#amphibious mammal

[bethanythebogwitch]

Wet Beast Wednesday: platypus

Since I've been designing original Pokemon for a hypothetical Australia-based region I've been doing some research on Australian fauna and one of them (which I made into a starter) is the famous platypus. Join me and we will learn why these animals are so weird I don't blame the European naturalists who thought they were hoaxes until presented with a live specimen. I mean you can blame European scientists of the time for a lot of things, but doubting the platypus isn't one of them.

(image: a platypus at the surface of the water, seen from above. It is a brown, furry mammal. Its legs are very short, with long webbed tows. Its tail is broad, flat, and furry. It has a large duck-like bill at the front)

The first preserved Platypus specimens brought to Europe were thought to be hoaxes made by taxidermists attaching parts of different animals together, like the Fiji mermaid or jackalopes. Its pretty clear why they thought this as platypi (there's not definitive plural of platypus and platypi is the one I refer) look like real-life chimeras. A mole-like body (indeed, they were originally thought by naturalists to be species of mole) with a duck's bill, otter's feet, and beaver's tail. In fact, platypi are none of the above but are instead one of five surviving species of monotremes, the smallest and most basal lineage of extant mammals alongside the marsupials and placentals. Monotremes possess many traits distinct from other mammals and taxonomists currently believe that the monotreme lineage split off from the lineage of live-birth giving mammals prior to marsupials and placentals diverging from each other. Differences that monotremes have from all other mammals include a lower body temperature, lack of external ears, different jaw and inner ear structures, a cloaca (combination of the excretory and reproductive tracts into a single hole), more reptile-like embryo development, and the fact that they lay eggs instead of giving live birth. Many of these traits (especially the cloaca and laying eggs) are believed to be holdovers from pre-mammalian ancestors and thus monotremes are highly valued by scientists studying mammal evolution.

(image: a platyus standing on a person's hand. It is around the same size as the hand. It is seen from the front, with its head turned to the right. Its mouth is slightly open)

Platypi are semi-aquatic animals found in rivers and streams along eastern Australia and Tasmania. They are the only living members of their genus and family, though fossil relatives have been found. Their size varies based on habitat and ranges from 0.7 to 2.4 kg (1.6 to 5.3 lbs). Males average 50 cm (20 in) and females average 43 cm (17 in). Platypi are covered in fur that traps a layer of air to insulate them while swimming. The fur is bioflourescent, producing a blue-green glow when exposed to ultraviolet light. The tail is used to store fat and will glow larger in a well-fed individual. All four feet are webbed, the front feet more so. The style of swimming used by platypi is unlike that of any other amphibious or aquatic mammal. Other mammals use their hind feet and/or tails for propulsion. Platypi instead use their front feed for propulsion. The hind feet and tail are only used for steering. When on land, platypi curl up their front toes and walk on their knuckles to protect the webbing between their toes. The eyes are small and weak and are not used when hunting.

(image: a platypus seen from above and below, fluorescing under black light. Its top looks dark blue with splotches of purple while the underside is a lighter green-blue with purple towards the middle)

The bill is the most important organ for finding prey. All living monotremes are capable of electroreception, the detection of electric fields. These fields are produced when prey contracts its muscles and the platypus is sensitive enough to detect very small prey. The electroreceptor organs are located on the bill and run in lines from front to back. The distribution of the organs in distinct lines allows the platypus to determine the direction of the source of an electric field by sensing which line feels the field most strongly. The bill is also covered uniformly in mechanoreceptors used for touch. Platypi hunt by digging their bills through the sediment at the bottom of the water and detecting prey. This method of hunting and use of electroreception allows platypi to hunt in very murky water. Prey consists primarily of worms, insect larvae, and crustaceans. Platypi are born with teeth in their bills, but they fall out quickly and are not replaced. Some fossil species apparently retained their teeth into adulthood. The insides of the bill are lined with ceratodontes, plates covered in rough, keratinized surfaces that are used to grind up food.

(image: a platypus foraging for food at the bottom of a river. The front of its bill is poking into the sandy river bottom. There is a submerged log in the background and multiple small fish in the foreground)

(image: a scientific diagram showing three drawings of a platypus from three angles and the area it can detect electric fields. source)

As if all that wasn't strange enough, platypi are also one of the few species of venomous mammals. The male platypus has spurs on the hind feet that inject venom. This venom is powerful enough to kill dogs, but is not fatal to humans. Instead, it causes swelling and increases sensitivity to pain. This can last for weeks to months and can be agonizing. Female platypi are born with the spurs, but they never develop venom and fall off by their first birthday. Males use their spurs to fight over territory and mates.

(image: a person showing off a male platypus's spur. The platypus is mostly out of frame, but a hind leg and some fur is visible, wrapped in a sheet. A human hand is gripping the hind leg near the toes and holding it in place. The spur is curved and conical and larger than any of the actual claws. It is located near the heel)

Platypi live in simple burrows dug along the water's edge around 30 cm above the surface of the water. They are often hidden behind roots or plants. Platypi spend most of their time in the burrow sleeping for up to 14 hours a day. When not sleeping, they spend most of theer time in the water hunting. Dives last up to 30 seconds with a 10-20 second surface interval. Platypi will travel up to 7 km (4.3 miles) from their burrows to hunt. They maintain territories and will attempt to chase competitors of the same sex out. Males have larger territories than females and their territories usually overlap with those of 3 or 4 females. Platypi are nocturnal and crepuscular (active at dawn and dusk) but have been known to come out on cloudy days. They are typically active for 12 hours per day and spend most of that time hunting. A platypus eats up to 20% of its body weight daily. Platypi are preyed upon by snakes, goannas (monitor lizards), various birds of prey, and possibly crocodiles and invasive foxes.

