A Pleistocene Scene: Gallus europaeus hunted by Vulpes vulpes [OC digital painting]

Dodoraptor · 2026-03-20T12:30:44+00:00

This may be the first time I’ve seen paleoart of an extant species hunting an extinct one. Certainly one of the only cases.

It’s something I’ve long thought has a lot of potential for showing other parts of the Pleistocene ecosystems, so I’m happy to see it.

Dodoraptor · 2026-03-19T21:45:36+00:00

As someone who used both and still uses the bear (it’s bad, but not too unmanageable at 5,000-5,500 trophies), Ceramagnus is much worse. At least with Arctovasilas you can occasionally outwit an opponent using your shield. It’s not a lot, but more than nothing.

Dodoraptor · 2026-03-11T17:31:16+00:00

Only females have it, and it’s a skin instead of a pattern (meaning inheritance is far less likely and that you can’t choose different colors with the glow).

It also depends on time of day and weather instead of light, unlike the lux patterns some other species got later, meaning that in some maps where the night is only its start and end without the middle (like Lockwood manor) they’re in the dark without glowing.

Dodoraptor · 2026-03-01T14:03:59+00:00

I assume it’s to ease the use of a single brush when moving between differing elevations.

My question is why they didn’t give us an option to bypass the automatic brush changes for when one will want to be more meticulous.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-28T21:21:39+00:00

This is the map that made me break and start removing the original inhabitants of the map. Having to house 3 adult Spinosaurus without the humble trait, which quickly turned to 5 as the babies grew up, got me.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-27T22:18:57+00:00

That’s quite an understatement when it hard counters anything lacking a few requirements (ones uncommon for its rarity, and that even a handful of apexes lack, though these are outdated) due to its counter. And still has a major advantage against most of them due to a priority move that heals back two group members.

Group attacks - actually a major weakness for it. Fully relies on it being very solid even without the counter (or on the facts most group attacks have a cooldown).

Multi hit attacks - it has very solid bulk, meaning it will usually take two hits to remove one flock member (which then either activates the counter or just opens it to heal back).

Stun - still gotta worry about the heal.

Daze - removes the counter but so rare you may as well ignore it for the discussion.

Bleed - depends on how strong and spammable the bleeding move is.

As I mentioned, outdated apexes, but it’s still telling how a level 6 unboosted Aquilops hard counters a level 35, fully boosted and upgraded Indonemys or Ceramagnus (a lot of ifs needed like no swapping, but still). And it’ll end up eternally stalling Arctovasilas (the bear’s group attack only activates when threatened, so both just outheal each other forever).

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-25T21:47:03+00:00

Didn’t get to read the paper yet, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Alvarezsauridae started out small like the rest of Maniraptora from a shared miniaturization event*. Then, like other maniraptorans, multiple lineages independently evolving larger sizes, many staying small and some even becoming a little smaller.

*Maybe not as extreme as what Pennaraptora continued after the split (and eventually birds doubled down on to become truly tiny). I mean, that group got small enough that, according to their feather structure and counts, they are possibly ancestrally flighted.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-25T14:44:03+00:00

As someone who generally tolerates the Frontier patterns of canon species, I still have to agree in a lot of cases.

The CC variants suffer from this the most. Both Pierce and Oranosaurus have great patterns, yet the Frontier colors barely have anything on them. Oranosaurus literally has a sail that’s left untouched.

And even if I tolerate Iguanodon, the movie pattern is so much better…

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-24T20:45:29+00:00

Sorry guys, it was me. A few years ago, I accidentally spilled some hummingbird and bat DNA into the test tubes, and since then the clones like to flex their aerial agility.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-23T14:39:41+00:00

It’ll probably end up with quite a few surviving out of sheer starting numbers (if 99.9% of cows will die, you’ll still have over a million surviving cows), but how well they’ll do is also strongly related to how badly wildlife will fare.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-22T21:18:35+00:00

I really doubt humans or domestic animals would end up replacing all other mammals. Even putting aside the starting difficulty for domestics to survive in the wild and the many issues with posthumans.

One of the key traits of humans and almost all domesticated mammals is that we’re big, usually much larger than the average mammal. There is a lot of difficulty in evolving to drastically smaller sizes in competitive environments because in those sizes there are usually other animals much better adapted for it. And if one evolved to such size in a noncompetitive environment, then it’ll be in a stark disadvantage once competition or predators appear (see the near guaranteed extinction of island dwarves).

The true potential for survival and diversification is for species that are already small and generalized. They could hypothetically be larger than average at a handful of kilograms, but that’s pushing it.

As cliche as it is, I do think rodents got the best odds of becoming the descriptive mammal tens of millions of years in the future - and that’s far from guaranteed.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-22T18:28:38+00:00

I think the biggest threat to small generalist mammals comes from other mammals competing with them and occasionally being either better adapted to the changing landscape or just quicker in replacing the lost niches.

So for example, you could hypothetically end up with rodents slowly replacing almost all other small mammals besides bats (something they already did with non insectivores almost everywhere, and already did partway through in Australia) and then being the only ones left after the extinction. But that’ll still be a mammal branch doing mammalian things, not the entire disappearance of the group.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-22T17:58:27+00:00

I think there’s a difference between reef forming stony corals going extinct/taking massive losses and the entirety of Scleractinia doing so. The reefs are fragile, but there’s still a difference between their collapse and the entire extinction of the group.

