#crustacean kin

[citizenoftmrrwlnd]

stimboard for : a decorator crab with themes of tide pools requested by @rnsudio

x | x | x x | x | x x | x | x

[theriancultureis]

Is (for me atleast as a crustacean) spending as long as possible in water till your skin becomes too wrinkly

.

[sh4rksnhe4rts]

🦐•» Red Caribbean Pistol Shrimp mood board !

[asqadia-banthen]

nobody quite knows its beauty

it is hidden under layers of shell is a feathery fan

let out to gather

then grasped back in in a flick

oh how beautiful it is

sparkling under the water

when the tide lowers it hides

hides within its pearly white shell

only to be seen again

when the tide rises

[shirecorn]

so i know you said fish are made into mermaids seals into selkies whales into mammers(?) but would eels be mermaids or would they be noncanon if one kofi'd it

Eels are fish! They belong to Actinopterygii, and are related to mermaids. These are called ray-finned fish, and mermaids evolved from a species of ray finned fish.

Other things we call "fish" are so far away evolutionary,that we are in some ways closer relatives to clownfish than they are. Sharks and hagfish are incredibly far away from fish, but we still call them that for our convenience. Humans are in fact, a type of lobe-finned fish. So If i wanted to say that coelacanth mermaids are possible, I would have to include theoretical goat-mermaids as well.

I'm still feeling it out, figuring what is and isn't possible for fish to evolve into. Right now I'm thinking that Mermaids have a kin/counterpart relationship with fish species in the water, which could arbitrarily include lobe-finned fish, cartilaginous fish, and jawless fish through convergent evolution/atavism, but somehow excludes tetrapods. If it feels like a fish, is a vertebrate but not a tetrapod, it's possible for a mermaid to exist, even if evolutionary they wouldn't come anywhere near it.

All mermaid species counterparts are chordates. "Mermaids" in other phyla (like mollusks and crustaceans and jellyfish) are something else with their own evolutionary path toward the humanoid body plan.

So eels are 100% ok!

Gulper eel mermaid drops tomorrow :O

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Heikegani

CR 4

Neutral Evil Small Aberration

Bestiary 5, pg. 141

Easily among the most bizarre creatures found in Paizo's later Bestiaries, the Heikegani (which I'll be calling "Heike" from now on) are based on a real world crab with a much less berserk backstory than the ones on Golarion; on Earth, the shell of the Heikegani merely look like faces through sheer serendipity. On Golarion? They're one step away from being Undead, because they're inhabited by the ghosts of warriors who died at sea but who have refused to actually become Undead due to the disgrace such a transformation would bring them. So, instead, their soul seeks a suitable host to inhabit, and what's more suitable than the pinnacle of evolution?

Now, let's address the crab-that-used-to-be-an-elephant in the room: the bonkers lore. While the book itself states ALL Heikegani are born from the souls of, very specifically, samurai who died from a magical catastrophe near a crab breeding ground, that's... More than a little goofy, if I'm being honest. Now, I'm normally all for ludicrous backstories for a monster species, but the idea that there's enough samurai dying in magical explosions around newborn crabs that their restless souls create a noteworthy population of murderous crustaceans (which can travel in groups of up to seven!) is too much, even for me. If you've seen my more ridiculous homebrews, you'll know that the bar for the lunacy I can tolerate in lore is embedded four feet in bedrock, so this should REALLY tell you how silly I find the idea! So, in my own take on the lore, Heike are born from any sufficiently motivated warrior perishing at sea whose soul refuses to give in to the temptation of undeath, and multiple Heike showing up means the warrior had an especially powerful soul, so much so that it couldn't be contained in a single crustacean body. If you want to go in a different direction, Heike could be born from fragments of the soul rather than the entire thing, much like how a ghost is just the negativity left over by the true soul, its presence weighing the rest down like an anchor. They do, after all, carry little else but hatred for the living and a need to fight greater and greater foes until they can finally die an honorable death... or kill everyone else trying.

The first sign that the party is dealing with something far more than just a common crab that happened to pick up a dagger is the Unnatural Aura cascading off the thing, the Heike's aberrant nature causing common wildlife to tremble in their presence. No animals willingly travel within 30ft of a Heike, leading to the amusing possibility of a party's horses suddenly flinging their riders from their backs because a big crab reared up at them. Less amusing is the possibility of it terrifying the party by rearing up, because it can use Intimidating Glare as a full-round action to make an Intimidate check (+9) against everyone within 30ft of it, potentially shaking up the entire party for multiple rounds in a single move. It doesn't even suffer from the normal penalty it'd take by being Small-sized!

