Arcophylla and Myomotia: Problematic Progress

Happy Thanksgiving break, everyone!  Sufficiently stuffed on turkey and potatoes, and grateful for my many blessings, I now have some time to devote to wrapping up this batch of nereophytes, which marks the halfway point.  When I started on them I didn’t expect to get done until December; it’s nice to see I’m a little ahead of schedule.  And with twenty-six completed and posted, all that is left is phylum Membranophylla, a clade that, much like Tensivolae plants, explores some features and adaptations unseen on Earth.

Order Arcophylla was predictably straightforward, since it was a basic design I had since I first began work with nereophytes, and the Gemellocaputids more so; golden bowstalk is the quintessential genus of this family.  I had always imagined these plants sprawling over hills and valleys, the nereid equivalent of grass, and wanted to depict them as such.  I think the image captures that, and I’m pleased with how it finally turned out.  As with many of these images, where several organisms are present in the frame, there is a great deal of duplication taking place.  I think I’ve done a good job hiding it from all but the most discerning eyes.

I included the fen bowstalk for two reasons: first, to indicate variety among the nereophytes, as well as to exercise my creativity in varying the biological theme; second, to illustrate the breadth of the taxonomic family’s influence.  It took some thinking to figure out exactly how this branch of the bowstalk family tree would differ from the golden breeds, but I think I succeeded.  It was a bit of a challenge to determine exactly how these plants would differ from their cousins, but as I looked at how different grasses of Earth vary, especially those in swampy areas, design ideas soon came to mind: shorter, more succulent stalks, and darker coloration that could be just a cosmetic difference or could reflect differing photosynthetic needs.

The hourglass tree was my first attempt at taking the Arcophylla bauplan to arboreal scales, and an attempt to take the concept of “reef building” out of the ocean.  There may be some biological kinks to work out of the system, but I’m satisfied with the results at this point.  As far as the picture goes, I wonder if I’ve sufficiently captured the glassy nature of the trunks.  I also considered showing what one of the dead trunks looks like when it has collapsed under its own weight, in order to show more of the nereophyte’s life cycle, but as always time is a prohibitive factor.  Perhaps your imagination can fill in those details.

The lingayoni is one of the Barbitids, a family that caused me to do some taxonomic revision as I began to finalize their designs.  Originally, this plant would be the only featured member of a more primitive branch of Arcophylla, neither Gemellocaputid nor Barbitid, but once I realized that the other Barbitids didn’t vary greatly in their respective bauplans, it was clear that some changes needed to be made.  Some of you who were following the site at that time may have noticed some mysterious shuffling around that was a result of those adjustments.

But it was the harpweed that most influenced the design of the Barbitids.  I had a clear image of them in my mind since their inception.  I admit that there may still be some biomechanical considerations to work out, especially when it comes to the egressor tissues and how they serve this design, but at the very least I have the basic ideas down for others to examine.  I consider a lot of these plants a bit of a first draft anyway, and welcome feedback as always.

One of my first real challenges of this batch was the treebuchet; when I first started writing about it on the savanna biome page I had no real concept of its appearance, and placed a sort of “place holder” that roughly approximated how I thought it would ultimately look.  But as I began work on this plant in earnest, I didn’t want to draw a tree that was little more than a scaled up version of its cousins.  So while the treebuchet still fits within the Barbitid bauplan, it seems different enough to accomplish the diversity I want to see in the project.

Moving on from Arcophylla, it was the Myomotia that caused me some real pause in my research and designs.  I had always intended for the newel tree to be different from the others of the clade, but as I visualized it growing from the base of the trunk upwards (a trait very different from Earth plants, but quite common in Nereid clades) I began to wonder where its reproductive structures are located.  In keeping with the nereophytes from which it derived, the central stalk corresponds to the photosynthetic stalk of the Barbitids and similarly evolved structures, but that fact seems to imply that the newel tree’s reproductive organs are located near the base of the tree and not at the tip, as evidenced in the other Myomotes.  This hardly seems an effective placement, and I’m having difficulty resolving the issue; any feedback or insight here would be especially appreciated.

Flaywood starts to stretch into some of the extremes of plausibility, I think.  After reading the plant’s description it’s possible that the reader might interpret that these vines are constantly writhing and twisting; I imagine them to be much less active than that, laying motionless for the most part until stimulated, like traps to be sprung by hapless savanna nereids.  There may still be more fiction than fact in the flaywood, but I’d like to explore them further before dismissing their inclusion entirely.

The final nereophyte of this batch is also the one I most looked forward to, as it’s one of the few additions that provide the conceptual basis for an entire biome.  The coryphee is the “prima ballerina” of the ballerina forests, the nereophyte that gave xenobotanists the impression of graceful dancers.  It’s quite different from the types of plants that are found in similar climates on Earth, which makes it satisfactorily alien, but hopefully not so much so that it too strains credulity.

As always, I welcome thoughtful feedback or insights that can help me develop my work on this project further.  You can either do so here in the comments section or at the appropriate thread in the Speculative Evolution forums.

A Brief Aside: The Moebius Fish

I'm going to take some time to deviate from my Nereus project to write a blog about the inspiring work of others.  I can't remember when I first saw it, but the Moebius Fish created by thomastapir has captured my imagination, particularly its method of movement.  Here's a picture of the specimen in question:

The alien has received some attention recently from Sigmund Nastrazzurro's latest blog post.  The main body of the post doesn't seem to focus on the movement of the Moebius Fish (detailing a bauplan that more closely resembles the Sugerea of Nereus), but there seems to be some speculation in both the post and the attached comments on exactly how thomastapir's creation could work.  Far too complex to submit in the comments section, this blog post is my offering to that discussion.

