#blagonga

What mammal groups do you classify fanged beasts as?

day 23 of mhtober2024

A glow up of my renditions of the skulls of the cursorial monkey trio

I have nothing new to say about them individually but I would like to discuss their strength.

It’s somewhat of a debate on the UHC server about how strong the monkeys, especially rajang, should be. With many saying that if we base them off their closest analogs, gorillas, then they should be weak especially since leopards regularly prey on gorillas and that monkeys in general are rather weak and poor fighters.

But this doesn’t feel like a fair argument to me. Of course a gorilla dies to a leopard. Ambush predation often relies on getting the jump on your prey when they don’t suspect it and killing them before they can react. Also a leopard is a big fucking cat so of course it’s not a fair fight because cats are nuts. Gorillas also don’t have many defensive adaptations beyond group behavior, strength, and intimidation.

Gorillas and humans are also some of the strongest animals proportional to our size. Granted this is partially because we occupy a sweet spot in the square cube law where we’re rather large for megafauna but small enough that we don’t have to dedicate nearly all our strength to supporting our weight, but still. Healthy gorillas and humans can technically benchpress their own weight rather easily, and chimpanzees can regularly beat the crap out of things their size because 2/3rds of their muscle fibers are fast twitch, and said fibers are very long (also chimps are mental but that’s neither here nor there).

Humans in particular also have a secret weapon; hysterical strength (we don’t know if this is a human unique thing though). In our normal state we’re the weakest of the apes partially because we need to do precise movements to complete dexterous tasks, so our brains put a limit on ourselves. But sometimes in extremely stressful situations these limiters are turned off. As anime as this sounds, yes this is real and this is how in extremely rare circumstances people have been able to partially lift cars and physically fend off bears to save others. The only downside is that this also literally rips your body apart, and this is the other reason why your body puts these limitations in place. The average person secretly is strong enough to bite off their own fingers and flex so hard their bones break.

So back to the monhun cursorial monkeys, I do think they’re stronger than people on the UHC server suggest they should be (although maybe not as strong as elders beyond Kirin in the case of rajang, who I agree should not be able to put up a good fight against a starving cetacean sized tyrannosaur). They also forget that the trio do have more defensive and predatory adaptations than most primates. Congalala has long claws and chemical defenses. Blagonga has saber teeth, and ice breath, and throws around projectiles. Rajang has horns, sharp teeth, and likely can consciously achieve hysterical strength or a similar state using its electrical powers. Rajang and Blagonga also punch, which in the case of them is an entirely offensive adaptation (in humans punching originally evolved for intraspecific combat and our flat faces are a product of this).

The cursorial monkey trio from monhun! Made using screenshots as reference that were taken by discord user Freaky_Owl. (You can view remade versions here)

The three have textbook features of cursorial animals such as digitigrade legs and loss of the outermost toes and fingers.

Primate skulls were very different from skulls I normally draw so this was a fun change of pace.

What exact primates they are is uncertain, but I do think that they’re simians of some kind. I used a gorilla skull for reference but gave them the same amount of teeth as monkeys.

Congalala was first and I actually struggled a lot on it, and I was forced to not follow the in game models. If I followed the model 100% then it wouldn’t have teeth aside from its tusks, its ears would be behind its eyes, and the jaw hinge would be right below the eyes. Which just… would not be possible with vertebrate skull anatomy. I also struggled with what to do with the dentition and snout. I debated on giving congalala a hard palate and like some ungulates and making the skull follow the soft tissues exactly, but I opted out of this to interpret the snout as functioning like it’s inspiration; the hippo, with a lot of the teeth being obscured or sheathed in folds of lip and gum tissue. I also originally interpreted the crest as being supported by bone and initially drew it like this (which is why there’s a lot of negative space). Turns out the crest is entirely made of hair that’s gelled using fruit juices. Congalala has a lot of cool things going for him that’s outshined by his farts.

Blagonga was fairly straightforward after figuring out what was under his big coat. I gave it and rajang points on the back of their mandibles that a lot of carnivorous mammals have. Blagonga has a lot of odd bone growths on their skull, with a “mustache” of bone and flesh to compliment their actual mustache and a dome head; all are presumably for display. Mandrills were used for reference when I drew the part of the snout with the creases and colors. The color displays on all three of these monkeys would indicate good color vision. Blagonga also has saber teeth and a wide gape, so it presumably functions like a saber toothed cat.