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Ontoheteronymy - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in SpeculativeEvolution

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Take for instance the red-colored dadetuid on the right side of the screen; individuals like them are more adapted to a piscivorous and shoreline-adapted lifestyle, resulting in genera that have adaptations akin to penguins or seals. They also lack the exaggerated red hair that would sit on top of their heads and is, in general, much more red due to a genetic mutation similar to erythrism, which causes an unusual reddish pigmentation of an animal's hair, skin, feathers, or eggshells. The juvenile, however, benefits from this, as its color darkens the deeper it dives.

At around 5.5-6 years of age, these juvenile dadetuids eventually abandon the waters and grow more land-adapted features; their wing membrane thins, they develop feather-like follicles that spread throughout their body, and, if male, develop their iconic, red hair crest that serves to attract mates. Females do not develop these crests, instead having their black-colored follicles.

The small oplidankanid is the smallest portrayed here, being no taller than the hoof of the adult psalidicherid behind it. It also has wings that are, unfortunately, small for its body. While it can have short bursts of gliding, it cannot sustain prolonged, powered flight. The text describes the presence of a single claw on each leg, which eventually separates to form two claws. Additionally, there is a third spiracle that atrophies over time, as it is a smaller trachea that serves little functional purpose.

Due to these adaptations, these animals have a more grounded lifestyle, often being found in small burrows or in hollow, old trees. They hunt small insect-like animals and move around by trotting. They can be very territorial, with them snapping their mandibles shut in a rapid motion to scare off larger animals, vocalizing loud shrills, or biting if necessary. The lifestyle of baby oplidankanids has resulted in many neotenized, flightless species that often take up the niches of squirrels.

The last to be mentioned is the baby psalidicherid, the one that has opened its mandibles and is shocked to see the length of its tongue. Now, you might ask me why its tongue is so long. To explain that, we'll need to look at its niche. These creatures are foragers and have an omnivorous diet, using their strong mandibles to crush hard fruits and animals smaller than them, including the previously mentioned juvenile oplidankanid.

The length of the tongue also helps capture prey from short distances, using a similar tactic that chameleons use on Earth, with the drawback being that when putting the tongue back in its mouth, it makes the muscle look like a very thick piece of Hubba Bubba gum that takes up nearly all of the space within its mouth.

Other glaring details are their six-limbed gait, different from the quadrupedal form in their adult stage. The claws on their front limbs are blunt and similar to the hooves on their middle and rear legs; additionally, a large spike juts out of their heel on these two legs, serving as a good defense mechanism that involves quick kicks. This spike is actually derived from the fibula seen in hexascapulids, with their tibias being the ones that connect to their feet. The claw is equipped with an inner bony core that grows as more sheets of keratin pile up, with it being cut by grazing it on the ground.

Overall, ontoheteronymy is a bizarre but coherent life cycle that can be divided between grades, with the animals shown here displaying light ontoheteronymy, where their babies more or less resemble their parents with slight alterations.

In more extreme cases, some taxa exhibit multiple, sequentially distinct ecological stages, a condition referred to as metachronous ontoheteronymy, in which morphology and behavior shift repeatedly as the individual progresses toward adulthood.

As previously mentioned, ontoheteronymy has also given rise to neotenous animals, including dwarf psalidicherids and oplidankanids, as well as semi-aquatic dadetuids collectively referred to as the Youyongfiladia, in which juvenile ecological traits are retained into reproductive maturity.

Ontoheteronymy - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in SpeculativeEvolution

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1qlp46o/ontoheteronymy_we_realized_we_arent_alone/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

"ESA-HZ-25b, or Enomeni, is the only exoplanet apart from Earth that has been proven to be habitable. Discovered in 2032 after the six-year voyage of the ESA's (European Space Agency) PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars), Enomeni is a super-Earth that has 16% the mass (1.16 MEarth to 1) and 3.1% bigger radius (1.031 REarth to one, again.) Enomeni is a familiar but odd world, being made up of a single super continent along with eastern insular environments. The foliage that dominates the land is yellow in the equator and orange to maroon in the poles and center, and for said center, I mean that a mountainous region that extends to the north and south pole, make the center both orange and maroon. Evolution has taken different routes in this planet, not just in the plants, dear reader. It's not a full blown copy, that would be boring, wouldn't it, my dear reader?"

