/r/SpeculativeEvolution
Where evolution meets science fiction and art.
Speculative Evolution (also called Speculative Biology and Speculative Zoology) is the envisioning of fictional, but scientifically possible creatures that could have existed on an alternate Earth, or might actually exist somewhere on another planet or in the deep sea.
Ever wondered what lifeforms might exist under the ice on Europa at this very moment? Or how life might have evolved if that cataclysmic asteroid impact 65 million years ago never wiped out the dinosaurs? If so, you're at the right place.
Welcome to the Speculative Evolution subreddit! This sub is for images, discussion, and articles about life forms that could have existed in a different world. Speculative organisms may be from the future, an alternate timeline, or alien planets.
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Speculative Evolution article on Wikipedia
Speculative Evolution DeviantArt
Spec-Evo Projects Catalogue | Community Document, maintained by u/RustyyOnions
Snaiad: Life on Another World by CM Kosemen
The Amphiterra Project by u/Citysaurus_ART
Alien Biospheres by Biblaridion
Antarctic Chronicles by u/Risingmagpie
Rhynia by BobsicleG & u/Romboteryx
Serina: A Natural History of the World of Birds by Sheather888
Sol'Kesh Bestiary by u/Daedonas
After Man: A Zoology of the Future by Dougal Dixon
The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution by Dougal Dixon
Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future by Dougal Dixon
Expedition by Wayne Barlowe
All Tomorrows by C.M. Kosemen
Future Evolution by Peter Ward
The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island by Weta Workshop
The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades by Gerolf Steiner
Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
/r/SpeculativeEvolution
What evolutionary pressures or environmental factors could lead to the development of intelligent, tree-like organisms, if only natural pressures were the cause, be it through herbivory and other factors?
When I refer to psychological evolution, I refer to essentially changes in human nature, or things that made us not quite mentally the same as, say, the previous waves of human evolution (so H. heidelbergensis, H. habilis, basically anything before the neanderthals and denisovans that were modern humans’ contemporaries).
But what might change between what’s considered a “behaviorally modern human” now, and what “behavioral modernity” might look like in, say, 1 million years’ time?
A sene redraw from the birrin book story boards
Amniotes that live on land are divided into diapsids and synapsids. Both groups can have high bite force. The holes in the skull allow for muscles to attach for greater biting force. Turtles lost their double fenestrae. But still some among them have strong bite forces. Crocodiles outpaces Hippos by three times. So it seems that it in sheer bite force being a diapsid is better. But sharks also have a strong bite force with a weaker structure to pull against. But Orcas have the strongest bite force of known animals according to Google. So it doesn't seem being a synapsid weakens a bite force.
Reef fish have become more diverse and adapted than ever. The giant crunch eel has a strong bony jaw for biting down on prey like fish and crabs. The giant rainbow parrot fish is more faster and agile than other parrot fish on earth, but still eat the same coral diet as there ancestors. Since white beaches are the cause of parrot fish, all beaches are now covered in white sand. Other smaller fish include the zebra shoalah, the tiger shoalah and the very widespread sea stripe. As on earth, the giant remora stick to the bottom of mantas and even sometimes parrot fish!
Im making a seed world project where Leopard Geckos rule with a few other insects for food. I want a few ideas on how would the geckos survive? The planet would have about 3 continents both having a landbridge as long as 1 mile connecting two continents in the Northwest with the North South. The continents on the South has a large desert with a few million geckos living there, North West has millions of geckos, the North South has a few hundred thousand geckos living there. The north west has a more forest and tropical like environment, the North South has more of a watery and swamp like environment, the southern has like said a desert like environment and also has huge tropical like oasises around. There are billions of insects all over the continents and a few million moths are around the desert and north south continent.
Been waiting to post this one for a while, now that I've posted about the general phytozoan anatomy and the different phytozoan classes we have some good background to finally share this creature. Probably one of the bolder and flashier designs I've got, something that occurred to me early as a possibility for what I could do with phytozoans that I just couldn't resist and I'm wondering what people make of it.
