• Hammer seals belong to the Herbipinnipedia branch (herbivorous, fin-footed mammals). Unlike normal Pinnipeds, Hammer seals are herbivorous. They eat sea plants, specifically seaweed. They live in the north pole region. (the map of Jýrithal is in image #1)
• Because they live too deep in the region, far from any shores, they have to dig through ice to reach the sea beneath them by using their crest like a pickaxe. They also dig to build their nests, which protect them from the apex predator of the region. However, the main reason for digging through thick ice is to reach their source of food, the kelp forest that was established under them, likely because of fungal and volcanic activity.
• The reason why they turned herbivorous rather than carnivorous is that it’s too hard for them to swim and catch fish with that heavy crest on their head, as it also creates a drag problem when swimming. So, they evolved to rely on eating huge amounts of seaweed instead.
• They also use their crest for display, competition for mates, and to defend themselves.
• Males tend to have red chins to attract females. This color comes from the seaweed fruit they eat occasionally (The sea weed fruit is in image #1 and dimorphism is in image #3).
• Juveniles lack the red chin, and they must grow to near adulthood to get a fully developed crest. (Juvenile is in image #4)
• Females have a smaller, less developed crest, which they usually use to defend themselves or to decorate the nests.
• Similar to other pinnipeds, Hammer seals are social creatures and live together in groups.

15 Million Years P.H. - The Early Neocene - Australia Overview:

During The Neocene, the world would still very much belong to Mammals, with them holding most of the large-scale niches and Bats now also having become the dominat airborn clade.

This would however not be the case for one particular continent, as Australia has seen a huge diversification In Reptiles after the End Holocene Mass Extinction.

With Australia having virtually lost all herbivorous Mammals, large Turtles called Tramplers (Macrotestudo) would take the niche of large scale herbivores.

Carnivorous Mammal didnt end up fairing much better tho, allowing the surviving Desert Goannas to become the large Megagoannas (Megasaurus), who serve as Australias apex predators.

Neither of those large Reptiles would get the title of the largest Australien Reptile tho, as that title goes to the Gigaskinks (Gigascincid), giant omnivorous Skinks which are essentially reptilian Bears.

Coming back to carnivores tho, Australia at this time would have produces ground-dwelling Frilled Lizards named Grabizards (Collusaurus), which are mainly bipedal to free up their front limbs for catching and holding onto prey.

Grabizards would end up becoming quite successfull and some species would end up growing quite big.

Australia would also be the only continent at this time which has aerial carnivorous Rewings named Wedgebails (Carnoavia). The niche of aerial predators would typically be occupied by Pterotherian Bats, those although have never set up permanent settlement on Australia, allowing Birds to reclaim that role.

Planatolete giganteum or the Niðhogg are large creatures native to the deep oceans to the planet.Despite a ferocious appearance and the behavior to go, they are actually docile creatures like whales on earth. The teeth are actually baleen with a blackish colouration.

Physical traits: Growing at 46-50m in length and 750-1000 tons in weight, they truly are gargantuan. They have 5 sets of fins but a striking trait are its horns, large scimitars in shape. These horns are meant for duels between males. Near the horns there is an opercule to flush water out while feeding. They live 150-300 years and are cold blooded but social. It is to note that these horns are frequently used for self defense due to the enviroment being hostile.

Reproduction: They have live birth and have 2-5 calves but their survival rate is 40%. The calves are born at 3-4m in length. They mate every 15 years.

Prey and Predation: Only Barocrocs attack them in adult age, although other predators are quick to snap up young. They eat plankton and krill usually but are quick to snap up small fish.

Senses and intelligence: They have good eyesight, hearing and smell. They often use roars to communicate between one another. Their intelligence is comparable to a whale's one, as they are highly empatic.

Alrighty! Now that the outline of the continents for my “vampire planet”, Carmilla is done, i can start on climate work! I’m also working on continent names in English and in a fictional language if i get around to it. but first I'm going to add the map borders.

