Aconite

Notseal

This creature is a weird mix of leopard seal, orca and eel. Its general body shape is similiar to a Bengon. While it has gills, it can also breathe out of the water as long as its skin is wet.

-various sky uniima individuals engaging in object manipulation

I wouldn't say 70%, but I get your point. Uniima are visually a little top-heavy. And that is because the head is one giant hand (and it is very distantly derived from a limb).

Because they are arboreal, their arms and legs aren't always available. The trees most favored by them also aren't branched like those favored by apes, like us - imagine an alien redwood. Because of this, their ancestors have had part of their tongue and their upper sensory organs turn into manipulators along with the beak, and their middle eyes move deeper into the mouth area. This way, they got to solve more complex tasks and get into more difficult food items. Any branches can also be grabbed by the big jaws to move the body elsewhere, and a practiced individual can use their head and body motion to launch themselves a great distance onto a different surface, ideally catching onto something with their beak for support.

A damaged picture of a Representative of the Confederate Ouhrm Countries (left) the head of communal construction (right) posing in front of the Kihrklikre kohrEaahrKr.

A collaborative project built on the stridian homeplanet resembling an enormous Ouhrmtree, a central symbol of life and afterlife in chirper religions. Besides being the first on-planet cultural good made by both species, this story holds another advancement in multiple ways.

While physical qaulities technically made it possible, neither Chirper nor Strider had been on the others' planet without an exosuit, despite collaborative research having taken place for around 20 years.

The theory of Panspermia was still hotly debated and the fear of a xenoviral infection spreading across the immunally unprepared masses was high.

Cue shenanigans

These dingeldongs made a drinking bet with the construction crew that they couldn't get a picture of this bigass thing they built together with them in it without being spotted.

This was especially enticing since the official reveal wasn't supposed to mention the crew who had built this structure (under harrowing safety conditions no less). The Representative upped the stakes in a reckless removing of her exosuit and wearing fine attire she had brought instead

It was a bit of a petty scandal

but after a a good few months of quarantine and long term diagnostics, no vital signs had changed in either individual from prior records, being a major hit to the common fear of alien virus goo.

it must be mentioned that decades after this a few individuals had been found with alien proteins within their systems and one instance of an individual dying of a 'xeno-prion disease' though no other instances of such an ailment have been recorded.

The baleens loosely have three genders, as humans see things. Givers (male), Carriers (female), and Duals (NB/genderfluid).

So, how do the baleens see gender? Not exactly as fluid, but of the three big groups of baleens, the Mist Desert tends to be in the middle ground towards swapping things around. Just as long as you do your best to look the part. A carrier switching to a giver presentation is fine. But they are still expected to work for and with the community. And this could include still having buds if their family needs it. Givers switching to being carriers have it slightly easier - they can still 'carry' young after they are born, but will need help preparing food from the carrier parent for the babies. Or, something like a nursemaid, when there are situations where buds have been abandoned or the mother had died.

In more supportive families, tusks will often be carved, or harnesses woven, and given as a gift and a sign of acceptance. Or, tusk caps can be carved and made very ornate, to show how loved the member is. For those who may be kicked out, they consider making their own markers of gender as a show of pride and strength. There are some traveling groups who do their best to pick up 'strays' like this, and help them find their place with other families.

Sometimes a tusk set will be passed down for generations in family groups, until they are needed or wanted again.

Tundra baleen tend to be much stricter with their gender roles. Switching can happen among families who live along the borders or trade routes, but the further into the ice and snow you get, the more pressure there is to stick to one or the other. (None of this nonbinary nonsense, you're a Giver or a Carrier.)

Mangrove Baleens are live-and-let live. Who cares what they call you, he, she, it, they, can you cook a good meal? Can you fix up a house? Are you good with a spear? Do they kids like you? That's what matters more.

Now, the reason Giver baleens will cap their tusks when switching to present as Carriers instead of fully removing them is to prove they aren't a criminal, and that this also wasn't accidental. (De-tusking is a punishment! And when accidents happen, they often keep at least one tusk if they can.)

The makeup worn by both genders to match their roles is a mix of sand and ground up, dried plants carefully dusted over their faces. They aren't expected to paint their whole bodies, but some of the more dedicated do so, or wear special cloth covers.

You can trace Prectikar back to arboreal gliders who already had a separate airway+digestive tract layout as a key distinguishing feature of their clade (the feather-filament milk-producers. As I've been calling them. Hmmmm idk). They became aquatic after a [insert climate change disaster] forced a lot of life back to their homeplanet's oceans, which changed their airway a bit. Eventually some returned to the land and adapted to fill a big apex predator (omnivore) niche, where their airway became more like it is today.