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ElectricCircuit
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In the vast forests that are present throughout Tardigradus, the Amazon is still the largest. The forests of the southern continent are more dominated by their native fauna than the plains, though unfortunately Northern carnivores are also prevalent in these forests, though mainly in the form of rodent like ramfastomids and slugcats. The creatures that live in these forests combine unusual appearances with unusual lifestyles. It is therefore necessary to look into the way these creatures make their living.
Rustling in the trees are a sign of unusual creatures making their presence heard. They swing in a way reminiscent of gibbons, using their branchiating arms to pick fruit from the trees, and with a strange mouthpart coming out to aid their feeding. These are the quasignavids, who flourish in these forests. While some species are more sloth like and gently shuffle around for leaves and fruit, these creatures are fast, agile and very manouverable, using numbers to make themselves protected. This species is the squawker, named because it makes a parrot like noise when it communicates with others. It is brightly coloured, with different shades of green, blue and yellow covering its body. The males have a large pouch on their necks that they use to elevate their noises like a howler monkey. Just like the monkey’s they are very loud creatures. their 4 main limbs are gibbon like and incredibly adapted for swinging, while the tail acts as an ‘8th’ limb. The mating arms are still present, though they are noticeably larger than in other groups, and the feeding hand is long and similar in size to the swinging arms, used to pick its food from the treetops. Squawkers are social animals, living together in a community dominated by age, with the oldest individuals holding the most authority due to a sense of experience within them. There are multiple other species of quasignavid in these rainforests. One group are the sloth like lazers, which sit around all day eating leaves and little else. Another species of note is the sloth-spider. This is not as you would expect a predatory spider-face, but is an unusual predatory quasignavid, the only one of its kind in South America. It is in fact more closely related to the lineage from Australia than it is to the other south American quasignavids. It’s jaws hold an internal pair like a moray eel, and this is what its head somewhat resembles. In terms of lifestyle though, it is very different.It’s tail has adapted to produce a silky substance like spiders webs. It swings between trees, spinning a gigantic network that it uses to catch flying pseudarthropods, and even an unlucky pteropsiod if its lucky. In this species, all of its limbs are used practically. The mating arms are in this case used as additional locomotion limbs, similar to the main pair. The feeding limb is equipped with talons and somewhat resembles an eagle’s foot. This nightmarish creature sounds like something from the alien movie, but this is an altogether normal part of the south American jungles.
On the ground, a small ungulogid makes its way through the woods, resembling a small deer. It’s legs have thickened to more effectively push through undergrowth, and its appendages are used to forage through leaf litter as well as the normal mouthparts. It senses itself being ambushed, and begins to move. A familiar predator makes its move. This bitedown rushes at its prey with great speed, tackling it and smashing its head between its jaw plates (highly derived appendages that fused to form jaw like structures, with the remaining appendages being like whiskers/smell organs like a snake’s tongue. The beast easily devours the little deer, using its plates to tear of large chunks of flesh. The inner mouth is larger to swallow these chunks whole, allowing it to quickly devour its meals. Bitedowns spend most of their lives in this forest, being the main predator. Like a tiger, they are fit both on land and in the water, meaning they will go after aquatic prey as well as their normal targets. The turtle like ramfastomids form an excellent prey item to feed on as well. a favourite prey item of this top predator are the tapir like ramfastomid known as the shuffler.