I've worked off and on with an animation that would help satisfy my curiosity of how the Moebius Fish would move, and the recent attention has inspired me to make something presentable of what I've been able to accomplish.

Stage 1: Torsion

In the description, thomastapir says that the Moebius Fish is "a marine organism that "swims," and feeds, by turning itself inside out--or more accurately, reversing the orientation of its body surfaces."  To my mind, this would look something like this:

Notice that this isn't a constant, universal rotation, but rather a sort of 'phased torsion' of each segment along the length of the ribbon.  Even though this is only one aspect of the creature's motion, already it has hypnotic qualities as suggested in the description.  This takes into account other points of the creature's description as well, namely the fact that the "node" doesn't rotate along with the rest of the body, and that the ribbon repeatedly inverts itself.  Mind you, what I'm showing here is a simplified illustration of the principle.  This animation only shows 180 degrees of rotation, and the Moebius Fish would likely be able to twist even further.  That much at least seems evident from thomastapir's artwork.

Stage 2: Movement Pattern

After exploring the "inside out" aspect of the Moebius Fish, I next needed to animate its movement cycle.  It's important to point out that I made no attempt to precisely match the creature's drawing, but rather to illustrate the basic principles of how such a creature might move.  I have done nothing to calculate hydrodynamic forces nor efficiency of movement, so what I have here is a rough approximation of a simplified Moebius Fish swimming stroke:

This image reflects several details from the description, specifically where thomastapir says, "It would then smoothly pull in all its body segments to reduce drag and invert them forward/back again to its initial starting posture."  Already you can see how much more simplistic this animation is, only showing one significant "curl" in its sequence, whereas the drawing shows three or four.  Had I sufficient time and resources, I could create something that would be much closer to how a Moebius Fish would swim, but for now I think this does the trick.

Stage 3: Putting It Together

When I take these two aspects of the Moebius Fish and put them together, I get this:

While I think it's a good first effort, there are several things that I think deviate from what I imagine:

• If you look at the segments of the ribbon closest to the node you may notice, as I did, the 'flapping' motion.  I don't know if an actual Moebius Fish would find this advantageous, but it was an inadvertent artifact of my haphazard assembly of this animation.
• On that note, the leading edge of the ribbon's swimming stroke is rather pointy.  This is true to the description in regards to returning to the forward-most position, and likely a hydrodynamically sound idea, but on the backstroke, when pulling water back, I don't know if it's best to maintain that point as this animation shows.
• This animation is also fraught with what is known in the relevant jargon as 'collisions': points where the different surfaces intersect.  No creature existing within the physical realm would be capable of such a feat, and so any future work I do with this would have to account for the width and flexibility of the ribbon in order to avoid such problems.
• There are no doubt other flaws in this animation, but they weren't so problematic as to distract from the concept and warrant further attention.  Again, this is intended to be a rough animation of how a Moebius Fish could move; if I had millions of years to perfect the swimming stroke, as this species would hypothetically have, then the overall motion would indeed be much prettier.

I'm curious to know if this is basically what others have imagined in terms of how the Moebius Fish would look in motion, especially thomastapir himself.  He said that his own picture looked too "ribbony," in which case this may be way off, but when I look at his picture this is what I see.  What about you?

Tensivolae I: The More Things Change...

It seems like every post I've made about nereophytes has begun with a mention of the time it's taken to get through the group.  I admit that these groups of plants could be done faster, but I have also been wrapping up the last semester of my university studies.  I've graduated now, but I've had enough time afterward to realize that that's no indication that I'll have more time on my hands.  I'm adjusting from the lifestyle of the (seemingly perpetual) student to that of a licensed educator, with all of the job hunting, bureaucracy, and hard work that that implies.  Compound that with the fact that the next group of nereophytes is a large one, and it will be some time before I come back to this blog to post about them.
Ah well, we have others to talk about right now... 

In my last post I focused largely on the artistic representations of the featured genera of Erepofursia, both in terms of illustrative clarity and in technical skill.  While I feel that this batch is an improvement I also want to point out that some of the images turned out to be a little sparser than I had originally intended.  Bare soil is commonly seen in the pictures, and to be honest I'm not sure if that's because I chose to illustrate only the featured nereophyte and excluding all others (excluding epiphytes), or if it's an indication that Nereus may be more sparsely vegetated than Earth.  I like to think that it's the former, and that the imagination can fill in the 'empty spaces' with other plants appropriate to the ecosystem.

This group of nereophytes is really the first part of the much larger clade Tensivolae.  I decided to split the taxonomic class into two groups, with two orders presented in each.  This is the first, older, and less spectacular pair: Excoria and Radiofolia.  They share characteristics with some of the first nereophytes to survive on land, and even bear features that make them more familiar to terrestrial eyes.  That realization prompted some serious thought.  While I had intended for nereid plants to be recognizably different from Earth forms, here I have several that could easily blend in with plants we find on Earth.  I reassure myself by calling it convergence-- after all, plant shapes are rather effective-- but a part of me can't help but wonder if I should have tried to come up with more novel forms.

That said, mangrome turned out to be delightfully alien.  While I don't think any single aspect of its design is that different from what's on Earth, I think the juxtaposition of it all makes it a very interesting and unique creation.  My mind whirls with what kinds nereids could make homes under the shade of the mangrome, or even within its labyrinthine trunk.