It's night in these arid mosslands of Ghouwiya/Ghavija, and a lone quadpedan medopod is searching for prey to hunt. But not with camera-style eyes like we mammals have- a hypercompound cluster, consisting of hundreds of individual compound eyes, each with several lenses. Living bony armour is present in most areas of the body- with exposed armour mainly at the front/head, aka the cephalon. A club with a sharp sickle ”hoof” serves as a neccesary part for territorial defense and hunting. It is evolved from the other hoof-like feet parts serving to protect the inner tissue.

Read more about the Ghavija project on my DeviantArt “Natureofthoosa” or search for Ghouwiya on reddit/the internet. Though a bot thing has scrapped and posted it on some russian web thing but aside from that lol!

No generative AI used in illustrations or text/info

After a short stay in hospital, and being pretty whacked out on morphine and codeine, I got thinking about something.

Why do we assume humans were the first civilisation on Earth?

Life had been evolving in the oceans for hundreds of millions of years before we came along. What if an intelligent species evolved underwater, perhaps as far back as the Cambrian or Ordovician?

The interesting part for me is how differently it might have evolved.

Without access to fire or conventional metalworking, perhaps it would have developed a relationship with other organisms instead. Cultivating reefs, selectively breeding marine life, using symbiotic relationships for shelter, food, communication and eventually technology.

I started wondering whether this could create an evolutionary feedback loop. The more effectively a species managed its environment, the more advantageous intelligence, cooperation, memory and communication might become.

Over millions of years, could that lead to something we'd recognise as civilisation, even if its technology was almost entirely biological?

And if such a species disappeared during one of Earth's ancient mass extinctions, what evidence might actually survive?

I'm not suggesting there's evidence this happened. I'm interested in whether the evolutionary pathway itself makes sense.

Would natural selection favour this kind of development, or are there fundamental biological obstacles I'm overlooking?

Hey guys! Hope you're all doing well! I'm thinking of a science-fantasy story with a premise revolving around a human girl and a sentient Dromeosaurid in a world where the dinosaur extinction event is not as severe as it was in our timeline. I haven't really come up with an idea for a story, but I do have an idea about the worldbuilding, and I'd very much like your feedback on it.

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Premise: In this world, the asteroid that had killed the dinosaurs in our timeline still hits the Earth, but rather than the Yucatan Peninsula, the asteroid hits what is now the Indian Ocean. While the effects of the collision are still devastating, hitting the deep sea rather than an area with a lack of flood basalts, carbonates, and sulfur, and the angle was not as capable of causing such destruction, ensured that less than 50% of all living things would survive, including the non-avian dinosaurs.

That said, some larger dinosaur species would not survive, of course, such as the giant T. Rex and Triceratops, but their smaller relatives would live on.

As the world moved on, the surviving dinosaurs and reptiles would find new competition: mammals. While the extinction didn't wipe them out completely, enough species of dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles were wiped out for mammals to take hold of some of the niches that were left vacant. Meaning that while we won't see familiar groups of large mammals like elephants, lions, tigers, and bears, we will see other mammal groups, including marsupials, taking over and competing with the reptiles that once solely dominated the world.

Of course, some familiar, smaller mammal groups rose, such as rodents and primates, which would eventually evolve into a group that would become this world's own great apes.

As the world continues to evolve, the non-avian dinosaurs would also continue to evolve and compete with the mammals. One particular group of dromaeosaurids would actually grow in intelligence, far beyond what Dinosauria would be capable of and even comparable to OTL's crows and ravens, using and manipulating tools with their beaks and claws. They are not the only rising stars in this new world, as much like in our timeline, a group of primates in East Africa would eventually evolve into our earliest ancestors.

Both early humans and the sentient dromeosaurids, who will be referred to as "The Crre'cka" would actually evolve on the same continent, and despite their seemingly different appearances, both man and Crre'cka would actually bond over mutual interests in survival, as the Crre'cka can not only see and smell better, but they even know some secrets of the natural world that benefited both species. And thus, for the next hundreds of thousands of years, humanity and sentient dromeosaur would evolve together.