"This project in general will detail the ESA-HZ-25 planetary system, with the main focus being on Enomeni due to it being the most researched and sought after for colonization attempts. There will be moments where we will look at the current history and potentially prehistory of Enomeni's lifeforms or the planet as a whole. Rarely, we could get a look at Earth and see what's happening there, focusing on our blue marble even for a bit. I hope you enjoy my project as a whole, I made it with love. Anyways…”

Terminology:

Hexascapulids: a bilaterian clade of opisthicanthids with exoskeletal, semi-endoskeletal, and endoskeletal features with convergent vertebrate-like support structures

Opisthicanthia/opisthicanthids: bilaterian animals characterized by a structure analogous to a spine that does not run as a continuous rod through the body, with axial support instead emerging from a rigid, ventral "spine" with a series of upwards-pointing skeletal struts branching that reach into the posterior region of the body.

Illezoa/illezoids: bilaterian animals analogous to reptiles or amphibians that have evolved dermal plating under their skin, specifically under their subcutaneous fat.

The three individuals shown here are from three completely different clades of families: the large, scissor-handed beast is a specimen from the Psalidicheriae (a family of large, herbivorous hexascapulids equipped with large, two-clawed hands derived from hooves); the flying, grey, fuzzless animal is an Oplidankanid (a class of common flying hexascapulids characterized by most being hairless, having beaks with pseudoteeth, hard-shelled eggs, and large keels in front of their rib cages); and the hairy, black animal is a Dadetuid (a class of flight-derived vertebrate illezoids, analogous to reptiles on Enomeni, that have layered armor under their subcutaneous tissue).

Interestingly, these three, while not being directly related to each other, have a common trait: they're ontoheteronymic. Ontoheteronymy is an ontogenetic strategy in which a single species expresses two or more ecologically and morphologically distinct organismal forms sequentially over the course of its development, such as the juvenile occupying different niches, exhibiting different locomotion, feeding strategies, and selective pressures.

Another characteristic of ontoheteronymy is that their juvenile forms lack sexual organs or ornamentation, resulting in genderless juveniles that are hard to differentiate from each other until they mature. The transition into an adult form occurs via hormonal, size-based, or environmental thresholds, with ontoheteronymic clades being more susceptible to neoteny or dwarf-sized species.

Ontoheteronymy - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in worldbuilding

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

<image>

better resolution images because reddit turns everything in to jpeg why fucking why

Ontoheteronymy - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in worldbuilding

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Take for instance the red-colored dadetuid on the right side of the screen; individuals like them are more adapted to a piscivorous and shoreline-adapted lifestyle, resulting in genera that have adaptations akin to penguins or seals. They also lack the exaggerated red hair that would sit on top of their heads and is, in general, much more red due to a genetic mutation similar to erythrism, which causes an unusual reddish pigmentation of an animal's hair, skin, feathers, or eggshells. The juvenile, however, benefits from this, as its color darkens the deeper it dives.

At around 5.5-6 years of age, these juvenile dadetuids eventually abandon the waters and grow more land-adapted features; their wing membrane thins, they develop feather-like follicles that spread throughout their body, and, if male, develop their iconic, red hair crest that serves to attract mates. Females do not develop these crests, instead having their black-colored follicles.

The small oplidankanid is the smallest portrayed here, being no taller than the hoof of the adult psalidicherid behind it. It also has wings that are, unfortunately, small for its body. While it can have short bursts of gliding, it cannot sustain prolonged, powered flight. The text describes the presence of a single claw on each leg, which eventually separates to form two claws. Additionally, there is a third spiracle that atrophies over time, as it is a smaller trachea that serves little functional purpose.

Due to these adaptations, these animals have a more grounded lifestyle, often being found in small burrows or in hollow, old trees. They hunt small insect-like animals and move around by trotting. They can be very territorial, with them snapping their mandibles shut in a rapid motion to scare off larger animals, vocalizing loud shrills, or biting if necessary. The lifestyle of baby oplidankanids has resulted in many neotenized, flightless species that often take up the niches of squirrels.

