Worldbuilding Ecology

Creatures you've populated your world with, for our collective inspiration, because the last thread on the subject is long gone.

My worlds tend to be comparatively mundane, but more outlandish SF concepts are welcome too, of course!

• Albumelon is, well, a melon, with a distinctly egg-like look to the inside. According to traders, it grows in the tropics, where they only have two seasons, "desert" and "monsoon". At the beginning of the desert season, the melon hatches into a white-feathered wingless bird that wanders about eating and drinking absolutely everything it can find. Then, when the monsoon season comes along, it finds another bird to mate with, and then both stick their heads in the ground and turn into bushes! The bushes send out lateral shoots along the ground that new melons will grow from. Trust a trader to make up a story like that.

edited 10th Jan '11 8:40:32 PM by Noaqiyeum

My world doesn't have any original creatures, so far. It just has familiar animals in unfamiliar roles. For example, the protagonist race has domesticated mammoths as thoroughly as we have domesticated wolves. There are three main breeds: A small one, which is slaughtered for food, a medium-sized one, which is used as a beast of burden, and a mammoth-sized one (ouch), which is, of course, used in warfare.

Ooh, interesting! (...Mimmoths?)

• Miscellany:
  • Expedition

• Nautilotus - a burrowing cephalopod. It finds a convenient place to bury its mantle in the ground, so that its beak barely protrudes from the soil. The eight tentacles form a ring of leaves or petals, and the two long arms curl above it in imitation of local flora. It feeds on small herbivorous birds and rodents that have mistaken it for a genuine flower; their remains attract flies, which serve as a "pollinator" to carry sperm and eggs from squid to squid.

This is one aspect of world building I have mostly neglegted, despite me liking speculative evolution. While my science fiction setting has all sorts of sentient creatures, some very strange, I haven't put much thought into random fauna of different planets. And while the Netherworld from the Zaran comic is populated by all sorts of creatures, they tend to be my takes on various mythological beasts rather than wholly original creatures, so I'm not sure if they count. Nevertheless, I have come up with pretty detailed information to some of those creatures, for example the hydras.

'Hydrae: A hydra is a large reptilian creature with two limbs (prehistoric hydras apparently had small forelimbs but on the present-day ones they have atropied completely) and three heads. Hydras have no eye, relying instead on their sense of smell and heat sensing organs to find their prey. They posess regenerative abilities that allow them to heal grievous wounds (altho stories of hydras regrowing lost heads, while common, are an exagerration), and most species can vomit acidic phlegm to defend themselves or incapacitate prey. There are multiple species of hydrae, having evolved to fill different ecological niches.

• The most well known is the swamp hydra, which appears to be a fairly primitive type, sharing many similarities with fossils of prehistoric hydras. A swamp hydra is a large amphibious reptile with webbed feed and a narrow tail with a large fin, used to propel the animal in water. It can grow up to 6 meters long and weight over a ton. On ground it is very slow and clumsy, having trouble supporting it's weight, but in water it is suprisingly agile. Swamp hydras are occasionally used as warbeasts.
• The dwarf hydra is a species that has evolved from swamp hydras that became isolated in an enviroment unable to support such large animals. Over time, the animals became smaller and smaller. When the isolation eventually ended, the dwarf hydras spread to other areas of the world, and today can be found in most large bodies of fresh water. They are much smaller than swampy hydras, growing usually only just over one meter long. They are also far more docile and are kept as exotic pets in some areas.
• The oceanic hydra is the largest living species of hydrae, growing up to 12 meters long. As the name implies, it lives exclusively in oceans and never goes to shore, even giving birth to live young instead of laying eggs. It looks rather similar to swamp hydras, exept it's feet have evolved into flippers, and it's necks are proportionally longer and heads smaller. Instead of having large teeth designed for tearing apart large prey, it's mouths are filled with needle-like fangs that are used to spear fish. Unlike other hydras, the oceanic hydra lacks the ability to spit acidic slime, as such ability is of little use in the ocean.
• The land hydra is a radical offshoot of the hydra family that has abandoned the aquatic habit of it's cousins. It is smaller and more lightly build than the swamp hydra, being about 4 meters long and weighting a few hundred kilograms. It has long legs suitable for running, and a long rigid tail to maintain balance. The land hydra posesses the ability to spit acidic phlegm, but instead of vomiting it in great gouts, it can spit globs of the matter of great distances, and often uses this ability to blind and incpacitate it's prey. Naturalists are still unsure how a beast with no eyes is able to aim at the prey's face with suprising accuarracy.