Now, at the time of the story's setting in the Edwardian Age, both species are the planet's dominant species, having gotten this far thanks to their cooperation...even if there is some simmering tension between the two species based on how each other would live their lives (humans living like how we do OTL, and the Crre'cka living like birds and not being as efficient manipulators of tools as humans thanks to their body structure.

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This is what I have so far. What do you all think? Any feedback and criticism is appreciated!

Little bit nervous to post this. Here’s what I have:

There are three genders, or reproductive lineages. For now I’m referring to them as X, Y, and Z. The planet they all hail from is subject to long droughts that last months, and environmental conditions make finding nutrients difficult.

Primitive ancestors reproduced with a progenitor cell provided by one individual, and genetic material to begin development. The egg stayed dormant until it received the right environmental signals/conditions.

Unfortunately this was often faulty, and eventually the progenitor cells evolved to stay dormant until they received a more specific signal. This is where X comes in, or at least its primitive ancestor.

It was also taxing on the body and consumed too much energy. Y provides more genetic material and establishing dna. X effectively gave up some of its ability to provide enough material by itself in order to make the activating chemical soup, which is where Y became important.

As the embryos became more complex, they needed more nutrients and stored resources. Z evolved to provide the progenitor cell and machinery needed to support growth. Eventually gestation became part of its function. They have a sort of womb on their upper back that contains the chemical soup and after time the soup is expelled from the body in the form of a soft egg.

Summarized:
X contributes some of the nuclear genome and the activation complex. They are relatively light and numerous.
Y contributes the majority of the nuclear genome and developmental regulators. They’re more robust and metabolically slower.
Z contributes the progenitor cell, its organelles, and the gestational environment. They’re comparatively rarer and have the slowest metabolism.

Is there any weird inconsistencies or things you think could be improved? This was incredibly confusing for me so if you read something that doesn’t make sense please believe me when I say I barely understand it myself. All this was completely voluntary btw.

Imagine a alien plant that during midday, uses a yellow chemical that reflects dominant light to protect it from damage, then during dusk and dawn uses a black chemical to absorb all the light before it’s gonna burn it. I have no idea if this makes sense it was just a idea

Hello everyone! I'm an aspiring writer and I have gotten incredibly interested in an alien character and now wanna write a fan project for him and part of this is engaging in speculative biology and exoplanetology. So far I've already got a few ideas of what I want to do, namely that this species is a mixotrophic extremophile, on an incredibly high gravity planet set in a red dwarf system. This planet will have consistent temperatures due to various factors, but will have higher and lower extremes than Earth, and at times suffers solar flares. This species in question also won't have bone marrow or regular bones, with it being supplied by a different organ. My question is, are there respiratory pigments that can be more densely packed and as efficient as hemoglobin that are better suited for more extreme varying environments like the one I described, that would also work just fine on Earth's environment?

Okolla Thumus

Named in Honor of the brothers William and Otto Thum, one of two groups credited with the invention of flypaper in the early 1900’s.

Cellular body length 0.5-1.3 µm ; Full Organism Length 1.2-3.3 µm ; Cellular Body Diameter 0.4-1.7 µm ; Full Diameter 1.1-2.1 µm

Arose 842 million years P.C.

Dwells on the Shorelines of the Unbalanced Penninsula & The Near Miss.

Environmentally available Arsenic and Phosphate Synthesis helps facilitate modifications of the resins it produces.

Uses arsenic in place of sodium for cellular machinery analogous to the sodium ion channels found amongst earth’s tree of life for cell-to-cell communication.

Undergoes further tagmosis and cilial modification to employ only 8 instead of 12 resin dispersal ports, four pointed forward and positioned opposite the flagella, and the other four on the tail end of the cellular body facing toward its aft (behind it).

Uses resin to form hexagonal “behive shaped” surface on rocks it can pop in and out of for shelter from uv during daytime and consume prey that gets trapped on hive surface.

initial diversification post

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Ancestral Organism