#specbio

[wanderingokali]

Don't think I've ever posted the stuff from the aquarium game on its own... here's the sprites i had exported as gifs, although im missing a couple from whats in the full game. If I remember, i'll post their lore pages later as well!

[jayrockin]

Almost Real's POP CULTURE issue is live on Kickstarter! Time to introduce the cute yet vaguely horrible cover critter, a living gachapon toy bioengineered by scud aliens!

The wild gachapede is a segmented worm-like arthropoid that lives parasitically inside a bivalve-like "giant diatom" in shallow, sandy-bottomed seas of the scud homeplanet. The giant diatom's shell is made of two interlocking lid-like frustules of transparent silica, allowing light to pass through to its veins of symbiotic unicellular algae. Much like the microscopic diatoms of earth, giant diatoms reproduce in two different ways, asexually and sexually. Asexual reproduction is carried out by the two frustules separating and each generating a new frustule, a phase during which they may be parasitized by the gachapede. But because the new frustule is always smaller than the old one, like the lid and body of a box, eventually one lineage of giant diatoms is too small to safely carry out asexual reproduction. These tiny ones will finally give up and reproduce sexually by releasing sperm and eggs that will join to create new larvae and maximum-size giant diatoms. The parasitic gachapede has a relatively low impact on a large healthy giant diatom, as it lays dormant until the frustules split, surviving off the "bloodstream" of unicellular algae.

Scuds have used the unique properties of these two organisms in combination with their civilization's advanced biotech to create a collectable toy; twisting the basic bodyplan of the gachapede into thousands of variations of "funny little guys." The wild diatom has been modified into a "gachapod," which is far more spacious and transparent than its wild counterpart. To obtain the toy, you crack open the two frustles and recycle the gachapod (which will now grow into two new pods). However, once removed from its food source, the gachapede typically only lives a couple days at most. At the end of its life, its cuticle calcifies and makes them into a rigid figurine. Scuds who are really into the gachapede scene will pose their gachapede into a desirable pose like a insect collector pinning a bug.

Anyways, if you want to read about even more strange, horrifying, and fascinating intersections of biology and pop culture, check out Almost Real: A Speculative Biology Zine. We've also got a big thick book of the previous issues with different themes, including Mythology, Biotechnology, Aquatics, and Flight.

[ordheist]

NEW BOOK ALERT

28 page sci-fi bestiary styled as a vintage naturalist book. if you're a fan of Pikmin, speculative biology, or just looking at little beasties, you may enjoy Observations of a Small Boulder in Hantu Forest

digital release only for now, only 4 bucks! I’m trying to offload commission work and get a bit of income from my personal work, so any support is deeply deeply appreciated

https://ordheist.itch.io/observations

Observations of a Small Boulder in Hantu Forest by ordheist

A 28 page bestiary cataloguing various alien lifeforms in a small forest clearing.

[harefemme]

was anyone else thinking about rocky & adrian's hypothetical babies? no? no ?? really? okay. notes (canon-based headcanon by myself and my bf) are below the cut. the notes written directly on the image are down there as well.

THOUGHTS & NOTES: - this is their first litter post-mission. they raised two litters previous to rocky's mission departure. - each has a true eridian name as well; listed names are for grace's sake, and only brave's name is a 1:1 translation. - litter of 5 is canon-average, so 5 it is! - it is reasonable to assume that eridians are raised communally due to communal egg laying. rocky did not mention his offspring during the mission due to uncertainly regarding social taboo and being unsure if mentioning them would somehow upset a very aroace ryland grace. it decidedly would not have. - grace babysits them frequently (technically he has a hand in raising them) and therefore they are weird little children by eridian standard. they hug and perform other eridian atypical social behaviors. i get my canon information from this document, posted by andy weir himself. go give it a read! it's awesome!! LITTER INFORMATION: lazuli: named for her color. grace gendered her as a "she," and it stuck. iggy (igneous): tall! brave: 1st of their litter to hatch, named for grace; rocky insisted. robbie: grace's third rocky reference logan: grace's fourth rocky reference

[koegama]

Hanasei have a hard keratin helmet on their heads, where horns sprout out of — also called the crown region. The crown develops as early as 1 month into the larval stage, but horns only start sprouting 4 years into their child stage. The growth plateaus around the mid 20s, and horns only grow once.

If a horn breaks mid-growing, there are a few outcomes: Growth can presume as usual, though lagging behind the normal horn, resulting in a "dwarf horn". The horn may also off shoot in different directions, depending on how it was broken. Finally, the rarest outcome is a different style of horn sprouting from the stump — often a result from a gene dominance flicking on/off.

Their horns were used in fights for dominance and to showcase health and fitness. Nowadays, their horns are rarely used outside of fighting tournaments. In fact, most view it as a canvas for personal and artistic expression — carvings, shavings and even cutting them off and replacing with caps or different models (often made with clay, but metals and synthetic keratin are also popular) being common modifications.

a. Unaltered horns of an adult hanasei. b. Horn carvings. The markings shown depict the dry and full phases of a river in Yomi culture. c. Horn caps. The symbol adorned is religious, from the Obá religion. It signifies faith and daylight.

[troythecatfish]

[heartofpromethea]

abandoned or orphaned pegasus foals will usually die, either by starvation or predation, especially from other adult pegasi. its also extremely taboo to even get near a pegasus, adult or juvenile.