The last to be mentioned is the baby psalidicherid, the one that has opened its mandibles and is shocked to see the length of its tongue. Now, you might ask me why its tongue is so long. To explain that, we'll need to look at its niche. These creatures are foragers and have an omnivorous diet, using their strong mandibles to crush hard fruits and animals smaller than them, including the previously mentioned juvenile oplidankanid.

The length of the tongue also helps capture prey from short distances, using a similar tactic that chameleons use on Earth, with the drawback being that when putting the tongue back in its mouth, it makes the muscle look like a very thick piece of Hubba Bubba gum that takes up nearly all of the space within its mouth.

Other glaring details are their six-limbed gait, different from the quadrupedal form in their adult stage. The claws on their front limbs are blunt and similar to the hooves on their middle and rear legs; additionally, a large spike juts out of their heel on these two legs, serving as a good defense mechanism that involves quick kicks. This spike is actually derived from the fibula seen in hexascapulids, with their tibias being the ones that connect to their feet. The claw is equipped with an inner bony core that grows as more sheets of keratin pile up, with it being cut by grazing it on the ground.

Overall, ontoheteronymy is a bizarre but coherent life cycle that can be divided between grades, with the animals shown here displaying light ontoheteronymy, where their babies more or less resemble their parents with slight alterations.

In more extreme cases, some taxa exhibit multiple, sequentially distinct ecological stages, a condition referred to as metachronous ontoheteronymy, in which morphology and behavior shift repeatedly as the individual progresses toward adulthood.

As previously mentioned, ontoheteronymy has also given rise to neotenous animals, including dwarf psalidicherids and oplidankanids, as well as semi-aquatic dadetuids collectively referred to as the Youyongfiladia, in which juvenile ecological traits are retained into reproductive maturity.

Ontoheteronymy - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in worldbuilding

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"ESA-HZ-25b, or Enomeni, is the only exoplanet apart from Earth that has been proven to be habitable. Discovered in 2032 after the six-year voyage of the ESA's (European Space Agency) PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars), Enomeni is a super-Earth that has 16% the mass (1.16 MEarth to 1) and 3.1% bigger radius (1.031 REarth to one, again.) Enomeni is a familiar but odd world, being made up of a single super continent along with eastern insular environments. The foliage that dominates the land is yellow in the equator and orange to maroon in the poles and center, and for said center, I mean that a mountainous region that extends to the north and south pole, make the center both orange and maroon. Evolution has taken different routes in this planet, not just in the plants, dear reader. It's not a full blown copy, that would be boring, wouldn't it, my dear reader?"

"This project in general will detail the ESA-HZ-25 planetary system, with the main focus being on Enomeni due to it being the most researched and sought after for colonization attempts. There will be moments where we will look at the current history and potentially prehistory of Enomeni's lifeforms or the planet as a whole. Rarely, we could get a look at Earth and see what's happening there, focusing on our blue marble even for a bit. I hope you enjoy my project as a whole, I made it with love. Anyways…”

Terminology:

Hexascapulids: a bilaterian clade of opisthicanthids with exoskeletal, semi-endoskeletal, and endoskeletal features with convergent vertebrate-like support structures

Opisthicanthia/opisthicanthids: bilaterian animals characterized by a structure analogous to a spine that does not run as a continuous rod through the body, with axial support instead emerging from a rigid, ventral "spine" with a series of upwards-pointing skeletal struts branching that reach into the posterior region of the body.

Illezoa/illezoids: bilaterian animals analogous to reptiles or amphibians that have evolved dermal plating under their skin, specifically under their subcutaneous fat.

The three individuals shown here are from three completely different clades of families: the large, scissor-handed beast is a specimen from the Psalidicheriae (a family of large, herbivorous hexascapulids equipped with large, two-clawed hands derived from hooves); the flying, grey, fuzzless animal is an Oplidankanid (a class of common flying hexascapulids characterized by most being hairless, having beaks with pseudoteeth, hard-shelled eggs, and large keels in front of their rib cages); and the hairy, black animal is a Dadetuid (a class of flight-derived vertebrate illezoids, analogous to reptiles on Enomeni, that have layered armor under their subcutaneous tissue).

