Beware the wandering storm-cloud which hangs lonesome over the glassy sea, that which moves without wind, and drops not rain nor lightning, but a mass of dreadful arms like snapped mooring lines upon the heads of hapless sailors…
Picture by Timothy Morris
Fancy Death the domesticated jaguar from Fellow Tetrapod.
Pictured is a jaguar with proportionally short tail and legs. He's also a bit chubby because Fling loves him so very much.
Say hello to a cephalopod you should know—the corkscrew squid, Planctoteuthis danae. 👋🏼🦑
We're kicking off Cephalopod Week, aka our favorite week of the year, with this extraordinary denizen of the deep. MBARI's remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) have encountered the relatively rare deep-sea squid Planctoteuthis oligobessa fewer than 20 times in over 30 years.
This species' long, decorative tail remained unknown until MBARI ROVs captured the first images of the animal out in the wild. In trawl nets, many delicate deep-sea animals are damaged, so we often don't get the whole picture until we can take ROVs equipped with cameras into their environment.
Other squids in the family Chiroteuthidae also have ornate tails that they use for various reasons, like imitating siphonophores.
As we continue to dive into the depths of our ocean, MBARI researchers are discovering more about the species that live in this vast, mysterious habitat.
Although we take the 24-hour day for granted, in Earth's deep past, days were even shorter. Day length was shorter because the moon was closer. "Over time, the moon has stolen Earth's rotational energy to boost it into a higher orbit farther from Earth," said Ross Mitchell, geophysicist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and lead author of a new study published in Nature Geoscience. "Most models of Earth's rotation predict that day length was consistently shorter and shorter going back in time," said Uwe Kirscher, co-author of the study and a research fellow now at Curtin University in Australia. But a slow and steady change in day length going back in time is not what Mitchell and Kirscher found.
Source: phys.org
Fish, Konstantin Korobov
Dunkleosteus hunted in the shallows. There were fewer places for its prey to hide there. It was attentive to the tides, careful to avoid the rocks and swam only over the sands.
Snap!
Good-bye, Orodus.
Crunch!
Down goes an ammonite.
But, one morning, a tiny grey shark would not be caught. It dodged every lunge like a breeze does fingers. (Dunkleosteus did not know what a breeze was, but it would learn.)
Dunkleosteus grew as determined as a placoderm could, and—as much as a fish can decide anything—decided to catch this slippery prey above all costs. They chased through the shallows, charging and evading, reaching and retreating.
The tide began to go out. The shark winnowed over the rocks, its dorsal fin cutting the surface. Dunkleosteus surged at the shark, its back breaking the surface of the sea, its belly dragging over the stones. It nearly gutted itself on their sharp edges. The shark wormed away, but Dunkleosteus was stuck. The waters sloshed about its body. It struggled, heaved, wrenched its bulk against gravity and stone, but in vain.
The sea dragged the waters away, abandoning Dunkleosteus on the stones. Its gills pumped against the air; its eyes clouded in the wind; its fins curled over the corals. Then it was still, a victim of Devonian hubris.
Anonymous asked:
re: discussion of a fellow tetrapod sequel, your idea of a "rude monkey" is hilarious from a zookeeper PoV because... yeah. Monkeys ARE rude to our ape minds and very Human culture! You could even make another ape-descended species; maybe from gibbons? -Dungeons and Tetrapods
I had a whole subplot in mind about an upright Papionine, but on further thought I decided to have fewer species similar to humans and more species that were distant. Part of that is worldbuilding - the Quotidians are the major force behind the search for new member-species and their bias will be toward species more closely related to them. The reason reason was storytelling - I wanted the human characters to be very alienated and lost. That way they made more mistakes :)
But you raise an interesting point that other monkeys (and even apes) might get into humans' uncanny valley. We expect more familiar behavior from them, and it upsets us when we don't see it.
Update! I was struck by an inspiration about the monkey-people just in time to make it into the ~spooky epilogue~ of Fellow Tetrapod. Check Royal Road in about two weeks to read it.
Also, I forgot to ask. Are you a zookeeper? Please tell me where I made mistakes and missed opportunities for animal-psychology fun! The story on Royal Road is not the final draft.
So a few friends and I decided to arrange a space shanty at 3 am last night
Huge shout out to @danbensen and @blame-my-muses for the lyrics and theme
Originals:
I've taken a little time and added a column to the list of sophonts in Fellow Tetrapod. You can now visit the part of the story where a particular sophont is described or introduced. Any broken links there?
do you have any favorites from tbe cambrian !!!
