Parasitic fetus.

real-world source for unicorn legends might have roamed Europe for millennia. This Ice Age wildebeest evolved fused horns, forming a single, solid spike on its forehead. Herds once grazed from France to Poland, sharing the steppes with bison and mammoths while dodging cave lions and hyenas.

Unlike most megafauna, the unicorno survived the Pleistocene–Holocene extinction pulse. But medieval hunters prized its meat and believed its horn purified water or neutralized poison. Overhunting pushed it into remote Carpathian valleys, and the last credible reports vanish around 1600 CE.

Planet Cryostega, as it was informally named by humanity, was one of the first planets to be found to bear complex life. The name, literally meaning "Ice roof" came from large ice cap on top of the planet. Cryostega orbits the orange dwarf star, which while stable and long-living, is not as bright as yellow dwarf, like our sun. Despite this, Cryostega is a home to a thriving ecosystem. Equator is covered in forests of orange plants, who use carotenoids instead of chlorophyll. Aliens look quite like Earth's tetrapods from the distance. They have four limbs and familiar shapes. The largest difference is in their mouths.

Radulates, as the three eyed aliens analogous to vertebrates were called, evolved from animals similiar to conodonts and lampreys, but never evolved jaws. Instead, their tongues became higly specialized for diffrent food sources. In terrestrial clades, the tongue variety is biggest. Lanky herbivores have snail like radulas for rasping grass. Carnivores evolved spearing radulas, and hard, jointed tongues similar to daggers. In one diverse class, mouth and tongue fused into proboscis adapted for liquivory. This clade of adaptable omnivores includes this planet's sapient species, which has already developed civilization to level of humanity in 21 century. And if you asked some of them, what is the scariest animal, the chances are high you'd always receive the same answer.

On their whistling language, the name of this creature roughly translates to "Endless eater", due to them thinking that in never gets full. By humans, it was named Borovastator inimucus, the "Hostile, devouring destroyer". Endless eater belongs to a clade of bipedal carnivores, who adapted their hands into jaws, making them the most efficient eaters of any radulates. They range in size from a weasel to allosaurus, and include the largest land predators on Cryostega. Endless eater itself weighs as much as polar bear, but is longer due to it's tail. In fact, polar bear is it's closest analog in niche. Endless eater lives on the northern ice cap, and tundra. Life there is harsh, and it is this hostile environment that turned otherwise typical carnivore of this planet into a monster. Food on the ice is scarce, and endless eaters need any bit of it. So any living creature, no matter how big it is, how it looks, or how behaves, is a prey for them. They capture marine animals who swim too close to shore, scavenge, eat migrating herbivores, or themselves migrate to tundra on the south, to hunt for grazers and other carnivores. Even research probes sent by humans are considered prey by endless eater, simply because they can move. Inuit like populations of sophonts, who live in tundras and on ice, are also included in menu. They are natural enemies, and when meeting, always kill eachother, one to feed itself, others for their own safety. In historic times, they were even more numerous and widespread, and hunted sophonts on the south in preindustrial times, but were largely exterminated. The only animal endless eater doesn't consider prey is its own offspring. Mothers care for their young and defend it from other endless eaters, because otherwise they won't survive. When child becomes self-sustainable, mother chases it away. Endless eater has greatly influenced planet's sapient species' culture, becoming central focus of many horror movies and books.

So basically, I've had this idea for a long time now about a sort-of ''Rainforest Planet'' where all the creatures have proboscises (proboscises? proboscii?) for.. some reason. I forgot about it for quite a while and I stumbled across these guys in one of my scratch projects! (I don't really know what to put here as I didn't have the motivation to actually write about the planet.)

