In a way, the fact that a lot of the canaries take on dinosaur-like forms such as the pesudornithopods, the tyrant serins and the boomsingers, given that modern birds are the last surviving dinosaurs. Serina is a world where the dinosaurs were essentially given a second chance: a world where they could return to their former majesty and glory.
Fork-tailed babbling jays, Serina's first sapient species, greatly care for each other and continue to bond with their close relatives, family and friends even in adulthood, and are known to care for even the sick, elderly and injured of their own kind, with them mourning and grieving their dead even though (or even moreso) they lack any concept of an afterlife. It's also cute to read about fledglings and even adults playing keep-away and king-of-the-roost, and making toys out of objects in their environment (such sticking feathers into a woven clump of grass to make a pretend cricket).
Squorks, a type of squid-bird, are described as having very close familial bonds with the pairs mating for life and raising their chick together. It also comes with an adorable description of the parents lulling off a rowdy youngster by cradling them in their facial tentacles until the baby finally stops squirming around and falls asleep.
Serina has its fair share of adorable critters alongside the weird, wonderful or scary. Notable examples include the snuffles, who resemble a cross between a kiwi and a platypus, or the hoppers, big-eared tribbets resembling a cross of a bunny or guinea pig and a frog.
A subverted case with the carnivorous circuagodont adopting a young from a herbivore species: while it may sound adorable at first glance and give off a Raised by Wolves vibe, it hardly ever ends well for the herbivorous youngster. Even if it's accepted by the carnivores's pack, it certainly isn't by other packs, and growing up among predators, it has no fear of the carnivores and approaches them willingly...even though other, unfamiliar packs simply see the stranger as a potential meal...
Mammoth trunkos, largest of the neckbeards, care greatly for their own kind, especially the old and weak. In fact, color mutations such as piebalds and albinos are common among their herds, individuals that normally would not survive in the wild but are altruistically tended to by their peers.
The update titled "Little Moments" about a lost baby snow snoot rescued and adopted by a family of mammoth trunkos. Unlike the carnivorous cirguagodont adopting a herbivore, mammoth trunkos adopting the young of other species ends happily for them, as able to communicate and raise them to adulthood, they are accepted into the herds as family, different species or not.
Gravediggers using territorial marker trees to create art and write messages to other Gravediggers as pen pals of sorts. Despite being instinctively hostile should they come face to face with each other and are otherwise a solitary species, they are able to form relationships through this crude "social media" of sorts, and even feel grief should a pen pal cease replying due to death or eviction.
The friendship between Woodcrafters and mammoth trunkos, to the point that the trunkos will seek refuge in Woodcrafter settlements and in turn protect the Woodcrafters from their enemies, earning a spot in Woodcrafter lore as "soul teachers" and spirit animals who serve as role models for their virtues.
For a horrific-looking predator with a mouth comprised of oversized blades, the Sabertooth Circuagodog is surprisingly endearing with its close family bonds and strong empathy with their own kind. Juveniles get first feeding rights at a meal (unlike Earth lions where the adults fight over the good bits and the youngsters have to scavenge on scraps), and even old or injured individuals unable to hunt for themselves are nonetheless cared for by the rest of the pack who shares their food with them.
The entirety of Stronger Together, detailing how the truce between the Antlears and the Gravediggers came to be. An individual young male Woodcrafter in training to be a hunter takes pity on and and adopts an orphaned Gravedigger chick, who bonds with him as his new "parent." He nurtures the chick, who comes to be known as Bridge, despite the revulsion of the rest of his village at the "little monster." As a result of being raised from a young age in a highly social environment, Bridge can speak the Woodcrafter language, lacks the aggression and closed-mindedness typical of his species as an adult, and becomes a valued member of the community for clearing pests such as smeerps out of the Woodcrafters' groves. He even adopts a second Gravedigger orphan and, despite having no offspring of his own, becomes an Honorary Uncle to her eventual chicks. The final illustration on the page really caps it off, with Bridge and a male Woodcrafter, possibly his adoptive father, looking over a painting on a tree stump of the two of them together. One Woodcrafter fawn is playing with a young Lucky while a second tries to add a drawing of its own, a crude scrawl akin to a child's stick figure.
The Tundra Gravedigger develops a symbiotic relationship with a species of carnivorous trunko called the Jackal Carnackle. The two predators cooperate to hunt together and live together, and gradually, their circumstantial teamwork gave rise to a genuine friendship, accompanied by an adorable illustration of a pair of carnackles snuggling with a sleeping gravedigger— giving it its latent desire for companionship that it would refuse from its own kind out of territoriality.
The fact that the Gravediggers were able to maintain a civilization for three million years— longer than all of human history put together. Regardless of their inevitable fate, they are incredibly successful.
The last stormsonor adopting a flock of smaller glideganders, granting her companionship despite her being the Last of Her Kind.