(image: a drawing of a cross-section of a platypus burrow. The burrow is located in a river bank with the opening right by the water. A long tunnel leads to a round chamber. In the chamber is a platypus with two eggs. Art by David Nockels)

Platypus mating season lasts between June and October every year. During this time, males will compete with each other for mates using their venomous spurs. Some males will maintain territories and force other males out while other males are more transitory and will go looking for mates. Females only mate with a single male every season. Strangely, females have two ovaries but only the left one is functional. After mating, the female will retreat to her burrow. While most egg-laying animals will lay they eggs as soon s they are formed, platypi retain their eggs internally for 28 days before laying them, after which they will continue to develop for 10 days before hatching. Most layings result in 2 eggs. The female curls around her eggs to incubate and protect them. Newborn platypi are called puggles and they are blind, hairless, and defenseless. As with other mammals, they feed on their mother's milk. Platypi do not have nipples and instead, the milk is secreted through the skin and into grooves on the mother's belly, where the puggles lap it up. While the puggles are developing, the mother spends less time out foraging, though she will increase the time foraging as her offspring develop. Weaning happes at 3-4 months, after which the juveniles will leave the burrow and set out on their own. Mothers have been observed laving behind soil plugs at the entrance to their burrows while there are offspring are in them. They are used to squeeze off water as the female returns to her burrow, preventing cold water from reaching the offspring.

(image: a reconstruction of a mother platypus and puggles. They are in a dirt burrow lined with bits of leaves and bark. The mother is on its back and looking toward the camera. There are three puggles, which share the same body plan, but are very small and entirely pink. Tey are sitting on the mother's abdomen)

Platybi are classified as near threatened by the IUCN, though some argeu they should be reclassified as endangered. Their habitat range has decreased since European colonization of Australia and they are threatened by habitat loss, dams, pollution, and bycatch. Aboriginal Australians historically hunted them for food and Europeans also hunted them for fur, which was outlawed in 1912. The platypus was and is culturally relevant to Aboriginal peoples sharing its range, particularly the native peoples of the Murray river. There are multiple Dreamtime stories of the platypus, many dedicated to explaining how it ended up the way it is. In one, originating from the upper Darling river, a female duck named Daroo or was either seduced or kidnapped by a male water rat named Biggoon or Bilargun. After escaping, she laid two eggs that hatched into the first platypi, inheriting their mother's bill and webbed feet and father's body and fur. Another story from the same region says that the land animals, water animals, and birds all wanted the platypus to join their group and tried to convince it to join. The platypus decided that it didn't need to join any of the groups to be special, but still wanted to be friends with all of them and so took on traits from all groups.

(image: the Ironbarks Platypus, an Aboriginal Australian rock carving of a figure typically interpreted as a platypus. It is very simple, with a roughly rectangular shape with one rounded end. From one end is a simple loop usually interpreted as the platypus's bill. Four stick-like linbs emerge from the sides)

[oozeandgoo-art]

heard it's open season on yachts down here

[photographe-a-roulettes]

Hippopotame commun - Ses déjections modifient la composition chimique des eaux où il vit et favorisent la prolifération des poissons par les nutriments qu'elles contiennent.

Lieu : Zoo de Maubeuge.

[snapdragonessart]

Kinda went crazy on dragon teeth anatomy! Biology geeking out under the cut

Bogsneak dragons are very crocodilian in appearance, and the fact that they prefer swampy environments definitely lends to this. Out of all the crocodilians, I’d say they resemble alligators the most due to the thicker, rounded snout, and the way the upper teeth poke out from their jaws; Crocodiles visually show both upper and lower teeth when the mouth is closed, while alligators only show upper teeth. Their teeth structure is like alligators; they’d possess around 74-80 sturdy, razor-sharp teeth specialized for vice-gripping their prey. Unlike alligators, Bogsneaks possess a forked tongue. It reminds me very much of a Komodo dragon's tongue, and I imagine they would use it to taste air as well. Bogsneaks eat meat and plants. Alligators are carnivores, but they have also been reported to eat various fruits as well!

Coatls are easy in one sense; they’re obviously snake dragons, but the question is… what snake? I’d argue that they’re visually similar to cobras, with the feather crest resembling a cobra hood, the head being vaguely cobra-shaped, and the fangs poking out of their mouth (cobras have permanently erect fangs). There’s two big differences here though; for one, Coatls are not said to possess venom. For another, Coatls only eat seafood, while cobras eat terrestrial and semi-aquatic prey. However, there are several snakes in the Elapidae family (cobra family) that eat seafood… sea snakes! In fact, there is one type of sea snake that is nonvenomous, but it only eats fish eggs; Coatls would have a diet more similar to other sea snakes, which eat fish, eels, marine gastropods, and other marine invertebrates. Coatl dentition would be a mix of cobras and sea snakes; they’d have the big fangs in the front with several smaller teeth behind the fangs on the upper jaw. 

Fae dragons are insectivorous, and I think they’re most similar to geckos in terms of diet and dentition, as geckos are also insectivores. Faes would have rows of small, sharp, conical teeth on both the upper and lower jaws. I specifically researched geckos for Fae dragons, but if you wanted to go the more mammalian route, I’d say shrews are the best fit.

Fathom dragons are an interesting case. They have external ears like a pinniped, echolocate underwater like cetaceans, have amphibious gills, and travel in pods. I’d say they’re dentition is a mix of sea lions and orcas. They’d have the big canines that sea lions have, but the rest of their teeth would be more similar to orcas; interlocking and conical. However, Fathom dragons are omnivorous and eat plants and seafood; sea lions and orcas are both purely carnivorous and have not been seen eating plant matter of any kind. The plant part of their diet I think would be similar to manatees, which graze on seagrasses and other aquatic plants.

Like Bogsneaks, Guardian dragons look quite crocodilian in their tooth structure. I’d say they lean more towards crocodiles due to their teeth poking from both the upper and lower jaws when the mouth is closed. They’d also have big canines similar to leopard seals. Guardians will eat just about anything; plants, flesh or bugs. Crocodiles mainly eat insects when they’re juveniles, slowly transitioning to bigger prey as they age. Like alligators, they also occasionally consume fruit.