Nope, I'm very open for ALL the weirdness.
Look at them, how could I choose?
The tuzoiids were an enigmatic group of Cambrian invertebrates known mostly just from their spiny bivalved carapaces. Although hundreds of fossils of these arthropods were discovered over the last century or so, only vague fragments of the rest of their bodies have been found even in sites usually known for preserving soft tissue impressions.
…Until late 2022, when several new specimens from the Canadian Burgess Shale deposits (~508 million years ago) were described showing tuzoiid anatomy in exceptional detail, finally giving us an idea of what they looked like and where they fit into the early arthropod evolutionary tree.
Tuzoiids like Tuzoia burgessensis here would have grown up to about 23cm long (~9"). They had large eyes on short stalks, a pair of simple antennae, a horizontal fluke-like tail fan, and twelve pairs of appendages along their body – with the front two pairs at the head end being significantly spinier, and most (or all) of these limbs also bearing paddle-like exopods.
The large carapace enclosed most of the body, and was ornamented with protective spines and a net-like surface pattern that probably increased the strength of the relatively thin chitinous structure.
Together all these anatomical features now indicate that tuzoiids were early mandibulates (part of the lineage including modern myriapods, crustaceans, and insects), and were probably very closely related to the hymenocarines.
Tuzoiids seem to have been active swimmers that probably cruised around just above the seafloor, with their stout legs suggesting they could also walk around if they flexed their valves open. The arrangement of their spiny front limbs wasn't suited to grabbing at fast-swimming prey, but instead may have been used to capture slower seafloor animals or to scavenge from carcasses.
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I’m proud to include this beautiful 1979 work by Steven Vincent Johnson as a full-page illustration in my new art book! It’s included in my section on Larry Niven’s Ringworld.
Anonymous asked:
re: discussion of a fellow tetrapod sequel, your idea of a "rude monkey" is hilarious from a zookeeper PoV because... yeah. Monkeys ARE rude to our ape minds and very Human culture! You could even make another ape-descended species; maybe from gibbons? -Dungeons and Tetrapods
I had a whole subplot in mind about an upright Papionine, but on further thought I decided to have fewer species similar to humans and more species that were distant. Part of that is worldbuilding - the Quotidians are the major force behind the search for new member-species and their bias will be toward species more closely related to them. The reason reason was storytelling - I wanted the human characters to be very alienated and lost. That way they made more mistakes :)
But you raise an interesting point that other monkeys (and even apes) might get into humans' uncanny valley. We expect more familiar behavior from them, and it upsets us when we don't see it.
A Multiplex from Fellow Tetrapod.
Pictured is a wrinkly blob with irregular coils and tendrils. It has extruded four legs for jogging.
Revisiting my designs for the “fish” of birgworld
Most notable change is moving their “gills” to the tail, where they are completely covered by skin/exoskeleton in derived species, and water is pumped over them either by motion of the tail or with a siphon on the belly. The siphon also aids in expelling mucous and waste material as a defensive measure. They propel themselves in an up and down motion inherited from the paddles of the ancestral form (top drawing), most of which have been modified into internal gills in modern species.
Also worth noting; the mouthparts are shown at least partially extended in all these sketches, but they would normally be folded flat against the head or tucked into the mouth when not in use.
Commissioned illustration for @xensilverquill of her original dragon design: the woodland amphithere! If you think it’s neat, I highly recommend checking out this post to learn more about its biology and see the adorable crocheted sculpture this drawing was based on :)
Something that few people are aware of, but pholidosaurids managed to live for much longer than most know. Although its true that this group peaked around halfway through the Cretaceous (with Sarcosuchus), a paper from 2020 not only extends the record to the Maastrichtian, but also showcases material from Morocco dated to the early Paleocene But unlike the other three groups, pholidosaurids seem to have gone extinct soon afterwards. That is, unless fossils are found that extend their range yet again.
One just has to love a woman who tells a massive murderous dragon to “Sit!”.
Lady Sybil, I love you so
Do what scares you! Follow the urging of your brain parasites beyond the firelight and into the unknown night! Find the mysteries of the universe and place your head between their fangs. The Admirable Self-Flinger approves of your recklessness.
from Fellow Tetrapod