Once the party is debuffed, the Heike can issue a Challenge to a foe it wishes to slay as a swift action, making it more vulnerable to the attacks of other creatures (its AC goes from 18 to 16 vs anything but its target) but vastly more dangerous against its victim, not only gaining insurmountable DR 2, but +4 damage. Its twin claws already deal 1d3+4 damage each, but with +4 damage on top of it and the threat of Power Attack looming in the wings, suddenly the encounter is no longer a joke... Not that battles against crabs should ever be treated as a joke. Giant Crabs only seem silly until they're tearing the Rogue in half after drowning the party Wizard, and the Heike's damage output vastly eclipses its un-possessed kin while giving up none of the crab's normal tricks. Despite being Small, its Grab attack can latch onto Medium targets without needing to do anything special, and it's got a +10 to grapple checks--enough to cancel out the penalty it would normally take for grappling larger targets--AND it constricts its grappled victim for 1d3+4 additional damage each round... which is also augmented by Challenge, as the damage boost applies to all damage rolls it makes. One round of being grappled by a Heike could mean taking upwards to 30 damage, or even higher if it Power Attacks! Really, the fact they can wield a dagger almost feels like a waste when their normal claws are powerful enough weapons, but a Heike will always choose to wield the weapons it did in life... and if the DM is feeling mean, this means they have permission to have the things armed with whatever magic items they've scavenged from the sea floor.

About the only mercy granted here is that a Heike's size means it cannot easily drag victims into the water to drown them, as normal Giant Crabs are infamous for (their grapple modifiers aren't quite unbreakable in Pathfinder, but they're still high, people!). They're also less inclined to do so thanks to their obsession with honorable combat (which is why they prefer weapons), but going full dishonorable is the best way to beat them; unlike a Giant Crab (a Vermin), Heike are vulnerable to mind-affecting effects. Unfortunately, the aforementioned obsession with honor allows them to tap into their Memories of Honor 1/day to grant themselves a +4 bonus to any saving throw they make, something they normally reserve for a battle-ending ability like the Slumber Hex or Color Spray, the latter of which they're still vulnerable to at only 5 HD.

The problem is that fighting dishonorably will cause it to fight dishonorably in turn, abandoning its weapon in favor of its (normally) vastly more dangerous claws. Whatever spell or ability you try and end the combat with had better end it, or you're likely end up as just another tallymark scratched into its blade.

You can read more about them here.

[cloudyswritings]

More Wyrm Things

just some more wyrm(and PK) headcanons.

Wyrm:

They don’t really sleep in the same way that other bugs, beasts, and higher beings do? Like it’s something a bit like how dolphins sleep with half their brain, but on a much more diffuse scale. The result is that they don’t sleep but do have more and less active periods.(this is also why PK was immune to the Radiances influence and why he felt comfortable moving his palace into the dream realm)

They’re fully capable of closing their inner throat to avoid taking in excess water if they burrow through a aquifer underground.

Aditionally Wyrms aren’t really bugs so they don’t actually have spiracles like bugs do, I’d make the wager that they’ve got lungs or some other stranger form of respiration.

It actually seems like Wyrms are vertebrates? Like the wyrm corpse has what look like vertebrae. I think the track of evolution on hollownest world probably has a group of creatures with both a skeleton and an exoskeleton. These would be some kind of fusion of reptiles and crustaceans, this is the group Wyrms and their distant kin belong to.

Wyrm meat is very tough, luminous, and highly toxic to most beings. Of course roots can devour a wyrm corpse without issue.

in lower form(ie after dying) most Wyrms choose to be taller than the bugs that worship them and also still mostly rely on touch and scent over sight.

Wyrms like very dry and windy conditions, in fact stagnant air and high humidity will actually cause respiratory issues and begin rusting their outer coat of armor, making it much harder to move and shed.

PK:

He doesn’t like having bugs that don’t share his pale color scheme in his palace for any length of time.

in fact this might be a wyrm thing in general but aesthetics matter a ton to him, like it’s sorta an OCD thing? But he needs things to be on theme, at least where he lives. Colors that complement it(like red) are tolerated.

when he first met the white lady he was terrified of her. She was the only other pale being he’d met, and he expected their meeting to end with one of them consuming the other.

in general he tries to distance himself from the culture Wyrms have, he only indulges his instincts in private.

he’s a messy eater, so when he holds court and does politics he generally doesn’t eat. I think most denizens of Hallownest think that gods just don’t eat because of this.

