HOME | DD
Yujin0623 — World of E.M. Main trio skeletons
#auroch #bag #boer #bones #bucentaur #cowbell #ebony #faun #friesian #goat #hexaped #hexapod #hominid #hoof #hooves #horns #horse #horseears #pony #ponytail #sagittarius #skeleton #tetrapod #ungulate #vertebrae #vertebrate #walking #worldbuilding #sagita #skeletaldiagram #hippocentaur #droopyears #bonesskeleton #hipposandals #sockpattern #caprifaun #stefaun #sagitaarcher #ebonyholstein #stefauncleff #horncore #cervicalribs #duplicatelimbs #sagittalcrest
Published: 2019-11-17 01:06:56 +0000 UTC; Views: 7483; Favourites: 142; Downloads: 0
Redirect to original
Description
-E.M.의 세계 매인 트리오 골격 구조For those curious about the internal skeletal structure of these mythical hybrids. Here's a drawing of their skeletons.
Keys:
-Magenta: Skull/Cranium
-Cervicals/Neck bones:
-Red: Precervical (Only present in centaurs)
-Orange: Cervocostal and cervical limbs (Only present in centaurs)
-Yellow: Eucervical/True Cervical vertebrae (Present in all three. Basic mammalian neck bones from which centaur cervical torso was constructed out of)
-Green: Thoracic. Thoracic limbs, homologous to human arms, animal front legs and bird wings.
-Teal: Lumbar
-Blue: Sacral. Pelvic limbs, homologous to human legs and animal back legs.
-Violet: Caudal. Tail.
Stuff of note:
-Bucentaur Eucervical vertebrae work similar to bovine and camelid necks, able to extend and retract in order to alter positions. Shown in retracted position in picture. Can comfortably walk in both postures, though running is more comfortable when the cervical vertebrae are retracted.
-Bucentaur skulls house relatively smaller brains. Their skulls are thick and cushioned by air chambers of their sinus cavity that even extends into their horncores. They have shorter horncores relative to horn length, having a thicker keratin sheath than that of naturally evolved Terran bovids. Their well protected skull means bucentaurs can handle great amount of blunt force to their skull and not get brain damage from what would normally crack a human skull.
-Posterior to the Cervical vertebrae, the anatomy of a bucentaur is near identical to that of Terran bovids from which they derive their genome from. Anterior to Cervical vertebrae closely resembles the upper torso of Homo sapiens.
-Unlike bovines, bucentaur digits 2 and 5 of their hooves are not vestigial, they are used in infancy to cling onto their parent's back.
-Hippocentaur Eucervical vertebrae are supported by a series of ligaments that anchor their cervical torso, giving them the ability to keep upright even when asleep.
-Despite her name, Sagita is the only one of the three to lack a sagittal crest.
-Hippocentaurs have continuously growing teeth, they have 12 incisors and females lack canines.
-Hippocentaurs have a crop below their cervical ribcage, allowing them to store food before passing them to the stomach. Once the food passes onto the stomach, it's near impossible for the hippocentaur to regurgitate them back.
-Unlike the holocene equines from which the hippocentaur derives their genome from, they possess well developed digits 2 and 4 on their hoofed legs.
-Caprifauns are closest in anatomy to humans, their genome and body structure little modified from Earth tetrapods. They are not modified to grow a cervical torso like the centaurs.
-Faun skulls are very similar to bucentaur skulls, they share a sagittal crest to anchor powerful jaw muscles, and sinus cavities surrounding the brain for protection.
-Faun ribs make way for their 4 chambered stomach. Their ruminant stomach complexes are tilted 90 degrees forward to function better on an upright organism.
-Faun pelvis are longer than that of humans while still maintaining the functionality of bipedal locomotion. Fauns have relatively lower birth mortality rate than humans thanks to this modified hybrid pelvic structure.
-The sacrum of fauns are short relative to their lengthy pelvis. This affects their gluteal muscles which are higher up than that of humans.
Hope this explains the anatomy of these creatures better.
Drawn by yours truly, Yujin0623 with characters by the same guy.