Gigambulodendron (gígas + ambulō + déndron, ‘giant walking tree’)
Species: A. monolithus, A. streptostomus
Family: Monolithidae Order: Dendromorpha Class: Cyclostea
Size: 21-30 metres high Diet: autotroph, grazer Activity: cathemeral
Habitat: plains
The sylvan titan is a truly enormous member of the phytozoan order of dendromorpha, or sylvan striders. Indeed, sylvan titans are the largest animal on Prometheus and rival the size of baleen whales of Earth. They can reach up to thirty metres high, the equivalent of eight storeys, and are incredibly heavy.
The sylvan titan’s body consists of a single large roughly cone shaped abdomen, with four great elephantine legs stretching out from its base. It has four large eyes about a fifth of the way up its body from the height of its hips, which gives it a wide field of view. The skin of the sylvan titan is a thick hide much tougher than that of most animals. Meanwhile, a system of air sacs runs from the proboscis up through the whole abdomen which help it breathe and, critically, reduce its massive weight considerably.
Adorning the top of the sylvan titan is a series of antler-like structures that look rather like the branches of a tree, complete with fleshy yellow tips. Like other phytozoans, the sylvan titan uses its phyllobranchia for gaseous exchange and photosynthesis, so the tree-like shape is a convergent adaptation of the same effective design. Although, for the sylvan titan to sustain its huge size and lifestyle, it must also respire actively through its mouth and gain energy from herbivory, and this mean its 'branches' are actually somewhat small for its size as more of a supplement to these others means of sustenance.
Sylvan titans are grazers that consume massive amounts of the grassy citrinophytes that cover much of the plainlands. To feed, they have a huge muscular proboscis, with three jawparts lined by many small teeth. Reaching down, they rip out great bundles of vegetation and pull it up through the proboscis into their gut. They have a slower metabolism than large endothermic plumathrixes, which reduces their energy demands, but nonetheless they will have to consume several tonnes of vegetation each day.
Indeed, to keep up with their feeding through the long Promethean day-night cycle, sylvan titans are cathemeral, being active regularly through both day and night. Their huge size helps retain heat through the cool of the night while four large eyes and patches of bioluminescent skin allow them to keep track of each other as they travel through the night in loose herds.
Every year, the sylvan titans travel together out of the grasslands and into the forests. As they find the right areas, they intentionally crash through the vegetation, trampling lower plants and toppling trees, making a clearing for their eggs to be deposited. Then they release sprays of relatively small eggs from their proboscis, littering the forest floor, scrape the soil to cover them, and then depart the forest just as they came. Their eggs are now ready to begin the next phase of their unique life cycle.
In their wake, the clearings they have made promote a rush of new growth, with various plants scrambling to claim the new space. Amongst them invariably grows a certain kind of small tree. Starting small, it is not the fastest growing among the competitors, but it is hardy and grows taller and taller to overshadow the others. It is not quite like the citrinophyte colony trees which will also grow here, but has a more leathery texture, and as it grows, it develops no seeds, spores, fruits, or flowers.
As it grows, the stem of this strange tree takes on a slightly bulbous shape and it becomes thicker along its lower half while beneath the ground, its roots recede. It is getting ready to transform. This is the larval form of the sylvan titan, a dendromorph larvae, and once it’s finished moulding itself from within the tree stem, it sheds the outermost layer and takes its first steps as a mobile adult, ready to leave the forest and join the other titans out on the plains.
The same basic life cycle is also shared by other sylvan striders, but it is at its most extreme in the sylvan titan. Sylvan titans can live for over two hundred years across their whole life cycle, necessary for counteracting their slow development and reproduction.
In order to fend off any predators like talonmaws that might try and take them on, sylvan titans have a series of short spines running down the side of their legs. These spines stop growing early and are relatively larger in size on the more vulnerable sub-adults who have more recently metamorphosed. When threatened, the titan will also lash out with its huge proboscis to strike any predator that gets too close. Similarly, fights between sylvan titans during mating season also employ the use of their proboscis, often ending with both proboscises locked together in a sort of tug of war to test their strength, trying to wear out or even topple the other.
Although they are simultaneous hermaphrodites, without any kind of sex based competition of males trying to win over females or vice versa, sylvan titans do exhbit an age-based mating competition. Younger titans will fight with each other to try to prove their strength to older titans which have through their longevity proven their fitness and desirability, with many decades of experience as a true giant of the plains.