He has fantastic spacial awareness and impeccable memory. Yes this does mean he remembers every single mask in the abyss intimately.

He nibbles on things when anxious sometimes.

He wears such a long cloak to conceal the parts of his body where his understanding of lower bugs and beings failed and he made mistakes. He’s got some really fucking weird joints, and seethrough bits( especially over his heart, it’s why he wears his part of the kingsoul there.

his head might be mostly hollow tbh, it’s a lot like the maw of his wyrm form, in a sense it’s even appropriate to say he doesn’t have a true face.

Parts of his brain are actually stored in his lower body and chest, not that it really matters because as a god he’d survive even without a body. Though he’d have a harder time with that than the radiance. He’s a god of the physical world and she’s one of the ephemeral world.

he likes the taste of mint, to the horror of the bugs around him(it’s a toxic insect repellent to them)

he has little ingots of metal he eats, like candy bars but very dense. It’s because he needs metal in his diet, something which hornet deeply regrets inheriting from him.

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Fossil Friday! TRILOBITES

Trilobites are some of the most well-known invertebrates of the fossil record. They popped up during the Cambrian Explosion

and lasted all the way until The Great Dying of the Permian.

That's 469 million years!

Trilobites are a type of sea-faring arthropod. This phylum includes crustaceans, arachnids, millipedes and kin and insects. In other words, their bugs. Big, sea bugs.

The name trilobite means "three lobes" in reference to the vertical lobes their bodies are split into. They also happen to have three horizontal segments too.

The horizontal segments are split as follows: 1.) the cephalon (head), 2.) the thorax (abdomen) and 3.) the pygidium (butt). The vertical lobes are 4.) the right pleural lobe, 6.) the left pleural lobe and 5.) the central axial lobe.

Trilobites are found on all modern continents and occupied every paleo ocean. There are thousands of known species and because they appeared and disappeared quickly and left behind hundreds of molts they make excellent index fossils.

Representations of all the trilobite orders.

There are tons of immaculate specimens from various quarries around the world including the Cambrian-age Wheeler Shale of Utah where I got this specimen:

[eversheddingshifter]

୧‿̩͙ ˖︵ ꕀ sea serpent intro ꕀ ︵˖ ‿̩͙୨

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

it's a little intro about my sea serpent kin! it's a pretty solid one that i've discovered more than four years ago. it's flickering in intensity, but the subconscious presence of this identity is pretty strong even when i'm in doubt or denial. it has a link to one of the alters, but a small one: we have a specific alter who is a sea serpent, too, but a very different one, so i don't think these identities are strongly related (and i'm absolutely sure they're not the same)

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

୧‿̩͙ ˖︵ ꕀ appearance & biology ꕀ ︵˖ ‿̩͙୨

a long, serpentine dragon with pale blue scales, long snout with two even longer carp-like whiskers, a pair of straight ivory horns, webbed ear-like fins on the sides of the head and a long spinal fin. all four feet have long, webbed and clawed fingers, the tip of the tail has a large fish-like fin. the size from the tip of the snout to the tip of the tail must be under 10 m, which makes me a rather small dragon in comparison to the typical image.

i lack any special type of breath and have no ability to fly. i also have no gills, which means i have to breathe air, but i can hold my breath for a very long time. my main diet consists of fish, crustaceans, mollusks and seaweed.

୧‿̩͙ ˖︵ ꕀ how it manifests ꕀ ︵˖ ‿̩͙୨

- cravings of seafood, preferably raw, during shifts.

- urges to click, growl, make guttural purrs and other vocalisations.

- a need to curl up, stretch, wrap around something and fit in narrow spaces.

- preference towards low and soft lighting.

- urges to be near water, swim and dive.

- urges to be in nature, far away from human settlements, near rivers, ponds, lakes or sea shores.

- incredible and at times painful longing for the ocean, especially the colder parts of it.

- phantom sensations of tail, horns, fins, forked tongue and scales, as well as the sense that i'm bigger or taller than the human body.

- and many more.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

thank you for reading! i'm always happy to meet more serpents, dragons and aquatic kins🌊🌨️🐚🐟

[goldmanguyperson]

Please don’t send me donation asks. They won’t get posted here. I’m really sorry, but I want you to know that your time is better spent with someone else.

