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Twins Chenya and Finyan

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More of my sphinx gal who I'm slowly learning how to draw

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Just watched The Way of Water and uh. Yeah. That was definitely a movie

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(Art from 2019) my very first concept of Gallons! This character in particular is named Chenya (shen-yuh) and I was going to make a comic about her. I still might, it would just be focused on different things. They were originally more like chalicothere in build but ultimately it made no sense and I ended up redoing their anatomy.

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More info about these guys under the cut!

Since they aren't named, I'll just call them Gallons for now (the males look like they're wearing a big ole 10-gallon hat).

Males are calves > barrows > bulls > harem masters

Females are calves > heifers > cows > matriarchs

*All herds have 1 harem master and 1 matriarch each

Gallon calves are kept in clusters of 10 - 15 called merry groups. These groups are managed by young heifers, whose care for the calves gives them the skills necessary to raise their own someday. Depending on the sex ratio of each merry, some groups are much more easily managed (male<female), while others are rowdy and raucous (female<male).

There is no true distinction between male and female Gallons from birth to roughly 8 months old, when males begin to let off an odorous musk that signifies their need to depart from their merry group. They will join the other young males, who range from 8 months to 3 years, at the front of the herd, where they are easily watched by the harem master.

Young females will stay within their merry group for another 4 months, where at 1 year of age they will rejoin their mothers in the herd to learn what skills she has to teach. Females in particular are able to identify each other through pheromones, and will even begin to smell like one another depending on who they group with during migrations.

By 3 years of age, both males and females are fully developed, however males will continue to grow their wattles and head crest until age 6. Now independent from their mothers, heifers who choose not to mate their first viable year begin to lead merry groups, caring for new offspring.

Barrows experience a hike in testosterone during late development, and will begin to exhibit heightened aggression. This period is usually during a time of few or no calves, which is a perfect coincidence, as they would easily be crushed underfoot a rampaging male.

During this time of aggression, Gallon herds will participate in "mingling", where herds will meet together and mesh. Harem masters will size up each other's male offspring, and then swap what few they approve of. Any remaining will be expelled, becoming lone males who may sneak into another herd, lure some females away, or attempt to win them fairly at a mating lek. Females will stay with their natal herd their whole life.

Mating leks function like normal ones do, where all Gallon herds (there are 3 defined ones total) come together to watch as the males participate. Females are incredibly picky, and most will choose not to mate in favor of seeing what the next year's males have to offer. Younger females are more easily coerced, however, the guidance of her matriarch allows her to make a choice based on more than just an impressive display.

Male displays differ depending on whether or not he has a partner to display with. A solo male will show off his brawn by pushing trees, boulders, or lying down and then quickly getting back on his feet, which is an impressive feat for a 4-ton creature. Some males, who have been successful year after year, will simply just stand about and wait for recurring females to meet with them.

Males who have a display partner will size each other up, jab at each other with their foreclaws, or show off their crests and interlock bosses to perform an almost sumo-style shoving match.

Barrows are not allowed to display in the lek; they are there purely to learn. Bulls, while their performances may be impressive, are often overshadowed by harem masters- although they nonetheless find success each season. Harem masters are the largest males who, at an early age, acquired a harem of females, and a rush of hormones disrupted their development and made them grow much larger much faster.

To maintain their status, harem masters will meet together at the center of the lek, rear up, and press their forelegs against each other's chests in a sort of interlocked "hug" (think dreadnoughtus from Prehistoric Planet, kind of). There is no shoving, no stabbing with their sharp foreclaw, and no overexertion of physical strength. Harem masters will stay interlocked and standing like this until one male will back down, at which the remaining male will be crowned the winner.

After the lek, males will disperse with their claimed females for the season, and the herds will settle for the night. In the cover of darkness, some sneaky young barrows may attempt to woo a female, although most are shouted at or shoved away. When he's not busy, harem masters who take notice will find no issue with killing unwanted advances from a barrow.

In the morning, herds will part ways, beginning their triennial migration. Gallons have a codependent relationship with a species of tree that produces a heart-shaped fruit (we're going to call them heartfruit, and heartfruit trees) that bloom in time with their migration. Newly mated females will go through a hunger strike the first three or so months of their pregnancy, and heartfruit trees fruit at a very precise window after mating leks where females will still have their appetite. The nutrients from what heartfruit they eat will allow them to last without worry during their strike, and in turn, any other Gallon who eats them will distribute their seeds along their migration path.

Um okay this is really long bye.