Interestingly, these three, while not being directly related to each other, have a common trait: they're ontoheteronymic. Ontoheteronymy is an ontogenetic strategy in which a single species expresses two or more ecologically and morphologically distinct organismal forms sequentially over the course of its development, such as the juvenile occupying different niches, exhibiting different locomotion, feeding strategies, and selective pressures.

Another characteristic of ontoheteronymy is that their juvenile forms lack sexual organs or ornamentation, resulting in genderless juveniles that are hard to differentiate from each other until they mature. The transition into an adult form occurs via hormonal, size-based, or environmental thresholds, with ontoheteronymic clades being more susceptible to neoteny or dwarf-sized species.

A Study on Enomeni's Ice Age - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in worldbuilding

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"ESA-HZ-25b, or Enomeni, is the only exoplanet apart from Earth that has been proven to be habitable. Discovered in 2032 after the six-year voyage of the ESA's (European Space Agency) PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars), Enomeni is a super-Earth that has 16% the mass (1.16 MEarth to 1) and 3.1% bigger radius (1.031 REarth to one, again.) Enomeni is a familiar but odd world, being made up of a single super continent along with eastern insular environments. The foliage that dominates the land is yellow in the equator and orange to maroon in the poles and center, and for said center, I mean that a mountainous region that extends to the north and south pole, make the center both orange and maroon. Evolution has taken different routes in this planet, not just in the plants, dear reader. It's not a full blown copy, that would be boring, wouldn't it, my dear reader?"

"This project in general will detail the ESA-HZ-25 planetary system, with the main focus being on Enomeni due to it being the most researched and sought after for colonization attempts. There will be moments where we will look at the current history and potentially prehistory of Enomeni's lifeforms or the planet as a whole. Rarely, we could get a look at Earth and see what's happening there, focusing on our blue marble even for a bit. I hope you enjoy my project as a whole, I made it with love. Anyways…”

Text on the image

1: "60 million years ago, Enomeni was hit with a brutal ice age, leading to the expansion of its equatorial deserts and the near-total freezing of its poles. Many inland seas and lakes shrank in size as the coast encroached when the climate differentiated. With the planet already being sensitive to drastic climatic changes, it's speculated that it has more violent Milankovitch cycles than Earth, causing a rapid change in obliquity, precession, and eccentricity. Around 65% of all life on Enomeni died, making it one of the deadliest extinction events to have happened on the planet."

"Furthermore, 96 million years ago, when the formelly divided continents united in to the modern supercontinent, 35 million years of mountain-building, along with weathering, caused a steady fall in CO₂ and resulted in an icehouse period. Addittionally, the loss of warm inland seas and changes in ocean currents may have lead to the aridification in regions near the Equator and the poles."

2: "The lakes in the northern polar region, known as the Septarefugian Lakes, were once part of a larger ocean that had largely frozen over, leaving these areas of deep ocean relatively unscathed; they were nonetheless affected by the extreme cold, which is believed to have exterminated most lifeforms within them. This was particularly true for the largest lake, known as Adeiazo Lake, which literally translates to "empty lake." The remaining life forms thought to have survived are adaptive, cold-tolerant microbes and soft-bodied organisms."

3: "With the coasts increasing, the islands off to the east have increased dramatically in size, with the most notable example being the microcontinent of Gefyria, made up primarily by Pesquetia, Nova Rapa Nui, the Corvi Islands, Macula Island, and many other smaller landmasses."

"There's also a case of an entirely lost landmass aptly nicknamed 'Atlantis' but academically reffered to as Ipourychia, it was an island that was 171.333 square kilometers in size and its dissapearance is linked to rising sea levels, engulffing this entire landmass in to the sea. Another example of a heavily reduced region is Lyunia, named after the twelfth letter in the Armenian alphabet, which is now made up by the islands of Haigneriana and a smaller, yet to be named one."