I didn't expect the ruby yucca to be too alien, since it's largely inspired by yucca plants I saw while vacationing some years in Sedona, Arizona.  These tall stalks would reach from a spiky little bush, topped with quite visually striking ornamentation.  But since I felt like the yuccas I saw with my own eyes had a surreal alien quality, I figured they would work well on Nereus deserts too.

As anyone who's seen the ballerina forest page can tell, flakefir has undergone some design changes.  The initial design had very little time put into its design, really just slap-shod models designed to fill the space and give the image of the ballerina forest a distinct skyline.  I didn't want to stray too far from that original design (I felt I was onto something) but I really wanted to figure it out with a little more strenuous attention to plausibility.  In the end I think it served to make the plant more interesting.

The concept of the razorbush is a common one, particularly in fictional settings where even the plants are dangerous.  I always wanted to include this kind of plant in the project as it would cause grief for unwary human explorers in whatever relevant fictions I hypothetically produce, but I wanted to make sure that the plant had a plausible enough reason for having sharp, scything blades.  I like to think I came up with something that works, but as always I'd love to hear feedback.

I always intended old man's ear to be a fun one.  While I think the overall concept is conveyed, may go back and do a little redesign to it.  The plants don't seem like they could hold very much water, and I always wanted the reproductive 'tufts' to be a little more whispy lookingPerhaps this is one of the nereophytes that would benefit from some preliminary design in SketchUp before final presentation...

Finally, the fleshette should be familiar to anyone who has been following the Nereus project over the years.  It was a design for a carnivorous plant that I tried out a long time ago, with people asking why it favors larger prey over insectoids, like Earth's carnivorous plants.  The more spectacular image of game-hunting plants aside, I had a hard time imagining the evolutionary pressure for it.  What started as a pattern of shooting barbed seeds into prey so they are carried far away became a method of dissuading herbivores and even felling prey with toxic darts.  The progression seemed natural enough to me, but what do you think?

Well, those are the Excoria and Radiofolia.  They mark the completion of the first third of featured nereophytes for the project.  Like I said, I'll be working on the rest of the Tensivolae, but in the meantime feel free to post any questions or comments about these orders.

Erepofursia: Hit and Miss

Another batch of nereophytes is done.  It's taken longer than I expected, and the plants are by no means all that complicated, either to draw or conceptualize.  One of my artistic weaknesses is fine, repetitive detail; I get bored drawing a fur texture or a convincing field of grass, and here I've been drawing fields, drifts, and thick knots of vegetation.  Some of the images I'm quite pleased with, and others I think could use a new attempt.  In any case, I hope that they are helping to properly convey the nature of the autotrophs of Nereus.

Conceptually, I also think that I've had successes and failures.  The bankvine was always intended to be a sort of 'proto-sog,' an example of how erepofursians got their start from more primitive forms.  However, hindsight reveals what seems like quite the biological leap between the featured Coleria and this first example of a new taxonomic group.  I guess viewers are going to have to fill in the blanks a little.

The sog itself, thanks to insights from the Speculative Evolution forums, became the more specific-- though still quintessential-- avanyu sog.  Again, I don't know if its most interesting features are highlighted, but this is something I think can be fixed.  One of the things I plan on doing at some point is some material (artwork/information) that helps to explain entire clades in general terms.  One such feature would be the mechanism of fluid transport this group pioneers and, in the case of sog, masters.

Musselmat was a simple, quiet success in my mind.  It's a clear transitional form that connects the 'leafless' Gymnovina order (represented by the bankvine and sog) to the forms of the Phyllogera order.  The anatomy of its offshooting pods should also give some indication of the ontogeny for future nereophyte structures.

And while I think it was conceptually satisfying, the feathermat might be a little unclear visually.  The vine portion of the plant is completely lost in the illustration, and while it's true that the downy protrusions do overshadow the feathermat's vine, I think it might be easy to miss how it fits into the clade.  Perhaps, when I'm putting together those clarifying general features I could include an evolutionary timeline where I could show the feathermat's anatomy in a little more detail.

The quetzal vine is another satisfying addition to the group.  It's different-- very different, and it's a good example of how I want to merge the aspects of science and creativity that I see in the most appealing approaches to xenobiology.  When I started thinking about nereid plants, I thought it would be interesting and different if I didn't include any flower analogues.  But when I reached this genus I realized that, despite my intentions, the natural process of development in this project brought about a sort of flower.  I've embraced it, mostly because they're natural, unique, and decidedly non-terrestrial.  Can you?

The sea slough turned out well also, and it helps show how nereophytes aren't simply Earth plants in alien costumes.  The niche of this organism is much like that of seaweed, and while it is a comparatively simple organism, it's more complex than the Earth analogue.  I think that sea slough is a good example of how xenobiology projects like this can echo and even give a nod to terrestrial inspiration, but still be biologically and ecologically unique.

Finally, I've just finished the waterfleece.  It too is strongly influenced by Earth algae (kelp, to be precise), but I have a hard time thinking it achieved the same level of success as the sea slough.  Its picture borders on impressionistic, and it doesn't really stand out as biologically unique in any interesting ways, but it forms a strong ecological base, both in terms of landscape for local swimmers and as a food source.  It began as a sort of kelp-like backdrop for goldwave and it never really changed.  Can't win 'em all, I guess...

Consistency or Practicality?