Related content
Comments: 45
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
I would imagine there is significant work of ligaments helping to balance and distribute weight of excess half-body on the neck. while this would limit agility it's likely the best as passive forces would be significantly more efficient than putting additional load of muscles which, aren't really giving creature much benefit, as such muscles would still be limiting range of possible movements. There is also possible that tauric creatures would benefit from having lesser degree of reduction in the shoulder girdle, or maybe even having more developed bones there, similar to how pelvis works, as it was developed this way because of distribution of movement strain, and centaurs would have similar conditions applied to the middle limbs as well.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I was going by volume of how much space a large ungulate skull occupies and a similar sized human torso-ish thing (sans heart and digestive organs that would add extra weight) would have similar weight in comparison to each other, and by how much the skull of a centaur would be somewhat smaller than that of a similar proportioned ungulate would weigh less, I would imagine the neck structure and ligaments could support the weight of a round humanoid head, small ribcage containing nothing but lungs, and humanoid arms.
A single word you used there is not a word I'd personally use. "Tauric" to describe hexapeds that walk on the hind 4 limbs? No. I do not agree with using terms that mean bull to use in context to refer to a creature with general structure close to that of a mantid.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
term "taur" to describe all sorts of centaurs, deertaurs and alike is habit i caught from tabletop RPG (definitely used as such in D&D monster manual), so' I'd believe it's not exactly correct from scientific point of view... but so is entire existence of centaurs. Also believe me lifting horse head is much easier than human body, not only because shape makes it easier to carry, but as I've never got chance to carry whole horse or bovine neck along nor human without legs it's not really applicable comparison. Yet still, with the angle and presumed mobility you can't exactly apply the distribution of weight from ligamentum nuchae to the secondary torax. I'd assume the large abdominal region wouldn't be nothingness, but if it was containing either ventriculus or omasum and reticulum, depending on specifics of digestive track applied it should be presumed lighter than just filled with muscle. If you'd assumed that entirety would be filled with lungs than sense of having partial rib cage with half of lungs going beyond it would cause this large part to be significantly less efficiently ventilated, therefore wasteful. (could be solved by adding some half-ribs for attaching respiratory muscles properly)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Sill irks me that people essentially just use a word that means bull/cattle as a suffix for creatures most of the time have little to do with bulls, even if they are part bull calling those, "bull taurs" is redundant, "bull centaurs"/"bucentaurs" on the other hand indicates that they are of similar body structure to centaurs but of different creature (That of a bull, rather than a horse).
I understand that's how language goes sometimes with terms that technically don't make sense slowly becoming the norm and making sense, though they end up becoming terms that when you think about it for long it starts to not make much sense.
This illustration displays my current idea for the anatomy of hippocentaurs. Their cervical ribcage is filled with airsacs and the space inbetween the cervical and thoracic ribages is merely a neck for things to pass through such as materials, ligaments to support the weight of the head and torso, and the neck muscles. I'm going by the assumption here that the weight of all that combined isn't significant'y different from an animal's head and neck combined.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
oh, "crop" is the word...
Well, looks like you had the same idea of digestive track distribution as first one I mentioned. Now that I look at it, lungs are likely too small. Airsacs can't exactly work without something to compress them so to use them properly centaur would need to constantly keep bowing down and raising high forward middle legs for anterior ones, and then curling their torso to take advantage of posterior ones, much more than would make any sense during locomotion, maybe partially usable during jumps and galloping, but not exactly placed correctly to make them work efficiently... but interesting proposition regardless.
What I said about connection still stands. Upper thorax/lumbar lack proper processus spinosus for solid ligament attachment, as you can see how they look in the lower thorax. (if you ever had look at actual bone, they even have bit broader part right at the top, just to make the connection more solid)
Btw, it still irks me that my pathfinder DM decided that drider does not qualify for "natural jouster feat [req: centaur or other tauric creature]
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yes, crop is the word for a pouch in the oesophagus that holds food before the stomach. I don't know why you mention that.
Oh yeah I forgot to draw the eucervical vertebrae in detail as to show them being able to function in being a crane-like support for the neck and ligaments. I forgot the round cylindrical disk shaped vertebrae were just a simple placeholder for the actual designs, but the marshmallow vertebrae are easier to remember.
Thanks for that reminder going forward I'll have the vertebrae looking proper and not just proxies.