Well, I suppose there's no harm in listing the creatures I've made. [Note: The names used are what humans refer to them as.]

Dragon: Large, winged beast. Is completely black. Pupils are pure white, corneas are pure black. Has a skull-like face. Extremely territorial. Kill mates after breeding.

Imps: Miniature dragons. Travel in swarms, usually at night. Scavengers, eat things that bigger creatures kill for them. Adaptable, can use weapons they come across.

edited 17th Jan '11 8:37:35 AM by Mukora

You know, I don't think I've ever seen "imp" used to refer to a kind of dragon before. Neat!

• Filches are more-or-less birds, and fill a similar range of ecological niches, but the differences are belied in that they uniformly possess toothy jaws rather than beaks, and quite a lot of them have other reptilian features besides - venomous cheek sacs and spine ridges among them. Most species are venomous; quite a lot of them spit, but some of them are bite-injected and some are incendiary. They also have a magpie-like penchant for gathering shinies and lining their nests with them, even the largest ones. A flock of filches is called a "cozen", but "a robbery", "a swindle", and "a pillage" (for those species which nest together) are also appropriate.
  • Gandersnatches are a somewhat vulture-like or swan-like group that nest in riverbanks and hunt fish by diving on them from the air. Young flinchlings learn from their parents by watching from the surface of the water.
  • The ophiuke is ground-dwelling but can still fly for considerable distances at a low altitude. It's a bit larger than a turkey, and has a very prominent and colorful dorsal spine along the back of its neck, used to attract mates and warn off large carnivores; it feeds on snakes and other small predators.
  • Pandoraptors are about the size of a robin and extremely troublesome, as they would much prefer to nest where the shinies are than nest somewhere else and drag the shinies back. They are much more of a nuisance than other species, as while they bite and claw viciously to defend their hoards, most filches are not trying to defend the jewelry box or particular corners of the wardrobe.

I'm not seriously the only person thinking about this, am I? :(

• Botheres are invertebrates, with two-segmented exoskeletons, that grow as large as... well, particularly large crabs. The hindsegment contains many of the internal organs - including, surprisingly, the brain - as well as four jointed legs. The foresegment possesses complex eyes, feeding mouthparts and an early digestive system, and four manipulatory tentacles of various lengths.

^Nope, I was just looking for it actually.

Blue Groundling Diminutive birds known for being largely flightless, almost perfectly round and for having beautiful calls. They are usually about 5cm in circumference give or take a few centimetres, with the smallest adult being recorded at 3.4cm. The birds earned their title "blue" for their blue breast, belly as well as under tail feathers and inner wings. The colour of blue they are ranged from light blue to deep almost black, with the rest of the bird being mostly white and black. Females have added blue on their crown, forehead and back. This is because blue groundlings nest and live in the underbrush of Kelna, which is known for being compromised of millions of tiny blue ground flowers, as well as shrubs and other flowers, many with a blue tinge.

Oh, boy, I've got a lot of them. For starters...

The Freefall Enviroment

A planet made entirely of gas, yet is capable of supporting life. Animals dwelling in the planet often sport air sacks that allow them to maintain flight indefinitly. There are large patches of "flying carpet forests", forests made out of planets that sport large air sacks. They are host to the planet's only terrestrial life, and tend to be extremely old.

Divisses are a more or less mammalian taxon, covering the entire range of consumption habits, insofar as they are vertebrates with four legs, a head, and a tail in the right places and covered with fur. What they don't have are, well, mammaries - or, for that matter, anything else related to sexual reproduction. The spine is double, and each organism grows predominantly wider as the two unzip from each other, each growing a second half as the entire creature slowly divides into two over the course of months.

I wouldn't mind sharing a bit. I feel I should mention that I am not so good at coming up with names.

Floor Plants are plants that form a slab of wood over an area. They possess roots that quickly extend into and pierce the exoskeleton of insects that make the mistake of crawling underneath them. These rather sharp roots then proceed to draw nutrients from the dead/dying insects.

