#hexapods

[onenicebugperday]

Giant springtail, Tetrodontophora bielanensis, Onychiuridae

Found primarily in central Europe

Photos 1-3 by sympiotr and 4 (for scale) by antsczech

[collemblogging]

A poduromorph rainbow!

[starryknight-dragonarts]

Ouraeusobelisk Ouraeusobelisk is based on the Spinosaurus, The Largest Terrestrial Predators (that we know of) and one of the most interesting dinosaurs in the modern day with all of the recent discoveries made about it that have completely changed our understanding of it's behavior and how it lived. We thought it only stood by the side of rivers like a giant heron and would snatch fish as they swam near it but then it was discovered to have a paddle tail so it must have been doing some swimming. Then we thought it couldn't go out into very deep water or the sail would throw off it's balance, but then we discovered it had a salt gland for getting rid of excess salt like an Marine Iguana, so it must have been swimming in sea water or at least water that was very brackish. I also named it after the Ouraeusobelisk after a cross between an Uraeus the crown of Pharaohs used as the simple of Divine Authority, Sobek the Crocodile Headed Egyptian god of the Nile River, Fertility, and Protection, and the mythical Basilisk which is said to be the King of Serpents, probably inspired by the Cobra. Despite appearing Human-Sobek is considered a more animalistic than other gods like he actually has the brain of a crocodile more than a person, however he is also considered benevolent and his fierceness could ward off evil and protect the innocent. The Ouraeusoblisk are called the King of Swamps and wetlands not because they are the most powerful or deadly beast, but because they are legendary for being able to provide for the land around them. Their sails are able to take in energy from the sunlight and then release that energy to make their environment flourish with life because the healthier the kingdom of their domain is around them the better chance they have to keep feeding on healthy prey. They also have a Paralyzing gaze that can stop not just creatures but moving objects in its track as though the King gives the command to halt in place.

Valasilisk The here Valasilisk is based on a mix between the Baryonyx, the Ichthyovenator and the mythical Basilisk. The Baryonyx's name comes from the Greek "Barus" meaning Heavy or Strong, and "Onux" meaning Claw for the Velociraptor-like Sickle Claw on their forelimbs rather than the back. Ichthyovenator means "Fish Hunter" due to it's assumed behavior but we actually do not have a full skeleton of this species but the tail suggests it may have aided in swimming and it's fossil has been found alongside bivalves, fish, and turtles. The Basilisk of myth has no completely set appearance, sometimes it's a snake, sometimes it's a multi-limbed reptilian creature, sometimes it's a Dragon, and other times it can be mixed with the Cockatrice. They are Small but considered the King of Serpents acting like little princes, and they are so deadly that their glare or their breath can kill someone in an instant, they also have venom is so deadly they leave a trail of death and decay behind them. In Soaring the Valasilisk is a creature with a roll in their environment not just a monster that needs to be destroyed before it destroys everything around it so I want to keep the spirit of the Basilisk without it just killing everything. The Valasilisk mainly hunt by fishing in wetlands terrain while hidden in tall grassy areas using their striped pattern to blend in, but if they feel like they are in danger then they can change the grasses in their vicinity to become sharp and poisonous blades for a short period of time. The Poison creates an painful stinging breakout of a ridged crust form on the victim's skin first slowing their movements or petrifying them bit by bit, it is not deadly if the cut is skin deep but it can be made deadly if it's introduced internally causing the petrification of muscle, blocking of the wind pipe, or clotting in the bloodstream

Benusobelisk The Benusobelisk is based on the recently discovered Spinosaurus Mirabilis, a species of Spinosaurus with a large horned crest on their head, aka a Unicorn Spinosaurus. The Benu or Bennu bird is the Egyptian version of the Phoenix and may have been the inspiration of the Phoenix in Greek mythology, but instead of being depicted like a bird of prey, the Bennu was a Crane or Heron. According to myth, the Bennu was self created, sometimes called "He who came into being by himself" and played a role in the creation of the world, it may also just literally be the soul (or the Ba, the personal component of the Soul) of Ra the Sun god and parodically revives itself like the cycle of sunset and sunrise and therefore also are associated with Rebirth so they are also connected to Osiris. The Benusobelisk generally has the same powers as the Ouraeusobelisk being able to absorb sunlight and radiate that energy to their environment, but also have the power to cast burning rays from the intensity of their gaze and burn threats but also set fire to the land and burn it to ash before revitalizing it.