I would assume creatures with a humanoid elf torso mounted on a faceless giant spider would work differently from vertebrate based hexapeds. Since based on anatomy of spiders, the legs of a drider would be sprawling. Though I can imagine them running with a lance and piercing things in front with significant force in speed, their legs would take up a lot of horizontal space and thus wouldn't be able to do an effective passerby joust.
A Youtuber named Shad on Shadiversity pointed out that a centaur may not be the best in jousting since in human jousting, the rider is able to absorb the force of the impact of the joust thanks to being separate from the mount animal. If the lance were to land on a big and heavy target and the upper torso is forced back, that may put significant strain on the back of the 'natural jouster'.
In that sense I would imagine Naga, Merfolk and the like to be way better at jousting with a lance than mounter/mounted hybrid creatures. Much like how snakes and fish can attack by heading their mouth towards a target, but laurasiathere based creatures wouldn't. Imagine a horse with arms on their neck, running with their neck upright and trying to joust an elephant with a lance. Could probably break their neck.
Another peeve of mine is the fact that people use the word drider to call any spider creature with a humanoid torso mounted on the face area of the spider. When it's clearly referring to half-drow(dark elf)/half-spider creatures. Calling something that isn't a dark elf spider a drider seems odd. I'd prefer the other common term Arachne to refer to any half-humanoid/half-arachnoid creature, alternatively refer to such creatures as "Aranian" (meaning 'spider-ish')
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
I mentioned it simply because that's a word I didn't know... but with this explanation I'm surprised, I expected more something that is part of ruminants anatomy rather than borrowing from birds... so you think that centaurs would be more bird related creature? Maybe we could assume they are related to gryphons and/or pegasi...
I mentioned that human torso probably should have different vertebrae plainly because horse half did have them presented with enough accuracy to assume the shape of vertebrae drawn was intentional.
Also, for D&D there exist race of aranea, who unlike driders are actual race and can reproduce. They make material for best cloth possible. And while that's true that actually jousting would be detrimental for centaurs and alike, but, there is feat in the rules, image is ridiculous... so I tried.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Currently this project isn't about how these creatures would've feasibly evolved and such. I gave up on that idea in the initial stages when I thought about how multiple creatures related to one another in a branching fashion would not look like this. As much as what some people may expect from naturally evolved creatures, a crocoduck and a duckman would poke holes in the idea of common ancestry of the existence of regular ducks, crocodiles, and humans were a thing as well.
So these creatures here are meant to be engineered by a curious extraterrestrial entity named 'Entity Metheus' shortened to 'E.M.' that used the data gathered by humanity to that point and logical guesswork to reconstruct extinct organisms as well as engineer fantasy creatures with anatomy made possible as well. E.M. has "EMgineered" these creature with genomes of existing creatures as well as making genes and protein sequences from scratch to perform desired functions.
These creatures are meant to resemble the creatures of mythos from bygone age of Earth and made to be able to function in an ecosystem and society that resembles but aren't the same as olden day societies of humans.
Whether you consider these part-human/part-other-things creatures as "human" or "beast" is up to you and the creatures in-universe that inhabit these artificial ecosystems.
You can't really call a literal human/horse/ostrich hybrid creature as being more closely related to any of them like you'd do with cladistics and taxonomy based on evolutionary biology as these creatures have been engineered from scratch with Eucaryotes as a base model.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
But organs are innately related to ways and reasons they developed. If there was no prior influences for something, or at least leaving changes cost-neutral... Even if they were created, they would soon lose against different, better optimized creatures - that's why I was mentioning how wasteful the unusable airsacks were. Unless god just enjoyed making them struggle, which, fair, we all had at least once drown our sim. Because even with strongly adjusted environments they would need constant adjustment to just keep them more beneficial to those chosen lifeforms than to everything else. So while lesser gravitational pull on the planet would be one of vital baselines, but maybe also higher air density if you want to spare yourself constant effort of removing trees, since neither horse nor cows body is meant to survive in forest... but that would mean you need to keep some control over locations where winds are allowed to be free form fragile lifeforms, as such winds would be quite lethal force. Or maybe just have god wander around and keep trimming forests constantly, or maybe just turn main bulk of the planet into dry steppes? But if any other creatures are meant to live there steppes are one of least suitable environments for such kind of thing.