(post features potentially triggering and general uncomfortable content under the manifesto section)

I might sometimes post musings about sexual ideas and i will be horny on main sometimes, but i will always tag it properly. i also have exclusive tag “#gold goes crazy on main” that you can blacklist if you dont wanna blacklist the more general tags for your own reasons. i also have an NSFW Tumblr account under the name veganvore (i just think the name is funny, sorry vegan vorers). i will block accounts that do not state that they are an adult over there, which reminder, will also prevent me from seeing your stuff

I try to tag for commonly triggering content but i sometimes forget for stuff like bugs because i simply dont find them scary or upsetting. if you really cant handle seeing a bug at any capacity then my blog probably isnt for you. I consider bugs in less scientific context to be all of pancrustacea, but i tag spiders separately because some people fear them uniquely, and i do not tend to tag for crustaceans such as shrimp or crabs because discomfort around those is less common. I tag very plainly; I do not use cw or tw, I just flat out tag the thing as itself. i also try to tag for all animal death and dead animals, including bugs and fish (which are tagged separately because i know not everyone reacts to dead bugs or fish the same as mammals or birds or reptiles)

If your dni has an identity that i identify with on there then know i am not not interacting with you out of respect, i am not interacting with you because you are a fucking asswipe. Be a better person. People who believe they know more about me than me, or use trauma as an excuse to be bigoted and stay bigoted, do not have my respect.

Liberal blocker

intro post for NERDS!

im gold just call me gold. Or, my other names include tank and any model/(appropriate. none of the bigoted ones) nickname of tank, plane, or nuclear bomb (aside from fat man or little boy or enola gay for hopefully obvious reasons). i will respond best if it is very clearly directed at me or is one of my favorite vehicles/bombs: tsar bomba, kv-1, molodets, locust, chaffee, whatever whatever

my pronouns are he/him (normal caps), He/Him, and HE/HIM. i stole pronouns from god and HIM from the powerpuff girls

trans and gay full of autism adhd yum

im a shapeshifter otherkin. I am othervague for all these things (swings between kin, hearted, and link): birds, machines, and ‘pedes (millipedes and centipedes). am werebear; this is not a physical identity, i just much prefer to use the “were” term for it rather than otherkin, as it feels much more correct. But really, i can be anything. i have experienced a whole range of nonhuman stuff, cuz shapeshifter. if i post in a more specific tag know i am not attempting to like… invade, or anything. i mean for one i think thats stupid and for another i do actually be feeling that way

Russia place/countrykin. not a putin supporter or even a nationalist; Слава Україна. more connected to the land and its “memories” than anything else. if this confuses you please read my post: Nationalists do not love their country

i am plural. im fuckitgenic. you dont get to know how traumatized or not i am, cuz i dont even fucking know either. I don’t even think it’s that relevant. I am because i am, we are because we are, trying to look back into this life to see why it turned out this way is, in our opinion, just not fucking worth our time.

You probably wont see my headmates here as they struggle to form words for outside use, but you still might.

headmates you might see include:

The Eagle (he is a bald eagle)

The Nothing Beast (a big jet black dromeosaurid-like monster with back spines. actually quite nice. speaks in all caps)

Sputnik-1 (introject of the satellite). Profile is @satellite-one!

Bear (a spirit bear. might come off a bit mean. Bear is often just trying to protect us, but Bear also struggles with friendly or respectful communication)

Bat (We don’t know much about him. he hides away a lot)

Alan @amcomputer

if you start complaining about ��uehhh but i have to know if youre traumatized to know how valid you are!!!” im going to skewer you like a shrike. we do not take kindly to prescriptive labeling.

i am posic (Perception of Object Sentience, Individuality, and Consciousness). I don’t believe objects speak to me and i dont believe they are externally alive, but i feel like they should be. it happens especially with military vehicles and nuclear missiles. when i look at them i feel a similar sense of life i feel when i look at an animal. is it weird? Oh yeah. It is. i have thought about this a lot and i can expand on it in another post if wanted.

im also objectum and conceptum tbe american flag is my boyfriend im sorry… I hate the government and i hate borders and i understand it would be better for countries to not have influence over material reality and all that shit (i am an anarchist. winning) but countries as a concept beyond reality are really important to me please understand. nationalists hate him (me) actually

carrd (mentions nsfw topics)

neocities (wip)

tags

#shut up! the eagle’s talking! - essays and personal experiences

#this is chrome ball radio - My headmate Sputnik’s thoughts and feelings.