Garolisk

The Garolisk is loosely based on the idea of Gargoyles and ...well Garchomp from Pokemon. The Garolisk are nocturnal predators to prefer to live in arid rocky areas where they can burrow with thier long sharp digging claws and then use their own magic ability to appear to self-petrify as camouflage, appearing to become a statue or completely disappear in the rocky landscape while they rest during the day, however it's not save to approach a sleeping Garolisk as they won't turn up a meal that comes right to them. They are able to detect pressure through the ground and have electroreceptors on their face that can detect the electrochemical signals in animals. At night they emerge to hunt forming up in up to 6 member groups that are not exactly a pack since they don't exhibit pack-like social behavior and will likely go separate ways and join up with other members as it is convenient for them.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

How would you more believably portray six-legged creatures? I was watching Avatar yesterday and one design choice that really bugged me was how the hexapodal alien animals all just looked like earth mammals, with the front legs copy-pasted twice. Wouldn't a limb arrangement like that cause them to trip over their own legs when running at higher speeds, especially predators like the thatator?

I think if the front legs are synchronized, there won't be any trouble with tripping, as shown in this post over here about horses in Fallout with extra legs:

Post by @owligator · 7 images

💬 55  🔁 18167  ❤️ 31597 · If theres one thing I crave whenever I play New vegas it’s.. horses.. So i MADE MY OWN They’re called sleipnir fo

But it is incredibly boring for all the six legged creatures to have such mammalian body plans, so here are some options:

(image description: sketches of six legged creatures. the first has a quadrupedal body plan with the extra front limbs being smaller and built like arms for grabbing. the second has the same body plan mentioned above, with the two front legs being close together and basically the same. the third one has a more insectoid body plan, with all three sets of legs close together near the bottom of the torso, and then spreading outwards from the body. and the final one is like an elongated lizard with an extra set of limbs in the middle of the body. end description)

Having one set of limbs be more grabby while the remaining two pairs are for running is probably one of my favorite options, especially if you want to create a believable sapient people species. Another option for bipedal movement is having two sets of grabby limbs and one set of walking limbs. which limbs get to do the walking and which ones get to do the grabbing is entirely up to personal preference, of course. I also went a bit more digitigrade/ungulate with some of these, but they could be plantigrade too! quadrupedal-type movement does not necessarily require tippy toes.

tail size/shape/existence optional.

as with real life animals, the body shape and limb functions are very dependent on what each creature relies on for survival. do they prioritize fast running? climbing? do they swim? etc.

[coffeenuts]

[ketrinadrawsalot]

Springtail spectrum

[jaybug-jabbers]

i have a question that seems like it'd be something you're interested in. my favorite glitch pokemon is the bug/glitch pokemon c 7 (index 233), and i wanted to think of a visual design for it so i could draw it and maybe turn it into a plushie. my c 7 is just my little dude that i want to draw, but i have absolutely no idea where to begin making a design im happy with

do you know any bugs that either resemble wooper a little (johto guard), have a pink and blue color palette, or are known for being fast and having a weird ability (high speed, very high special)? i think it'd be cool to base my c 7 design off an actual bug like an actual bug pokemon, but i know pretty much nothing about them lol

i love this blog btw. from what ive seen, its got a lot of joy for flora/fauna stuff i dont know much about, but im delighted by it nonetheless. im planning on reading through your glitch run because it looks really cool, but as of writing this it is almost midnight lol. i noticed #233 there and im excited to see someone else using it! cant wait to see what mischief it gets up to in your game :D

Oh!! I love #233 so much! They were amazing in my playthrough and are one of my favorites too. I imagined them as a sort of collective of nano-bots that came together to make a larger being (similar to Wishiwashi) since I was trying to incorporate the fact the menu sprite is a pokeball, and thus more machinelike (and the fact their front sprite has multiple forms, kinda shapeshifty). Plus, playing around with the whole bugs = glitches concept, so making it more digital/mechanical in nature, yet sticking with something that seemed buglike (nanobots). But there's so many other fun ways they could be conceptualized.