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Thanks to anyone for reading!
Since the beginning of civilization, people who lived near or in the Mediterranean spoke of fearsome monsters, among them, giant one-eyed men who have terrified them since time immemorial, except that they are not men, but elephants.
The Cyclops (Palaeoloxodon cyclopum) is an elephant descended from Palaeoloxodon falconeri, a species of pygmy elephant that lived in Sicily. A group of them swam to the Italian peninsula. This group, having access to a much larger amount of food, increased their size until reaching its current 4 meters and 11 tons.
With this new size they did not have any competition with the majority of predators and herbivores in the area, due to this, little by little, they lost their trunk completely and greatly underdeveloped their tusks (they did not lose them completely since they still used them to fight each other during the mating season), due to the lack of a trunk they began to stand on their hind legs for short periods of time to reach the highest parts of the trees on which they fed, little by little, being able to stand longer, also using this to intimidate possible threats. Since they did not have a trunk, they developed a colorful marking similar to an eye around the nostrils to intimidate predators, and to withstand higher temperatures, they developed a skin tone similar to that of humans.
These beings spend much of their childhood in the water, and as adults they are still great swimmers, which is why they can be found on incredibly remote islands. These animals are famous for their high aggressiveness, similar to that of modern hippos, which led to numerous mishaps and attacks in ancient and modern times with humans who inhabit the Mediterranean, leading to the belief and legends that these beings were really men. one-eyed giants.
Currently they have several names in various places, from cyclops (the most famous and used) to Ojáncano in the northern area of the Iberian Peninsula. Despite all this they are incredibly popular around the world, but sadly, due to poaching and habitat loss they are in serious danger of extinction.
Just a spontaneous thought: We’ve managed to mold dogs into all sorts of wonky forms through the good old fashioned “I like his traits and I like her traits so let’s make them fuck” method of genetic engineering, but they’re still largely phenotypically similar between sexes of the same breed. Assuming someone in the modern day with a modern understanding of evolution and genetics wanted to create a new dog breed where males and females looked radically different despite still being genetically the same breed (not even caring what the differences are, just some kind of marked difference) what sort of analog breeding strategy would be conducive to that? Is there even a conducive strategy at all, or would such an endeavor necessitate more technologically advanced genetic engineering methods? I know some kind of chromosome fuckery would be involved but I’m not very knowledgeable of the details. Can anyone else provide some more informed insight into this?
I want to make my own speculative evolution project but I don't know that much about biology, can anyone give me some suggestions on how to learn this stuff?
Hoping this question fits here, given the, well, speculative nature of it! Buuut feel free to lmk if there is somewhere better.
Given that evolution comes about due to the natural selection of traits that are beneficial and/or attractive, when our instincts are superseded by an artificial selection made out of political and/or economical decisions rather than physical or biological, one assumes this leads us down a less than ideal path. Add on the amount of inbreeding that has (and continues to) occurred, the gene pool takes some hits.
Now I know, I know not every culture necessarily participated in arranged marriages, and even within those that did, not every member of society was likely to be subject to it. For example, a Medieval princess would absolutely have her husband chosen for her based on diplomatic & political reasons rather than emotional or physical compatibility (though given part of royal marriages was producing children, one's family history of fertility was also a factor), but a peasant girl would not. She probably would not marry as young, if she married at all, nor would the choice be (wholly) out of her hands.
I have no doubt out in nature, less than ideal choices occur. I'm sure there are more than one instances of animals mating with a close-blood relative, or choosing an unideal mate for lack of better options or maybe even seemingly unknown reasons, so on and so forth. Nature is weird and messy and complex. However, I believe humans meddle in their own (or others') choice of mate far more than we would naturally deviate from the norm.
I don't expect we would have evolved a second head or another set of arms or anything of the like, merely curious if we, collectively, would have stronger immune systems, be taller, certain genetic conditions all but vanished from our genomes, etc etc Would we be healthier? Smarter? Stronger? I don't know!