#gold goes crazy on main - mentioned above. though not actually just plain horny stuff, more for musings that may be sexual and have to do with me personally and I GUESS I LIED!!! ITS HORNY

#and that eagle? well. hah. It was me - just stuff about eagles. Any kind. i love eagles

#falconer hood experiences - Dreams that i have. theyre crazy. you will want to read

#first past the posting - USpol. Some of it isnt totally USpol (first past the post, the namesake, is a pretty prevalent issue in plenty of modern day democracies), but i live in the US so it’s what im probably thinking about

#galaxies of valleirkro - My spore stuff. Many permutations. Species will be tagged #valleirkro (species name), for example #Valleirkro Zoxun. Characters will be tagged their full name, such as #ikli-kit keletet.

#M.A.D. or Mutually Assured Destruction - Sentient country stuff that got out of hand and now is basically sci fi alternate history about learning to love each other and rise up against the powerful people and ideas keeping us apart. Characters will be tagged #M.A.D. (character name), as they only have a single peopley name. For example, #M.A.D. Maximilian. I do not tag them as the countries they are if I have a name for them, mostly because I don't want confusion when speaking of them in the same breath as the actual country. if you want to know which is which, do not be afraid to ask - i usually try to choose names that are of cultures and languages in the country, but I know not everyone is familiar with other languages, and many names are found across multiple cultures. Curious about what the fuck the ‘canon’ i keep talking about is or why not all characters seem to act in a way you’d expect? read this post.

#gold's Starmen - Characters that can traverse the multiverse. Characters are mostly of the species Arvien; flat-faced bird people (yes made out of a desire to try to get away from the country stuff. i know yes, it did not work. but now i have a whole new world so it's cool). Species get tagged as #Starmen (species), for example #Starmen Arvien. Characters get tagged their full name, for example #Zakul Kuzarus. Sometimes exceptions are made for characters that do not have a "full" name. They instead have their species name after their name, like in #Ihsek Xek.

manifesto (sort of like a dni + its opposite but i actually explain things to ease my anxiety and autism) if you dont wanna read this thats fine but dont be surprised when i say something you dont like lol

Almost anyone is welcome here. But if you believe that you know more than other people do about their own identity then go away. Disgusting shit. Begone

that being said you cannot change your race. racial emotional limbo should only belong to people who are mixed race. You can find ways to participate in another culture without being the race often associated with it. many people would be much happier to show you their culture if you weren’t trying to identify as the race associated with it. Begone

I cant believe this is something that needs to be said anywhere but if you are an apologist for imperialism, capitalism, or authoritarianism, or are otherwise a supporter of any of this shit, fuck you. USSR, Russia, USA, China, Israel, Nazism, whatever i dont care. they all suck and you shouldnt be trying to blanket excuse them. Begone

go away if you indulge in zoophilic or pedophilic content. hope it’s obvious why. indulging in lusting after real ass living beings who cannot consent is fucking weird as shit. Begone

transage is fine. its not about pedophilia, that is a 4chan smear campaign cuz they thought it was fucking weird. it is about age regression and trauma and that kinda shit, idk, just read up on chronosian identity or something if you want. Also the things we associate with certain ages are more often than not socially constructed and so like idk, fuckin whatever dude. Begone

if you think age regression is bad then you do not know what it is. it is also not pedophilic in nature, it is often about comfort and often is a trauma or anxiety response. Please research and talk to real people before assuming something is bad just cuz it sounds weird. Begone

mspec lesbians are cool. “contradictory” labels are cool. my (real physical person) boyfriend is every letter of the queer alphabet and every person who hates a contradictory label will face our combined wrath. Begone

medicalism die begone. scientists do not know everything and often even science itself goes against “medicalist” beliefs. Minds are actually super crazy and weird and science understands this. If you are happier, or more at peace, and more able to understand and work with yourself because of a label and the support that comes with it then it is a good one.

^ includes “not supporting” endogenic systems by the way. Begone

creating headmates is fine (i think most of my headmates were accidentally created) but tulpa terminology is based upon a pretty heavy series of cultural appropriations of Buddhism (have you ever heard of “chakras are connected to your organs”? yeah. thats not true. thats a western idea that comes from the kinda colonial concept that we can force an eastern religion into the originally western conception of science as almighty truth that everything must tie to to be considered real by anybody, and the western idea of tulpas are mainly from this version of buddhism). Asian religions and cultural practices are already a really big target for western cultural appropriation, maybe we shouldn’t add to that, okay? i mean i wont tell you to go away like i have for the others here. and i actually wont tell you that its absolutely not okay because this is a pretty complex little cranny of reality. but i do ask you to perhaps be a little more conscious of how this stuff all connects

it is okay to be wrong

bangalangadooda

[ophiocordyceps]

fuck it we ball. my thoughts on angels ft some discussion of gabriel in particular because i have got to talk about his bug ass at least a little

Angels, moreso greater and supreme angels, are basically weird bugs (or weird crustaceans sometimes, but generally have more in common with earthly insects), though it's hard to tell in their most common state, which despite what you may be led to believe is not their natural state.