Imperial dragons always looked very fox-like to me, and like foxes they have a diverse diet. Foxes eat mammals, birds, insects, fruits, grains and veggies. Some red foxes have even been observed fishing! That ticks off all the boxes for the Imperial diet. They’d have dentition like a canid as well, with pronounced carnassials for shearing and canines for gripping prey.

There’s a few things to take note of when it comes to Mirrors: they hunt in packs, they run their prey down, they are carnivorous and they originate from The Abiding Boneyard - an arid wasteland. I’d say they’re opportunistic predators, and will scavenge as well as hunt. Their diet and tooth structure would be similar to that of hyenas, and they’d possess bone-crushing premolars that spotted hyenas are well known for. Spotted hyenas also hunt in packs, and are known for their endurance when they hunt, chasing down prey until their quarry is exhausted; a perfect match-up for Mirrors. Their canines would be pointier than a spotted hyenas, and would be more similar to a jackal or wolf in appearance.

Nocturnes are based on bats, which is apparent based on their diet and overall appearance. I think their dentition would be most similar to the spectral bat, the largest carnivorous bat in the world. It consumes birds and rodents as well as insects, which perfectly lines up with Nocturnes!

[alphynix]

Crystal Palace Field Trip Part 2: Walking With Victorian Dinosaurs

[Previously: the Permian and the Triassic]

The next part of the Crystal Palace Dinosaur trail depicts the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Most of the featured animals here are actually marine reptiles, but a few dinosaur species do make an appearance towards the end of this section.

Although there are supposed to be three Jurassic ichthyosaur statues here, only the big Temnodontosaurus platyodon could really be seen at the time of my visit. The two smaller Ichthyosaurus communis and Leptonectes tenuirostris were almost entirely hidden by the dense plant growth on the island.

Ichthyosaurs when fully visible vs currently obscured Left side image by Nick Richards (CC BY SA 2.0)

Head, flipper, and tail details of the Temnodontosaurus. A second ichthyosaur is just barely visible in the background.

Ichthyosaurs were already known from some very complete and well-preserved fossils in the 1850s, so a lot of the anatomy here still holds up fairly well even 170 years later. They even have an attempt at a tail fin despite no impressions of such a structure having been discovered yet! Some details are still noticeably wrong compared to modern knowledge, though, such as the unusual amount of shrinkwrapping on the sclerotic rings of the eyes and the bones of the flippers.

———

Arranged around the ichthyosaur, three different Jurassic plesiosaurs are also represented – “Plesiosaurus” macrocephalus with the especially sinuous neck on the left, Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus in the middle, and Thalassiodracon hawkinsi on the right.

They're all depicted here as amphibious and rather seal-like, hauling out onto the shore in the same manner as the ichthyosaurs. While good efforts for the time, we now know these animals were actually fully aquatic, that they had a lot more soft tissue bulking out their bodies, and that their necks were much less flexible.

———

The recently-installed new pivot bridge is also visible here behind some of the marine reptiles.

———

Positioned to the left of the other marine reptiles, this partly-obscured pair of croc-like animals are teleosaurs (Teleosaurus cadomensis), a group of Jurassic semi-aquatic marine crocodylomorphs.

A better view of the two teleosaurs by MrsEllacott (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Crystal Palace statues have the general proportions right, with long thin gharial-like snouts and fairly small limbs. But some things like the shape of the back of the head and the pattern of armored scutes are wrong, which is odd considering that those details were already well-known in the 1850s.

———

Finally we reach the first actual dinosaur, and one of the most iconic statues in the park: the Jurassic Megalosaurus!

Megalosaurus bucklandi was the very first non-avian dinosaur known to science, discovered in the 1820s almost twenty years before the term "dinosaur" was even coined.

At a time when only fragments of the full skeleton were known, and before any evidence of bipedalism had been found, the Crystal Palace rendition of Megalosaurus is a bulky quadrupedal reptile with a humped back and upright bear-like limbs. It's a surprisingly progressive interpretation for the period, giving the impression of an active mammal-like predator.

This statue suffered extensive damage to its snout in 2020, which was repaired a year later with a fiberglass "prosthesis".

———

Reaching the Cretaceous period now, we find Hylaeosaurus (and one of the upcoming Iguanodon peeking in from the side).

Hylaeosaurus armatus was the first known ankylosaur, although much like the other dinosaurs here its life appearance was very poorly understood in the early days of paleontology. Considering how weird ankylosaurs would later turn out to be, the Crystal Palace depiction is a pretty good guess, showing a large heavy iguana-like quadruped with hoof-like claws and armored spiky scaly skin.

It's positioned facing away from viewers, so its face isn't very visible – but due to the head needing to be replaced with a fiberglass replica some years ago, the original can now be seen (and touched!) up close near the start of the trail.

———

Two pterosaurs (or "pterodactyles" according to the park signs) were also supposed to be just beyond the Hylaeosaurus, but plant growth had completely blocked any view of them.

Although these two statues are supposed to represent a Cretaceous species now known as Cimoliopterus cuvieri, they were probably actually modeled based on the much better known Jurassic-aged Pterodactylus antiquus.

A second set of pterosaur sculptures once stood near the teleosaurs, also based on Pterodactylus but supposed to represent a Jurassic species now known as Dolicorhamphus bucklandii. These statues went missing in the 1930s, and were eventually replaced with new fiberglass replicas in the early 2000s… only to be destroyed by vandalism just a few years later.

(The surviving pair near the Hylaeosaurus are apparently in a bit of disrepair these days, too, with the right one currently missing most of its jaws.)

Image by Ben Sutherland (CC BY 2.0)

The Crystal Palace pterosaurs weren't especially accurate even for the time, with heads much too small, swan-like necks, and bird-like wings that don't attach the membranes to the hindlimbs. Hair-like fuzz had been observed in pterosaur fossils in the 1830s, but these depictions are covered in large overlapping diamond-shaped scales due to Richard Owen's opinion that they should be scaly because they were reptiles.

