#spec bio

[iris-of-the-lambs]

what if instead of horses we domesticated porcines... i think that could be cool

[tenspontaneite]

A way too elaborate treatise on Hornet's hypothetical scary nightmare mouth, with accompanying worldbuilding and lore.

Text corrections below the readmore.

Upper and lower jaw plates should be called labrum and labium respectively.

The "long mandibles" should more correctly be called maxillae. The set of palps attached are maxillary palps.

The set of palps attached to the large internal mandibles are mandibular palps.

[heimeldat]

This little guy has lived in my head for soooo long, but I haven't drawn him since I was a kid haha.

If you want more, I've made a gryphon sideblog @guide-to-gryphons

ID: a semi-realistic pen drawing of a squirrel and pigeon combined gryphon style, with loose low-saturation colors slapped on. Underneath it says North American Rock Gryphon, common name American Squigeon. end ID

[gnarlyghost]

0G Quarter

[jayrockin]

Coming soon: Runaway to the Stars

Alien, trans-species foster Talita has enough to deal with on the scrapworld of Dirtball. And the slyly crime-y A.I. Bip isn't helping!

Hi. Runaway to the Stars (the comic I've been posting) will be funding its print run on Kickstarter this April. Click the link to get an email alert when it goes live.

Ok, thank you for your time. Steps down off the milk crate. Puts away my megaphone. Goes back to drawing comics.

[yupmabel]

i think creepers are herbivores who get their chloroplasts by eating plants and then photosynthesize by themselves. like sea slugs

[status-quo-hater]

Reminder that the only reason "hermaphrodite" is even used in biology is because some zoologists a couple hundred years ago were were too lazy to come up with a new term to talk about how snails reproduce, and instead opted to compare them to intersex people. (Which were, at the time, ONLY called hermaphrodites. The word intersex didn't exist yet.)

Hermaphrodite has referred to intersex people since before we knew what a gamete was.

It wouldn't fucking kill you to use cosexed/cosexual, dichogamous, monoecious, gonosimulite, or whatever else to talk about animal species that have dual reproductive function. You don't need to contribute to a slur for us staying normalized.

[yellosnacc]

Bobole shown in natural patterns, with a kula and a sloman silhouette for reference.

The second most widespread domesticated predator the slomen have would be the rounder than round big-maw.

They come from temperate climates, where they roam the forests, eating animals of many sizes (usually based on pack size). Most often, they are seen in pairs (commonly of siblings), but this rule isn't unbreakable. Sometimes, packs reach over 6 members that stay together for a long period of time before they eventually separate into smaller groups. This adaptability might be why their domestication came quite naturally. From the bobole's point of view, slomen might have been great hunting buddies.

Bobole are intelligent hunters that rely on visualizing the path of their prey more than on communication between members. This makes them both adaptable and stubborn when working in bigger groups or with slomen. The usual strategy is for one individual to stay low, watching the target, while others chase it in the other's direction. The unmoving bobola waits for the moment the target is close enough to strike it. In case it fails, the one chasing will still be available on the other side to mayhaps save the hunt.

With smaller prey, they can be useful chasing the target for slomen too. But with their stubborn attitude toward their technique, it's more common for them to help keep the watch on prey and track it.

In an active hunt, the slomen direct the bigger prey to the usually-larger-breed bobola to deal the first hit, keeping the animal in grasp for a person to kill it with a weapon.

Some breeds are very territorial. For this, you will rarely see them in Ciwa, where you could consider them outlawed. Not because they could hurt a person, but because a kula could be at risk. The sacred feral population must live on.

Unlike a dog, bobolas are not as flexible to train. Little funny tricks are meant for a kula. These orbs are loyal and follow direction, but they take a lot of time to do their natural behaviors in ways most useful for people.

The easiest is for them to protect family members from threats, which is why many cultures have at least one devoted to the household kids and follow them on their mischievous journeys even when they sneak around the adults. Of course, one must establish what a threat is early on. Nobody wants an anxious bobola who bites their aunt.

In some regions, if you were to visit a village, chances are you would see them sitting by every third settlement, either sleeping or watching you. Sellers might even take them to the markets to keep thieves away.

Now, you might find these orbicular animals somewhat similar to the put-tut, but they are hardly related. Bobola are actually genetically closer to the 'slomland' bird than to slomen themselves. Just like with the raptorial shape before the mammal overtaking on earth, the upright biped is popular with convergent evolution. However, since vertebrates of the continent don't have true tails to balance them horizontally, most bipedal animals here keep their head high.

This creature has been pretty much designed for a looong time now, but I never got to actually rendering it.