#TCofficialstuff

[total-convergence]

Species Post: the Yuo Yowa

⚠️CW: Nakey humanoids

Introducing a third sophont species, the Yuo Yowa. I already posted about their non-sophont relative, but I'll copy paste a paragraph from that post for newcomers, or to just refresh your memory, since that part was before the lineage split into them and the ancestors of Yuo Yowa and therefore is also important to their evolution.

"When their ancestors, the house cats, started exploiting a niche of a small, arboreal predator, one of them had a nanite mutate its forelimb claws in such a way that they were slightly more opposable. This individual passed it down to their offspring, because it happenned to be an advantage for climbing and prey capture. As the time passed and the ecosystem stabilized more, their population began to grow larger as larger prey established their own populations in the rainforests. At this point, their ancestors weighted circa 60 kilograms. Due to their diet shifting to a larger sized prey, they slowly abandoned the tree canopy, but still climbed on their daily basis. One branch of these moderately sized felines would slowly become more and more social, using their opposable thumbs for grabbing rather than restraining. This lineage will be very important later on, as they will be one of the few lineages to develop their own culture."

So if that wasn't clear enough, the "later on" means right now.

Their ancestors also left the rainforests, but unlike the sister lineage mentioned above, the Yuo Yowa are still somewhat arboreal despite the fact that they are also well adapted to deal with very hot and dry weather in the plains and the desert. Their large ears, for example, are very important for thermoregulation, and the desert inhabitants almost always leave them exposed when dressing up.

Due to both pheomelanin and eumelanin present in their skin cells, they can have reddish and yellowish skin tones. When their hair grows, it starts out as dark until the production of eumelanin halts and the hair continues growing light, or with only pheomelanin present. Basicaly like agouti fur in cats and dogs.

A video showing mechanics of their retractable claws and how they work during item manipulation. The Yuo Yowa have retractable claws on both their feet and their hands, with the exeption of the hand thumb. Shown here is a 3D animation with a non transparent and a transparent (fingerbone revealing) model of a Yuowian hand grabbing a cylindrical and a spherical object. In the animation, I was experimenting a little bit, I wasn’t sure about the design so I made only half of the claws retractable to see the difference. I was so hooked up on the idea that this can't possibly work, but after some tests I realised it's a lot more straightforward than I thought.

And a sneak peek for the end