• Armor Plant is a variant of the floor plant that grows on living creatures. Its roots burrow into its host's bloodstream and draws nutrients from it. In return, the plant provides protection and some varieties will also provide magical effects (the plants in my world are great at absorbing and releasing magic energy) and/or hormone injections. Armor plants used by sentient races would often evolve methods to prevent their removal, whether it be as simple as sinking the roots a little deeper in or as complex as injecting chemicals into specific muscles to puppeteer the host's body.
• Blade Plant is a domesticated variety that has been bred into a weapon. The familiar slab of wood has become a handle and the many roots have fused into a single, sharp root. Since blade plants don't absorb nutrients from the person using them, they adapted to the times they didn't see use differently from the armor plants that saw attempts at domestication. They evolved to store nutrients for extended periods of time and to absorb nutrients from blood faster. Those who have been on the wrong end of one sometimes claim to feel the blood being sucked out of them from the cuts of a blade plant. They've also evolved to expel their seeds through the root and into the wounds they make, resulting in an additional worry for the opponents of those who wield blade plants.
  
  As I said before, I'm not so good at coming up with names.

That reminds me somewhat of SCP-355 - mostly the third variety. :D

Let's try making this topic better in one of the usual ways.

The penguins in my world have been domesticated and take advantage of magic that creates magnetic fields to fly. The world basically has magnetism replace gravity for the most part (there is an extra force that keeps upside-down, floating islands from floating too far away) and most of the stories I've planned for the world take place on the south/positive side of the planet. I like to think about how alternate physics might affect the evolution of a species sometimes.

Blambers are a breed of penguin that was bred to use negative magnetism magic. They are rather large and fat, and have a yellow belly instead of a white one. They also have yellow eyebrows that are similar to the crested penguin's... crest. They are good at lowering and raising their altitude quickly, which tends to give them an advantage when being chased by many varieties of flying creatures that usually only make use of positive magnetism magic. They are thought of as big, lovable oafs by many of their owners (think Saint Bernards in penguin form).

Bleathers are a breed of penguin that was bred to use cold magic. They are blue and white instead of black and white, and have large, noticeably feathery wings that actually look like wings instead of flippers. They will use cold magic to gain a small boost in flight speed by cooling the air in front of them to condense it, creating a small bubble-shaped vacuum that will pull them forward. The more noticeable feathers are to provide more surface area to be pulled into the vacuum without adding much mass. They are known for being good with children (not because they are fun to play with, but because they will rarely attack, even when the child starts pulling on feathers).

Rets are a breed of penguin that was bred to use heat magic. They are red and white instead of black and white, and possess color patterns similar to those of banded penguins. They also have larger and more-expressive eyes than other penguins. They use heat magic to thermally expand the air behind them to propel themselves. Due to their special color pattern (and the way I justify Color-Coded for Your Convenience), they are better at maintaining a constant altitude when twisting their bodies in midflight. They are the most popular choice for guard penguins due to their ferocious reputation.

Whellies are a breed of penguin that was bred to make better use of positive magnetism magic. Their black feathers have been replaced by light yellow ones, and they have an elongated body that keeps them from standing upright. They were originally attached to the sides of magnet rafts to help keep them stable when flying near magnetically levitating landmasses. They soon became obsolete when magnet rafts started being produced with their own stabilizers built in, but whellies are still appreciated by those who enjoy their comical appearance (they're a penguin version of daschunds for crying out loud) and those who don't trust a magnet raft stabilizer for whatever reason.

Riding Penguins are a breed of penguin that was bred to carry a human rider. They grow to about 9 or 10 feet tall, and resemble emperor penguins. The rider relies on weight distribution rather than leg pressure to control the penguin.

I think I did a better job at naming these ones.

edited 5th Mar '11 9:34:28 PM by MarkerMage

...I'm pretty sure that magnetic flying magic penguins are the coolest thing ever. :D

edited 8th Mar '11 5:41:06 PM by Noaqiyeum

My coolest ideas seem to be results of thinking enough about my lesser ideas and the justifications for them. Color-Coded for Your Convenience + magnetic magic that uses the colors black (for north/negative) and white (for south/positive) and is often used for flight + penguins replacing dogs as the most common choice for pets = magnetic flying magic penguins. Oh, and I think I can up the coolness factor a bit. Magnetic flying magic sled penguins that pull magnetically levitating rafts.