As many of you may have noticed, while I've been preparing the next batch of nereophytes for publication, I've been adding a new feature to the website as a whole: size comparisons for different nereid clades.  Overall, I'm quite pleased with how they've turned out, but now that they're more or less complete, I've reached a point of decision.  The first is that I'm still not sure what to do with those pages that have only one featured nereid, such as the page for the taxonomic class Radixa and family Planidae.  It doesn't make sense to have an image comparing a quicksand clam or a treemount to, well, themselves.  They already have their own images, complete with a human or a hand for comparison, so another image of the sort would just be redundant.  So what do you think?  Should I include it for the sake of consistency, or leave it blank because the image just isn't practical?  Keep in mind that, at some future date, I may add other material in the area alongside the links to the individual species, such as illustrative information about the clade or clarifying diagrams.

Another fence I'm sitting on is what to do with the size comparison image for the Filtrapennae phylum; the two species in this clade just aren't easy to compare based on size.  I didn't have too much of a problem with other clades, but I may redo those if I find a better composition in the future.  But back to the Filtrappenae: if I show the water gauntlet in the full glory of its colonial size then the crown of thorns is hopelessly dwarfed, and won't who up as much more than a tiny little blob in the image; if I instead show an individual organism from the water gauntlet, then it in turn will be a tiny little blob in comparison to the crown of thorns.  Again, I wonder if the situation warrants a size comparison.  What are your thoughts?

Finally, I wonder about size comparisons for the nereophytes.  Granted, at the outset of the nereophyte page I point out that it will be following a different format than that of the nereozoa, so a similar size comparison may not be practical.  Also, the sizes of various nereophytes may present a similar comparison problem in the future, but I just don't know.  Once again, I'm interested in what you, the reader, thinks.

Back on Track...

The site is now back online in its new home with Google Sites, and there were many things I realized as I went through the process of rebuilding it.

One was a refamiliarization with material.  With 100 species on the site, and a long hiatus due to academic duties, my memories about some species was... fuzzy...  The review was refreshing and even worked kind of like a rediscovery.  It was as though I was seeing some of the nereids for the first time, and that will help when I get underway with creating new species again.

Another thing is that Google Sites has a much better sidebar navigation system than the host for the old site.  The links on the side can be extended so that all the sites are clickable or collapsed so that only a few are shown.  For the sake of saving space, I decided to leave the species off the list, but now it seems that if a species page is viewed that it collapses the whole sidebar, which can be disorienting.  I think if I include them in the sidebar it will solve that problem.  What do you think?

Another I noticed was a matter of consistency.  Just little things here and there, such as formatting from page to page and contradictions in the content of different species.  The formatting is a rather easy fix, and for the most part I've already done it, but making sure that all the material agrees with itself will take time.  Much of what I noticed was so subtle that it may take some interesting rewriting to iron out.

Finally, I noticed that the website as it is so far only takes up about a third of the storage space available, which means that, even with the full 200 species, there's room for more.  I don't think that will get filled with even more species, but I think I could use some of it to include more diagrams and illustrations explaining evolutionary lineages and interesting physiological points.  Or I might just save all that for Nereus 2.0... ;)

Any way, so the page is up and running again.  Many thanks to all those who gave feedback and input during the process, and keep an eye out for updates in the future!

Rebuilding the Anthill

So there's this comedian I enjoy who has this little gag about what ants must be saying when we callous, lumbering humans step on their anthills:

"You would think that they would take at least a second to look at what happened and go 'OH MAN!  I DON'T BELIEVE IT!  I ain't doin' that again...'"

There's of course no scientific backing for the scenario, but I still think it's hilarious and that it's a good analogy for how I felt when I found out that my website, which I had been working on (with material both relevant to Nereus and not) for several years.  I just didn't even want to deal with it.

But, after more than a month of not really doing anything to get my website put back together, I've finally got a new site going.  Here's the link:

sites.google.com/site/projectnereus

It's with Google Sites, so hopefully things will remain reliable enough.

At this point, all I have on the website is some information about Nereus itself, but take a look and let me know if there's anything I can improve, whether format-wise or in terms of content, while I'm still at this early stage of rebuilding my little anthill...

Cataclysm!!!

Well, I was just gearing up for a new batch of nereophytes when, literally out of nowhere, I'm informed that the entity hosting my website no longer exists.  Just like that, and the website is gone.  I can't put into words how disheartening this is.

Thankfully, more than 90% of the material is backed up, so the information is not lost, it's just not public anymore.  I'll be spending the next little while figuring out how to move forward with the project.

Just Waiting For the Pictures to Develop...

The last post in here was in October, and the last post with immediate relevance to my work with Nereus was more than a month before that.  I’m glad to say that, after a semester that—if it wasn’t from Hell itself, certainly took a page from Hell’s playbook—is finally over, I’ve been able to devote some serious time to presenting new plants on the website.

Now, that long hiatus doesn’t mean that I haven’t been working on nereid plants at all, for I have taken pockets of time here and there to organize clades and compose capsules for eventual publication.  But finally I’ve had enough time to devote to illustrations, which I think are a key component of the success of Nereus, or any similar project.  “A picture paints a thousand words,” as it were, and in the context of xenobiology I’ve found that pictures convey a lot more information than might apparent.  A capsule on any given imaginary creature may tell me a great deal about the evolutionary history, noteworthy behavior, or any number of useful details to reinforce the creature’s plausibility, but an accompanying image can either reinforce that plausibility or negate it all in an instant.

So I take my images very seriously, and try to use what skills I can in order to communicate the spirit and flavor of the nereids I create.  Over the years I’ve found that the illustration process has provided me with great triumphs as well as frustrations, surprises, and the occasional need to change capsules in order to fit with things I like in the picture; such has been the case with my first steps into my presentation of the nereophytes.

