#navi morphology

[frogletscribe]

Im back with more biodiversity rambling!!!

Went for a simpler style to doodle these guys out a little faster bc i have MANY thoughts always (warning this may or may not be coherent, i apologize in advance)

IMPOARTANT NOTE: the only thing even remotely canon here is the Forest and Reef Na'vi (debatable bc they are still my own interpretations), everything else is just my own musings and personal need for more variation among Na'vi.

In previous posts i think i mentioned the insane venn diagram that lives in my head of forever overlapping and endless combos of Na'vi yadayadayada, this is (LOOSLY) that.

SO, if you have seen my initial post (here) some of these guys might be familiar, but since then, i added Wetlands, Highlands, Glacier and Ash? people! And I have Thoughts ™️

Now I'm gonna hold off on Ash? people for the most part here, mostly because i am a creature that likes at least some level of "Canon Compliance" and we really won't know anything about them until the next film, so i have yet to form any solid headcanons. That being said, I do have a couple quick things:

The name 'Ash People' leads me to think that their generally building lives/evolving around volcanic areas, grey/darker skin tones from evolving around ash?

Thicker/rough skin (volcanic rocks are sharp!) and less fur/fluff on their tails.

Wetlands I imagine as clans that have evolved as a combo or River and Reef, but also Plains, as wetlands (at least as I understand them, i know that there's more to them than this but I am simplifying here) are effectively big wet fields.

I liked the idea of how if River Na'vi developed 'armor' due to swimming in constantly moving water with lots of rocks/fish/debree/etc, that Wetlands might be similar, but not quite on the same level.

Comparatively, Wetlands have no claws, and a thinner more paddle-like tail, more similar to Reef Na'vi.

Highlands I see as Plains Na'vi that evolved for colder biomes, so they keep the builds, maybe in general larger on average, closer coloring to Plains Na'vi and the longer tails, fur and claws of Mountain Na'vi.

Lastly Glacier Na'vi is the Mountain + Reef combo to create the giant spotted seal people of my dreams. I did not show it well here, but I think both Mountain and Glacier hold more fat in their bodies than other Na'vi, as well as Reef Na'vi being physically larger as well. That combo probably makes Glacier Na'vi massive (like 12-14 ft tall). Living in significantly colder climates, they need to be able to hold more heat in their bodies too, so they are physically much larger all around.

All of these are still just loose and I continue to be vague about a lot of it bc biodiversity and cultures that evolved around a given biome are two separate things to me. I like that these can be used as like umbrellas that the actual clan cultures can be born under, but not 'rules' or anything.

(I do have at least 1 (possibly 2) fan clan situations cooking in my noggin that i am slowly working on, but that's also something i want to be very conscientious about as I build it out.)

Anyways! Thanks for reading if you made it this far! Let me know your thoughts, I love talking about this sort of thing, hearing people's feedback and building off of it!!

[frogletscribe]

Hi! I really love your theories for what the Na'vi fron different biomes would look like. They got me thinking about how the Na'vi from one of my favourite biomes would adapt: mangroves. They're mixtures of jungle, forest, ocean and wetland, with different zones that border on ocean and can become grassland, forest or border on rocky regions. And they can get pretty massive so gods know how huge they'd be on Pandora, especially inland. How do you think the tribes would adapt to this extremely diverse lifestyle? Would they have large chest and fins like oceanic tribes, would they have larger musculature due to the unique type of tree, would they have darker or lighter skin and more or less defined stripes?

Sorry for the ramble, I'm just really interested in Na'vi morphology lol.

Hi there! Sorry it took me a second to get to this i just got back from out of town.

You're so right that mangroves are such an interesting biome with how varied they can be! When I was originally making my posts talking about Na'vi variants, I was thinking about potential river/swamp lands Na'vi as leaning more crocodilian (visual example here) as in having larger builds closer to the Reef people but developing deeper/darker tealish skin tones for camouflage in the forests and water etc. I think the Metkayina village we see in the movie is also built on mangrove-like trees so, depending on where in the biome, the clan lands you could lean them more or less similar to reef people vs forest people.

I purposefully left my 'catagories' vague so that theres wiggle room to effectively mix and match traits depending on the environments. In a perfect world id probably make a giant ven-diagram of overlapping morphologies between different/adjacent biomes bc like snowy mountain na'vi are gonna be different from volcanic mountain na'vi and so on.

I hope that kinda answers your question lol. I love hearing other peoples ideas on how Na'vi (or like anything on pandora really) can grow and change depending on their environment, so if you or anyone else had more to add please feel free!! And no need to apologize I love taking about this sort of thing too!!

[frogletscribe]

Oh my i love your na'vi biodiversity as a species but what would their style be? Like for arctic na'vi, they're gonna have their hair thick and down to intimidate enemies. Maybe for the river na'vi it's gonna be jet black hair and so smooth and silky.

You get what i mean?

Thank you!

I do agree and think that Na'vi in colder climates would be more prone to thicker hair, and we saw how the Reef Na'vi have more curly/wavy hair where Forest Na'vi have straight(???) hair. Other than that though, im not really sure? I left hair out of my initial exploration mostly out of a want to not limit the possibilities too much.

When it comes to hairstyle (and clothes), i think it really varies clan to clan. For example how in Avatar Frontiers of Pandora each clan had different sets of hairstyles (Zeswa with the tighter more structured braids, Kame'tire with dreadlocks, Aranahe with more free flowing, or smaller braids, etc). Hairstyles are a really big part of cultures and so i think it mostly depends on that more so than the morphology of them as a species.

[frogletscribe]

the brain worms started cooking Na'vi fan clan shenanigans again,,, maybe ill actually write them out this time,,,,

the question is do i make a big venn diagram of navi biodiversity stuff toooo,,,,