spectember '24 vol.2: things of space and time by littleloomex on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

volume 2 of the spectember 2024 prompts. no preamble, just enjoy the critters.

day 5-"unusual culprit": the arimaspi sheep, the other "cyclops" mythology fodder

in greek mythology, the arimaspi were a legendary tribe of one-eyed people who lived in the Riphean mountains (aka what would be the Ural mountains). tales have been spun about their battles between the tribe and the gold-stealing griffons.

officially described sometime on the late 1800s, the arimaspi sheep upon first glance doesnt seem too different from it's caprine relatives. it's loosely defined as a kind of "Mountain goat" (though in it's own genus entirely), it eats various vegetation including grasses, herbaceous plants, lichen, etc. males have horns and two long locks of fur, females don't. they're most noted for their unusual markings on their forehead and being the only wild caprine to live in the Ural mountains. in the wild, their two primary predators are lynxes and golden eagles.

it's believed that their eye-like marking on their heads and the males hair locks gave the vague appearance of a person, and it's believed that through oral tellings it was twisted into a one-eyed humanoid. it's two main predators could've been combined into one, which of course twisted into it being a griffon.

as a bonus fact, lauren faust chose to depicted the mythical arimaspi in MLP:FiM as a half-goat in honor of this species (and to avoid creating any "human" characters)

day 6-"vacumal": the belt gabbertoob, friendly inhabitant of the "living belt"

the living belt is a very large, very thick and VERY cluttered asteroid belt; so clutter in fact that it looks like a ring you'd find around a planet.but make no mistake; this belt has something that is rare across the omniverse: space-fairing life. the life here ranges wildly; from the tiny "algae" and microorganism to giant, water-producing "trees" and battleship-sized "Whales", all of which creates a functional ecosystem very rarely ever seen.

because of how cluttered it is with asteroids, most ships avoid the belt altogether. however, many research and tourist vessels go through this belt to view the wildlife, albeit with heavily reduced speeds to prevent a collision with the asteroids and stuff.

the gabbertoobs are a common sight in the living belt, holding a niche not unlike that of small (1ft long) filter-feeders. they feed on "planktoclouds", a kind of self-sustaining cloud-like cluster of microorganism. they use a single, jet-like organ to propel themselves through the vacuum of space, their tails giving them control and allowing them to make hairpin turns; perfect since they have plenty of predators and must be able to take evasive action. gabbertoobs are very curious and friendly, however, and it's not unheard of for gabbertoobs to follow vessels that fly through the belt.

day 7-"unusual cultivars": the lemon sumac, cultivated sibling of the staghorn sumac.

this isn't actually the first time i've made a cultivated staghorn sumac, i've already done so with my planet argonus series on DA, but i really just couldn't find inspiration anywhere else for this prompt, so....i just copied the concept here. but anyways......

the lemon sumac is a kind of north american deciduous shrub that is found throughout the northeastern US. they belong in the genus rhus, and is a close relative of the staghorn sumac (rhus typhina) of which it sometimes competes with. these plants look very similar to the staghorn sumac, except for having thicker branches, rounder leaves, and larger berries. just like staghorn sumac, these berries are edible, and not just that but even in their wild state they are sweeter and less tart that it's other edible relatives.

in this world, the berries are the main part that's cultivated. the cultivated variety is said to taste almost exactly like sweet lemonade with hints of cherry to it; some cultivars are also bred to have similar tastes to other citrus fruits as well; one variety is even used as a substitute for grapefruit due to lacking furanocoumarins, which makes them perfect for those who take certain medications that negatively interact with grapefruit. other cultivate this fruit over actual citrus fruits because it's way more tolerant to drought and cold than actual citrus fruits.

day 8-"freestyle: deep dive": shoveler fincrest, the manatee-like pelagic crest drakes

crest drakes are a massive clade of flying archosaurs descended from a yin-long ancestor. in this world, maniraptoran never reached their full potential, leading to these flying ceratopsian to take up the role of birds and surviving into modern day.

though most species are flighted or at the very least terrestrial, there is one order of crest-drakes that didn't just stop at flightlessness and when fully aquatic. these animals are fin-crests, and in this world they fill the niche of seals, dolphins and sirenians. these guys are unique in that they "give birth" to live young; or, more accurately, they modified their reproduction to ovoviviparity, meaning they develop a proper egg inside the body, only for the baby to hatch inside and be born alive. another notable feature is their fin-shaped crest; though this isn't present in all fincrests, those that do have their crest be tall, flat and...well, fin-like, acting as a primary dorsal fin.

