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Description
Hello there. I decided to make a compilation of the creatures I have submitted for Atlantis Phase II, a speculative evolution contest focused on an hypothetical island in the middle of the north Atlantic ocean, in the late Miocene, and a continuation of Phase I, which was set in the same hypothetical island, in the Paleocene. This phase of Atlantis was a tough one for me to participate, as I was creatively drained and unusually busy during the submission period, even though I had a lot of ideas, but poor patience to execute them. As a result the creatures I submitted fulfilled the bare minimum of what I wanted to do for this phase, though unfortunetly resulted in superficially bland creatures that sadly didn't stand out quite enough, while attempting to make them realistic, both to the paleontological and evolutionary evidence known about the time period chosen for this phase, and to the pre-estabilished canon of the phase that preceeded it. Although none of these ended up getting canonized into the project, I felt it was still worth making a compilation of these works so that I could go through them and explain what I had in mind for them.

1. Conuroides mckayi (the little parrot perching in the branch) fulfils the desire to make at least one animal that was a descendant of the new arrivals to the island. While Phase I estabilished solid endemic creatures that would later evolve in isolation in Atlantis into Phase II, new animals eventually arrived to the island after Phase I, in the chronology of the project, one of them being the parrots. I chose to make a parrot, over making a descendant of a pre-estabilished type of Atlantean bird, because parrots, in speculative evolution, are quite often oversaturated with trendy, yet questionable designs, in regards to accuracy, namely in the form of flightless and/or carnivorous (including properly raptorial) parrots, with the latter creative decisions probably coming from the subconscious assocation with a hooked beak with that of a predominantly carnivorous diet (which doesn't have to correlate with birds all the time). Even though parrots can indeed achieve flightlessness and carnivory at an extent, with real life examples known, it is an exception to the rule, and given my creations tend to not follow the most creative and flamboyant pathways in favour of more grounded and realistic takes, I decided to make my parrot far more banal and more respectful of what should be expected for a parrot in Atlantis, given the setting and the place/time of origin for this project. Parrots are said to come from North America to Atlantis before the late Miocene. Paleontological data shows that parrots reach North America in the Miocene, and that they're most probably part of the modern neotropical parrot group, with no record of any other parrot lineage having reached the Americas at any other point. It is possible psittacids first evolved in the Americas, with psittacines later migrating from South America to Africa, with arines (the neotropical parrots) remaining in the place of origin of their ancestry, but they could just as well have originated in Africa, with arines being the ones that have a geographically displaced origin. Given that, I used this taxonomical and paleontological connection as a basework to construct my parrot. Its green coloration, although it may come to the detriment of not making it visually unique, is grounded in how the green color is the most predominant color in parrots, specially in neotropical ones, and that's why this is kept, over applying a distinct color scheme (which would still be plausible anyway). It remaning a seed eater was also a thing that I wanted to maintain specifically as that's just the huge norm for parrots, with other dietary preferences being exceptions to the rule, as parrots are predominantly adapted for fruits and seeds.

2. Atlamiopristis sp. (the two large sawskates in the picture) fulfil the idea of making descendants of pre-estabilished canonical creatures introduced in Phase I. I personally wanted to avoid making descendants of creations that I made in Phase I that made it in and canonically left descendants after Phase II, as I feel it would be giving too much protagonism and control over my previous creations, when I would rather prefer if they went their natural course, according to whatever other people wanted to do with them. As a result, I had to choose to make descendants out of other creatures that were submitted in Phase I. Because I did the bare minimum of what I wanted to do, I really only had the opportunity to make one submission for that. In this case, though I added two species in the same submission, but because they're both essentially the same, apart from size variations, its really mostly trivial. I chose sawskates because, again, I really didn't have much patience to go with something more flashy and more unique, and because sawskates don't show much evolutionary innovation in the fossil record, it felt like a pretty safe bet. For the sawskates, I tried to preserve the basic bauplan of the original submission for Phase I, and I wanted to procure a way to make their survival into Phase II believable, while also explaining why they haven't expanded outside of Atlantis, being aquatic animals. Because of that, I decided to make these sawskates freshwater-dwellers, so that they wouldn't expand outside of the island into the sea (though sawskates being largely shallow water dwellers, I believe, could probably do fine with endemism while still staying in the surrounding ocean water). In terms of morphological features that stand out as new, I added a dual row of spikes over its back at the last minute, however.

So yeah... this was all I could make for Phase II. I am happy to have been able to participate and I am glad that projects like these are made that allow the spec evo loving community to contribute with their own wild creations, and permit a sharing of thoughts and ideas, and promote dialogue and discourse, overall. Sadly there were a lot of ideas that I had in mind that I just really didn't have patience to develop, like making mesonychids, bats, pantodonts, etc. Maybe some of these may get reappropriated for Phase III, if not, something else entirely (probably the latter). One thing is for sure, I am committed to at least double my submission count for the next phase, so to compensate for this low performance. Can't wait to get my hands worked on for Atlantis again.

