#spectember 2024

@gaycoonie suggested a "future legless mustelid":

Descended from an arboreal offshoot lineage of the modern least weasel, Maximagale gaycooniei is a bizarre mustelid that appears to have converged on the lifestyle of ambush-hunting tree snakes, evolving in northern latitudes where actual snakes are largely absent.

Growing to about 1m long (3'3"), it's not truly legless but its limbs are all reduced down to tiny vestigial single-clawed spurs, which are used to help anchor its body while climbing and as claspers during mating. It moves around with a distinctive inchworm-like looping gait, alternating grasping and releasing with its front and hind spurs.

Its build is bottom-heavy, with most of its mass concentrated in its thicker back end, and its tail is semi-prehensile. It clings to trees with its body bunched up, camouflaged with cryptic coloration, and rapidly whips its long flexible front half out to snap its powerfully-muscled jaws at prey – such as insects, birds, lizards, frogs, small mammals, and pretty much anything else that comes within its reach.

It will also opportunistically raid the nest of birds and arboreal mammals.

So since this IS spectember, I've been doing a lot of explorations of what kind of megafauna in my worldbuilding project of Beast Fables. Urvara is basically kinda of like an "Earth but more" place. The continents are roughly in similar places, but there's a LOT more wildlife to go around, from ground sloths to toxodons (here called rhippo) to sebecids and even a singular Eurypterid.

Day 15: Frugivore

Featuring the Eared Palm Harrier (Arecaaetus macrotis), an accipitriform from Eastern Asia that has taken an unusual path for its group, with most of its diet consisting of fruits, with some occasional nest raiding mixed in for extra nutrients.

Day 16: Benthic

Featuring the Colossus Sea Ant (Myrmecocaris robustus), an eusocial pistol shrimp found in temperate shallow waters all across the world, inside huge underwater mounds made of gravel and sand the hordes of sterile males contruct to house the queen.

Day 17: Floater

Featuring the Soul-o'-drowned (Hyaloanima profundus), a species from a group of pelagic sea cucumbers that spend their lives deep in the ocean catching marine snow out of the water column.

Day 18: Pelagic

Featuring the Common Ramtuna (Bathoarietum terribilis), a species of predatory sunfish that stalks shoals of squid from the depths, waiting for the right moment before striking, smashing its bone solid skull into the squid, killing it instantly if it hits.

Day 19: Flat

Featuring the Carpentaria Gilled Turtle (Branchiotrachelus carpentensis), a species of gilled turtle from the Carpentarian Inland Sea, which like the rest of its group, uses highly vascularized tissues inside it's throat to remain under the water waiting for prey for days at a time.

Day 20: Armored

Featuring the Lich Crab (Necromantia regius), a giant terrestrial hermit crab from the forests and shrublands of Antarctica, which, like many other Antarctic terrestrial crustaceans, buries itself in the ground during the polar winter, before exiting in hordes from the ground, searching for prey and mates.

And for the last day of the third week, one of my favourite creatures from the The Future is Wild documentary, the Rainbow Squid!

The forces of death and ruin were slower to come.

There was time for a spark, so cruelly extinguished, to instead grow to an ember and blossom into a bright glow.

And blossom brightly it would have, or did.

A friendship of one became a friendship of many.

An alliance of being and beast.

Beasts that lent their strength and power, to build the world and home of the being, yet were more than mere brute: but regarded like kin.

The beasts brought their strength, the beings brought their skill.

And together they were mighty.

And at last the demons of fire and flame came, astride great beasts of their own. Some bent to their will through fear, and pain. Some, their own kind, turned beast.

But the spark would stand greater against the tide of devastation.

Would the kinship borne of heart prevail over mastery through cruelty?

Would the being and beast endure, overcome, the great evil that spelled their doom?

Alas, perhaps what could have been never would be known.

For it was only a maybe.

It's pretty clear that at the time of publication Dougal Dixon had no idea what a fossa is, because that's basically what the Striger is: an arboreal catlike carnivoran that climbs trees and is specialized at hunting primates. The Striger for some reason evolves monkey-like anatomy, and aside from the semi-retractable claws and and more prehensile forepaws wouldn't make sense on a carnivoran as their shoulders can't swing like a primate's can, making brachiation unlikely. The fossa does the job just fine with a more catlike anatomy, with a long flexible torso, short but powerful limbs, ankles that rotate 180° and a long tail that acts as a balance.

Spectember!!! So far - bloodsucker rodent

Dino-soar

Pocket Kong

Roy ( @roygattero ) requested "ratel becoming the new african big predator":

Perforictis royi is the latest in the long and venerable tradition of various synapsid lineages discovering the ecological niche of "big stabby saber-teeth".

A descendant of the modern ratel/honey badger, it stands around 80cm tall at the shoulder (~2'8"), and convergently resembles the feline-like build of some of its more ancient relatives. Inhabiting the tropical forests of the rifted-off island continent of East Africa, it's an ambush predator specializing in tackling larger prey – primarily ungulates and primates, but also occasionally giant rodents and hyraxes.

Usually cooperatively hunting in mated pairs, these mustelids stalk close to their targets before attacking, with one individual focusing on toppling and immobilizing their target while the other positions itself to deliver a swift precision killing bite to the throat with its saber-teeth and powerful neck musculature.