Evolution kinda freaks me out (in a good, trippy way) because it's so strange to think we randomly ended up this way. One little thing could have changed fifty million years ago, and humans would never have come about. Just by chance did the ones that led us to developing our brain size & shape survive long enough to breed, or to be chosen as a mate at all, and that's crazy to me! I absolutely understand why people believe in "Intelligent Design" (or whatever it's called) because it's almost impossible to believe we are a happy accident. So I often wonder what impact the little things in our known history have on our species. It seems to me people often forget we are just as much animals as cats and whales and parrots, so it's hard for me to find answers on our biology rather than sociology or anthropology (don't mistake me, though, those are both very interesting & important!)
If anyone has an insight, or a conjecture, I'd love to hear it! Or if I missed a similar question being asked in my preliminary search, feel free to link me to it! Thank you :3
Hi!
So, in my small world (a main island about twice the size of the Iberian Peninsula plus a few smaller islands), I have one sophont species. They're humanoid (humans with pointy ears, but not elves), and I was thinking of how they could have evolved to retain tails from a primate ancestor. Here's my idea:
There aren't a lot of deeply forested areas, and one of those places is a small island with humid subtropical climate (temperate broadleaf/mixed biome). I was thinking there could have been a primate-like species that evolved there, among the trees. They had tails and all. What if they develop systematic tool use before they move to a brachiation moving style (which can motivate a losing of the tail), and they use their tail as a grabbing member for tools as well? Then, when they are forced to move to the ground (my idea is that they had to leave the island and swam to the mainland, which is more shrubland with sporadic woodlands at low altitudes). When they start living on the ground, they evolve into bipedalism and stuff, but because their tail is used for holding tools and stuff, it is selected for instead of selected against?
I hope I explained myself well (and chose the right flair). Does this make sense to you guys? There IS magic, this being a fantasy world, but I do want to try and base it off of science as much as possible for flora and fauna evolution.
New(t) age
The new(t) age is categorized by the emergence of and adaptations of the newts. The climate of the new(t) age is a lot more similar to modern earth, even including cold forests which have never been seen before on Anura. The grand lake is now a proper ocean of salt water, with various fish life that are very distant descendants of freshwater fish.
Parasynapsids
With the new colder and drier world, some of the newts developed into something new, convergently evolving features similar to synapsids. They gain mammalian skin, warm blood and even whiskers, while now laying calcium covered eggs to let them survive without moisture. This group will split off into many different species in the colder biomes.
Snowball frog
Supririsngly throughout the eras of Anura, the rolling frog is a genus that has survived even if they suffered greatly during the golden age. To survive in the cold forest biome they have developed layers of fat to protect them along with a form of organic anti-freeze in their blood. These creatures are generalist carnivores, but they do have a secret hunting tactic. When up on a high place with a slope like a large hill, they will start rolling, collecting snow as they do. When they are at the bottom they are covered in a giant snowball they use to crush prey much larger than themselves for an easy meal. Whenever they cant use their hunting tactic they mostly eat insects, worms and smaller cold adapted amphibians.
Abyssal olm
The abyssal olm is the apex predator of the abyssal lake. An 8 foot long salt water adapted amphibian that convergently evolved traits similar to the olm of earth. Just like the olm, they are completely blind, relying entirely on chemoreception and their sensitive gills they use to detect movement. However unlike the olm of earth, they are active predators who chase their prey. The best way to avoid an abyssal olms attention is to not move, as that way its harder for them to detect you.
Glow gills
The glow gills are another species of axolotl salamander that evolved for the deep sea. They live as small filter feeders, swimming around in schools similar to some species of fish. They communicate using their glowing gills, signaling different colors to convey the current situation. Whenever a predator emerges they will flash a red color to tell everyone in the group to scatter in order to decrease the likelihood that they all die, only to then flash green to regroup.
Vent claws
Due to the lack of light in the deep lake, there are no plants. Instead there are hydrothermal vents that spew out chemicals to feed various forms of chemotrophic life. One of these is the vent claw, a distant descendant of the triops that evolved to live like a barnacle, attaching to a hydrothermal vent and slurping up the chemicals.
Land pike
Surprisingly, like the mudskippers of earth, some fish have decided that land is better than water. Living in the beaches around the grand lake is the land pike, a distant descendant of the pike that evolved to live on land. Despite being rather awkward, they are aggressive predators who mainly feed on crustaceans like terrestrial triops and crawcrabs, using their blunt strong jaws to crush their shells.