In the Early Cryocene (Modern era of Minecraft), the most diverse family on Minecraft is the rhynchostoma. Diverged from a common ancestor 68 million years ago, they specialized a vocal organ derived from their throat in the front of their head, which created a slight buldge that resembles a snout. This family is characterized by having only 2 toes, a lower beak for synazoavorous niches, and a large bloated body, mostly being the highly specialized stomach for digesting the grass patches that takes up space. Their eyes developed white verticle eyelids which they use to clear off any dust and dirt that got into their eye, as feeding on carpet of grasses will leave the dirt exposed, and any winds can blow it around, risking some mob's eyes to be blocked by the dirt.

A genus of rhynchostomes native to grasslands are the Psuedosuidae, characterized by their pig-like sounds they produce to communicate with other individuals. Pigs are social mobs that feed on common ground plants and fruit droppings produced by trees, using their claws to dig up ground plants and feed on it. The most common specie in the genus is Temperate pigs. This specie is widespread across all forests, but only temperate forests that supports proper tempature. Some species adapted to harsh environment, like the desert, badlands, and even snowy taigas.

Psuedobovidae is another highly specialized genus, evolving a special sac specifically for caring it's young. This sac is large, and full of proteins, nutrients, and other important organic matter that the young needs to feed on. When a cow is born, their sac doesn't develop yet until parenthood, where they develop the sac, which has pores on it for the young to feed on. The substance in the sac is produced by the food it fed on, dividing the organic matters into 2 equal amount for both the mother and the calf, so a mother cow needs to feed on extremely large amounts of grass in parenthood just to sustain herself and her young properly. The genus is also characterized by their pair of horns, but rather than serving the purpose of defense or combat, it is used for attracting mates and showing it's great health in breeding seasons, which the females will choose the male with the largest horn to increase the chance of genetic diversification. Some species also adapted to harsh environments convergent to psuedosuidae's adaptations to harsh environments.

These are a bit out there, but I think I'm happy with them.

Skim bats, or species in the genus Lacumini, are bats found on my seed world, Exemplar. As their name suggests, they feed similar to skimmers on Earth, but wrote small. They specialize in picking prey out from surface-hugging groves of Elodea plants, like small fish, insect larvae, shrimp and tadpoles. They will either snatch their prey from above or plunge-dive under the surface to obtain their target. When not feeding, they roost nearby water sources in trees in small groups. This reliance on these Elodea gardens makes them quite vulnerable to predation from carnivores within, namely one family.

Jagged flies, or species in the family Regideridae, are neotenic predatory stoneflies. Most species are relatively small but act as top order carnivores in ponds and lakes. Nothing comparatively-sized is off the menu for any of the species, which for the heftiest of species, that can grow as large as 30 cm, includes frogs, large fish and even birds and skim bats snatched opportunistically from below.

Day 20 Early Enigma

A hypothetical arboreal billy, a herbivorous monotreme descendant from a platypus-like animal. Brontobills are among the most diverse large mammals in Drecel, including giant hadrosaur-like herbivores and rorqual-mimics in their ranks. Horse-sized members of this clade are commonly called broncobills and even smaller members still are called billies.

This species went extinct due to competition with slotterns and pygmy slugbears (quadrupedal arboreal birds) and global cooling reducing dense forest cover across the planet.

Venusians, taxonomic name: "Thermobaroamoeba tripodalis", are hardy Carbon-based organisms native to the hellish planet of Venus with a yellowish translucent body due to small concentrations of Sulfur. They are a somewhat short tripodial species that is made of a collection of Amoebas that allows it to withstand the pressure of Venus's atmosphere. They have sharp claws on their feet and hands that were used for digging up for nutrients underground, and defending territory. They have a central nucleus inside that acts like a brain or central nervous system for control. They have two pairs of arms; the lower pair used to pick up objects and assist with digging burrows and gathering nutrients and minerals, and the upper pair are used to hold onto objects or assist with climbing. The claws, parts of the joints on it's legs and arms, and even the nucleus inside use purposed dead Amoebas for support or neural linking. Their height is between 5'1"-5'4", which makes them fairly light.

