imagineart]

I just recently finished a big Christmas piece and plan on posting it on Christmas Eve.  In the mean time, I just finished some sketches I started in the previous month. They actually tie in with the Gladius story idea and it's major premise of other timelines merging into one.  One of those timelines is one where the astroid impact that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs didn't happen.  Here are some concepts based on a bit of research I was able to do plus some speculation.   Tyrannosaurus and titanosaurs (the top two dinosaurs), actually wouldn't change all that much as they were apparently really good at what they did (getting big).  The biggest physical change would be reaching the absolute limits to their physical biology as the inland seas of the late Cretaceous period recede and continents like the Americas connect, allowing more room to expand.  Behaviorally, I imagine the Tyrannosaurs to evolve more complex social behavior.  There was already evidence social behavior and scans of their brain cavities indicated them having more intelligence than previously thought.  Though they would never evolve true sapience (that was never a trend in dinosaur evolution), they could become better a coordinating family groups to achieve more successful hunts.  They could even have a caste system based on age dedicated to hunting prey of different sizes so none of them go hungry.  The most radical possibility is each family pack having it's own herd of herbivores that it monitors, guides, and protects from other predators so they can selectively feed on them themselves. The ceratopsian is leaning on the speculative side a bit.  There is evidence of smaller members this group possessing quills that run along their back and tails so it wouldn't be unimaginable that larger ceratopsians would have these as well.  In the case of the evolved ceratopsian, I imaging it evolving more defenses as their predators become more powerful and cleaver.  The aforementioned quills become more rigid like those of a porcupine and provide some defense from behind.  The heads, of course, are formidable shields adorned with spikes and razor sharp beaks. Pterosaurs were also reaching their peak in size, with the best know examples being Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx.  As a group they were very diverse and could continue being diverse even with the emergence of birds.  The largest ones would continue being stork like predators but with slightly longer wings to traverse the entire globe and not be bound to any one continent. The toorodontids are often cited to be the most intelligent dinosaurs having the largest brain-to-body ratio.  In reality, their intelligence may have been more comparable to modern day flightless birds and as mentioned before intelligence never seemed to be a priority for dinosaurs.  That said, evolved troodontids could develop intelligence similar to modern day corvids with anatomy more resembling modern day birds.  They would still retain features like longer tails a toothed beaks as they don't need to fly* as well as their clawed fingers which in addition to their beaks and feet could be useful in primitive tool use. I hope to expand on these more in the future, particularly the evolved tyrannosaurs and their caste structure. As always, comments and critiques are welcome.

[voidarkana]

Souptober day 19 - Axe

Axebeaks are a species of domestic oviraptorosaur from Zanteria, mainly used for its tasty meat and eggs, but also for the use of their feathers and sometimes even as companion animals by some races. They're relatively easy to keep thanks to their omnivorous diets, mostly consisting on farmed crops but sometimes suplemented with meat from the ocassional mice that wander into their pens or other sources of meat provided by their farmers. Among the races that keep them as companion, most of them use them as mounts, mainly being the smaller ones like Hilerbin due to their restrictive size (they're not as big as to be able to support a human).

Their name comes from their crest, that kinda resembles an axe and it's seemlessly joined to their beaks. While their crests can't cut as a normal axe would and they don't use them for intraspecific combat or any kind of combat at all, when used as war mounts or war animals they're usually equiped with sharp helmets to make them live up to their names.

[siryl]

An illustration by Jeane Colville for The New Dinosaurs by Dougal Dixon.  These krakens belong to an alternate timeline where the End-Cretaceous Mass Extinction never took place.

[extensiveuniverseofshit]

Had a discussion on a discord server last night on what if humans evolved into gay, straight, and lesbian species. Made them birds, and this is what has come of it.

[cmkosemensketchbook]

Sketch of Anomaloplodon, a “straw-toothed” lizard. It’s not a “true” lizard as we know it. Not a real animal, but an exercise of speculative zoology.

www.cmkosemen.com

[anecdotonomicon]

I watched Stanislav Drobyshevsky’s lecture about hunourous theory about centaurs being alternative branch of terrestrial vertebrates evolved from acanthodes instead of crossopterygii, and I drew this, trying to imagine how that centaurs would look like

[codex-ebervalianus]

A young Thalassanthropus girl with her pet penguin Note: This is an old illustration from my previous blog