But some details still hold up – the individual with folded wings is in a quadrupedal pose quite similar to modern interpretations, and the bird-like features give an overall impression of something more active and alert than the later barely-able-to-fly sluggish reptilian pterosaur depictions that would become common by the mid-20th century.

(Much like the statues themselves, the "modern" reconstruction above is based on Pterodactylus rather than Cimoliopterus)

———

The last actual dinosaurs on this dinosaur trail are the two Cretaceous Iguanodon sculptures. At the time of my visit they weren't easy to make out behind the overgrown trees, and only the back end of the standing individual was clearly visible.

Named only a year after Megalosaurus, Iguanodon was the second dinosaur ever discovered, and early reconstructions depicted it as a giant iguana-like lizard.

The Crystal Palace statues depict large bulky animals, one in an upright mammal-like stance and another reclining with one hand raised up. (This hand is usually resting on a cycad trunk, but that element appeared to be either missing or fallen over when I was there.)

Famously a New Year's dinner party was held in the body of the standing Iguanodon during its construction, although the accounts of how many people could actually fit inside it at once are probably slightly exaggerated.

A clearer view by Jim Linwood (CC BY 2.0)

Considering that the skull of Iguanodon wasn't actually known at the time of these sculpture's creation, the head shape with a beak at the front of the jaws is actually an excellent guess. The only major issue was the nose horn, which was an understandable mistake when something as strange as a giant thumb spike had never been seen in any known animal before.

(The fossils the Crystal Palace statues are based on are actually now classified as Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis, but the "modern" reconstruction above depicts the chunkier Iguanodon bernissartensis.)

———

Image by Doyle of London (CC BY-SA 4.0)

I also wasn't able to spot the Cretaceous mosasaur on the other side of the island due to heavy foliage obscuring the view.

Depicting Mosasaurus hoffmannii, this model consists of only the front half of the animal lurking at the water's edge. It's unclear whether this partial reconstruction is due to uncertainty about the full appearance, or just a result of money and time running out during its creation.

The head is boxier than modern depictions, and the scales are too large, but the monitor-lizard like features and paddle-shaped flippers are still pretty close to our current understanding of these marine reptiles. It even apparently has the correct palatal teeth!

Next time: the final Cenozoic section!

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

My mom bought me this book for Christmas

The Resurrectionist by EB Hudspeth, a fantasy field guide full of anatomical illustrations of monsters and cryptids.

The musculoskeletal systems are fun to look at, but not nearly as in-depth as I would have liked. If you have more than a passing knowledge of taxonomy (or in my case, access to Wikipedia), a lot of the details fall apart under scrutiny

The harpy has four upper limbs connected to one shoulder girdle; it shouldn't have arms, only wings

The sphinx is not classified as a mammal, but is still somehow in the family Felidae with cats (and like the harpy is also drawn with only two girdles despite having six limbs. I will give the author credit for giving the sphinx a keel for the wing muscles to attach to)

It lists the Hindu deity Genesha as a cryptid, which is a no-no.

Cerberus is also explicitly not a mammal, but somehow still a canine (literally in the species Canis with wolves, dogs, and coyotes)

Both mermaids and dragons are listed as members of the order Caudata; the only extant members of Caudata are salamanders, which kinda makes sense for dragons, but not so much for mermaids (also, the author keeps playing it fast and loose with cladistics; both mermaids and dragons are in the same order despite being in different classes, and while dragons are explicitly said to be amphibians, mermaids are given the fictional class mammicthyes, which means mammal-fish. At that point, why not just call mermaids amphibians? Why make up a fake latin hybrid name?)

But what bugs me most of all is the classification of the Minotaur as its own order of mammal when in mythology it is explicitly described as a hybrid of two known species (made possible only by the cruel machinations of the divine, but still)

To use actual taxonomical nomenclature, the minotaur's species would be B. taurus × H. sapiens (specifically B. taurus♂ × H. sapiens♀; there are, to my knowledge, no legends of H. sapiens♂ × B. taurus♀). That's how ligers, tigons, mules, zorses, pizzly bears, narlugas, etc., are described.

If I had written this book, I would have leaned more into evolutionary biology. Most land animals have four limbs because they all evolved from boney lobe-finned fish, which split off from the boneless sharks and rays millions of years earlier, so any six-limbed vertebrates would need to be descended from a fictitious category of six-finned fish which would either be an offshoot of boney fish/tetrapods (I guess they'd be hexapods, though that term refers to insect arthropods), OR a precursor to boney and cartilaginous fish that both clades split away from much earlier (it's easier to lose structures than to gain them, so it makes more sense for a six-limbed ancestor to spawn four-limbed descendants than the other way around).

Think about how different elephants are from humans, and humans are from aligators, and aligators are from penguins, and remember that they all evolved from the same ancestor tiktaalik, an amphibious fish that existed some 375 million years ago. Imagine a precursor six-limbed species and how diverse all its descendants would look after 400 million years. Save for the occasional instance of convergent evolution causing two unrelated species to independently evolve similar body plans to fill the same niche, tetrapods and hexapods would look nothing alike. There would be very little recognizable overlap between the two. A six-limbed "pegasus" would not look like a real world horse, and a six-limbed "dragon" would not look reptilian/dinosaur-ish, for much the same reason that giraffes don't look like frogs; they're just too distantly related. Bonless sharks and boney fish and whales/dolphins all have similar looking bodyplans only because their environment requires the same hydrodynamic shape, while terrstrial vertebrates are much more physically diverse.

[battlekilt]

Clones are vaccinated against rabies.

Okay, but...

I imagine the Kaminoans reviewing the diseases they need to make sure their little growing Clones are all vaccinated against when they discover space rabies. Upon learning about how it works, how communicable it is to—ALL—mammals across the galaxy, they have thoughts and questions.

First of all, they want to know why everyone aren't vaccinated immediately. They vaccinate against space measles—why not this MUCH more deadly and destructive virus? All it takes is a kriffing vaccine! Drives them crazy.