Now how about some Nightmare Fuel?

Blazesilk Weavers are spiders that evolved from Nephila clavata that lived near a crematory aboard a dimension ship. Their diet slowly changed to rely more and more upon the ashes from cremations, until ashes were the only thing they could eat. At the same time, they developed a sticky, orange, flamable coating for their webs. They would catch stuff in their webs and wait for the flames from the crematory to ignite the web and burn whatever was caught. They developed sharp claws that were used for cutting their web so the loose strand could be used to reach a source of flame. They would later use friction to light their webs on fire and then magic. As they evolved, their fangs changed to a shape that resembles pliers that they stab into flame-resistant exoskeletons before having the fangs separate from each other, tearing the exoskeleton up in process.
To summarize: They are spiders that have sharp claws, fang pliers that are used for tearing up exoskeltons, and they light their webs on fire so that they can eat the ashes of what they caught. They don't care whether their prey is still alive or not. How to make them scarier? Well how about...

Giant Blazesilk Weavers are a result of blazesilk weavers that adapted to compete over a spontaneous generation area, a special, changing location that can cause significant changes in the evolution of carnivorous creatures (I'll describe it more below). Like most creatures that adapt to a spontaneous generation area, they became large and developed adaptations that aided in defending territory over catching quick herbivores. Unlike most creatures that adapt to spontaneous generation areas, they were able to re-adapt after the spontaneous generation area moved to another place. This is due to them using the spawned meat as bait rather than food. The re-adaptation consisted of merely switching the bait to plants. The plants receive two benefits from this relationship, protection from herbivores and fertilizer in the form of ashes.
To summarize: They are the bigger cousins of the blazesilk weavers, and they are big enough to see humans as food. However, they still live in places that are away from civilization, so you only have to worry about them if you go wandering around the forests they live in (which have rather not only fire-resistant trees, but fire-embracing trees). You may be reading this and thinking that I have another version that goes out to hunt humans to burn alive. I don't. Instead, I have a Plant Person race that kidnaps humans to feed to these things, but I'll leave them for another post. For now, enjoy the promised explanation of the thing responsible for "giant" being added to the name.

The spontaneous generation areas in my world are basically spawn points for meat that are used to justify the presence of bigger and meaner versions of carnivorous creatures and their decision to attack nearby towns. They show up in seemingly random locations and spawn organic matter that is based upon moving organic matter within a significant radius. Since this moving organic matter is usually an animal, they usually spawn meat. If there aren't many animals near enough, they might spawn plant material instead, sometimes even whole seeds. Since they often end up as a location the spawns meat, carnivorous creatures will fight for control over the area, with selective pressures usually favoring the ability to defend an area over being able to chase down prey. What kinds of adaptations does this result in? Just look at what competition over immobile sources of food can cause in herbivores. Eventually though, the spontaneous generation suddenly switches to a new area, leaving the carnivores that adapted to its presence to have to find a new source of food. Sometimes they go after big herbivores. Sometimes they wander into a town or village while looking for a new source of food. Sometimes they Take a Third Option.

edited 8th Mar '11 8:36:29 PM by MarkerMage

:DDD

Terrows are cute, chirpy little omnivorous opportunists and generally feed first on plants and spread to corpses and then live animals only when necessary (or convenient); however, they also breed rapidly and team up against larger birds, so seeing a flock - it's called a deck - of terrows attacking a raptor is a common sight before battles or mass executions - and natural ecological cycles boost their population after years of plenty at the same time as the actual grain and vegetable supply decreases, leading to them also being harbingers of famine; the actual food shortage is followed by predator packs encroaching on civilization in the decline of natural herd animals, and eventually the terrows themselves preying in decks on animals normally higher up in the food chain.

Malephagia - a parasitic invertebrate that enters its victim in the form of a cyst, which embeds itself in the wall of the small intestine or stomach before hatching into something like an armored starfish. It inhabits the stomach and feeds on things the host has consumed, laying additional cysts at regular intervals. Cysts are intended to emerge in excrement, but a certain number of them just embed themselves in the stomach wall again, leading to a small colony of these things in one stomach in which the young feed on the dying and all feed on the host's ingested food. The host becomes increasingly hungry (and irritated by stomach pains) and driven to feed on almost anything, regardless of apparent edibility. There are, however, certain plants which are ever-so-slightly more lethal to the parasite than to the host, wiping out the colony at the cost of making the host very ill for a brief period of time during which they must be forced to continue to eat. (They were discovered, of course, when a sufferer ate them in desperation.)

edited 9th Mar '11 5:11:12 PM by Noaqiyeum

Now how about one of the sentient species in my world?