#atlantisbestiary2

Description
Hello there. I decided to make a compilation of the creatures I have submitted for Atlantis Phase II, a speculative evolution contest focused on an hypothetical island in the middle of the north Atlantic ocean, in the late Miocene, and a continuation of Phase I, which was set in the same hypothetical island, in the Paleocene. This phase of Atlantis was a tough one for me to participate, as I was creatively drained and unusually busy during the submission period, even though I had a lot of ideas, but poor patience to execute them. As a result the creatures I submitted fulfilled the bare minimum of what I wanted to do for this phase, though unfortunetly resulted in superficially bland creatures that sadly didn't stand out quite enough, while attempting to make them realistic, both to the paleontological and evolutionary evidence known about the time period chosen for this phase, and to the pre-estabilished canon of the phase that preceeded it. Although none of these ended up getting canonized into the project, I felt it was still worth making a compilation of these works so that I could go through them and explain what I had in mind for them.

1. Conuroides mckayi (the little parrot perching in the branch) fulfils the desire to make at least one animal that was a descendant of the new arrivals to the island. While Phase I estabilished solid endemic creatures that would later evolve in isolation in Atlantis into Phase II, new animals eventually arrived to the island after Phase I, in the chronology of the project, one of them being the parrots. I chose to make a parrot, over making a descendant of a pre-estabilished type of Atlantean bird, because parrots, in speculative evolution, are quite often oversaturated with trendy, yet questionable designs, in regards to accuracy, namely in the form of flightless and/or carnivorous (including properly raptorial) parrots, with the latter creative decisions probably coming from the subconscious assocation with a hooked beak with that of a predominantly carnivorous diet (which doesn't have to correlate with birds all the time). Even though parrots can indeed achieve flightlessness and carnivory at an extent, with real life examples known, it is an exception to the rule, and given my creations tend to not follow the most creative and flamboyant pathways in favour of more grounded and realistic takes, I decided to make my parrot far more banal and more respectful of what should be expected for a parrot in Atlantis, given the setting and the place/time of origin for this project. Parrots are said to come from North America to Atlantis before the late Miocene. Paleontological data shows that parrots reach North America in the Miocene, and that they're most probably part of the modern neotropical parrot group, with no record of any other parrot lineage having reached the Americas at any other point. It is possible psittacids first evolved in the Americas, with psittacines later migrating from South America to Africa, with arines (the neotropical parrots) remaining in the place of origin of their ancestry, but they could just as well have originated in Africa, with arines being the ones that have a geographically displaced origin. Given that, I used this taxonomical and paleontological connection as a basework to construct my parrot. Its green coloration, although it may come to the detriment of not making it visually unique, is grounded in how the green color is the most predominant color in parrots, specially in neotropical ones, and that's why this is kept, over applying a distinct color scheme (which would still be plausible anyway). It remaning a seed eater was also a thing that I wanted to maintain specifically as that's just the huge norm for parrots, with other dietary preferences being exceptions to the rule, as parrots are predominantly adapted for fruits and seeds.

2. Atlamiopristis sp. (the two large sawskates in the picture) fulfil the idea of making descendants of pre-estabilished canonical creatures introduced in Phase I. I personally wanted to avoid making descendants of creations that I made in Phase I that made it in and canonically left descendants after Phase II, as I feel it would be giving too much protagonism and control over my previous creations, when I would rather prefer if they went their natural course, according to whatever other people wanted to do with them. As a result, I had to choose to make descendants out of other creatures that were submitted in Phase I. Because I did the bare minimum of what I wanted to do, I really only had the opportunity to make one submission for that. In this case, though I added two species in the same submission, but because they're both essentially the same, apart from size variations, its really mostly trivial. I chose sawskates because, again, I really didn't have much patience to go with something more flashy and more unique, and because sawskates don't show much evolutionary innovation in the fossil record, it felt like a pretty safe bet. For the sawskates, I tried to preserve the basic bauplan of the original submission for Phase I, and I wanted to procure a way to make their survival into Phase II believable, while also explaining why they haven't expanded outside of Atlantis, being aquatic animals. Because of that, I decided to make these sawskates freshwater-dwellers, so that they wouldn't expand outside of the island into the sea (though sawskates being largely shallow water dwellers, I believe, could probably do fine with endemism while still staying in the surrounding ocean water). In terms of morphological features that stand out as new, I added a dual row of spikes over its back at the last minute, however.

So yeah... this was all I could make for Phase II. I am happy to have been able to participate and I am glad that projects like these are made that allow the spec evo loving community to contribute with their own wild creations, and permit a sharing of thoughts and ideas, and promote dialogue and discourse, overall. Sadly there were a lot of ideas that I had in mind that I just really didn't have patience to develop, like making mesonychids, bats, pantodonts, etc. Maybe some of these may get reappropriated for Phase III, if not, something else entirely (probably the latter). One thing is for sure, I am committed to at least double my submission count for the next phase, so to compensate for this low performance. Can't wait to get my hands worked on for Atlantis again.

#atlantisbestiary2