HOME | DD
exo-bio โ A Dip in the Mangrove
Published: 2012-03-28 06:56:04 +0000 UTC; Views: 13306; Favourites: 250; Downloads: 107
Redirect to original
Description
A Gapuri (yet to be named) taking a dip in a shallow mangrove.Took the better part of today to finish, and my butt and eyes hurt hahaha. Sitting and staring for far too long. I am too tired to write a description right now.
Related content
Comments: 87
I really LOVE these "Gapuri"! I would like more of!
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Quick question, what is that creature swimming next to the Gapuri?
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
An arthropod fish analogue, though it can't swim as well as say, a salmon. They live in shallow water near the bottom.
๐: 0 โฉ: 2
I imagine they'd have sort of a crawfishy, nutty flavor. Mm-Mmmm. There's tons of them and the Gapuri definitely fish for them.
๐: 0 โฉ: 0
Ah. very interesting.
๐: 0 โฉ: 0
I like this one. It has a nice simplistic design, bordering on very detailed cartoon type look... Nice!
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Thanks! Though I have been wanting to update this picture, the anatomy is old.
๐: 0 โฉ: 0
thanks 
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
heheh, no, just tree. Their ancestors are aquatic though.
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
apologies if you're talking about the Garipuri(sp), I'm indeed referring to those fishy things swimming with your sapient.
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Oh! Sorry, my bad. They are purely aquatic
๐: 0 โฉ: 0
Very nice. I like the crayfish-like creatures
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
nice...im gessing its a northern gapuri
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Actually he's not, he's a little too light in color for that, though it's certainly possible he is half northern, he does have some dark blue stripes.
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
ok thanks but i have another question...what are thoese strangethings swimming alongside the gapuri?
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
A type of aquatic arthropod fish analog.
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Looking for an inspirtation for undersea scenes - this is a fabulous piece - love the alien - prefect and unhuman!
The reeds are errily 3D! Genius!
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Thank you! I am glad my work has inspired you
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
I have - its great stuff!
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Do they move all their arms in synchrony, or do they alternate pairs?
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
They'd probably do a bit of both depending on how they were swimming. I can definitely see them using all their arms together thoug.
๐: 0 โฉ: 0
It's so wonderful to see them in their original element!
Fantastic picture! Keep them comming, I really enjoy your work!
Any ideas for other animals that live on their planet?
I've seen some dolphin-like marine animals in the picture with the ship/boat, do you have a picture of only those animals, or something else entirely?
I'm eager to learn more about your project, your artwork is incredible and the fact how all the paintings are related and connetcted by a backstory makes it all even more incredible!
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Thank you! I am glad you enjoy my work
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Oh cool! I'll wait for more!
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
I really like your "xenocetaceans" by the way, very cool mouth anatomy! Modified tentacles are awesome.
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Thank you very much! I like to think that soft tissue can fill multiple purposes and adopt a variety of shapes.
Just look at the star-nosed mole!
I figured that once there is a tentacle on each side of the mouth, they could easily form "flaps" which would substitute for cheeks or "sideways opening lips" like in the "xenoxetaceans". (It's not a very imaginative name, is it? 
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Several marine predators on Skatha use their olfactory tendrils for lots of things. Some have almost completely lost the sensing ability of them except for at the very base, where as the rest of the tendril acts as an arm or spiky tongue to grab prey with.
Sideways opening lips are very cool, and make your xenocetaceans look really alien! You get the cool horizontal jaw look without all the complications of figuring out how the heck they would work with vertebrates haha.
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
That's awesome! The more you tell me the more eager I am to see all the animals you have in mind!
Thank you so much for your nice words on my critters!
Sideways mouth would be a great problem for terrestrial vertebrates to evolve, but if there is something like a vertebrate on another planet, there might be a way how to get "sideways jaws", at least as an addition to "normal" jaws as we know them. they could just be loosely jointed bones separated from the skull. There is a question if such feature would be benefficial, and whether it wouldn't be more probable to have the "jaws as we know them" overcompeting their relatives, because they would have "fewer" jaws, but those jaws would be stronger in comparison, as there would be more bones involved.
On the other hand, it's not too impossible to imagine an alien creatre with just "horizontal" jaws, they would probably be largely bilaterally symetric, except for the teeth, which would interlock, but there yould be one hemosphere of the brain in each jaw, it brings all sorts of "alien" possibilities
P.S. It's not really what you meant, but flatfish and kin look like they have Sideways mouth", don't they?