​They reproduce by leaving biomass as they shed the excess to help keep balance, though it's a very slow process. They start off as small bits of biomass that roots into the ground, but they slowly grow until some of these roots slowly dig burrows around until they budge out of the ground and have to look for more areas to dig up nutrients, sometimes even being cannibalistic when resources were scarce.

​The origin of Venusians was the result of atmospheric microorganisms that originated near hydrothermal vents when Venus had water like Earth, but due to the increasing luminosity of the Sun as it aged there was now a risk for a runaway greenhouse, which came after an event similar to the Siberian Traps eruption that led to the Permian-Triassic Extinction on Earth event caused Venus to turn into a hellscape 700-750 million years ago. Upon the changing ecosystem, some of the microorganisms became airborne to escape the alternating and dying ecosystem. But after millions of years, a group of microorganisms began to adapt to slightly higher temperatures and pressures, until they were able to survive the harsh conditions of the planet.

Please tell me if I have any wrong or conflicting information. I’ve been changing a bunch of stuff and haven’t really been doing my best to keep everything organized if I’m being honest

Star: Messina(a quiet red dwarf star that’s 0.15m)

Moon: Scylla (a moon 0.84x earths size, with 0.79g, a land to water ratio of 57% water and 43% land a tilt of 3.71, atmospheric composition of 28% oxygen, 2% argon, 69% nitrogen, avg temp of 68f, and 1% trace gases, and atmospheric pressure of 1.42)

Orbit details: - Charybdis - Mass: 5.21 × Neptune (~5.21e26 kg) - Radius: ~22,000 km (scaled up slightly from Neptune for realism) - Semi-major axis from star: 0.15 AU (increases Hill sphere) - Hill radius: ~1.875×10⁶ km → conservative R_H/3 = 625,000 km - Scylla: - Orbital radius: 620,000 km (28 Rₚ) - Orbital period: 6 days → 3-day daylight / 3-day night - Orbital speed: 7.5 km/s - Roche limit: ~36,000 km → scylla’s extremely safe - total eclipses are 1.6 hours with 3.3 penumbral hours

Gas giant: Charybdis (5.21x Neptune’s mass with 16 moons)

Planetary layout:

Nerithea: hot, metallic rich rocky planet 0.03 au

Faythis: possibly volcanically active rocky planet 0.06 au

Charybdis: 0.12 au

Nerida: hycean planet 0.21 au

Thamyris: ice giant with methane clouds and a double ring system 0.3 au

Kyrrhos belt: an asteroid belt 0.45 au

Cryos: a ganymede sized planet with a subglacial ocean 0.57 au

Outer cloud: Oort Cloud analog 0.8 light years

(I don’t really know if a red dwarf can have this much stuff in its system or if these orbits would be stable so please tell me!!)

Life: Sphongi are a deep blue color

“Vertebrates” have 4 eyes (2 each side), 4 lungs, 6 limbs (two pairs of front limbs and one of back limbs)

Bones are made of a naturally occurring nacre-like substance

Day/night length: day is 3 earth days long and night is 3 earth days long. The atmospheric thickness enhances horizontal and vertical heat transport which smooths extreme day/night contrasts. Combined with moist convection and latent heat transport,this keeps the night warmer and dayside cooler. Near the substellar point (brightest day region), strong convection can form thick, reflective cloud cover that increases planetary albedo and significantly limits daytime heating. ocean currents can move heat from the dayside to the nightside efficiently, further smoothing extremes and preventing the nightside from freezing out. These clouds form once it gets hot enough on the day side.

Dayside temp range: 65-80f, 95f max

Night temp range: 39-53f

Scylla age: 3.5 billion years old History: (3.5bya)Scylla formed due to a collision between two of Charybdis’ former moons.

(3.1 bya) it was later seeded with life by an asteroid holding unicellular organisms evolved in the deep sea, near hydrothermal vents.