The most common form of angels, armored humanoids with halos and wings, are more along the lines of a sort of "cultivated" creature, the divine Light that gives them much of their power channels their being into something far more outwardly controlled than how they otherwise would appear; their armor is actually more akin to an exoskeleton (though still metallic rather than chitinous), and some appear to have structures on their helmets that in reality are fused mandibles, among other things. If one were to dissect an angel in this state and study the findings, you would find their anatomy to resemble a strange and esoteric insect, containing imaginal discs that at first appear to be vestigial.

These discs, however, are not vestigial, rather dormant. 'Fallen' angels are those who have reverted back into their natural state, developing more arthropod-esque features such as antennae and extra limbs and appendages. Due to their divine nature, their bodies retain a small amount of innate Light that prevents them from dying outright (a fact few in Heaven are actually aware of), allowing their halos and wings to persist, though they may warp into horns and other structures or outright break apart at this point.

The process by which angels "fall" is actually more of a semi-gradual metamorphosis that lacks a pupal stage, and this period often tends to be very stressful and/or painful, leading to the development of many initially "monstrous" features, though with time and opportunity to de-stress, these can heal and smooth themselves out into more natural traits. Fallen angels, if given long enough, start to lose their more 'purposeful' appearance, losing some the details that turn their carapace into a more convincing suit of armor, gaining a sort of 'bug fluff', or developing drives to sleep and eat, amongst many other things. They may also grow larger and stronger than their still-holy kin, though nobody up in Heaven pays enough attention to the fallen to know this for sure.

Fallen angels also tend to be somewhat colder than their holy peers, though a deep outlier to this is Gabriel, who is bordering on freezing due to a small (not really) incident involving the frozen lake that comprises most of Treachery. He never really warmed back up after that.

Gabriel himself resembles something vaguely akin to a cicada. or a mantis. or a wasp. or a scorpion. vaguely, you see. turns out i dont aactually feel like describing him in detail but you can look at his bug ass here. Some of the details that aren't so apparent include the fact that under the antenna (the 'wings' covering his face) the front of his helmet is broken off, revealing no actual 'face' within but exposing a somewhat-spidery arrangement of compound eyes, and the 'spike' of his helmet is split into wasp-like mandibles. His secondary pair of limbs also stem more from his midsection but i forgot to specify that lmao uh i had less to say about him specifically than i thought. post.

[tribbetherium]

'The shrabs, like many crustaceans convergently have before, are a group of shrish that have taken on a stocky-bodied, short-tailed build, with several lineages leaving the sea independently of one another and taking up a terrestrial lifestyle, foraging for food in any place humid and damp enough for their gills to remain moist. But the beachpeach forests of southern Arcuterra's coast is home to perhaps the most unexpected species of all: the arboreal redclaw tree shrab (Arboreocaris decacheirus), a fairly large species with a leg span of roughly 20 centimeters. Tree shrabs, as opposed to their scuttling beach-bound kin, climb high up in the canopy with the aid of ten legs all equipped with gripping pincers, feeding on bark, algae, ratbat and lemunky droppings and small, slow-moving invertebrates. The tree shrabs share a unique symbiotic relationship with plumepools, a form of epiphytic grass that grows among the branches of beachpeach trees. These grasses have funnel-shaped centers that hold rainwater: providing an ideal nursery in which the shrabs can raise their aquatic larval young safe from predators. In return, the shrabs protect the plumepools from various herbivores, including insects as well as ratbats that savor its vulnerable flowers and seeds. Synchronous timing allows the plumepool to coincide its blooming with the tree shrab's spawning: with territorial, aggressive tree shrab mothers and their fearsome pincers protecting not only their own young--but those of the plumepool as well.'

---------

[theriancultureis]

Crustacean therian culture is I WANT PINCHERS I WANT CHELIPEDS AHHHHHHHH

Also i wish there were more crustacean/crab therians out there 🦀

.

[keanbeanproduction]

My World Building I guess!

I wanna be completely honest in the project I was going to talk about today. Just a little absent minded recently been really into fallout 76 and getting all the challenges done before stuff happens I guess. 