Frozen wolf newt
Among the new parasynapsid group is the wolf newt, who have evolved thick fur to protect themselves from the cold. They are surprisingly intelligent due to having evolved from the pack hunting newts of ages past. They hunt in groups of 4-7, and usually hunt megafauna. They are a widespread group found in places all across the planet, with their level of fluffiness being dependent on the location. The group is ruled by an alpha, though this alpha can be of either gender, it is simply who is the largest and the strongest.
Wyvern frogs
Soaring over the sky of the warmer areas of Anura is a very strange creature. A member of the flying frog genus, the wyvern frog has develop strange scale like coverings all over its skin, similar to reptiles. They have develop large fangs, a large size and a large appetite. Acting as an aerial scavenger, the wyvern frog is a similar size to the extinct pteranodons of earth, they fly over the sky around a large corpse and feed to their hearts content. When there are no corpses they will instead swoop down and grab small prey with their tongue and then fly away.
Morningstar newt
Wandering the cold forests of anura are fluffy parasynapsids known as the morningstar newts. About the size of american ox, these lumbering beasts are covered in fluff and blubber, and have a strange club at the end of their tail made out of bone that has various spikes on it. The position and amount of spikes varies from individual to individual. Morningstar newts are strangely intelligent and social creatures, living in large herds of 30-50. If a morningstar newt dies, the other herd members will mourn said member for several hours, doing a ritual best described as a funeral, before moving on.
Seal newt
With the parasynapsids now gaining traits more akin to mammals rather than amphibians, they can tolerate the salt of the grand lake much better than non-adapted amphibians, so a species of predatory parasynapsid would evolve traits similar to the seals of earth, living mostly on beaches and living off of fish and crustaceans in the grand lake.
Two tongued newt-sapiens
Ever since the California newt developed mobbing behavior, it set a path for the future of the newts. After hundreds of millions of years of evolution, we finally have sapient life. The two tongued newt-sapiens are a species of newt that developed both sapiens and two separate prehensile tongues. They live in large tribes of around 20-30 individuals, led by an alpha female. In their species the females are usually stronger and larger, and therefor act as the warriors while the males act as chefs, craftsman, builders, etc. They have a hunter gatherer society, hunting other newts and gathering berries and fruit.
The architecture of this species is an odd combination of dirt and wood, creating temporary villages around sources of fresh water such as lakes and rivers. While these newts retain their ancestors ability to sweat, they still need water to prevent their skin from drying out. As such tribes often go to war over lakes and rivers, both for the actual water and for the fish that live there.
In addition to the alpha female, there is also an alpha male. This male is appointed by the alpha female due to being especially skilled/intelligent, and therefor acts as a teacher to the other male newts.
These newts have a rather odd language which is composed of how they shape their tongues. Due to their tongues being essentially prehensile tentacles with no bones they can use them to form letters, essentially a form of sign language. Their writing repeats these tongue patterns, just in a more permanent place. Due to this method of communication, they can say two words at a time rather than just one word.
These creatures do also make their tools and armor, though so far their items are mostly made from leather, wood, stone and bones. Generally speaking the female warriors will make bone armor using the skulls and ribcage of slaughtered prey, with a layer of leather below that. Due to the way their tongues work they are incapable of throwing items any great distance, but they can use bows and arrows. However most newt warriors prefer to use spears of axes to get up close and personal with their prey. The newts will also rub these weapons on their bodies while sweating to give them a poison coating.
The return
As life continues to evolve on planet Anura, something odd happened. A portal opened up in the solar system, as a fleet of hyper advanced space ships flew in. These ships were not piloted by aliens, but rather distant descendants of humans. They returned to the solar system to mine its resources, however upon realizing that mars was covered in life they decided to spare the planet (though they did abduct some of the local fauna for study). And then they simply… left. Watching all of this on the surface of Anura were the newt-sapiens. Unable to comprehend what they just saw, they believed these ships to be the boats of the gods, sailing across the sky. So a new religion was formed known as the sky watchers. These aspiring astronomers would study the stars diligently, hoping to one day see the metal boats sail across the sky once more.