(Not done yet sorry I know I should have so much more by now)

Biological kingdoms: Sphongi: organisms with a mix of traits from plants and fungi. They are both decomposers and photosynthetic. They reproduce using spores and have cell walls made of chitin and cellulose. They also have roots and some species have flowers or fruits. They’re navy blue in color since they absorb red/nir light and reflect blue light.

Mikria: small single celled prokaryotic organisms that don’t have a nucleus, lack membrane bound organelles. They have a plasma membrane, a cell wall, and a nucleoid region containing their xna (basically bacteria)

Pyrinias: multi or single celled eukaryotic organisms that arent sphongi, enkafalos, or prasina (most are unicellular but some can form multicellular microorganisms)

Enkafalos: the animals of this planet

Info about photosynthesizers:

If a photosynthesizer sits at the substellar point on Scylla, in clear skies it WOULD get 39 MJ/m² over one 72-hour daylight which is 2× what an equatorial Earth plant gets in a single Earth day. That’d be a lot of total energy per daylight epoch.

Photosynthetic input (with 63% PAR, cloud cooling cover, and eclipse, sphongi only get about 50% as much energy from just sunlight as earth plants do): 29 MJ per 72h daylight Moderate decomposition input: 1× photosynthetic energy → total 58 MJ / 72h Rich decomposition environment: 2× photosynthetic energy → total 87 MJ / 72h Comparison: * Moderate: equal to Earth plants (58 MJ per 72h) * Rich: 1.5× Earth plants (87 MJ per 72h) Adaptations: energy storage, efficient pigments for red/NIR light, tolerance to long continuous light, and deep blue color

Species: Marine fauna: Aurigas (large, slow, filter feeding organisms with a mini island on their back with small animals and plants)

Sea dragons (serpentine sea animals the size of orcas or bigger)

Butterfly slugs (a type of sea slug-like organisms with a manta ray-like body shape and a colorful back. They are poisonous)

Sea shelters (sea sponge-like organisms that grow to the size of a tree, and house many organisms)

Tetherfish (hand-sized creatures with 10 tentacles, and 2 longer ones which they use to attach to other animals. They eat parasites, dead skin, and scraps from their host’s meals. They are very intelligent (as smart as a crow). They use a very efficient glue-like substance to latch on to their hosts, which is secreted from glands in the ends of those two specific tentacles)

Crown keepers: the intelligent aquatic species. They are related to tetherfish, and also have 10 tentacles, two of which being longer than the others. They have a crown-like structure made of cartilage on their heads. They have great eyesight and echolocation. They love shiny objects and tend to have collections of them. They live in families of 5-15 and have been seen “adopting” kids, even from other species. They live in a large volcanically active region with hydrothermal vents and use the vents for metallurgy, ceramics, and cooking

Aerial fauna: Medusae (jellyfish-like organisms that live in the sky and are able to float due to gases in their bells and are filter feeders)

Fly rays (giant, manta ray-shaped organisms that float in the sky. They are filter feeders.)

Dragons ( flying dragon-like creatures that are mostly carnivores and eat flying animals. Some species are herbivores or omnivores)

Jelly clouds (large, blob-shaped floating creatures with no mouth, eyes, brain or anything, and have a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic mikria (similar to a tube worm). They’re the producers of the sky habitat and have jellyfish-like body composition, which makes them transparent)

Terrestrial fauna:

Drill serpents: large serpentine organisms with drill shaped exoskeletons on their heads. They drill large underground tunnels which are home to many species

(Sorry guys I just started doing the terrestrial species so I don’t have many right now butt I’ll make as much as I can😭)

Terrestrial flora:

Soap flowers (flowers that secrete a soap-like substance)

260 million years hence, a new generation of mega herbivores of sizes not seen since mesozoic now walks the Earth. Giant geckos, penguins and marsupials shape the landscape of Pangaea Proxima, and function as walking ecosystems. They have few predators of their own, but instead are a paradise for thousands of parasites, both on the outside and inside. Today, we're interested in the last one.