So I guess I could talk about a few of the worlds I built which I just gave them titles. It helps me keep them all together, and if an idea doesn’t fit with the world, I can always just give it to another one or I just keep it in a little note documents makes it a lot easier to just keep them all together. 

Sounds Messi had it is at some point it is but this is how I like to do it and anytime I add something new to lore. I just put it in the document with the world and then I go back and I kind of just put the stuff together that is connected, which I plan on, transferring all to an actual world building program. That’s the kind of like I’m one of those trees look like a family tree with ideas connected with each other and stuff like that.

So anyways, the one I’ve been talking about the most will always be my fantasy world one. I’m currently working on that is set an a world that doesn’t really have magic just technology is the magic or was used as magic kind of like how alchemy had very real science to it, but you know was misinterpreted as magic, and sometimes just considered just science. But it will have a lot of like a hill have minor love crafting elements to it later in the story with the main original three races, which are talked about as myth or legends that created other races, or taught other races how to do science and then they said in the lore that they are from the star so they are aliens, but I won’t explain it fully. I want to leave some to the imagination of if they are aliens or not or, what other races are aliens.

As with the Fae that exist in the world, a lot of the powers. They have such as mind controls up or even their arms and limbs being blades are based on real world, animals and phenomenon with animals. They just evolved to be that way, and are actually protectors of nature, a kin to like fantasy druids than anything else which I kind of like that idea and take a little inspiration from the borrowers. If anyone remembers that book, they like to collect things from races that are much bigger than that they aren’t exactly tiny.

Continuing on about the Fae, they range from mammal to insect like what that seems to be the main two that people have seen in the world which I’m just gonna keep it like that because it’s a lot easier to explain that Fai are kind of a mammal looking or they look like insects or crustaceans.

Which I plan to give Fae their own story in the universe that is separate from the dragon story, which dragons where they came from will be explained way way later since a lot of information about the original three races that helped grow other civilizations then just disappeared like nothing ever happened will be explained through myths and legends, but since I don’t have a plan for them just yet or I’ve already planned it who knows no one will really know if any myths or stories about them are true because I love them I’ve just been re-edited or made to fit certain cultures in the world.

But let’s take a step back from the fantasy little world I have and move onto one a little more interesting a little more sci-fi, which also really isn’t that specific I got a few that are kind of sci-fi, but this one has no magical elements, fantasy, races, or stuff like that it’s more in kin to cyber punk or prototype. I would even throw in a bit of that one game. Oh yes infamous where are you have the conduits in their powers.

I do have a few world that actually use magic about my own take on Magic since I don’t really have that many universities more or less universe called. I just called the horror universe that I kind of just have more or less for my stories that just don’t send anything I can just put them on the same world, and they kind of are all on the same logic of the world, but continuing on with this little Syfy one which I call GORES.

Which actually does mean something in the universe, but I’m not going to say it just yet it’s basically takes place in a world where genetic edit in and all of that sort of stuff is very common to the point where a company genetically makes mascots for businesses. As well as genetically altered celebrities and bands, which actually is what the story follows it follows, following one of these genetically altered creatures, whose band members were killed after they were deemed useless and outdated but as well, the company isn’t exactly good shocker, right?

Nope they go full umbrella on everyone else, and turns out all of the genetic things they may have basically kill switches inside that turn them into murderous rampage in monsters, with weapons that are biologically a part of them going for prototype and Akira on people.

I don’t want to spoil too much, but it’s very gory splatter Feste with other sci-fi elements, including psychics telekinetic’s psychokinesis all that sort of stuff mutants in a world that I would say, is kind of like Dredd almost minus the weird magic.

That’s pretty much that on that universe don’t want to go into too much detail and spoil a bit for the writing. Or on the rest of the little writing projects that I have planned out or I’m just saving for a rainy day I don’t plan to make all of them just it’s fun to have them around and think about them recently I did get an idea for one after watching RoboCop as well as watching a video on the game manhunt.

That universe would be one of my darkest and most somewhat realistic settings overall, just a very disturbing time, but I wouldn’t go overly edgy with it.

Well, thanks to those who actually read my entire little rant. I was having here and I plan to post may be a member to today as well but hope y’all have a wonderful day bye-bye!



[arminreindl]

Relatively brief post because I imagine people won't care much about this one (nor is there that much to talk about). But newly described from the Pliocene of New Zealand we have Macronectes tinae, which we might as well call Tina's Giant Petrel. Known from a really well preserved skull and a partial humerus, Tina's Giant Petrel is a species of giant petrel, but notably smaller and less robust than the modern species, like these ones.