Basically if you are not hand-waving everything with "magic" but go into possible anatomy you should also show some consideration towards how such creatures would actually work. Well... i mean I was kind of attempting to set working angel anatomy and conditions for angels to exist when I was like 13, before promptly realizing that humanoid body is simply not designed to fly, and adjusting them into something functional would make them no longer "angels". And that was even before I realized just how important a moon or lack of thereof and star type is.
also, if screwing with biology, why not go all the way and go silicate - chlorine lifeforms instead of carbon - oxygen which seems to be staple simply because this is what we are.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You lost me at the part about removing trees. I wonder where trees came into the picture.
Good advice when it comes to planning out how creatures like this may function on the last part. Though I think it's way more difficult to say they naturally evolved than just engineered.
Yes, once you get cereal about making a human with wings and nothing else that can fly vertically, angels do fall apart. I had the idea of angels being large blubbery creatures for insulation in the cold at high altitudes as well as streamlining them. I do think the principle of angels once you get into the nitty-gritty of it is that they don't boil down into being winged humans and nothing else. They boil down more into being 'agents of a higher being that can conceal and reveal themselves at will to those whom they watch over'.
That reminds me that I planned for there to be mechanical lifeforms and lifeforms with unorthodox biology as well. But don't expect anything too natural looking.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
The trees came into play when environment suitable for movement of horse part did. It's true that centaurs make little sense so it's hard to imagine them being product of anything but purposeful creation and continued care, but trying to create a race to function as anything little more autonomous than glorified pets I would consider reducing biological and environmental obstacles.
You know, This weird lung space looks like it could lead them to the fate similar to the pugs - which either receive corrective operation of the nostrils and palate or are destined to half-suffocate at any attempt of running - so I started this discussion over concerns about survival... and now I'm at point of considering God keeping just bunch of weird custom made pets. (are WE the pets?)
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I always imagined Arachne anatomy being mantis-like with the humanoid half being analogous to a mantid's prothorax while the spider cephalothorax is analogous the mantid's Mesothorax and Metathorax. The humanoid's arms are analogous to both a spider's pedipalps and a mantis's raptorial legs.
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
I see. Do you imagine they are anatomically shaped like a mantis as well, or still spidery?
Another thing to factor in is how much of the creature is covered by an exoskeleton and/or an endoskeleton.
Imagine a human with a fleshy spider shaped torso and legs fully made of mammalian flesh and bones, or vice versa.
There's also the matter of scale for these creatures to either be big enough that the 'human parts' are scaled to average humans, or they are spider sized in which case, save for the larger spider species, they would be minuscule creatures.
Being scaled to humans would mean that the 'spider body' would need significant amount of adaptations to this megafauna scale. Probably attaining shorter column-like legs and a more upright stance, probably losing their electrostatic clinging abilities due to their mass. There are lots of problems with assuming scaling up things result in them having the same properties at a different scale.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Alternatively Arachne anatomy consists of a human rib cage connected to a testudine neck and carapace, the latter linking with a spider sternum to form the lower thorax which spider legs and opisthosoma attach to.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Quite similar to an idea I had myself. Somewhat like a testudine neck.
The weird necked spiders I called Opthorax are part of that idea.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Though my Arachne concept differ from your Opthorax in that all of their eyes (about six) as well as their single mouth are on their head rather than on the lower thorax. Opthorax as they are now seem like Assassin spiders that have mutated, resulting in having a second mouth and pair of pedipalps.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I'd imagine the one who came up with designs of the realised mythical creatures in universe (E.M. itself) would have accounted for the fact that they need extra support for the necks to support a long torso and arms.
These creatures would have been subject to environmental selection within their simulated ecosystems once they were bioengineered and released into their environment.
My internal reasoning for their cervical vertebrae being able to support the weight of their arms and still being able to maintain flexibility and length was that their head would weight less than the head of an ungulate which is usually longer and larger to house teeth for chewing, and that reduced the weight enough to account for the fact they have to be able to support the weight of arms.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
아뇨. 단지 어릴때부터 동물에대해 관심이 많다보니 이런것에대해 종종 알아보곤 합니다.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Have you ever considered basing Sagita's lower body on a Przewalski's horse? They have a stockier build in comparison to domesticated horses at 122–142 cm in height, 210 cm in length and 300 kilograms in weight.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Sagi's quite a bit smaller than that at 120cm tall and 245kg.