Their amphibious brains, thinking about all the wild places the Clones will undoubtedly go, decide, "Uh, uh. Nope," and add space rabies to the rounds of shots to the list. They don't care if Jango Fett says that it is overkill. How is that overkill when rabies is a guaranteed death? Sure, Fett tried to explain that all a Clone would have to do is get the shot—if—they are bitten by a wild animal. But, that sounds careless and ridiculous. According to the literature they read, it takes a small scratch and someone's infected. Many mammals get infected and don't even know until it is too late.

To the vaccine kitchen, ladies!

Also, I HC that Clones have glyphs tattooed down their thighs that fade with time. Each glyph represents a specific vaccine they have been given. Before the tattoo is gone, they are to report for a booster. Yes, there's impeccable records, but the Kaminoans aren't going to fuck around and find out. A Clone is also responsible for double-checking that they are administered all boosters and know that they aren't supposed to be passive about keeping up with their vaccines.

PS. Anti-Kaminoan responses will get users blocked. Kamino was the Clones' home; they said so time and time again. The Kaminoans were genocided.

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

What native Gallifreyan species are there?

Gallifrey has a diverse range of fauna, both native and introduced. Despite claims of minimal ecological impact, the installation of the Eye of Harmony and millions of years of Time Lord civilisation have significantly altered Gallifrey's original biosphere.

🦋 Invertebrates

Beatitude Flies: Begin as maggots and pupate into golden-winged nocturnal insects. They use nectar to create helium in their bellies and are attracted to light and decay.

Butterflies: Various species flutter across Gallifrey.

Bees: Essential for pollination.

Gullet Grubs: Likely to live in digestive tracts of larger mammals, or similar environments.

Blossom Thieves: Possibly insects that steal nectar or pollen.

Scrubblers: Likely small, cleaning insects.

Neversuch Beetles, Sandbeetles, Waspbeetles: Various beetles.

Dustworms: Likely live in dry, dusty environments.

Scissors Bugs: Possibly predatory insects with sharp mandibles.

Flutterwings: Gigantic insects (3 meters by 25 meters) that never land. Five races include Wild Endeavor, Mandrigal, Silver-Band, Blue Crystal, and Perdition.

Snails

Water-Sligs: Likely aquatic or semi-aquatic molluscs.

Web-Spinning Insects: Including spiders about an inch long.

Other dangerous invertebrates: There are also nasty creatures that live beneath big stones.

🐟 Marine Life

Singing Yaddlefish: Notable for their song, and they can be eaten.

Kittensharks: Hatch from eggs and presumably grow into Catsharks.

Axolotl Salamanders: Amphibious creatures with regenerative abilities.

🐍 Elapids

Taipan: A venomous snake, 10 metres long.

Venal Snakes: Possibly nest-stealers or highly venomous.

Bat-Snakes: Presumably flying snakes.

Dinosauria: 20-meter-long reptiles resembling brontosaurs with thick chitinous scales and serrated teeth.

🦅 Avians

Owls: Symbol of Rassilon.

Flurry Birds: Likely small, fast-moving birds.

Trunkikes: Game birds whose eggs are often eaten.

Air Diamonds: Fly in the upper atmosphere, possibly crystalline or bioluminescent.

Song Birds: Various species.

Gargantosaurs: Dinosaur-like creatures, twice the size of a hab-bloc, with two legs, vestigial wings (with purple and white feathers), and four eyes.

🦣 Mammals

Plungbolls: Thumbnail-sized furry creatures living in mountains, attach en masse to warm objects.

Taffelshrews: Edible rodent-like mammals.

Fledershrews: Bat-like, mushroom eaters, nearly extinct.

Cobblemice: Mice that sprout wings.

Rovie Mice: Field-dwelling, long-lived if kept safe, sometimes pets. They have short memories.

Moss-Rats: Possibly rodents that live in marshes with moss-like camouflage.

Vex: Burrowing animals.

Gallifreyan Womprats: 1-metre-long rats with fifteen legs.

Pig-Rats: Inhabit the Drylands, presumably combining porcine and rodent traits.

Rabbits

Flubbles: Small six-legged koalas.

Unnamed rounder rabbit-like creatures

Ounce-Apes: Might be tiny monkeys that are particularly agile.

Sealak: Perhaps a kind of seal, often eaten.

Bear-Ass: A donkey-like animal with bear-like qualities.

Horse-Cats: Probably a horse/cat hybrid-like species.

Sagittary: Horse-like creatures.

Elephants

Pig-Bears: Can be trained as pets.

Wolf-like Creatures: With long snouts and black-and-white striped fur, almost as big as adult humanoids.

Broakir: Live in foothills, often hunted for food.

Baanjxx: Arboreal browsers that like to eat hallucinogenic cerub nuts. As a child, the Doctor was kicked by one in the head, apparently.

Cows

Walrus

Gallifreyan Marlot: Purple and unique in all of time and space. Probably a bit cat-like.

House Cats: Revered as symbols of intelligence. Traditionally, Presidents kept them as pets.

🐱 Killer Cats (C.A.T.S)

Killer C.A.T.S: These sapient creatures possess instinctive precognitive powers and cat-like physiology. Known for their lethal gladiatorial contests, they despise Time Lord traditions and live in the Gin-Seng Sector of Southern Gallifrey. Their culture includes mercenaries and oracles; they are telepathic.

🏞️ Ecosystem Preservation

Though Gallifrey's outer ecology has suffered, the Time Lords have used technology to preserve many species. Extinct species have been collected, ensuring none become completely extinct. The more fearsome creatures are contained in the Death Zone, while xeno-zoos hold alien species from other worlds.

🏫 So ...

So there's your whistlestop tour of the species on Gallifrey. One day, I'll try to put these onto a species distribution map. Oh, by Rassilon's Beard, I just gave myself more work.