Shufflers are a ramfastomid group that has a terrestrial niche and roams throughout these forests. Their population is quite abundant, much more so than the ungulogids that dominate elsewhere. The average shuffler (both genders are about the same size) stand about 1.3m tall at the shoulder, about 2m in length, and weigh in the region of 400-500kg. Their beaks are quite blunt and used to forage through leaf litter in search of fallen fruit and spores. In these forests, plants are not the only things that make up the undergrowth here. You see, the underwater forests of tardigrades that thrive as coral equivalents made their own move onto land at some unknown point, becoming the terrabrachids. They are often somewhat similar to fungi in ways, though significantly more variant. Their hard structures allow them to grow quite large, up to 15m tall in some species, being mainly red. They thrive in the tropical forests of South America, Africa, Indonesia and many islands too. Some species even predate on smaller pteropsoids and pseudarthropods, resembling venus fly traps, pitcher plants and others. They reproduce by spraying out spores into the surrounding environment. These first become floating little animals, before they root in the ground and become the tree like creatures we see. The shufflers love the diet of the terrabrachid spores, as they are quite nutritious. Their lifestyle though does not make them vulnerable, as their beaks are powerful , used in a similar way to protoceratops, as a good weapon for defense. The appendages also work like flexible tusks, further elevating its defense. Thus, even for a bitedown, it can be quite a dangerous game to attack. Fortunately, this creatures advantage is in its mouth. It runs towards an unaware shuffler, distracted after eating a hallucinogenic plant. The beast knocks it down with its power, sinking its powerful jaws around its neck, and biting down with over 1500lb per square inch, easily breaking the animal’s neck. For this beast, the hunt is not quite so hard, as its power makes it into a nigh-unstoppable killer, resembling a giant thylacoleo. The remaining shufflers managed to make their way away from this beast, towards the somewhat unsettling company of a duckface, being a much larger herbivore, is untouchable by predators. The animal somewhat reminds us of the hippo population introduced into the Amazon in OTL, though these animals are entirely native in contrast. Although they are different species, they are not far off from one another genetically, only separated by about 35 million years. The bitedown is not the only predator here though.
As a clumsy quasignavid accidentally falls from the trees, it falls in the paths of its much larger relatives, the magnids.These are even larger than the tearers, being unique to the Amazon in filing the niche of both a forest elephant and a giraffe.An adult female magnid stands over 6m in height and weighs as much as 9 tonnes, using its bulk to push foliage out of its way, even toppling smaller trees in order to get to its favourite food source. The male is a considerably smaller creature, being slightly smaller than the tearer, but is relatively more elongated than the female, so it still reaches about 5m above the ground. These creatures are too big to be threatened, at least for now. The smaller one rushes away from the feeding giants, only to be chased by a hungry mob of kleptomaniacs, each about 2m in length and with tarantula like heads. The creatures are good as distance runners, as their ectothermic metabolism allows them to go long periods of time without food fortunately, as well as go long distances in hot environments. The quasignavid meets its fate from above once again, as a hungry elasmognathid makes short work of it. the kleptomaniacs however, are only a bit smaller than this creature, and more importantly, they have sheer numbers on their side. This species functions more effectively in aquatic conditions, and does not defend itself well against the kleptos, who mob it to death. They more than make up for the lost quasignavid with this meal. Plenty of small pseudarthropods swarm like flies around the corpse even after the kleptos have left.
Meanwhile, in the thicker parts of the jungle, a mysterious creature lurks. Even the quasignavids in the trees do not see the creature very often, and it lives its life in the undergrowth, searching for prey. It is a member of an ancient lineage that has managed to survive alone in this thick habitat. The centaur is the last of its kind. With more developed forelimbs than the screecher of the plains, to which it is somewhat related (only in the same way a culogo is to an actual shrew), it is a unique animal. It’s head resembles that of the oceanic gasbags, or an anteater. It is long and jawless, and it feeds on the unusual bugs that make their home in the bark. It uses its large arms to tear through nests and get into these creatures, sucking them up with a long tongue. In order to escape other creatures, it has an elegant, deer like body to escape the other animals of the region. This is almost the equivalent of Earth’s tuatara in terms of its evolutionary importance. The animal stands about 1.5m tall and weighs about 70kg overall, with an almost surreal appearance. It has a mane like sail on its neck that it uses for signalling to others of its kind. This animal probably has a population within the tens of thousands, so this is not a common animal to begin with. If the forests were to change rapidly, then this creature would probably not survive. However, ther
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Deerrrrrpppyyyyyy!!!!!
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hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
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Dance tomorrroowwww
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Hi, thanks so much that you put my Art to your Fav Gallery
And a happy new year
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for the fav on my
If you have a sec can you vote on my poll on my DA homepage. Thanks again.
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I really appreciate your fav and lovedragons too, loveto draw them and love to see them love to read about these mystical mythical creatures
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Thank you for fave and for your opinion from journal above ^
xD!
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Thanks for adding my stuffs to your collection :3
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No problem it looked cool and is amaze
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Yeah but I'm afraid of them now.
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(I know I scared the Frick out of myself drawing this. I couldn't look at it because I got too scared. But I am guessing you know who this character is?
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The one who is glitching.
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