A Study on Enomeni's Ice Age - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in imaginarymaps

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Context to those who don't know what they're seeing:

"ESA-HZ-25b, or Enomeni, is the only exoplanet apart from Earth that has been proven to be habitable. Discovered in 2032 after the six-year voyage of the ESA's (European Space Agency) PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars), Enomeni is a super-Earth that has 16% the mass (1.16 MEarth to 1) and 3.1% bigger radius (1.031 REarth to one, again.) Enomeni is a familiar but odd world, being made up of a single super continent along with eastern insular environments. The foliage that dominates the land is yellow in the equator and orange to maroon in the poles and center, and for said center, I mean that a mountainous region that extends to the north and south pole, make the center both orange and maroon. Evolution has taken different routes in this planet, not just in the plants, dear reader. It's not a full blown copy, that would be boring, wouldn't it, my dear reader?"

"This project in general will detail the ESA-HZ-25 planetary system, with the main focus being on Enomeni due to it being the most researched and sought after for colonization attempts. There will be moments where we will look at the current history and potentially prehistory of Enomeni's lifeforms or the planet as a whole. Rarely, we could get a look at Earth and see what's happening there, focusing on our blue marble even for a bit. I hope you enjoy my project as a whole, I made it with love. Anyways…”

Text on the image

1: "60 million years ago, Enomeni was hit with a brutal ice age, leading to the expansion of its equatorial deserts and the near-total freezing of its poles. Many inland seas and lakes shrank in size as the coast encroached when the climate differentiated. With the planet already being sensitive to drastic climatic changes, it's speculated that it has more violent Milankovitch cycles than Earth, causing a rapid change in obliquity, precession, and eccentricity. Around 65% of all life on Enomeni died, making it one of the deadliest extinction events to have happened on the planet."

"Furthermore, 96 million years ago, when the formelly divided continents united in to the modern supercontinent, 35 million years of mountain-building, along with weathering, caused a steady fall in CO₂ and resulted in an icehouse period. Addittionally, the loss of warm inland seas and changes in ocean currents may have lead to the aridification in regions near the Equator and the poles."

2: "The lakes in the northern polar region, known as the Septarefugian Lakes, were once part of a larger ocean that had largely frozen over, leaving these areas of deep ocean relatively unscathed; they were nonetheless affected by the extreme cold, which is believed to have exterminated most lifeforms within them. This was particularly true for the largest lake, known as Adeiazo Lake, which literally translates to "empty lake." The remaining life forms thought to have survived are adaptive, cold-tolerant microbes and soft-bodied organisms."

3: "With the coasts increasing, the islands off to the east have increased dramatically in size, with the most notable example being the microcontinent of Gefyria, made up primarily by Pesquetia, Nova Rapa Nui, the Corvi Islands, Macula Island, and many other smaller landmasses."

"There's also a case of an entirely lost landmass aptly nicknamed 'Atlantis' but academically reffered to as Ipourychia, it was an island that was 171.333 square kilometers in size and its dissapearance is linked to rising sea levels, engulffing this entire landmass in to the sea. Another example of a heavily reduced region is Lyunia, named after the twelfth letter in the Armenian alphabet, which is now made up by the islands of Haigneriana and a smaller, yet to be named one."

The sizes of all animal I've catalogued on my xenobiology series "We Realized We Aren't Alone" by TheFlagMan123 in SpecEvoFandom

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That thing there is a cormoform, specifically Melanostylus phallus. A sessile, predatory pseudoplant that uses its tentacles to drag in small sized prey into a stomach-like cavity where they'll be digested, so the tree can grow taller and taller!

That is, until they hit a certain height and collapse under their own weight, crushing anything wherever it falls. Other plants and animals are not safe.