Because Coleria is a phylum that functions at a largely microscopic scale, I had a hard time figuring out exactly how to present them visually.  I started with sea grain, and a relatively straightforward capsule, but when I started to put together an illustration for the entry I was just never happy with it.  This turned out to be the biggest stumbling block for my nereophytes so far, because I didn’t want to move on until I could get that picture done.  Well, eventually I just said the image that’s up for the sea grain is good enough.  Maybe one day I’ll redo it, but in the end I shouldn’t let a presentation of nereid plants be halted by one little genus of algae.

So far with my nereids, almost all illustrations were rendered based on 3D models built in SketchUp so that I could explore biometrics, proportions, and image composition.  It’s been a technique that’s served me well, but after the frustrations I faced with drawing the sea grain, I decided on a different tactic with the verebull: a completely hand drawn composition without any preliminary 3D work.  While I still think the image for the verebull could be improved, it came together rather easily.  No muss, no fuss, and on to the next one.

Rock paint falls into the category of one of the images that has surprised me.  I used the same non-SketchUp technique here, penciling some stony backgrounds and adding the plant life itself in Photoshop.  I’m pleased with how it all turned out, but what surprised me was how the rock paint actually looks on the rocks.  What I had originally imagined was something more akin to desert lichen in appearance, but what has come about is something that is more visually interesting, and may help to paint future landscape images in a more alien light.

And I’m not sure if that pun was intended or not…

But if the rock paint surprised me, the splashmoss really came out of nowhere.  The original image in my head was something akin to shelf fungus, but as I sat down with pencil and paper, something else came out, something that looked more like a rash of pustules than anything else.  At first I thought about restarting, but since I was on a roll with alien looking plants I decided to go with it.

At some future date I may come back and see if the drawings I made are truly plausible, but for the time being I’m pleased with how the pictures have turned out and I’m willing to follow my initial impression that what I’ve drawn fits with scientific laws as we know them.  I look forward to anyone’s feedback on these matters, both in terms of the relationship between the capsules and their illustrations, and of the plausibility of the genera themselves.

When is Enough Enough?

Time for a brief aside from my reports on nereid plants. A discussion on Sigmund Nastrazzurro's Furaha website has touched on the idea of exactly how many species is sufficient for a "complete" speculative world; it's a difficult number to pinpoint because it depends on so many different factors, not the least of which being the amount of work a speculator is willing to put into the project. I thought I'd put together a blog explaining some of the creative process I go through early in my speculations and how I decide how many species to put in an ecosystem. Some other factors I could think of include:

- Diversity of the planet: How many different biomes of the planet do you want to explore/detail? Generally speaking, a planet that supports life as we know it will have several biomes, but if you're only interested in one or two you can largely ignore the others.

- Size of the biome: How much area does the biome cover? Obviously a water world will have many more aquatic creatures than land-based, and a biome that occurs in only a small corner of the world will not have room for much diversity.

- Biodiversity of the biome: How varied is life in each biome? You typically find more species in a tropical biome than you will in a desert. I chose to reflect this difference in my Nereus project, and you may wish to do so as well.

- The complexity of the food web: Who eats whom? When you're doing an overview of the biome's ecosystem you want to reflect the different trophic levels: producers, eaten by herbivores, eaten by carnivores. Obviously the process isn't always that cut and dried (both carnivores and omnivores can occupy several levels within the food web), but those three levels make for a good starting point.

For my own project I chose a rather large number of species (200 in total) because, in addition to well rounded ecologies, I wanted to show cladistic diversity and evolutionary radiation. That's a lot species for a project, of course, but if you want to do a project that's "complete" you could go through the following steps:

- Each ecology should include one apex predator, which means that a pyramid of species would sit underneath it in the food web. With two "lesser" predators underneath, and at least one herbivore for each predator you have six species of animals (if desired, you could throw in three or four plant species for good measure.

-Say there are three biomes you want to highlight. In order to reflect differing biodiversity of the largest one you could double the amount of species present and divide them up into groups of, say, six herbivores, three predators that consist of both carnivores and omnivores, two predators that prey on those species and an apex predator that pretty much eats what it wants. Or you could divide the biome species into two distinct ecosystems of six (for north and south continents, perhaps) and build them independently. Either way you're reflecting the broader biodiversity of the planet.

- In total, with three biomes (one of them twice the size of the other two) you've got 24 species to think up, and nine to twelve more if you add some plant species. If 36 seems like too much for your purposes you can always adjust your numbers accordingly. Perhaps highlighting only one herbivore, two carnivores, and a major plant for each biome will be enough, totalling to twelve species for the entire project. Of course there are more species on the planet than this, but you're not trying to show it all.

Well that's what I have to say on the matter; in the end it turned out to be longer than I expected and I'm glad I didn't post such a huge thing in Furaha's guestbook. If you think there's anything to add or a creative approach that serves you better let me know!

A Rolling Stone Gathers No Splashmoss

Though my class and work schedule are keeping me pretty busy, I managed to get a little bit written for the plant section of the website. As always, the text is subject to change, especially this early in the process, but I hope it gives a bit of an overview of what's to come.

As I've been researching and preparing, I've noticed that some of my plant ideas may need some drastic redesigns to move them more into the plausible end of the spectrum. I've provided images and descriptions of some plants throughout the animal and biome pages, but some of that information may be contradicted by my upcoming work with the plants themselves. I'll try and correct these points where I can, but otherwise consider the plant entries to trump information found elsewhere.

I also included a paragraph about the idiosyncrasies of the fictional scientists for a bit of flavor. I've always found such things an enjoyable inclusion to speculative projects, helping to flesh out the connection between the imaginary creatures/biosphere and the human audience.