Related:

How is Gallifreyan geography different to Earth?: The landscape of Gallifrey.

Factoid: The Fruits of Gallifrey

What could be some biological traits of Gin-Seng cats?: Looking at who the Gin-Seng cats are, their biology, and their place on Gallifrey and in society.

Hope that helped! 😃

Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired😴

[nho-jungle]

giving gillion a tail: bug's thoughts on triton anatomy

yeah im writing a full thing about this okay let me autism lazerbeam in peace.

so the thing with triton anatomy is that one would assume theyre just human anatomy with some extra bits like gills n stuff. and tails, but we'll go into that in a moment. the problem with this is bone structure. not all fish have bones. sharks don't have bones. instead the support structure of their bodies is made of cartilage. which isnt too different, considering parts of human anatomy are made up of cartilage, but it poses some interesting questions. im no scientist, but i am autistic as hell. so im going to pose a couple of options that are fun to rotate.

the most common depiction of tailed tritons (which i myself have drawn) is some variety of fish or shark. this is aesthetically fun bc of the variety within fish and sharks, in terms of colour and shape, that allows you to get funky with it. anatomically speaking, this would probably be achieved via the tailbone being there, like a monkey, but with the muscle and flesh around it being shark or fish-like. this would all lend to a tail that moves side to side, which would lead to an interesting swimming style that probably wouldnt involve much movement of the legs.

the second thought i had for tailed tritons was seals. seals have very short tails, but as mammals they have the same bone structure as humans. due to this, my initial thought was a second set of hips, so the triton bone structure would look like it had four legs, but the second set of legs would be the tail formation. this would lend itself to a tail that moves up and down, which could probably be utilised in tandem with the legs to create a very efficient swimming style.

however, neither of these ideas take into account one very important thing about tritons:

they're amphibious.

oh but bug, they can have human lungs and fish gills with nothing to do with the tail- silence voice i made up purely to disagree! we are not here to do arts and crafts! we are not gluing random creature aspects together with whimsy and magic! this is real science!

so amphibians. frogs and newts and salamanders and the like.

the amphibian life cycle, in most cases, involves eggs being laid in water and larvae being adapted to an aquatic lifestyle. frogs, toads, and salamanders all hatch with external gills, and develops lungs to breathe air as they grow up. amphibians are very adaptable to their environment, and there are many possible variations among individual species purely caused by outside influence and the area they grow up in.

but what does this have to do with tritons and their tails?

tadpoles

unlike most amphibians, frog tadpoles dont look like the adults. frog tadpoles start out fully aquatic, with external gills. as they grow and develop, they get gill pouches to make their gills internal. they have cartilaginous skeletons (which later develop into bone), lateral line systems (found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure under water), and large tails. their lungs develop early. their front legs develop first, and then their back legs soon after.

(oh what about axolotls- axolotls dont have lungs. they are functionally the same as salamander larvae but they never get past that developmental stage. theyre amphibians that arent amphibious.)

im running out of steam for this post but basically what im trying to say is that triton are froglets. this would also make sense for the fact that triton have webbed hands and feet. frogs do too so it would be implemented into the swimming style. bone structure is a whole nother things, especially since both 'mordenkainen presents: monsters of the multiverse' and 'volos guide to monsters' are cowards whos triton designs are just blue people. but working from 'mythic odysseys of theros' designs, who have at least a little bit of flare, i think it's safe to assume that their bones are a little funky. some fun mix of bone and cartilage to have those interesting shapes.

all that being said, i am a big supporter of doing whatever you want forever. i am also just a massive nerd and like to think way too hard about these things.

(shoutout to my dad for assistance with bouncing ideas around, and for being the one to suggest the tadpole thing.)

[tsatsked]

Analysis of some details in Polar Town

Specifically locations 1, 3 and 5 of the UTTU part of Rayashki event. There are not a lot of screenshots - if you need some, I can DM them. Thanks to @vingler-mirror for the screenshots of Civic Square descriptions and the final Spotlight Chronicle

1 - Rayashki Elementary

Big-Eared Monkey and Mr. Crocodile - a reference to Cheburashka and Gena the Crocodile in form of August’s nicknames. The song Vila often sings might be based on The Blue Wagon from the 70s cartoon.

The collage shows not a bayan accordion but another accordion type called “гармонь” (garmon’) in Russian

2 - Hotel

Honestly, I believe Windsong enthusiasts will analyse the texts better than I could have

3 - New Mine

We’re getting more lore about the critters based on Inuit mythology. Kikituks are said to be evolved from shamanic statues into amphibious creatures and preferring mammal meat over fish nowadays. Ijiraks are said to be former people trapped into the boundary between life and death for wandering too far into the wild. Qiqirns are described as malevolent canines that wander aimlessly for eternity (it can be connected to their role in shamanism).

Information about the background character because I've got attached to him: the Rayashki guest arrived here following an Irish merchant ship. He’s a miner from Greenland expedition team with a bushy red beard and bear belly. He has a crude front but is a symphony enthusiast and likes literature - the temporary library helped him to bond with his teammates over literature without feeling weird. Also he has a little daughter. Pushkin’s Ode to Liberty that he read is a historically interesting piece where the author supports a political activist exiled to Siberia (the ode gets Pushkin exiled too but to a more gentle place)

4 - Swimming Pool

The descriptions go in chronological order of mermaid history.

@sleeplesssmol have copied Rusalka Spotlight Chronicle in their post here!

5 - Port

Among the stage descriptions, there are two interesting objects described:

A preserved seabird, seemenly for the migrated critters.

Rayashki Cheese - is said to be made out of milk from northern tundra. The cheese’s wrap design is based on Friendship cheese made by KARAT. The peculiar detail about it is that the only KARAT factory is in Moscow

Rayashki seemly participates in barter with the ships.