I am probably going to go on a bit of a ramble since insects are a special interest of mine, ahaha, I hope you don't mind.

In terms of speed, Tiger Beetles are probably the fastest land bugs out there; they chase down their prey like Cheetah, basically. Meanwhile, Dragonflies/damselflies and Robber Flies are also pursuit predators, essentially the hawks/eagles of the insect world, snatching prey out of the air at high speeds. They're honestly all really cool, charismatic species.

But there's also lesser-known critters that I find really cool too, which I think would be great inspiration for a pokemon. For example, springtails. These are technically not insects but are closely related animals, and they come in a wide variety of shapes and colors. Everything from Round Bois to fat, spiky gummi bears, to shimmering and sleek:

As the name implies they often have tails that allow them to spring up to incredible heights relative to their teeny tiny size.

Wasps also offer some intense diversity that most people are not aware of (with ~30,000 species identified and many more estimated). Most are solitary and many of them are parasitic/parasitoids on various fellow invertebrates. "Fairy wasps" are especially teeny-tiny, some of them smaller than an amoeba. That's a complex, multi-ceullular insect, smaller than a single-celled creature! (I think they would be great Bug/Fairy types) One species of parasitoid wasp injects its host prey (a caterpillar) via its ovipositer/stinger with virus DNA (along with its waspy eggs) to help subdue its prey's immune system. The wasps have basically domesticated the virus DNA for their own use as a biological weapon. Bonkers. Here's three species of wasp I took pictures of myself! The left one is a teeny parasitoid wasp that landed on me, the middle actually has paralyzed a cricket and is dragging it back to the hole she dug so she can lay eggs in it and bury it for her bebbies, the third wasp was looking in those nooks and crannies in the rock for a nest site, I believe. <3 This is just a small sample of the crazy shapes and sizes of wasps ("Velvet Ants" are also some beautiful wasps, and Ichneumon Wasps, and the stunning Tarantula Hawk . . . I could go on and on)

There are definitely lots of bugs with blue and even a decent number of bubblegum pink insects (including the California Pink Glowworm, the Rosy Maple moth, pink katydids, pink springtails, etc) but I'm not sure of any that have both the baby blue and baby pink at once. Not off the top of my head at least, odds are there's something out there though lol

The bug that first comes to mind when thinking about Wooper is maybe the Toad Bug-- Wooper isn't a toad of course, but there are some visual similarities and they are so neat. You also could look up Mayfly nymphs, who are aquatic with feathery gills on their butts (kinda like Wooper's axolotl-inspired gills). Damselfly nymphs look similar. Insects like mayflies and damselflies are, in a way, similar to amphibians like Wooper since they have an aquatic nymph stage and then turn into air-breathing adults.

I'm gonna stop here, since I could go on forever 😅 I'll probably think of even more I'd want to mention later haha. Also, thank you so much for your kind words. It always thrills me to find another person interested in some of the funky and wild creatures out there. I think that's why I love glitch pokemon so much too. They're weird lil freaks and I love that about them! Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful, as Mr. Darwin said.

[critterz-n-creatures]

Went on a hike today and was graced with the presence of this majestic unicorn

Image description: Photos from various angles of a horned passalus beetle (odontotaenius disjunctus) crawling through the grass. It is very shiny and black, with orange on its legs and under its carapace. It has two clubbed antennae and a single curved horn on its head. It is quite large, around 3 centimeters or 1.5 inches long. End ID.