At some point in the near future I will have the page up for the first group, the Coleria.

A Parade of Plants

So now that the first batch of animals is done, I've been gearing up to present fifty plant species of Nereus. I'm still working to get all the plants into a satisfactory cladogram and taxonomic classification, but things are coming along nicely. I've decided that, rather than featuring individual species I'll focus on genera, that way I'll be able to speak in more, well, general terms (notice the pun? ;)). I noticed many times while working with animal species that I was occasionally limited in what possibilities I could explore within a given entry; hopefully writing about a genus at a time rather than a species will allow me a little more flexibility in coverage.

Another aspect I'm considering, and would love some reader feedback on, is the order of presentation. The animals were grouped by biome, but with the plants I could present them a clade at a time, producing them in groups based on genetic relationship rather than by shared environment. A couple benefits I see from this are:

- Continuity of concept and appearance. With the animal nereids I would often have to revisit clades in order to ensure that the features and attributes of my current species meshed with its 'predecessors.' This occasionally resulted in wildly different methods of, say, reproduction or similar details, and even some niggling little aesthetic differences. While I feel that ultimately the animal cladogram came out pretty well, there was quite a bit of adjustment I had to make in order for it to make sense (and still more work in some cases, but that's a topic for another post); working within clades will probably solve those problems.

- Linear evolutionary progression. By starting at the beginning and working my way through the clades, I could better show the progressive trends of evolutionary adaptation and complexity, further reinforcing my own scientific understanding of the project. This would also not lock me into the developmental quagmire I found when it became clear that I needed to add insulating hair to some of the animals.

I think this method of organizing the plant presentation could certainly work, but I also think that the benefits of ecological symbiosis and the diversity produced from spreading out the clades as I did with the animals could have merit too. I just don't know which one would be best, so I put the question to you, the reader. By clade or by biome?

Freshwater Ecology 4: The Finishing Touch

While I know that I still have a lot planned for Nereus, I feel very accomplished. The material on the website is substantive, and I feel like the planet is well represented at this point.

Okay, enough patting myself on the back. I think it's kind of fitting that the freshwater biome is the last one I do; since it threads through the all other biomes, it was helpful for me to know exactly what all those biomes were so the images and concepts I wanted to convey were clear and consistent. When it comes down to it, though, the only differences between the ecology I present here and what is found on Earth are largely cosmetic. I've explored how nereid bauplans would fare in this environment and the outcome has been interesting, but there wasn't much work to make the plants and environment plausible.

Not much else to say at this point. If you have anything to add, or see holes in what I've presented so far, let me know. If not, stay tuned for more nereid fun!

Freshwater Ecology 3: 99, 100!

I've done it! My original goal of creating 100 species for a single xenobiology project is complete! It's taken a lot longer than I thought (serious work began a little more than two years ago) but I'm pleased with the exercise in imagination and scientific education that has resulted from Nereus up to this point. By no means am I done with the project; this could even be considered nothing more than the halfway point.

But more on that later. For this post I wanted to focus on the final two species of this "first batch" of nereid animals. So far my freshwater nereids have been colored to rely on camouflage, and while there's nothing wrong with that, I wanted to depart from that with these two just for the sake of variety.

Of course, being an ambush predator, the river skate would benefit greatly from the same coloration as I've been employing so far, and in the end I abandoned my goal of a conspicuously colored predator here. Since the species is so different from any other nereids I've made so far I decided it would be unique enough to stand on its own while being camouflaged like everything else.

What I abandoned in one I embraced in the other, the yellow crested anguil. With a species already representing the taxonomic family, I had some precedents to work with, namely the armlike jaws, the mildly armored body, and a general color scheme. Of course, color is one of the easiest things to vary between species (and even subspecies) but it was nice to at least have the starting point. From there it was a simple matter of stretching the phylogeny to fit a unique species profile and make sure it's evolutionarily fit.

As always, I'm interested to see what you think about these species, so let's hear it!

Freshwater Ecology 2: Obvious Earthly Influences

My wife and I like to fish a lot, so working on this group of nereids has been pretty enjoyable. Though I try and keep things unique and interesting, there are some species that have obvious earthly influences. I don't think this is a bad thing, necessarily, since I've discovered that basic nereid bauplans make it difficult for such convergence with terrestrial life to seem contrived or unimaginative.

The boxhead is a direct result of all the rainbow trout I've caught over the years. They aren't quite as colorful as trout, but I've seen how hard it is to see a fish with that coloration and I thought it would be useful for the boxhead too. I made the red stripe more visible on the boxhead to reflect the general nereid trend that herbivores (especially aquatic ones) tend to have colors in common with their food source, providing camouflage while they eat. I wonder if I use camouflage too much...

One thing that occupied my mind as I put together the boxhead was its "hammerhead" eyestalks (another obvious earthly influence). It made sense when I made the goldwave so long ago, but I wondered if such a wide view would be feasible for the boxhead, which I envision slinking in between rocks and twigs. Well, they're not as wide as on their cousins, but I still think a broad spacing for boxhead eyes is useful enough to keep in what can sometimes be a confining space. One hiding in a hole could poke out a stalk without exposing too much of itself, for example. I think it works, but as always I appreciate your thoughts as well.

Even mythological creatures influence my nereids. I really wanted to make something based on the Chan Chu, especially when I discovered that they're described as having only three legs. So with a red-eyed, three-legged bullfrog with gold in its mouth as a starting point, I then needed to figure out how a similarly iconic nereid could come about. Most of it was easy, especially since I already have a clade that closely resembles frogs and toads. The gold in its mouth required not only design features for this nereid but for the pearl worm as well. Gold coloration solved the problem handily. Taking a page from the techniques of the alligator snapping turtle, and the chanchu was born. I must say I'm quite pleased with how it turned out (some nereids have undergone extensive redesigns before reaching their published form) and it's a fine edition to the Aquaparia class. What do you think?