There might be two reasons why its smaller. One is simple really. Giant petrels stand out amongst their relatives for being ridiculously big, while all their closest kin are pretty small. So logically, an older, more basal giant petrel is expected to be smaller. The authors also speculate that living in warmer waters is another factor, but modern petrel ranges are huge so that hypothesis is less solid.

Even if it was smaller, Tina's Giant Petrel still lived a life that was likely similar to its modern relatives. Meaning it was an absolute beast of a bird. Modern petrels are well known to scavenge near seal colonies and penguing colonies, mob other birds, steal and eat the chicks of other sea birds and also hunt for fish, squid and crustaceans. Google "giant petrel" and expect to be greeted by birds either absolutely tearing apart carcasses or being covered in blood. Petrels look pretty metal. As it so happens, Tina's Giant Petrel was found in a formation that is in no short supply of potential prey. Eomonachus, a monk seal (illustrated by seal king Jaime Bran), Eudyptes atatu, a penguin (illustrated by  Simone Giovanardi), Aldiomedes angustirostris, an albatross, various petrels and an undescribed species of pseudo-tooth bird (skull illustration by Jaime Headden) all would have given the extinct petrel a lot of options.

The paper also provides an illustration of the bird itself. Notably the artist, Simone Giovanardi who previously illustrated the penguins up above, decided to give this species darker plumage, reasoning that petrels in warmer waters tend to be darker than their relatives in the colder waters further south. The illustration shows it feeding on the carcass of a seal, probably the local Eomonachus.

Link to the paper: Taxonomy | Free Full-Text | A New Giant Petrel (Macronectes, Aves: Procellariidae) from the Pliocene of Taranaki, New Zealand (mdpi.com) And obligatory link to Wikipedia: Macronectes tinae - Wikipedia

[shirecorn]

i think a lions mane jellyfish would be cool! if youd like to continue to be cursed, id love to see what youd for a sea urchin or starfish mermaid 🧜‍♀️

If science of specbio intrigues you, please follow my worldbuilding blog at @worldofvonder

So mermaids are fish, straight up. Anything non-fish is not a mermaid. I do take non-fish requests! But they will either be magical creatures that are not mermaids, or they will just not be canon to my world.

There are many aquatic creatures that are not fish, and are in fact not even in the phylum chordata. "Phylum" is the first category of biology in taxonomy, which is the study of classifications.

Source: major animal phyla (video lecture!)

The kingdoms of life are: animals, plants, and fungus. Within the animal kingdom, the next step of sorting is phyla. Chordata includes vertebrates (and other animals that have a spinal cord but no bones) and it does not include jellyfish, crustaceans, octopus, and lots of other things. Interestingly, it is believed that chordata and echinoderma share a common ancestor, but they are still different phyla.

Mermaids arose from a ray finned fish, in the clade Actinopterygii. They speciated from there to become the dominant life form of the oceans. Mermaids have a process that allows groups to take on a form that is analogous to a mundane fish. If that fish evolved to eat algae, the mermaid takes on those traits while still able to eat meat. This kinship is not limited to other ray-finned fish, but encompasses many vertebrates that are commonly called "fish." This includes sharks and jawless fish like hagfish. It can include lobe-finned fish like coelacanth, but does not include tetrapods. Tetrapod creatures that resemble mermaids may be centaurs. Centaurs have a completely different origin than mermaids.

Mermaids do not have kin in other phyla. If an invertebrate resembles a human, it is through another evolutionary path than "fish that mimics humans to eat them"

Aquatic creatures and their "mermaid" (humanoid) creature counterparts

Chordata: Fish (cartiligeous, ray finned, lobe finned): Mermaids Seals and sea lions: Selkies (selkies are a subspecies of human) Whales and dolphins: selkie-mermaid hybrids: mammalmers

Arthropoda (crustaceans, arachnids, insects): fairies Mollusca: (slugs, clams, octopus): Magic mirrors Echinoderma (sea cucumbers, starfish, urchins, sanddollars): undiscovered Cnidaria (jellyfish and anemones) and Ctenophora: undiscovered

sponges, anything resembling worms, anything not mentioned: undiscovered

Many phylums have branches that superficially resemble humans despite being completely unrelated to us and each other. This phenomenon is known as anthropisation (not anthropization, which is humans changing landscapes). But don't go thinking humans are special. The same thing happens with horses.

wow there's a lot here. You're welcome lol