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
The way I had imagined the sideways jaws evolving on Skatha had to do with the eaaarly early ancestors, which were gilled and fishlike. They had jawless skulls and used suction as the way to catch prey or to hold onto rocks and eat algae. As they began evolving the ability to breath air, I imagine this would have first happened in the mangroves where eutrophication can be common, that their gills and gill plates would start becoming smaller, but perhaps the gill plates, instead of being used for protecting the now obsolete gills, started acting like graspers that could help the animal hold onto rocks or prey? If it is successful I could see how they could evolve further into a variety of "jaws."
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
That sure is an interesting concept!
So you view Gapuri as having "sideways" jaws? I haven't looked at them this way before. You see, snakes on earth have each half of the lower jaw independent of the other, so I was looking at the Gapuri from similar angle of view. It's an interesting approach to the "sideways" jaw problem and a great idea!
Thanks for the insight on the evolutionary path! As far as I can tell it's far more plausible than what happenned in my project, where the most primitive (xidazoon-like - look up xidazoon, it's one interesting critter!) animals had the mouth on the rear end of their body, then three tentacles formed around the mouth, and the mouth drifted to the bottom of the body, and the "unpaired" third tentacle was subsequently lost in one group, which then happenned to crawl out of water on dry land. Then the mouth drifted to the front of the chest, and then, finally, the "beak" found the final place under the braincase. It's the result of me trying to make "advanced" animals before I was sure about the evolutionary path which would lead to them, and already having the primitive critters finished. What I wanted to do is have separated breathing system and digestive system, and that was the only way how I could rationalize that - by making the two systems orginally tied to the opposite ends of the body.
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Hmmm, seems like it would be hard for the mouth to migrate that far across the body, not to put down your idea, I really like the idea of rear-mouths. I would imagine it could happen in some species, but in others the mouths on the end of the body would probably still be present. And that could be a really interesting creature, there could be lots of evolutionary tricks they could use to stay above the competition.
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
Well I know it's maybe far-fetched, but I still think it's not the most outlandish thing ever done in the niverse of speculation.
As I said, I liked my old ideas with mouth in the rear, and the new ones with the mouth in the front, and I needed to "bridge" that.
I pictured the first "proto-vertebrates" (about as advanced as lancelets, but very different in their body shape) to be slow swimmers, because their only means of propulsion was the stream of water they exhale and the single fin they had in the back. This had me thinking, and I pictured the next step to be the origin of a muscular tail with a "fin rim" at first and ultimately a "propper" tailfin. This would mean that the mouth had to drift, and this was the first step. Now I had an animal with the mouth at the belly and a muscular tail. Now that the animal was fast, it was fit to become a (small) predator. Some would keep the mouth on the belly and remain predators of benthic animals, while some would become open water predators. for that, I thought the most fit individuals would be those with the mouth still on the belly, but rotated forwards. And this is the step where the ""fish", which I tend to call "squish" (because they are kinda like squids, they have three tentacles and use jet propulsion - they have their gills in muscular sacks that propell the water through - and three tentacles around the mouth) and the "squish" are the direct ancestors of the first animals that "made it" to dry land. those first terrestrial creatures had mouth on the belly and used their two tentacles (the third one was lost) to bring the high branches down to their mouth. Because they were the first "vertebrates" on dry land, some of them adapted to different food sources other than herbivory, and became omnivorous and carnivorous. The herbivorous and omnivorous species still kept themouth on their chest, separated from the braincase - it was benefficial because they could keep watching their surroundings with their head "up high" (even though they were quite low to the ground) and feed at the same time, while the natural selection preffered those predators with the mouth close to the front end of the animal, which ultimately resulted in "nesting" the jaws under/in front of the braincase. This new body plan was very successful and only a few terrestrial animals with "separated" skull and jaws survived, but those surviving groups established their position in the current ecosystem. They adopted various body plans and sizes, but they are not as prominent as they used to be - the two remaining groups fill the niches of very small predators, essentially amphibian-like or reptile-like in lifestyle, but they have secondarily aquatic predators which fill the niches of crocodiles, pikes and sharks, and I'm planning another marine group which would be reminiscent of seals, but I have little success with that... There will be one large island, long separated from the remaining landmass, and there will be many of those, or at least "transitional" animals surviving, and happily filling the niches which are taken up by the most "modern" creatures on the other landmasses. I think of those as of monotremes and marsupials, and funny thing is that this continent is also in the "south-eastern corner" of the current map, but not for long, because I'm working on a new version which i want to be much different.
I am still having trouble with flying creatures, I can't come up with anything which would not be reminiscent of bats, birds, or pterosaurs, so I was wondering what flies in the air of Skatha? If you ever consider making any flyers, Iยจd be very interested in seeing them, your creatures tend to have largely flexible limbs, and I would like to see how they would adapt to take off in the air!
Best of luck with your project!
๐: 0 โฉ: 1
| Next =>