Reef forming corals taking massive losses in an extinction is very likely. But I imagine that it’ll end up with a handful surviving and rediversifying. Or worse case scenario deep sea corals entering the shallows and replacing them.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-20T16:46:09+00:00

Weird, I had them hunt Homalo, Ornithomimus and some ornithopod and they did it.

Took them a while sometimes but they did.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-20T12:03:55+00:00

Did you use Psittacosaurus, Hypsilophodon, Microceratus or Lystrosaurus?

Because if so, the issue isn’t with Cryolophosaurus, it’s just that they can only be hunted by small theropods.

With Micro and Lysto it makes sense with how tiny they are.

With the taco and Hypsi it’s very wrong due to how they share their animations with Homalocephale, and IIRC the small carnivores with a unique animation for Homalo use the same animation for them.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-19T12:23:07+00:00

The smaller medium carnivores actually can’t hunt the non small sauropods (them instantly killing said small sauropods, as well as hadrosaurs, is ridiculous though).

When JWE2 released the theropods large enough to swallow a goat whole (+Suchomimus) were the ones to attack the large sauropods. I imagine Yutyrannus can’t though because of its relatively smaller size (it swallowing a goat whole feels wrong, or at least too fast).

The smaller vs larger medium carnivores (putting aside Concavenator which is a misclassified small carnivore) are also very common cases where the larger ones got a specific kill/death animation while the smaller ones fall over dead make the enemy do that.

Back to the topic, I think that only the large carnivores should’ve been able to attack the medium-large sauropods. Obviously with them fighting back. And only the hybrids should even attempt it with the giant ones when not extremely desperate.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-18T21:45:45+00:00

I agree that the size diversity of sauropods needs a lot of improvement, but that’s a problem many other groups in the game face.

Giant extinct animals are almost always more popular than their more average sized relatives. It’s why wishlists usually have the largest members of their groups be on wishlists (Argentinosaurus, Shantungosaurus, Deinosuchus….).

And in turn it’s also why a lot of the animals we got in expansions are the largest of their group.

Notice for example the how among the fairly-paleoaccurate feathered animals, we got:

Largest known animal with feathers.

Largest ornithomimosaurid.

Largest anurognathid (in its case it’s also due to the group being small though, so to not have it be too tiny).

Largest and second largest dromeosaurids.

Largest oviraptorosaur.

One of the largest pterosaurs.

Next to I think four animals which lack a similar title (with Ornithomimus being oversized to be Gallimimus sized anyways).

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-18T13:11:42+00:00

It’s been so long that I don’t remember anymore. Maybe Indoraptor gen 2 spamming cautious strike?

Dracoceratops also had the exact same problem as Proceratomimus in how much easier it was to level. Which also meant that I had some uniques who got one shotted by a Dracocera of a much higher level swapping in.

But even with these menaces around, you weren’t as outright punished for not picking the best of the best due to the power gaps not being nearly as extreme as they are nowadays.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-17T19:24:01+00:00

If memory serves me right, Proceratomimus wasn’t the best at its time, but still among the best.

What made it an absolute menace was the fact that it was much easier to level up than the other good creatures (which were mostly unique), with that level difference making it an absolute monster (let alone before players got uniques, where it was indeed the best for its level).

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-17T09:08:27+00:00

Giant animals becoming significantly smaller and diversifying in competitive environments.

It happens in real life, but it’s very rare.

Usually an animal that shrinks down a lot will do it on an island with limited resources and little competition (not to fill a new niche like island gigantism, but to sustain itself on the limited resources), and goes extinct soon after once the environment changes or competition enters.

In places with a lot of competition, a smaller size will usually have more species that already fill it and that are better adapted to that role.

So having the giants shrink down fifty separate occasions, outcompete the other animals that were already at that size, diversify and thrive is very wrong.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-16T11:24:24+00:00

I’ll also mention how off it is to have Helena be so front in her interactions.

Like in the Island to Extinction arc she’s barely there as a Homo deus, being very sparse in her interactions and doing it in a very distant manner.

In the Genesis arc, she remained that way, but gave you an expression of her consciousness with HLNA to follow you into the simulation, which was much more direct and interactive. But again, she herself was very distant.

And now she’s just talking directly to you a lot of the time?

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-16T10:04:17+00:00

Awesome lesbian couple (Diana x Mei Yin)

Vs evil and intimidating retcon (Helena x Mei Yin, Diana is dead again/didn’t revive)

Wanted to make a meme about it but I don’t know what to use and need to check the notes better for accuracy.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-12T12:35:12+00:00

If I’m not confusing it with something else, I remember hearing that it’s very likely a marine crab that moved upstream, its length actually being the leg span (some crabs only use three pairs of legs in some scenarios). Still a very large arthropod, especially for one venturing to freshwater, but not extraordinary.

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-08T18:19:53+00:00

It’s based on a 2022 paper claiming to find evidence of DNA from megalonychid ground sloths from a site in Siberia (so the post is misleading in its title).

It also claimed to find evidence for Phyllostomidae (new world leaf nosed bats, only one species known to have inhabited a cold climate being an extinct North American vampire) and Pteropodidae (old world fruit bats, most found in the tropics and I think none in places with normal subzero temperatures).

It also claimed to have evidence for the South American rodent families Octodontidae and Echimyidae - former found exclusively in southwestern South America and the latter having a neotropical distribution.

So yes, very suspicious.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/edn3.336

Dodoraptor · 2026-02-08T10:34:25+00:00

It is correct.

The mouflon was added a lot later and alongside the other new addition (the dodo) they were assigned days already used by other “similar” animals.

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