Reproduction: The females would usually mate with many males and leave her eggs there. nowadays the females usually have 2-4 husbands and could lay up to 1-3 eggs per male and females in nature before civilization would mate with 5-6 males and that would be 6-36 eggs Childhood: Born as a male Toothbill is good since males are the submissive one they are protected by the leader who's female Born as a female Toothbill is not great as they grow up they get beat up or bullied by the other female hatchlings sometimes killing each other Hatchling when born don't have there teeth grown in yet and when they reach 5 flora years of age they would start to grow there teeth or bills
Thanks to the virus all mammals in Eurasia would go extinct leaving birds and mammals from Africa to repopulate the two continents. While these continents are recovering the islands around them are also recovering including Great Britain.
All the nukes used plus the overpopulation of plants would have caused the climate to be much colder and drier than in the 21st century and the dominant landscapes in the southern hemisphere are deserts and grasslands while in the northern hemisphere they are glaciers and tundras. This is what happened in Great Britain with most of the forests being replaced by grasslands. Another thing that happened to Great Britain was that almost all mammals would go extinct there due to the virus and the only survivors would be invasive wallabies that are now the dominant grazers on the island. With many niches opened up birds would fill them up with waterfowl like ducks becoming flightless browsers while some others like the descendants of cuckoos called muraves would fill the role of rodents. Another niche that birds would fill up would be the niche of apex predator and that would be filled up by hawks specifically goshawks.
The apex predator of Great Britain is a descendant of hawks called astur humus. It is flightless and looks like the extinct bathornithids and is a little shorter than a man. It hunts by ambushing its prey then running it down. Once it catches up it uses its beak as a meat hook, hooking into the softer parts and the pulling back to make it die of shock and blood loss.
I'm designing a clade of three winged aliens called tripterpods, for my world building project Omiafacias, but I'm not sure 3 wings would be practical for flight. Since the third is arranged asymmetrically, surely it would make flight difficult right?
I've tried to justify the third wing by making it smaller and used primarily for display or steering so it's less of an issue, but I'd still like to design some tripterapods with larger third wings if possible.
In the year 2087. A creature named the Maims came down to earth. Humanity was shocked, this was their first interactions to aliens ever. The Maims, although, thought the human field and many other animals looked. Horrid and disgusting and malformed all of them. Throughout all of these mutilations were the Jacob birds. This was the most painful and excruciating process to go through for the human field. Their skin got turned into feather like substance and their arms extended and malformed to wing like shaped. Their heads got elongated, their eyes gauged out, and their mouths turned inside out and tongues elongate
These creatures were malformed for the humans that showed resistance or wrath toward the maims. Since The Maims had a faint sense of humanity in them. They didn’t take it lightly, and turned those humans into their image of pure revenge for the bullets that ricocheted off their hard shells painlessly.
Original design: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpeculativeEvolution/s/9UuK1yc8c0
A follow up to my original post on phytozoan general anatomy, this time filling in more about the various major subgroups of phytozoans. As a general summary, phytozoans are radial animals which can photosynthesize and have a plant-like larval stage which metamorphoses into an animal adult form.
Summary of what was in the previous post- They have calcareous bony elements in their skin and in the form of teeth on the extendable proboscis of a mouth. Ancestral tentacles used majorly in locomotion, mouth often used in breathing. Some have a closed circulatory system.
Cyclostea
(kuklikós + ostéon, ‘circular bones’’)
Orders: Dendromorpha, Eurystasis, Acerdonta
The cyclosteans are generally large vertebrate-like creatures as adults with a distinctive four legged form, including some of the largest animals on Prometheus. In order to maintain this size they exhibit a significant amount of convergence with brachiognathans and earth vertebrates, having powerful muscular bodies and mineralised endoskeletons to support their weight.
The cyclosteans skeleton is derived from the simple skeletal elements of other more basal proboscidorans. In cyclosteans, these elements are expanded into a network of branching bones forming a kind of basket-like structure. The cyclosteans’ name comes from the many ringed shapes which make up this structure wrapping around the mass of tissue, to support their weight.