the shoveler fincrest is the sirenian of the clade, being a species of mostly herbivores fincrest who uses their shovel-like beaks to scoop up aquatic plants like seagrass and kelp. they can be found in shallow tropics, especially in seagrass meadows and other similar plant-rich environments.

day 9-"marsupial madness": the koala horse, marsupial horse of an australian seed world.

somewhere in the same universe as Mori, there exist another seed world with native (pre-human arrival) australian fauna. it's considered to be younger than Mori in terms of when life was first placed on there, but in any case just as diverse and strange when it came down to life on the planet.

a common animal seen in the temperate grasslands and steps is an animal affectionally called the "koala horse", a cursorial diprotodont who's only recently been discovered to be a highly derived descendant of tree kangaroos. they're around the same size as a large donkey, and they're a widespread genus with several species to there names.

though rather big and bulky, these guys have lots of predators that'll make a meal out of them. thus, their young grow faster that most marsupials their size, and once out of the pouch they're fully capable of keeping up with the adults. males and non-reproducing females work to protect the herd from danger, with the lead male leading the herd to water, grazing lands, and "birth spots"; these birth spots are areas that make it difficult for their usual predators to hunt (usually with a mixture of difficult terrain and significantly less cover that makes them more visible).

ever since humans arrived on their seed world, they;ve been used as beast-of-burden as they were very easy to breed and able to easily be handled.

day 10-"hawk-tua": spitting albata, the flying "llama" or more accurately "the flying nondescript camelid descendant"

i apparently was in a mood to draw a flying llama for this one....

the spitting albata comes from an alternate cenozoic were a mass extinction occurred right between the eocene-oligocene boundary, setting mammal's rein on earth back several steps. among the few larger mammals to survive was a poebrotherium-like ancestor, who was quick to take up every niche available. some would become very adept at scaling rocky outcrops like goats, the rock-climbers learned to climb trees for food, tree-climbers become smaller and more "rodent-like", and next thing you know they're suddenly gliding, flapping and flying into the skies.

the spitting albata is a rather standard member of the pterocamela order, having look like a vague pterosaur with a camelid head. on its's forelimbs, the two toes have became a claw and a wing finger, and the hind feet becoming grasping talons. these guys primally eat fruit, and for some fruit species they are their primary seed dispersers. this species in particular takes up the whole "flying llama" part to another level; when threatened, these animals will shoot a mixture of saliva and regurgitated stomach contents at the threat at hand. spitting albatas aren't the only members of this order to use spit as defence, but they're the most well-known for it.

day 11-"cambrian condender": edwardcaris, aka the "edward scissorshrimp"

everybody knows that only a tiny fraction of life on earth has been immortalized in rock and stone; that is just fact. sometime we get extremely lucky and find a complete specimen, who's so well fossilized that even their soft tissue, their colors ad even their last meal are beautifully preserved. however, most of the time we go off of fragments and guess what they were in life.

edwardcaris (edward's shrimp), also known as "edward scissorshrimp", is a small Dinocarididan of unknown and debated affiliation. the holotype comes from late cambrian deposits, consist of a complete body, about 3in long including the long scissor-like mandibles. nobody know the exact function of these mandibles; the two biggest and most prevailing theories are that they either were for catching/dispatching prey or for fighting among each other. the former specifically speculates that the mandibles were used to either cut up soft-bodies prey or pry open bivalves for their innards.

[BONUS: when i posted this spot to reddit, somebody already informed me that there is, in fact, an animal almost exactly like this (taxonomy and all). it's called_ Caryosyntrips, and yes it was a scizor-faced dinocarididan from the cambrian. never even knew this guy existed until now.]_

day 12-"we have a t-rex!": tyrannorhynchus rex, a t-rex in all but taxon and limb placement.

from an alternate universe where, during the triassic...something happened. something that made pterosaurs the dominant group of animals whilst other archosaurs were shoved to the side. maybe yet another mass extinction, maybe some shift in biodiversity or environment, just something. in any case, many would converge onto that of other well-known dino groups; the paratheropods being our titular theropod stand-in.

descended from a dimorphodon-like ancestor, the paratheropods take that classic bipedal theropod build, but in the opposite direction; for you see, it is the forelimbs that bear the weight of the animal whilst the hind limbs hang out. the usefulness of these rear limbs can vary between species; some specialize in having them be just regular arms, some make them into weapons, and some like our t-rex standin here double down and have them be reduced to nothing more than vestigial leftovers.

tyrannorhynchus rex is, above all else...just a t-rex. it lived during the late cretaceous, being the top predator of it's time. unlike tyrannosaurs, these guys are solitary, and only stick around to raise young until they're able to hunt on their own. otherwise, they keep to themselves.

also DA changed the description maker UI ..... again.