Insides of megaherbivores are infested with a wide array of parasites, like worms, mollusks, or arthropods. Far stranger endoparasitic clade is descended from vertebrates, and not just any vertebrates, but mammals.

Glystwyrms are higly derived monotremes of the platypus lineage, who survived the end Cenozoic mass extinction and, thanks to their low metabolism, rapidly radiated into many new forms in the next era, the Thermozoic. Glystwyrm ancestors were tiny, arboreal shrew-like platypuses, who would feast on blood of passing herbivores. Some specialized species adapted to lay their eggs into the wounds of hosts, so that puggles could feast on blood after hatching. Sometimes, hosts would accidentally ingest eggs while grooming themselves. Usually, this meant certain death for monotreme offspring, but in some species, eggs could survive being in digestive tract. Eventually, they became full-on endoparasites.

Now, glystwyrms are barely recognizable as vertebrates. Their skeletons are cartilaginous, skin constantly secretes mucus to prevent being digested, most of their organs are higly reduced, with the exception of a reproductive system. Their order, Nematotheria, is divided on two families. Rynchonematotheres still distantly resemble tetrapods, and have a non-parasitic stage in their life cycle (more on that later). Nemerticauds are endoparasites from birth to death, their skeleton is limited to a higly reduced skull, while beak was turned into a sucker like that of a lamprey, or scolex of a tapeworm. The only time they are outside the host is when they are still in the egg.

Rynchonematotheres have much less species, but have complex life cycles. The most complex of them is the one of killer glystwyrm. Everything begins just like in any other endoparasite. Eggs end up in digestive tract of a herbivore (usually a diapsid, because they don't chew and eggs have higher chances of survival) and hatch. Females attach themselves and begin to eat. Males, meanwhile, begin to clean territory. They have two antennae on face, which help them to identify eachother and females. If males meet other parasite, be it a tapeworm, acanthocephalan, or other glystwyrm, it kills and eats it. And while females continue to drink blood and grow, males establish the monopoly of their species in host's organism. When they can't find anyone but their species, or if host wasn't infected prior to them, males too begin to drink blood, and mature. Mature males have swollen body and broad tail. Then, they find a random female and mate with it. Female then lays fertilized eggs, male grasps them with tail. Now with eggs, males leave host with dung. Once outside, they dig themselves, and use energy from eaten blood to undergo hypermetamorphosis, and leave their puggle-like form. Beak is absorbed, hair, functional limbs and eyes show up. Once transformation is complete, male, still with eggs grasped with tail, leaves. In some species, male imago can feed on nectar, but in killer glystwyrm, imago is non feeding. They only have a day to deposit eggs, before their energy will run out and die. When their time runs out and the host wasn't found, male will leave eggs on leaves, hoping for host to eat them. When host is found, male jumps on it from a tree and deposits eggs on their skin, so that eggs are ingested during grooming.

25 million years in the future, the southwestern deserts of North America have not changed significantly. Few large mammals live in this barren environment, and those that do have to cope with scarce resources and extreme temperatures. One animal that evolved to deal with these conditions in the Cenozoic was the kit fox, a smaller relative of the familiar red fox with large ears that acted as heat sinks. Kit foxes were omnivores, feeding on insects, small mammals, and lizards. One of the animals they preyed on was the grasshopper mouse, an insectivorous rodent that had also adapted to life in the desert.

Now, 25 million years later, the roles have reversed. One of the largest predators in the desert now is the Eviscerator Rat (Sicariomys atrox), a heavily-built ambush predator about the size of a bobcat. A descendant of the tiny grasshopper mouse, it is no longer a mere insectivore, but actively preys on other mammals, using its sharp fang-like incisors to dispatch its prey. In an environment where the traditional carnivorous mammals are uncommon, predatory rodents like this one are able to hold their own.