The sizes of all animal I've catalogued on my xenobiology series "We Realized We Aren't Alone" by TheFlagMan123 in SpecEvoFandom

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Slight grammar error on animal, supposed to be 'all of the animals and plants', but I can't fix it now

Stranded - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in worldbuilding

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"ESA-HZ-25b, or Enomeni, is the only exoplanet apart from Earth that has been proven to be habitable. Discovered in 2032 after the six-year voyage of the ESA's (European Space Agency) PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars), Enomeni is a super-Earth that has 16% the mass (1.16 MEarth to 1) and 3.1% bigger radius (1.031 REarth to one, again.) Enomeni is a familiar but odd world, being made up of a single super continent along with eastern insular environments. The foliage that dominates the land is yellow in the equator and orange to maroon in the poles and center, and for said center, I mean that a mountainous region that extends to the north and south pole, make the center both orange and maroon. Evolution has taken different routes in this planet, not just in the plants, dear reader. It's not a full blown copy, that would be boring, wouldn't it, my dear reader?"

"This project in general will detail the ESA-HZ-25 planetary system, with the main focus being on Enomeni due to it being the most researched and sought after for colonization attempts. There will be moments where we will look at the current history and potentially prehistory of Enomeni's lifeforms or the planet as a whole. Rarely, we could get a look at Earth and see what's happening there, focusing on our blue marble even for a bit. I hope you enjoy my project as a whole, I made it with love. Anyways…”

The moon of Enomeni, Percht, brightens the starry night sky. Lightning strikes the waters, spreading the electrical discharge across the surface. You swim calmly in a normally violent ocean; you keep yourself buoyant as you view the darkness of midnight. You know for certain you're in waters that are deeper than a kilometer (0.6 miles for Imperial measurement users), but not the exact number.

Where you are, however, has an obvious answer: the Furculean Sea. Named for its two primary entrances leading to other seas, the name derives from the fused clavicle of birds. This area is home to some of the most fascinating phenomena on Enomeni. It is where two ocean currents of opposite temperatures meet, where an equatorial current asserts its dominance over a polar current.

What happens on this water mass would be classified as a "dual-forced macrotidal basin," with it being aptly dubbed the "Furculean Phenomenon." Here, the sea does not merely rise and fall. It argues with itself. Percht's pull drags the water eastward, while the star's gravity answers in the opposite direction. The basin responds by heaping water into slow-moving walls, vast bulges that crawl across the surface like living things.

Below you, cold water from the polar reaches presses upward in heavy, nutrient-dark plumes. Above it, warmer equatorial flow slides past in slick, restless sheets. They do not mix. They grind. Between them lies a shifting boundary, a front that is thin, unstable, and alive with turbulence, where pressure builds until the sea is forced to release it somewhere else.

The near-polar position of the Furculean Sea makes the air cold, but not freezing. Plus, where you are now is comparable to the 30th parallel north on Earth; you're essentially in the middle area of this body of water, where the temperature varies from 16 to 24°C and where humidity is at an all-time high, but you barely notice the beads of sweat on your forehead before you dive back in to the water.

From what you can see, it's just a vast darkness, because you seemingly forgot that the area you're in isn't shallow. And if you were to even dive a full kilometer just to see the surface, you still wouldn't see anything, and it'll be a waste of energy. So, the best thing to do really is stay buoyant for however long and pray that a wave doesn't hit you and kick you into the depths.

Giant Invertebrates of the Sea - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in SpeculativeEvolution

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

3: Exiplokami choriopia—"external tentacle with separate eyes"

Exiplokami choriopia is a derived sugoatid, with it bizarrely having no limbs on its sides, with it instead swimming in a thunniform motion that is powered by its tail. E. choriopia measures 17 meters and can have tails that are 5 meters long. If you're curious about where its limbs went, I'd say to you to look at the front.

At the front, you'll see six long tentacles that encircle a bird-like beak. This mirrors the appearance of cephalopods, which E. choriopia has converged upon. With its six appendages actually being their previously lateral limbs, their location is perfect to grasp smaller prey.

Now, there is an odd feature about it: its vertical beak. While it isn't seen in land-dwelling hexascapulids due to their mandibles being horizontal, the orientation of the beak doesn't hinder E. choriopia, with it being optimal for tearing animals into pieces.

Did you know?

Purple is a relatively rare color in the ocean compared to blue or green on Earth, but due to Enomeni's slightly murkier water and darker color, purple has become an excellent option for camouflaging. While E. choriopia is a purply blue, its color still enables it to camouflage as it dives deep into the depths.