Freshwater Ecology 1: Back to the Basics

It's been a while since I've updated. Between two weddings, a funeral, and academic concerns my time has been in high demand; though I've managed to carve out a little time for myself here and there I've been so exhausted that any productive work with Nereus seemed like a chore. With any luck I'll be able to get into a routine with my personal life and can devote more consistent effort to Nereus.

The two latest species are the first of the group representing freshwater life. Because they represent the foundation of an ecosystem, they are quite simple species, relatively speaking. Also, because they are such primitive nereids it meant I had to revisit clades that have escaped my attention for some time. I'm discovering what a shambles much of my project is in, and will probably do some taxonomic reorganization once I finish this group.

The pearl worm is a very primitive life form, which means it provided familiar challenges for me but at a somewhat amplified level. First off, I wanted to make sure it fit within the evolutionary framework of the planet, and because it's phylogeny is so very different from every other wormlike species I've done so far it required a whole new taxonomic class. I basically had to build this creature from scratch, making sure that not only did it work as a species on its own but that it had a place in evolution; you be the judge of whether I was successful or not. Also, since I don't like to have a whole class with only one example if I can help it, this means I should probably come up with a few close cousins for this guy.

Secondly, I wanted to make sure it was in fact primitive. While I understand the appeal of superpredators and monsters of prehistoric proportions, I really appreciate seeing some of the more basic species as well. To me, it shows just how in-depth the project really is and helps me see the "big picture" of the world. I like to show that same attention to detail in my own work, and I hope I've done so with the pearl worm.

Finally, and as I've said before, I always want my nereids to be interesting. Making a worm-like critter that has little visual or conceptual difference from an earthworm just doesn't seem worth my time. The swelling yellow tissue was something I thought would really make the pearl worm iconic, and figuring out how it serves the creature that much more fun. I hope it's fun for you too.

The other species I'll talk about here is the river limpet. I must confess a common mistake of mine: that of confusing a limpet with a chiton. I don't know why I always mix the two up, but as a result you may notice that the river limpet has some chiton-like traits. Luckily, when working with aliens I can make such "mistakes," blending traits from different species to make a single unique creature. I considered changing the name to "river chiton," but it didn't seem to have the same ring. Instead I added some physical traits from the limpet to make it so that fictional xenobiologists can make the choice.

At the same time, of course, the river limpet must be uniquely nereid in nature. It has inherited the nested shells, limbs, and motipalps from mollipod ancestors, and while all have specialized, duplicated, and/or atrophied, its heritage should be apparent. I decided to show this species from the underside not only to show how the limbs function as mouthparts in this clade, but I'd never shown the underneath of a mollipod and I thought it would reveal a lot about their phylogeny to do so. Have fun seeing a little critter's underbelly!

Ballerina Forest 4: Out on a Limb

At the end of each group of nereids I put together a little page about their common habitat. I've finally done so with the ballerina forest, an environment that shares traits with to both temperate and boreal forests, along with its own unique features.

There is precedent on Earth for rapidly moving plants, whether it's to trap insect prey or to protect leaves. There is also precedent on Nereus for rapid movement, given the tension-based methods of seed dispersal among many ballistaflor clades. However, nothing on Earth or nereus matches the scale or versatility of that exhibited by coryphee trees. Vascular chambers that run the length of the branches control their turgor, or overall rigidity, and tensile fibers help to support their extended weight and to return back to a neutral closed position. Mechanically, the concept seems to make sense, and nothing too obvious seems to contradict it, so I ran with the idea.

But my research into this feature was not extensive, and at some future point I may have to refine or completely remove this life form from the nereophyte cladogram, a disorganized jumble of clades that aren't nearly as ironed out as the nereozoans. Plant research for this project hasn't been nearly as extensive, mostly because I've mostly only used them as unique (and possibly fantastic) backdrops for my aliens. Any experts out there are welcome to analyze the coryphee as I've described them to help me understand how they work... or how they don't. ;)

Ballerina Forest 3: Making Things Different

When I come up with ideas for nereid species there are several goals I try to reach:

- Each species is reasonably plausible given current scientific understanding. Given my limited knowledge of biology I think I've had varying degrees of success in this category, but I leave it to you, the reader, to make your own judgment on that account.

- Each species is conceptually unique. While I occasionally explore incidents of convergent evolution I also want to reflect the diversity of both ecological niches and the strategies that life can use to fill them. If every nereid I drew was basically a super-cool apex predator that could kick the butt of all others then Nereus just wouldn't be that believable or interesting.

- Each species is visually unique. There will always be resemblance based on evolutionary relations and convergent similarities, but I hope that each nereid can be a visually engaging addition to the list. I mean, who wants to look at a dozen pages of artwork that are essentially the same thing.

Sometimes these three criteria work against each other, and I have to make decisions that fulfill one at the expense of another. This post talks about two nereids that have given me such challenges.

The snow kytta is a heliavian: radially symmetrical flyer. I already have two heliavians (the spur and cliff whistler) that exhibit wildly different methods of powered flight; I knew this one would be like the spur, using two of its wings while the third is held behind as a stabilizing tail. The question I then had was how to make this flyer different. Apart from the habitat, which is much colder than that of the spur, I wanted to show an example of specialization that could make the snow kytta stand out from the crowd; given the carnivorous nature of its clade I looked to vultures, hawks, and other birds of prey as inspiration for behavior, but it turned out that the cold setting would prove to be a familiar obstacle.