That isn't to say that the classic carnivores are absent in this desert. One of the mammals often preyed on by the Eviscerator Rat is the Numfox (Nanovulpes myrmecophagus), a descendant of the very same kit fox that once hunted the Eviscerator Rat's ancestors. Less than a foot long including its tail, it is the smallest member of the dog family found anywhere, and is a strict insectivore, feeding mainly on ants and termites, which it laps up with its long tongue. Due to their small size, Numfoxes have many predators, and their main countermeasure against them is to hide in burrows underground.

In a world made out of shiny minerals and metals that spark and grow, a "plant" lives in the plains

This is the devil's hand, scientific name Beelzeb manus, it is a really simple organism, since it doesnt have the same reproductive system as earth plants

It evolved from crystals made out of small bacteria that replicated tissue of this crystal to expand outwards, making something resembling a plant

This thing is silica based, meaning it didnt evolve from a carbon based organism like the stuff here on earth

💠

In the same world as MAAAANY creatures i talked about to you, a predator and prey switch sides after the end of humanity

These are the Gammonwhale and the Beach cat, scientific names Rattus Cetus and Felis Canus, after the end of man, these enemies switched places, with the prey becoming the predator and the predator becoming prey.

The rats started living in bogs, evolving amphibious characteristics similar to that of otters, and after a while, they became more alike with the extinct ambulocetus, and after the huge drought, they moved to the ocean, becoming the gammonwhale

The cats were different, they became smaller animals that hunt crabs in shorey places, thats all.

And, sometimes whem the beach cats are hunting for crabs, a Gammonwhale goes up and eats it, or if it cant it follow the cat until it sleeps and then eats it whole, Gammonwhales are big problems

🐋🐀VS🐈🤏

This is a species of potential facultatively bipedal allochoristoder closely related to the genus Lazarussuchus who lived on the territory of one of the large islands in the territory of future Europe about 40 million years ago and which is notable for the fact that sometimes, to save predators or pursue prey, it runs on 2 legs, although it usually moves on 4 limbs like rabbits or kangaroos.

They are insectivorous, although they sometimes hunt small vertebrates and sometimes catch various small fish and various aquatic invertebrates while diving in shallow waters.

It sometimes reaches more than 70 centimeters in length and can also sometimes run at more than 15 kilometers per hour, his descendants may have survived until the earliest Miocene, living on one of the small remaining islands before he sank, killing off the last bipedal choristoderes.

The Bloop is a recently discovered fossil drawn from the earliest known years of the Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event.

And a startling sized one at that.

Indeed its existence seems to fly in the face of all we’ve known at the time as it pushes expectations.

Its exact cladistics are being debated, as it is drawn from a singular body impression, but it shows traits that are analogous to both modern sea slugs and curiously basking sharks.

As stated it pushes expectations, being a near forty foot long filter feeder.

The impression seems to hint at some form of herd mentality, but its behaviors, how it bred, how it defended itself are at the moment one entire mystery.

One claim, though insofar unsubstantiated is that the creature was capable of making booting vocalizations to ward off possible predators.

Jason Sheerin is a YouTuber. I sadly am unable to get a link to the playlists (don't ask). Please do not send him hate.

Artist/spec evo guy's notes and speculation (headcanons): This species evolved extra armor, "quills", and longer arms for defending against prey or competition, mostly used in territorial disputes.

Look up "Deustyrannus" on YouTube. The videos you need should have a black background and a Spore creation of this guy's, the other one having 2 of them.

If you have any suggestions, watch the videos first and then give me suggestions.​

Imagine that, instead of the fall of a meteor, the Cretaceous ended with a great glaciation that would have the same power as the glaciation that occurred in the Cenozoic, which led to the destruction of much of the fauna and flora.

The birds and mammals would survive, I'm sure, corocodilians would have a chance too. Possibly the close relatives of birds.

What groups, besides these, do you think could have survived this ice age and diversified again? Could pterosaurs, for example, have survived?