Her ethnic group of hippocentaurs are based on mixed domestic horse breeds, with the general shape based on thoroughbreds.
But who's to say she wasn't bred or engineered with Takhi traits somewhere?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I meant height at the withers of the lower body, sorry if I wasn't clear.
The reason I was wondering was because I prefer its proportions for a centaur as thoroughbreds tend to be about 160cm which is about when you start to run into the proportion issue in relation to the 'human' half as pointed out by this user: jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/1257…
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
That's why in proportion, Thoroughbred sized hippocentaurs tend to have larger "human parts" in proportion to your average human.
Sagita is smaller and has smaller face and hands in comparison to the average human.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Fair enough, admittedly I also imagine centaurs' front legs being the front limbs of chalicotherium with the feet of eohippus to make the lower body semi-upright to help with center of gravity and put less stress on the spinal cord.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Which is also why I went the neck route.
Since the anatomy of the neck there in terms of posture and support can be somewhat likened to camels and how they hold weight through their necks.
Instead of doing the whole thing of literally sticking human lumbar vertebrae to the thorax of a horse. Where the spine would be abruptly turned upwards by 90 degrees.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I had thought about that though I like the idea of five Eucervical vertebrae since seven makes the human half oddly long compared to a human torso.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I plan for her to have 6 actually.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I counted seven vertebrae on both centaurs but okay.
That said, Moreta573 is right about the organ placement being less than ideal. To quote Dr. Ferox:
"A horse body is built for running. They’ve got big lungs. You can’t power a 400kg horse body with lungs from a 70kg human. Such a creature could not be athletic, which is something of a defining feature of centaurs as a whole. Therefore, I would conclude that a centaur must have at least some lungs in the horse segment."
The more feasible organ plan is large horse lungs and heart in the lower body while the upper body has smaller pseudo-lungs with diaphragm.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Which is why the heart and lungs are in the thoracic/lower torso.
So by organ placement being less than ideal do you mean the lungs are too small?
I've referenced avian lungs and how they are between anterior and posterior airsacs with the air flowing in a single direction of (Posterior airsacs -> through the lungs -> Anterior airsacs)
Not sure what alterations to the anatomy would need to exist in order for the lungs and airsacs to work in tandem to direct airflow. The ribcage might expand and contract in a back and forth motion in order to fill and empty each pair of airsacs in tandem.
Unless you mean the traditional idea of centaur anatomy being a human with their legs being horse legs and the extended torso as just being an extention of the gut/butt. In which case, I've tried to deviate from that in favour of what I've seen less of in media.
Your point being?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Okay, the image you showed them initially looked like she only has lungs in the human half. Still not sure why you chose to make the lungs aves rather than fully equine though.
That traditional idea is why I mentioned the thing about horse lungs from this study: Centaur Biology
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
What did you think I filled in the thorax with? Glue? Of course I wouldn't miss the opportunity to put lungs and even extra airsacs while I'm at it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I thought it was only airsacs in the lower body with no actual lungs given Moreta's statement about airsacs not working without something to compress them.
I feel like proper horse lungs in the lower body would be more efficient while air sacs in the upper body would help with breath control so they can talk while walking.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Valid concern on your part.
Which is also why I'm hesitant to call the cervical air chambers housed within the cervical ribs as "lungs" since something like this situation where people who care about anatomy see only that and go "Not very logical when you only have tiny lungs for a massive creature" which is a valid point if they haven't missed out on the huge ass lungs and airsacs lower down that take up most of the actual thoracic chest cavity.
I can revisit the validity of making a creature with a thoracic ribcage structurally similar to that of ungulates and the use of placing unidirectional airflow lungs later down the line. Currently it's a proof of concept that these creatures are at least in concept designed without unforseen flaws such as the lack of sufficient space for a windpipe. etc
I'm a bit frustrated by the fact that you seem to have misinterpret my intent in designing these creature's anatomy in that you seemed to have not noticed the presence of the huge ass lungs down there. Ya get what I mean?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
That's fair, sorry about that.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah boi the calcium gang be coming your way to bring you strong bones.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1