Reposting these because they go wherever I go! They are a species of currently unnamed "pseudo-mammals" whose migratory patterns are decided by an annually fruiting species of tree with which they've evolved codependency. These images are a little old so hopefully I'll have more on them later.

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Reposting these because they go wherever I go! They are a species of currently unnamed "pseudo-mammals" whose migratory patterns are decided by an annually fruiting species of tree with which they've evolved codependency. These images are a little old so hopefully I'll have more on them later.

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A member of the taxhiel, a sapient nomadic race

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Part 2 of what snackies Chirpers have!

Last time we saw some of the usual forage and cultivated plants Chirpers have at their disposal! Now we're gonna take a general look at what they do with them, aka cooking time!

One of the staples of their daily meals are the golden fruit seen on the left; they are to them as potatoes are to us, they are filling and grow in any condition.

They can be eaten unprocessdd and have a sweet watery taste to them, though they can be dried to prepare them for long term storage, they are also juiced and mixed with other ingreadients to make all kinds of drinks, and are sometimes jellied when the needed gelatine is available.

When not used for soup dipping, plant tubers and other foraged goods are ground up into fillings which are put into a kind of flavourless flatbread to make into rolls.

These rolls can range from savoury sweet to tangy and salty.

The most important part of their food ritual, the 'communal soup' we will take a look at within the next post, which eill focuse on how settling Chirpers structure their housing and infrastructure!

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@charseraph

And finished! Man this took so long, this is not a lot of text at all but bringing mself to write down my worldbuilding thoughts will always be hard i guess!

Don't know what the heck a Chirper is? -> Here is one, or two even!

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Centaur Aliens Lifespan: 80 years Adult weight: 500-1000 kg Adult height: 2.5-4 meters Visual range: near infrared to blue Diet: Obligate hypercarnivores Centaurs’ evolutionary ancestors were savanna pack predators who used ambush to hunt prey, nomadically following prey animal herds as they traveled round the global continent every year. Modern centaurs emerged when they started to use tools to help with hunting and land management, eventually resulting in some groups settling down and becoming reliant on fishing, animal agriculture, and food preservation to survive. Centaurs remain obligate hypercarnivores, meaning approximately 70% of a healthy diet is meat and animal products, but they opportunistically supplement their diet with grain, starchy tubers, and small amounts of roughage and vegetation. Similar to humans, centaurs have a bisex reproductive system with an inseminator sex and gestator sex who gave birth to live young, but functionally are more akin to Earth’s marsupials. Centaur’s distant ancestors had larvae that lived in the soil like grubs before pupating into adults, and their viviparous silk eating clade first emerged after parental care of the larval stage evolved. While other members of their clade have development and pupation both happen in-utero, centaur litters leave the womb early and feed on their parent’s nutritive silk until they are large enough to pupate, spinning a cocoon on their parent’s back. They emerge as an imago, resembling a miniature adult with the physical capacity of an six-week old kitten. Centaurs are pseudo-eusocial, with a social structure hierarchy somewhat similar to meerkats. At its most basic level a clan consists of one matriarch, a female who is responsible for bearing the clan’s young; the entourage, who are the matriarch’s partners and usually mostly male; and the clan’s “workers,” who are not involved in reproduction. These non-reproductive clan members are generally either the matriarch’s children, childless relatives, or individuals married in for their skills or political purposes. Read more about centaur biology on my janky eternally work-in-progress website here, or look at the old centaur reference post here. PATREON | STORE | Runaway to the Stars

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plsplspls id love to see this

reblog and tag with what barbie was the most popular the year you were born!!!!

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another (partially) domesticated animal

the tycir are a grazing herd animal that share a common ancestor with ensthirs, despite all differences. they fill a niche similar to camels, able to withstand high temperatures, low water supply and can walk for hours without needing many breaks. their low center of gravity also allows them to traverse uneven terrain.

the blue horns of the tycir are repurposed mandibles that have become fixed into place, which can be used either to fend off predators or to fight for a mate. both males and females possess horns, but a males will be larger and brighter.

tycirs appear giant next to an ensthir, and if ensthirs were human sized would be larger than African elephants, but in reality they are similar in size to a shire horse.

physical features in common with the ensthir include their stripes, but for a good part of their history they never had stripes. it appears they are a recent convergent evolution.

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grey ensthir with unusual chest spots

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the last dandelion........

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Nutcracker.

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The common forest of Koolu world. With all its critters. Both during the long winter and the short spring, in which a lot more of the cold blooded invertebrates come out of hiding.

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NEW WORLDBUILDING PROJECT BABYYY!!!

Concept: World covered entirely in microbial mat and whose macrofauna are pentapods. One of which is a sophont. 

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