Unlike other phytozoans which exhibit radial body plans, the cyclosteans have evolved secondarily bilateral body plans capable of more mobility and better structural support at larger sizes. Having evolved from a six legged sprawling ancestor, the cyclosteans have reorganised their bodies into a front and back, having lost the eyes of what is now their rear while moving the other four closer to the front, while their four remaining limbs now move forward and back giving them a specific direction of movement.
Having large sturdy legs helps provide for their increased size but it does also move their mouth, located on the underside of the body inconveniently out of the way for feeding. To help with this, their proboscises are well muscled and very mobile and the longest among proboscidorans, able to extend down to the ground, or reach out to the side, to grab food with its toothy oral end and pull it gradually up into their body.
This is also useful for reproduction, allowing them to easily press their proboscises together when mating while standing upright, and also to carefully lay their eggs onto the ground.
The cyclosteans form a clade with their relatives, the herpetopods, called the rhizomorpha, for the presence of the root-like tendrils they possess in their larval form to anchor themselves and take up nutrients. Most marine phytozoans are free floating plankton in their larval stage, while these roots are adapted for the terrestrial existence of the rhizomorphans.
Herpetopoda
(herpetón + poús, ‘crawling feet’)
Orders: Saprobomorpha, Thanatophyta, Osteanula
Generally small, six eyed and six legged adults, with sprawling limbs and a light and flexible internal bony skeleton, the hepetopods are a diverse, abundant, and adaptable group.
Lacking the upright back and forth motion of cyclosteans limbs limits herpetopods size and speed, but they can move easily in any direction with a stable walking platform that also allows them to make additional use of their limbs. Small hooked claws along the inner side of most herpetopod’s legs are adapted for the purposes of feeding, but are also used by some species for climbing, or fighting, or a number of other uses.
They have a fairly similar proboscis to their cyclostean relatives, but with the notable difference that their proboscis is smaller and not quite as flexible. With their smaller bodies and sprawling limbs, herpetopods are much closer to the ground so don’t need to reach down as far, and with dexterous limbs available for use as feeding tools pulling food within reach of their proboscis.
Paraskeletopoda
(pará + skeletós + poús, ‘near skeleton feet’)
Orders: Polybranchia, Pachybranchia
Aquatic gill breathing relatives of the herpetopods and cyclosteans with rudimentary bony endoskeleton. Most have six limbs, but can vary between five to eight. Like their terrestrial relatives, the paraskeletopod larvae are sessile, attached to some substrate, but unlike many other marine phytozoans which have free floating planktonic larvae, a trait which, combined with their walking ability, helped their ancient relatives move onto land.
For the marine paraskeletopods, this trait allows their larvae to be kept in a secure location where the larvae are sheltered and even guarded by their parents and means the larvae do not have to hope for currents to take them to suitable habitat but stay in the same hospitable areas. This does limit their ability to disperse over long distances to reach different pockets of habitat, but on occasion violent storms will dislodge the larvae and carry them away, a journey which the larvae are actually well suited for.
Tentaclomys
(tentāculum + mûs, ‘tentacle muscle’)
Orders: (tba)
Marine phytozoans with muscular tentacles that they use variously for swimming, feeding, and to move along the seafloor. They are some of the most efficient swimming phytozoans, and their compact radial bodies lend to making them agile, with a ring of eyes to scan for danger in all directions. However, they do struggle to get as fast as the sleek and muscular paraichtyids, and often favour reefs and coastlines where they have places to hide, as well as sunlit waters to fuel their photosynthesis.
Some species have the unique ability to retain their eggs within a brood pouch that allows the phytoform young to develop with their parent’s protection and nourishment and emerge only after they metamorphose into mobile zooforms.
Leptosoma
(tentāculum + mōtor, ‘grip mover’)
Orders: (tba)
Benthic marine phytozoans with flattened bodies that move with simple tentacle arms that pull themselves along the sea floor, with their morphology and lifestyle generally resembling Earth animals like brittle stars and urchins.They are one of the older clades of proboscidorans and still have an open circulatory system that limits both their size and their activity rate, but this serves no problem for their simple life eating algae, detritus, or slow moving creatures.
Pennabrachia
(penna + brakhíōn, ‘feather arm’)
Orders: (tba)
Generally free swimming marine proboscidorans which move by flailing their tentacle arms which are lined with many long, fine hooks which are effective both in swimming but particularly for picking up small prey which it sweeps up toward its mouth where the proboscis can pick them off. Pennabrachia is the oldest clade of proboscidorans and as a result still has an open circulatory system.