Felves or "flower elves" evolved from a flower that saw use as an... adult toy. Because of this, that flower's natural selection favored adaptations that served it in being a pouyannian mimic of the humans that used it. Those adaptations resulted in what looks like a half plant Half-Human Hybrid that came to be called a felf. Roots had become tongues, pointy ears, and hair. Petals formed dresses and skirts. Leaves formed hands. A large pair of stamen formed legs. With humans being the ones pollinating them and an inability to get past the Uncanny Valley, they developed Servant Race instincts in order to compete with female humans. For the most part, humanity had difficulty noticing the slow rise in their average intelligence. Their leafy hands are able to bend in numerous ways at the cost of terribly low strength. Their eyesight is bad but they have an excellent tactile sense that they've been able to use to great effect at monitoring human vital signs while in close proximity. This, along with their empathy with humans have been mistaken for mind reading more than once. Felves that live in human settlements usually serve a human and will easily put up with being sold/traded and seeing the same done with their offspring. Felven settlements, called "gardens" will usually have a single human that's used by the entire garden as a pollinator. When this human dies, the second-most pollinated felf is sent out to convince a new human to be the garden's pollinator. It is not unusual for a garden to eventually appeal to a special fetish or two after getting pollinators with similar tastes.

Fairy Felves are a variety of felves that resemble the diminutive, winged humanoids they're named after. Their wings are made of leaves. The reduction in overall size also meant a reduction of brain size, which resulted in the loss of some instincts and learning ability. Among these lost instincts are a few that were used in the selection of human pollinators. To make it short, they don't have age be a factor when choosing a new pollinator, which has led to a few kidnappings of young boys. Their emotions are also limited, along with some of their empathy with humans. They have a greater tendency to group think and do something just because someone else is doing it as well.

Kappa Felves are a result of the pollinator of a felven garden trying to get felves to stop being a servant race in the most expedient way he could, telling them to never use humans for pollination again and to pollinate each other instead. The trouble was that their instincts for selection of pollinators weren't all that good for selecting mates due to pollinator selection not caring much about the pollinator's genetics. Before they started mating with each other, they had been normal felves with leaf capes growing out of their backs that they used as floatation devices. After, they slowly adopted an appearance that many humans found repulsive, their leaf capes became shell-like, and their adaptations began to favor living underwater. They need to keep their roots covered in water, and even have a depression on their head to help with that when they leave the water temporarily. Some of them have developed a taste for human entrails and blood. Some think that being pollinated by humans again will bring back the beauty that their race has lost. However, just about all of them retain at least some of their Servant Race instincts, and will usually slip into using those instincts after being shown some politeness. Most felves see them as a warning of what they could become if they abandon their Servant Race lifestyle.

Jorogumo Felves are the Plant Person race that I mentioned in my previous post. They evolved from a felf from a garden that had adapted to fulfilling the kind of fetish that requires a safe word. This particular felf went a bit too far and killed her pollinator, resulting in her banishment. She decided to live with a giant blazesilk weaver as its bait. She and her offspring would adapt to these new conditions with a more human-like appearance that helped them get male humans to follow them o places where they could be drugged, which worked as long as the human didn't get a good look at that face that was in the uncanny valley. They would be pollinated by the drugged human before giving him to their giant blazesilk weaver. They also obtained other adaptations like a skin that didn't get stuck to the blazesilk's webs as easily. The blazesilks slowly adapted to this new kind of bait that would even go out to hunt food to bring back to them.

Before you ask, the felves started out as pure Author Appeal. A One-Gender Race (female) of GreenSkinnedSpaceBabes that rely upon Interspecies Romance for reproduction and have a reason to prefer Polyamory. But then I started asking myself questions like...
*How would humans treat them?