The last of the woodcrafters dies happy amongst the gravediggers she sees as her children, passing on all she knows about their people so that the woodcrafters are not forgotten.
A pet bird kept by the last woodcrafter learns to mimic woodcrafter language. This bird, a descendant of the once-sophont babbling jay, later teaches the new generations woodcrafter phrases: and though the young birds don't understand its meaning, they nonetheless, in a way, keep the voice of the last woodcrafter alive long after her death.
"I love you, Bird."
Following the death of the warmonger matriarch, the various daydreamer groups all unite into a diverse but interconnected people alongside the gravediggers, and all work together to be good stewards of their environment. The tale ends with a larger gravedigger boat being towed by two daydreamers, the darker one implied to be descended from the warmongers, but with the yellow markings that would've had them culled in earlier times as a "bile-bather", showing that the warmongers managed to leave behind their old childkilling ways with the death of their matriarch. The other represents the unity between the fishers and pastoralists by having facial markings roughly in-between both groups.
Brighteye, the only sapient bluetail in a species that is chimp-smart at most, cares greatly for his albino brother Whitecrown, the likes of which are often rejected by the flock or killed at birth. Brighteye himself harbors disdain at the rest of bluetail society for their cruel and violent ways, and is unique among them for his capacity to show compassion and understanding.
Despite being lured away by Brighteye to save Blaze, the mother dire bumblebear finds a thorngrazer who was crushed in the earlier chaos, meaning both she and her cub still get to eat, and without having the bluetails steal from them to boot. Though she was seen as a monster from Blaze's viewpoint, it goes to show that she too is an animal trying her best to survive and provide for her offspring.
Due to the watcher's interference on Serina during the Late Ocean Age, they choose to rapture away Serina's sophonts to a new project rather than have them die with their world.
Fellstar, the alien probe who befriends Eve, the last sapient aukvulture, eventually breaks down after several years and self-terminates. However, it's clear from his dying dialogue that he appreciated her friendship, and in his honor, Eve continues to explore the world, and partake in the joy of new adventure. Eventually, she learns she's not the last of her kind and has a couple of children; even though the reapers are on their way out, they want to make the most of the time they have left.
It's implied that the transplanted gravediggers and daydreamers became the spacefaring civilization which sent Fellstar down to Serina.
The platonic relationships between Bird and Ember, Brighteye and Blaze, and Fellstar and Eve are all shockingly similar despite occurring five million and ten thousand years apart. All involve older females and younger males/enbys, and all end with a tragic death of one of the participants (though in two, the surviving partner moves on and rears a new family of their own).
For a series geared toward the inevitable extinction of all life, Serina remains surprisingly optimistic in the saga of the Ultimocene sophonts: many times, situations arose that could have ended very darkly: stories of war, genocide, racism, and even cannibalism: yet all have resolved in perhaps an unexpectedly wholesome way, showing that despite the hardships, the life they lived and the journey they took was what made everything worthwhile.
After the near constant ecological collapse of the Middle-Ultimocene, the Hothouse age gives life on Serina a new chance to grow and diversify once again. The new updates are more about the surviving clades finding diferent ways to survive and find sucess rather than merely cling to life. Even if the audience already knows that it's only a matter of time before the ice returns, this is a welcome respite. One last golden age before the curtain closes.
The Moonbreasted Pickbird, one of the descendants of the savage chatterravens, become more cooperative and altruistic in the Early Hothouse, to the point of grooming and forming bonds with creatures like sawjaws, trunkos or even potential predators like drakevultures beyond a simple alliance of convenience. They even tend to their injured. Brighteyes's species might not have attained sapience as a whole, but they certainly have come a long way.
Even in an age as competitive as the Hothouse, red with tooth and claw, there are some moents like "Family for a Day", in which a white-tipped brushtrotter makes friends with two baby bloblumps to whom he teaches how to hunt for clams. It even suggest the possibility that they would remember the interaction as adults.
, detailing how the truce between the Antlears and the Gravediggers came to be. An individual young male Woodcrafter in training to be a hunter takes pity on and and adopts an orphaned Gravedigger chick, who bonds with him as his new "parent." He nurtures the chick, who comes to be known as Bridge, despite the revulsion of the rest of his village at the "little monster." As a result of being raised from a young age in a highly social environment, Bridge can speak the Woodcrafter language, lacks the aggression and closed-mindedness typical of his species as an adult, and becomes a valued member of the community for clearing pests such as smeerps out of the Woodcrafters' groves. He even adopts a second Gravedigger orphan and, despite having no offspring of his own, becomes an Honorary Uncle to her eventual chicks. The final illustration on the page really caps it off, with Bridge and a male Woodcrafter, possibly his adoptive father, looking over a painting on a tree stump of the two of them together. One Woodcrafter fawn is playing with a young Lucky while a second tries to add a drawing of its own, a crude scrawl akin to a child's stick figure.