Summary of what is in the previous post- Soft bodied with ancestral tentacles modified with stinging cells to capture and kill prey before it goes into their simple fleshy mouth. All have an open circulatory system.
Myocampta
(mûs + kámptō, ‘muscle bend’)
Orders: Repoformes, Interiostoma
Myocamptans are notable for also evolving a bilaterally symetrical bodyplan, independent of the cyclosteans, with a front oral end and rear tail end, their phyllobranchia on top of their back and their anus and excretory end on the bottom but pushed toward the rear.
Myocamptans can be further distinguished by the characteristic small flaps they possess which they use to locomote, stretching and contracting their body. In most species, these flaps are developed into a kind of suction cup, enabling them crawl along the sea floor or in terrestrial environments, while some other species use them as fins.
Most aculeovorans reproduce through external fertilisation, but myocamptans use internal fertilisation. Some species still use a kind of broadcast spawning where they release their sperm into the water but retain their eggs inside waiting to take up sperm from another individual, but many myocamptans mate by direct contact with both partners pressing their mouths together to exchange gametes.
Flabellastoma
(flabellum + stóma, ‘fan mouth’)
Orders: Vorophyta, Culmoformes
Mostly sessile adults that live on the sea floor or the bottom of lakes and rivers and can catch sizable prey, some are capable of ‘uprooting’ themselves and crawling away in response to poor environmental conditions or predators. While in terms of their sessile existence, they resemble the colonial tentacle grasses, their closest relatives are the myocamptans, which descended from an common ancestor that resembled some of the crawling flabellastomes.
Flabellastomes exhibit a kind of developmental torsion, in which their growing internal organs twist and rearrange themselves as they mature at the end of their larval stage, the end result being that both their phyllobranchia and mouth point upward so they can feed, breathe and photosynthesise while the base of their body is attached to the seafloor.
This torsion was inherited also by the myocamptans but adapted into their current bilateral, slug-like body plan.
Apoikostoma
(apoikíā + stóma, ‘colony mouth’)
Orders: Huphalodomos
Small, sessile filter feeding adults that grow together in colonies to make larger photosynthetic structures and collect small bits of food, apoikostomes are known as tentacle grasses. They are notable for gathering on rocky sea floors to form many of Prometheus’s reefs. Unable to move on their own, all tentacle grasses rely on broadcast spawning to reproduce, releasing large quantities of sperm into the water, but many species will retain their eggs internally and wait to take up sperm into them.
Unlike flabellastomes, apoikostomes have adapted differently to being sessile, with their mouth buried in the substrate and, no longer being in use, is atrophied. Instead they feed using their tentacle-like phyllobranchia to grab food and have a special internal connection allowing them to pass it down to their stomach.
Medusomorpha
(medusa + morphḗ, ‘medusa form’)
Orders: (tba)
Mostly free swimming adults that resemble the medusa phases of earth medusozoans, the jellyfish. Medusomorph phytozoans generally have large cap-like phyllobranchia and a set of long trailing tentacles, moving by jet propulsion of water out of their oral apparatus.
Medusomorph either reproduce by broadcast spawning, or sometimes by gathering to spawn in close contact. Usually this is external fertilisation, but some species will instead use internal fertilisation.
Mixomorpha
(mix + morphḗ, ‘mixed form’)
Orders: (tba)
Generally colonial organisms, with individual zooid adults acting together like a single organism, taking different forms depending on function, such as locomotory zooids which perform jet propulsion while others are feeding zooids with an expanded set of tentacles which usually serves to snatch up tiny prey. A mixomorph colony can grow very large for such relatively simple organisms, being larger collectively than any other aculeovoran or most other creatures on Prometheus.
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Thanks to anyone for reading!
I am currently working on a very complex speculative evolution project and I am in the process of redesigning and refining the biochemistry of it, now the main basis of it is sulpher because it is the most abundant. Now, my question is, would sulpher be a good biochemist molecule like its bond powers, compatibility with other stuffs, I would love any suggestions or topics for to add and refine my project.
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