Cultural Palace - is a common name for major club-houses

6 - Civic Square

The polar bear statue was made after one of the meetings and now is taken care of as a symbol of the community

[jlhynde-insanitybrilliance]

UDLTTOM DIALOGUE DRAFT #73

*Harry & Ted playing 2 truths and a lie with Tom & Knights of Walpurgis*

Harry: It’s my turn again? Ok Umm…I didn’t learn how to swim until I was eleven, I’ve never been to South America, and I’m an unregistered animagus.

Ignotus Avery (frustrated): Bloody hell! Why are these so difficult?! I believe all of these!

Harry: How are they difficult?

Alyxander Mulciber: After hearing you out raced a dragon on a broomstick anything goes at this point.

Lyra Burke: Oh, I do believe you are an animagus! That would make so much sense, wouldn’t it? How else are you able to slip away so often without being noticed? What’s your form?

Abraxas Malfoy: That’s not part of the game, Lyra.

Lyra: New game! Let’s try and guess Evans’ animagus form, every wrong guess you have to drink but if we get it right Evans has to down the rest of the bottle! And we get to ask you questions!

Harry: Alright, sure.

Lyra: Is it aquatic, amphibious, reptilian, or mammal?

Harry: None of the above. Drink.

Druella Roiser: Avian?

Harry: No, though it can fly. Drink.

Thaddeus Nott: Is it an insect?

*Harry nods*

Theodore (stunned disbelief): It’s a bloody cockroach, isn’t it?

*Harry passes bottle to Theodore*

Harry: Drink up, Ted.

-3 bottles & a half of Fire whiskey later-

Abraxas: -hic-I’m telling’ ya, he’s gotta be a blue morpho-hic- I’m a thousand present positive of it-hic

Walburga Black: Shhh, please! I insist that he’s lying. He’s a liar, Abraxas, he’s been lying about the whole thing tryin’ ta get us-hic-smashed. He’s got it written on his hand 🤚

Lyra: I think-hic- if I was a animagus I’d like to be a butterfly 🦋. It-hic-reminds of the Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi—

Harry (still mostly sober): Are you not going to guess, Riddle?

Tom: Oh, I wouldn’t dare presume.

Harry: That’s no fun. C’mon, don’t be a chicken.

Tom (unable to ignore the challenge): Fine, Evans. Let me think about it… An insect that can fly, it’s blue, is found commonly in gardens, but is not native to the British isles. Is it bigger or smaller than a knut?

Harry: Smaller.

Tom: And what country is it native to?

Harry: Australia.

Tom: What does it eat?

Harry: Mostly aphids.

Tom: Then it’s a pest controller…

Harry: Give up?

Tom: Do you? If I get it right you’ll have to down half a bottle of Fire whiskey in one go, Evans.

Harry: I don’t think you’ll get it right. You’d never guess it.

Tom: How about a wager, Evans, between just you and I? I get it wrong and I’ll write one of your essays for you, any subject, any length…

Harry: I’m listening.

Tom: But if I get it right, I get a kiss. Right here (taps lips)

Harry (laughing): You know what, fine. Sure Riddle. If you think you can guess it without asking another question.

*Tom whispers his answer in Harry’s ear & its right.*

Harry:

Oh shit!

[mewtwoandme]

are there some pokemon out there that would give birth to live young? or is it mostly by egg? and do mews and mewtwos give birth to live young?

To be honest, I know I'm probably not the only one to think this but this also might be an unpopular opinion, idk. I never cared for the idea that ALL the pokemon lay eggs, mostly when it comes to the mammal based pokemon. Now sure, it's a fantasy world full of monsters that can fit inside balls you carry around in your pocket, them laying eggs isn't the weirdest thing. But I'm an animal nerd. It's hard for my brain to wrap around that a dog/cat/rodent/equine/etc. based pokemon can lay eggs. My animal biology, scientific brain comes in like, an Arcanine should have a live litter of pups...a Persian should have a litter of kittens...In my universe they don't all lay eggs, just the ones that make sense for them to, like the reptile/dragon, amphibious, bird, fish, bug like pokemon.

So yes, the mews and mewtwos have live offspring

[labete-du-gevaudan]

This drawing of the Lake Tanganyika Monster was created by Philippe Coudray for his book, Guide des Animaux Cachés. This creature is said to reside in Lake Tanganyika in Burundi, a country in East Africa. The lake monster was supposedly first described in 1893. Joseph Augustus Moloney claimed that a Mpala missionary described a 30 foot long sea serpent in the waters. He later claimed to see the beast on the shore, sleeping. In 1907, a sighting by a South African police officer claimed that the creature had tusks or fangs and that it was amphibious. This helped support the original claim of the creature being seen in the water and on land.

German doctor M. V. Thierfelder claimed to have seen the beast in 1914, while he was working in the area during an epidemic. He said that the creature was at least 50 meters in length. He wrote:

"Suddenly, I saw coming from the lake, in the bay itself, something that I had never seen. It was a creature that looked like a monstrous serpent. However, it did not swim like snakes in horizontal movements, but its rings—I counted as many as six—rose vertically above the water. The animal arrived in the bay at a fairly brisk pace, and went straight to the vicinity of the rocky shore, on which I was lying motionless. [...]

The beast had neither legs, nor stumps, nor fins. Near the head, however, there were slender fin-like structures on either side. The colour of the animal was a bright brown; it had no scales, but was covered with a thick fleece. [...]

The head was difficult to make out because it only appeared fleetingly above the water, but it was not wider than the body and was not separated from it by a constriction. It was not like a serpent's head, but, rather, that of a mammal, a manatee for example. The mouth, however, appeared narrow and elongated.

After the giant beast had spent some time moving among the otters, it turned around and came out of the bay in majestic undulations."

[melodiousmonsters]

Alright for the first somewhat finished page for my "monstiary" project is blow't because a friend asked me to draw one, I got hyperfixated, and then ended up with a whole bunch of drawings.

btw I'm going to start infodumping on almost all the art posts I make for the time being because I want to talk about my cannon-adjacent version of the monster world more so here we go.