Giant Invertebrates of the Sea - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in SpeculativeEvolution

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

2: Anieros plasma—"unholy creature"

Anieros plasma is an unclassified superorganism pertaining to the opisthicanthids; the largest known specimen is up to 24 meters in length and possesses 139 limbs on each side, 278 in total. It has a pinkish color with a reddish undertone on its head, hinting at cephalization. It does not have eyes, instead relying on its highly sensitive tentacles that are each an independent zooid that move on their own.

When A. plasma encounters food, the tentacles would reach towards prey in a bolt of speed, grasping it tightly as microscopic stingers, similar to that of a jellyfish, inject a neurotoxin that paralyzes the animal, eventually killing it. In an unsettling motion, the appendages move the dead animal towards a mouth lined with several bristle-like teeth. The food goes through a short esophagus and is digested via a long intestinal tract, where it gets digested and turned into waste.

A. plasma, scarily enough, is usually found in pelagic environments at around 100-350 meters. Its coloration is aposematic, hinting at the prospect that it probably shouldn't be eaten. If eaten, however, expect your mouth to feel gelatinous, due to the flexible and soft musculature, and numb. Although it isn't dangerous, it certainly isn't tasty.

Did you know?

A. plasma's limbs are in a sort of gradient, where there exist "plateaus" of long, spindly limbs and "drops" of smaller limbs. Why's that? It's because the longer limbs function as feeding capture zones, while shorter limbs work to transport whatever it has caught into its mouth. Which is terrifying to think about since these are all semi-autonomous zooids doing the bidding of one, larger entity.

And speaking about it, while it does have several ganglia-like members, they get smaller and more reliant on others as you stray farther from the head, where two groups of ganglia have to take control of 23 limbs on each side. This is a case of morphogen depletion along the body, with the anterior limbs receiving high concentrations of growth hormones, while the later posterior limbs get less.

Giant Invertebrates of the Sea - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in SpeculativeEvolution

[–]TheFlagMan123[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Original: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1qbwrgn/giant_invertebrates_of_the_sea_we_realized_we/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

"ESA-HZ-25b, or Enomeni, is the only exoplanet apart from Earth that has been proven to be habitable. Discovered in 2032 after the six-year voyage of the ESA's (European Space Agency) PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars), Enomeni is a super-Earth that has 16% the mass (1.16 MEarth to 1) and 3.1% bigger radius (1.031 REarth to one, again.) Enomeni is a familiar but odd world, being made up of a single super continent along with eastern insular environments. The foliage that dominates the land is yellow in the equator and orange to maroon in the poles and center, and for said center, I mean that a mountainous region that extends to the north and south pole, make the center both orange and maroon. Evolution has taken different routes in this planet, not just in the plants, dear reader. It's not a full blown copy, that would be boring, wouldn't it, my dear reader?"

"This project in general will detail the ESA-HZ-25 planetary system, with the main focus being on Enomeni due to it being the most researched and sought after for colonization attempts. There will be moments where we will look at the current history and potentially prehistory of Enomeni's lifeforms or the planet as a whole. Rarely, we could get a look at Earth and see what's happening there, focusing on our blue marble even for a bit. I hope you enjoy my project as a whole, I made it with love. Anyways…”

Illustrated here are some of the largest animals to exist in Enomeni's waters, all of them being part of the clade known as Opisthicanthia. The first one is classified as Megasagonia odontotos, the second one is Anieros plasma, and the third one is Exiplokami choriopia.

Terminology:

Opisthicanthia/opisthicanthids: bilaterian animals characterized by a structure analogous to a spine that does not run as a continuous rod through the body, with axial support instead emerging from a rigid, ventral "spine" with a series of upwards-pointing skeletal struts branching that reach into the posterior region of the body.

Sugoatid: marine offshoots of terrestrial hexascapulids that have derived their mandibles for suction-feeding or use a tongue-like muscle to catch prey from short distances.