Almost a year ago I faced a similar problem, putting hair on several nereids that were previously bare. I chose another route with the snow kytta, setting aside the opportunity to make nereid hair an even more paraphyletic feature in favor of a more nebulous explanation for an ectothermic creature's survival in a high altitude climate. A goal may suffer for the sake of others, but I still think it's an interesting enough nereid.

The other nereid of this post, and the featured apex predator of the ballerina forest is the manticore. I had come up with the basic concept of this creature long ago, so the manticore has a relatively old vintage. At least the idea of the manticore has been around for a while; there were two major changes that came about in the process of its inception.

The first change was one of habitat. I had originally placed the creature in the savanna biome, a clear reflection of its lion inspiration, but when I was looking for a place to put my flag raptor I realized that two apex predators would be too much for that group, at least for the first 100 nereids (the "expansion pack" will see additions to that biome). So I shifted the manticore to the ballerina forest to fill the apex slot here.

The other change was the name. I may still use the original name for another nereid, so I'm not going to go around blabbing it here. ;) But as I started looking around for images of Earth animals I could use as visual reference I came across the manticore. Not only is it visually close to my nereid but it has an interesting set of mythological luggage that I can mine for my own creature. The discovery of a catchy Greek name for the mythological creature (baricos) was the clincher, so I started shuffling around the names, details, and concocted a scenario of xenobiologists making a connection between a fascinating new predator and a mythological template.

And that's it for the ballerina forest nereids. I really didn't expect to write that much about two nereids that only have about 600 words of "official" explanation between them. Next time I'll cover the biome itself so I'll see you next time! Same Nereus-time, same Nereus-channel!

Ballerina Forest 2: Motherly Love

The latest two updates complete my current list of order Eumaia of the vehoprolians. I may add more to the list at some future point, but for the time being I can put the lid on this clade.

I didn't realize this when I first put together the species lineup for the ballerina forest biome, but these updates share a strong maternal instinct. While that made this post easy to title it also meant that I had to put some extra work into making sure these two species had traits that set themselves apart.

The basket carm is a pachyfronsid, and since I've already featured two of those it only compounded my goals for a conceptually unique nereid. When I run into this problem I usually consider the niche I'm trying to fill and look at creatures from Earth that have similar ecological roles. While the colossus carm was inspired by mastodons and the emperor carm emulates savanna herd beasts, the basket carm is a temperate forest browser, much like deer and elk, so I drew upon them for inspiration. I also thought that, unlike the other carms who only have one or two offspring at a time, basket carms should have large litters. That led to thoughts about where all those weak-legged young could be carried and voila! A new and different nereid!

The other species, the tempered chuck, is an idea I'd had for some time. It's a common assertion in circles that aspire to plausible xenobiology that aliens with mammaries can't exist; all those apparent mammals we see in Star Wars, Star Trek, Avatar, and almost all other sci-fi just couldn't happen. Given the endless evolutionary possibilities on alien worlds I can accept this assertion, but I feel that most who make it leave out a very important qualifier: it may be true that an alien with obvious mammalian features isn't likely, but an alien who gives birth to live young which it then suckles through convergent means, to me at least, doesn't seem like it's outside the realm of possibility. The tempered chuck is my attempt to explore this convergence; I'll leave it up to you, the reader, to determine my success.

Ballerina Forest 1: Shifting Gears

I've decided, for the time being, to use this space as something of a "creator's commentary." I'll talk about the latest updates on the project, what's inspired them, and some noteworthy decisions I made in the creative process. This is kind of what I've been doing with the blog any way, but I'm going to be more proactive with it.

With that said, I've started work on the second to last biome: the ballerina forest. Details about local flora are still in early development, but the general idea is a forest of lithe trees that twist and pose to maximize their exposure to sunlight. I imagine them resembling graceful dancers, but that may change as the design refines somewhat.

The first nereid of the group is the fulgie. It's the last nidovalve of my first batch of species, and is also closely related to another nereid, the flashbulb. I'm noticing now that I approach my 100 species benchmark that a lot of the species are in the same genus as-- or at least very closely related to-- previously featured nereids. This introduces some interesting challenges, such as how I can develop a species that closely resembles others while making them unique, interesting, and worth giving attention within the project.

What sets the fulgie apart from the crowd is its resemblance to flowers. I came up with this feature before I decided nereid plants should be flowerless-- at least as we know flowers on Earth. The concept sat as I worked on other species, but now that I came to it again it occurred to me that resembling a flower would be a useless adaptation in a world without flowers! Undaunted, I switched gears with the concept: now the flowery appearance isn't to hide, but to be seen; that they resembles flowers on a bush is more a result of terrestrial eyes than nereid evolutionary pressures.

The jester chaparro is the other new nereid of the batch. From the beginning I imagined it being the laughing hyena of the family, and drew on the mischief of corvids for inspiration. As the reader you'll have to make your own judgment on how I did with it. After I posted it, the folks at SE pointed out to me that kritocauds appear to have no pupil in their eyes. Well, that's a very good thing to point out. If I can't figure out a way to justify the apparent lack (a pupil so small it's not easily noticed, multiple tiny pupils in a compound-like eye, or some strange reflection of light that makes the pupils always seem red) then I might just have to chalk it up to artistic license and/or think about inserting pupils at some point in the future.

That's all I have right for right now. I have two more nereids in pencilwork and written outlines at this point, so keep a lookout for 'em!