Blow'ts are large amphibious monsters with anatomy somewhat between that of a fish and a mammal. btw I feel like blow't is a very underrated design because people tend to base what's cool or not on a more "terrestrial" frame of reference. But if you think of fish or something (particularly spiny lumpsuckers in this context) something may seem much more interesting design-wise. Like lumpsuckers they have those weird suction cup fins on the bottom of their bodies, which are mostly used for walking actually. Unless it's a baby, then they'll stick to whatever they want whenever they want with no regard to anyone else's wishes

To support their massive sizes blow'ts are filter feeders that primarily eat the stardust that falls from the aurora monstralis out of the air (or water if it ends up in there). Their spines are obviously covered in ridges, but what's less known is those ridges are full of openings to chambers that absorb oxygen and stardust like an unholy combination of lungs and the intestines.

Blow'ts breath in through their spines to not constantly be making noise and out through their non existant noses. Adding nose holes would clutter their face too much so just pretend they have noses ok? When blow'ts breath out of their spines they produce a sound, and the sound vibrates their spines in a way that makes them glow various colors of the visible light spectrum depending on the note played.

Because biology and evolution leans towards things making music, often inconvenient body plans or biological processes will remain if they mean the creature can make sound, especially in monsters.

While adult blow'ts tend to stay on land a majority of the time, the babies are very fond of the seas around light island and they tend to stay in the water. Because they are smaller and their fins are bigger in proportion to their bodies they can swim. To get enough food to grow to their adult size they may occasionally eat fish or any other small critters they come across, thus the fear this lightsquid, a critter endemic to the oceans around light island, is expressing in the presence of one of it's most efficient predators.

Anyway, if you read through this I hope you enjoyed because this is probably how most of my posts will be formatted. There's going to be more pseudo-scientific monster biology posts later on but if you just want some information without any images you can ask me and I can just type stuff out, maybe with a skribble or two alongside it. Doesn't even need to be biology related if it's just about my msm au thing I'll probably answer it if it's not relevant to the barely existent plot thing.

[dogtoling]

why do you think there are seagulls in splatoon. chickens and pigeons are useful so that almost makes sense to have kept alive. i think pigeons survived due to humanity feeling bad for mistreating pigeons for centuries after keeping them as pets and them being useful. either due to pigeon bunkers or humanitys magic thing. no clue about the chickens tho. i am creating splatoon pigeon lore as we speak

ok so i forgot to answer this (expected). seagulls make infinitely more sense to have survived than chickens or pigeons do IMO considering there was a several thousand year gap in which there were no humans, and there was ONLY an increasing amount of predators while all the things were evolving. Which is to say they wouldn't have had caretakers so their survival is.... dubious. Seagulls are like an apex bird because their food came onto land and in the early stages it would've been REALLY easy prey...

i feel like pigeons and chickens somehow survived on account of their sheer numbers, they just somehow persisted through The Horrors and became feral. Of course mammals went extinct so that would've tremendously helped chickens by eliminating a lot of potential predators that they would've struggled against like hell as (mostly) flightless birds. Pigeons surviving is honestly not SUPER surprising on second thought because they're insanely hardy birds to begin with, case in point: their main habitat being the city...

But yeah, seagulls are like the least weird bird to have survived, in fact while a lot of birds probably suffered from rising sea levels and new amphibious creatures popping up, seagulls would've just been like ooh yay doordash

[cheapsweets]

The Amphibious Dolthruk

My response to this week’s BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum

Pencil sketch, then lines in Pentel brush pen.

Thought process under the cut…

"The Dolthruk is so called from the color of [redacted]. They live in the river, four-footed animals equally at home on land or in the water and more than twenty cubits long. The Dolthruk is armed with monstrous teeth and claws and has such a tough skin that however hard you throw a stone at it, you will not hurt the beast. It goes into the water at night and rests by day on the land. It lays its eggs on land, and both male and female take it in turns to hatch them. A certain kind of fish whose serrated spines tear open the soft part of their belly kills them. Alone among animals they can move their upper jaw and hold the lower one still. From their dung is made an ointment with which old women and faded whores [bestiary is judgmental today, damn] anoint their faces, and appear beautiful until their sweat washes it off."

I spent an awful lot of time mulling this one over. We actually get quite a bit of description for a change, which is nice to work with too!

We also know that it's a beast, rather than a serpent or any other manner of creature. This is where it gets a little complicated, as we also know it lays eggs! My first thought was making it a monotreme; the idea of a monstrous platypus really tickled me, but I couldn't quite work out how to manage 'monstrous teeth' in what is a rather toothless clade of critters (@silverhart-makes-art came up with a solution and a brilliant rendition of this concept!), so I went down a whole rabbit hole of early mammals and mammal ancestors. The most impressive teeth (and claws) definitely belong to the therapsids, and specifically, the gorgonopsids. So, we end up with an amphibious gorgonopsid!

Incidentally, gorgonopsids are far weirder than an initial look would indicate - did you know that a lot of early therapsids had a pineal eye or light sensing organ atop their head (similar to modern tuataras), as well as very weird joints!

We have webbed feet so it can get around in the water when it is not lounging on land and taking turns to care for its eggs and young. I also gave it a shorter neck, and lowered the eye socket in the skull so that, at a glance at least, it looks more like the upper jaw can be moved while the lower jaw remains still.

We also have the issue of the very tough skin. Now, as its is a beast rather than a serpent, I initially didn't want to give it armour plates. I also considered a pangolin's scales, but felt the overlapping scales would trap water and not be particularly hygienic. Now, the fearsome hippopotamus has famously thick skin, but I couldn't quite work out how to represent this. Rhinos are similar, but a little more obvious, until a solution struck me. Hence, we now have an amphibious gorgonopsid lounging near its nest with armour plates inspired by Albrecht Dürer's Rhinoceros…

Of course, we also have 'a certain kind of fish' in the water. Largely based on the weaver fish, a fishie native to British waters, with distinctive venomous spines! Best stay out of the water for now, Dolthruk!