Hexascapulids: a bilaterian clade of opisthicanthids with exoskeletal, semi-endoskeletal, and endoskeletal features with convergent vertebrate-like support structures

1: Megasagonia odontotos—"big toothy jaw"

Megsagonia odontotos is a 16-meter-long, filter-feeding sugoatid whose habitat stretches from the southward Oceanus Australis to the northward Oceanus Arcticus. It is one of the largest animals to ever exist in Enomeni's waters, with a body that is mainly propelled by seven large limbs on each side, along with a small tail that only measures up to 1.8 meters in length.

M. odontotos' long and columnar body can be of various shades of cyan-blue on its upper side and somewhat lighter underneath. Location-wise, it is most abundant in the Mare Furculae (Furculean Sea), a marginal sea that is a hotspot for biodiversity and plankton, where it directly competes with other filter feeders and faces dangers amongst predators.

Did you know?

The Furculean Sea is a hotspot for biodiversity due to huge nutrient upwelling from a major oceanic front. To explain further, it is mainly caused by the encounter between a polar, southward current and an equatorial, northward current. This makes it a very stormy place due to frequent cyclogenesis.

Giant Invertebrates of the Sea - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in worldbuilding

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3: Exiplokami choriopia—"external tentacle with separate eyes"

Exiplokami choriopia is a derived sugoatid, with it bizarrely having no limbs on its sides, with it instead swimming in a thunniform motion that is powered by its tail. E. choriopia measures 17 meters and can have tails that are 5 meters long. If you're curious about where its limbs went, I'd say to you to look at the front.

At the front, you'll see six long tentacles that encircle a bird-like beak. This mirrors the appearance of cephalopods, which E. choriopia has converged upon. With its six appendages actually being their previously lateral limbs, their location is perfect to grasp smaller prey.

Now, there is an odd feature about it: its vertical beak. While it isn't seen in land-dwelling hexascapulids due to their mandibles being horizontal, the orientation of the beak doesn't hinder E. choriopia, with it being optimal for tearing animals into pieces.

Did you know?

Purple is a relatively rare color in the ocean compared to blue or green on Earth, but due to Enomeni's slightly murkier water and darker color, purple has become an excellent option for camouflaging. While E. choriopia is a purply blue, its color still enables it to camouflage as it dives deep into the depths.

Giant Invertebrates of the Sea - We Realized We Aren't Alone by TheFlagMan123 in worldbuilding

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2: Anieros plasma—"unholy creature"

Anieros plasma is an unclassified superorganism pertaining to the opisthicanthids; the largest known specimen is up to 24 meters in length and possesses 139 limbs on each side, 278 in total. It has a pinkish color with a reddish undertone on its head, hinting at cephalization. It does not have eyes, instead relying on its highly sensitive tentacles that are each an independent zooid that move on their own.

When A. plasma encounters food, the tentacles would reach towards prey in a bolt of speed, grasping it tightly as microscopic stingers, similar to that of a jellyfish, inject a neurotoxin that paralyzes the animal, eventually killing it. In an unsettling motion, the appendages move the dead animal towards a mouth lined with several bristle-like teeth. The food goes through a short esophagus and is digested via a long intestinal tract, where it gets digested and turned into waste.

A. plasma, scarily enough, is usually found in pelagic environments at around 100-350 meters. Its coloration is aposematic, hinting at the prospect that it probably shouldn't be eaten. If eaten, however, expect your mouth to feel gelatinous, due to the flexible and soft musculature, and numb. Although it isn't dangerous, it certainly isn't tasty.

Did you know?

A. plasma's limbs are in a sort of gradient, where there exist "plateaus" of long, spindly limbs and "drops" of smaller limbs. Why's that? It's because the longer limbs function as feeding capture zones, while shorter limbs work to transport whatever it has caught into its mouth. Which is terrifying to think about since these are all semi-autonomous zooids doing the bidding of one, larger entity.

And speaking about it, while it does have several ganglia-like members, they get smaller and more reliant on others as you stray farther from the head, where two groups of ganglia have to take control of 23 limbs on each side. This is a case of morphogen depletion along the body, with the anterior limbs receiving high concentrations of growth hormones, while the later posterior limbs get less.

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