• How can I adapt one of my races into a fairy/kappa/jorogumo/zombie/whatever?
• There would likely be some lolicon that would try to breed them to look younger than they really are, wouldn't there? (rhetorical questions are still questions)
• What would an evil felf be like?
• What would happen if someone forced them to accept freedom whether they wanted it or not?
  And the cynic in me loves to answer questions.

My world does not have a good many created races, but there are a few:

Caathans are a tall slender race sporting pointed ears. They have a society built around mental acuity and discipline. They are long-lived, but come by this advantage through a special type of meditation during which they consciously "repair" their bodies. This meditative state can be used to accomplish all sorts of things; warriors use it to block pain, courtesans employ it to keep themselves beautiful and read subtle body language, etc. While they are technically capable of interbreeding with humans, the idea of it is socially repugnant to them (and since they can control their own fertility, it basically never happens).

The graal are a massive, hirsute race of humanoids, with shaggy pelts and prominent tusks. They live in a tribal society in the cold and distant reaches of the world. They are warlike, but have largely had their day in the sun and are slowly being pushed further and further towards extinction.

Their religion revolves around the use of "the sacred stone" referred to by humans as aenomium; the graal decorate themselves with the strange glowing rocks, proximity to which causes their bodies to mutate and gives them supernatural control over the natural world. Graal shamans can call storms, cause earthquakes and incinerate their foes with bolts of lightning...problem is, the aenomium exposure drives them slightly mad (which explains why their culture is unstable).

I was kind of hoping more for non-sapients... :/

...And that kind of reminded me; I don't actually have any non-sentient races in my world. I ought to remedy that. Thanks!

I have a few pages on the constructed worlds wiki for my world, one of which is devoted to the nonsentient creatures in it. And it started to seem like it would be a better idea to link to it instead of describing the species from it here. It's been awhile since I updated those pages though.

Well, that's probably the most significant reason why I thought we needed this thread. :) (The other one, of course...)

...You have a wiki for your conworlds? o_O That's... a really good idea, actually. Thank you for the link!

Well, not an entire wiki. It is an excellent tool for world building though. You really should give it a try sometime.

Lately though, I've gotten more interested in sharing the stuff in my head than getting it organized, so I've been finding myself to prefer talking about my world in these forums over getting those wiki pages updated.

Much of my story takes place on Alrica, a shorten version of Al(ien) (Af)rica, so called because the initial landings take place on a plain that is vaguely similar to an African savannah. Alrica is about 100 LY from earth. Most vertebrate animals on Alrica are hexapodal hermaphrodites.

Plants

• Stonewood - Trees that grow slowly, but whose wood is very hard. The Alricans use the wood to make tools.

Animals

• Alrican - large (compared to humans), intelligent alien 'taurs' (like centaurs, but with different lower parts), they have a semi-nomadic stone-age-tech society on Alrica.
• Alrhino - rhinoceros sized (and shaped) hexapodal beasts raised by the Alricans as food, and sometime for hauling travois. Like rhinos they're somewhat short-sighted (though possess a good sense of smell and decent hearing), and quite aggressive in the wild.
• Alyena - treated as expy dogs/wolves, these almost puma-sized beasts are raised by the Alricans as companion animals, livestock guards and hunting partners. Their shape is more akin to hyenas though, from which their name comes. Their forepaws are semi-prehensile

More to come later.

edited 21st Aug '12 5:38:48 PM by MattII

I want to join the fun ^_^

Okay so here's one set of idea's on chewing on:

Earth has expanded to several solar systems and has designed/rebuilt several tailor-made critters to fill ecological niches.

• various grasses and shrubs have been bred/engineered to help terraform worlds. Many can be boiled to make a nice broth or will change their color to reflex what metals are in the soil (something real world plants do, seriously, it's how geologists find deposits).

• various mice and other rodents to aerate the soil and spread seeds of the above grasses. Predators to keep them in check.

• once side effect is that there are bacteria and viruses that have evolved due to the interaction between Earth organisms and those found on newer worlds.

• This problem has made space based colonies PARANOID about diseases since they are closed circles. Many refuse entry to ships from worlds (rightly or wrongly) that they believe are "contaminated".

• the sociological problems (cultural and legal) of terraform and then maintaining the ecology of a human colony. See rabbits in Australia. Colonies have harsh laws still on the books regulating what animals can be taken on and off world.

edited 24th Aug '12 5:46:40 AM by TairaMai