The Early Therocene: 30 Million Years Post-establishment

The Early Therocene: 30 million years post-establishment

Bouncing Bipeds: The Boingos and the Oingos

From the tiny, hopping jerryboas of the Rodentocene would arise the most widespread and dominant of all the herbivores on the planet: the boingos. Descended from the greater skipperroo of the Middle Rodentocene, these bipedal bounders would come to dominate the open plains, grasslands, and savannahs all across Nodera, Westerna, Easaterra and Ecatoria, crossing tthe land bridges of the Late Rodentocene and quickly expanding all across the primary continents.

Today the boingos have become one of the most diverse clades of HP-02017, spanning nearly a hundred species as of the Early Therocene. The largest species, the spotted boingo (Macropodomys giganteus) stands six feet in height and can weigh up to 190 pounds, while its other relatives are smaller, but still far larger than the tiny jerryboas they descended from.

Various species of boingos of this age have since diverged into a wide variety of forms with unique adaptations and lifestyles that set them apart from their relatives. Easily one of the most remarkable species is the streaky zibba (Saltozebroides melanoleuca), sporting bold black-and-white stripes and traveling in large herds numbering in the hundreds. When attacked by a predator, the entire herd scatters and starts bouncing away in all directions, and their erratic movements and dizzying coloration makes it difficult for a predator to zero in on a single target. Others, such as the dusky boingo (Tenuipodomys cinereus) prefer to fight than flee, sporting large claws on their hind legs that can deliver devastating kicks to an enemy.

Some of the boingos have started spreading out from the grassy plains and into other biomes as well. The twinstripe tattoroo (Gracilosaltomys lineaurum) lives in marshy wetlands, where its broad webbed feet keep it from sinking in soft ground and also makes it a surprisingly good swimmer, propelling itself with powerful kicks of its hind limbs. The desert jackaroo (Gymnocaudamys heremus), on the other hand, makes a living in a far drier clime, where its large ears, hairless tail and feet, and light-colored coat help it in losing heat in the arid climates of northern Easaterra.

Meanwhile in the continent of Easaterra lives another, smaller lineage of jerryboas descended from the prairie roobit of the Middle Rodentocene, and closely related to the boingos: the oingos. These smaller cousins of the boingos are endemic to Easaterra, where the only hamtelopes present are towering high browsers: as such, they fill the niche of low-browser and small-scale grazer that are filled by smaller hamtelopes elsewhere.

Various biomes are prevalent in Easaterra, and the oingos have adapted to thrive in a wide variety of them. Scrubland oingos (Minimosaltomys lagoides) thrive in lands dominated by low-lying bushes and shrubs, while the forest oingos (Australosaltomys longuscolli) make a living in tropical forests where they use their longer necks to reach for low-lying branges and bushes in the understory of their jungle home. And in the southernmost region of Easaterra, predominantly icy tundra and permafrost, lives the arctic oingo (Frigorimys glacies), insulated with thick white fur that it sheds in summer and regrows in winter, as well as broad, fluffy feet that prevent it from sinking in the snow.

The tremendous success of the boingos and the oingos revolve around their unique anatomy, namely their growing molars and hopping locomotion. While most herbivorous hamsters have molars with no definite roots and thus can grow constantly like their incisors, the molars of boingos and oingos grow relatively quickly and thus can better handle daily abrasion from the tough stems and sheaths of plains grasses, their favorite food.

Their bounding gaits are also incredibly efficient for traversing the open plains, with spring-like tendons in their hind legs that store energy with each landing and use it to power the next hop, allowing them to bound long distances across the grassland with scarcely any effort at all. This gait also compresses and expands their body with each hop, aiding in their breathing during strenuous activity. With more efficient dentition and locomotion, the boingos have the upper hand in the plains over the hamtelopes, which instead evolve into strange new niches to avoid their competition, such as browsers and small soft-grass grazers, and only on the continents of Borealia and Peninsulaustra, where boingos and oingos are absent, do the hamtelopes get a shot at grassland domination.

But though they look like kangaroos, move like kangaroos and hop like kangaroos due to convergent evolution, the boingos and the oingos are still placental mammals, and thus lack pouches to carry their young. Instead, much like hares and guinea pigs, they give birth to small but well-developed young that are fully-furred and open-eyed upon being born, and within an hour of their birth can already hop about and are able to follow their mother about at only one day old. Boingos and oingos typically give birth to a litter of about three to four, but sometimes as many as eight, and the sight of a mother boingo hopping along followed by her bouncing young ones in single file is a common spectacle across the plains throughout their native continents.

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Update on me and this tumblr

TL;DR: I am coming back to tumblr but also kind of not really. Also I have no idea how to use this site or what I’m doing I stopped using this account because of I wanted to avoid a flood of bad takes about the Russia-Ukraine War. I thought I won’t come back until the war is over, but I underestimated how long that would take and I suppose by now the flood of takes are over.

I’m still not going to blog politics here; if you want my political opinions I’d be happy to share them on Discord. This blog is for random cool stuff and worldbuilding. Also since I haven’t really been active since June last year there’s probably all sorts of changes to tumblr and to my friends that I’m unaware about. I’d like to know more. Definitely a lot has changed, for both good and bad, in my life since then.

Probably still will be a little inactive in the near future because I’m low on ideas and motivation for worldbuilding.

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enbylvania65000

4 years ago

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enbylvania65000

4 years ago

After The Huge Amazing Response I Got From My Ace!Jiang Cheng Comic - All Of The Ace People Saying How

after the huge amazing response I got from my ace!Jiang Cheng comic - all of the ace people saying how amazing it felt to be acknowledged, and all of the people who came to me saying that they hadn’t realised they were ace until they read the comic - I decided I wanted to make something for ace awareness week. it’s not quite as pretty or feelsy as the other comic, but there are so many people even within the LGBT+ community who just… genuinely do not understand asexuality, I figured even something basic would help :)

happy ace awareness week! please remember: everyone’s experience with sexuality is different! be kind and support each other!

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enbylvania65000

4 years ago

I really don’t like when jokes revolving around misinformation on an obscure or niche topic don’t include a label to say it’s a joke. It’s gaslighting people or misinforming those who never read on the topic before.

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enbylvania65000

1 year ago

I know this is such a doomer kind of attitude but I genuinely cannot stand it when people go around talking about the ‘silent majority’ when it comes to Jew hatred. There’s two main problems I have with this statement

— Sure, these people might support Jews now, but it’s probably safe to say the majority of people in the world have deeply ingrained biases against Jews. Those biases are easily exploited, easily brought out, and easily radicalised into rabid hatred. See: large swaths of leftist spaces, who honestly seemed like sleeper agents with how fast they openly admitted raping Jews is a moral thing. There’s also the issue of a lot of these silent majority people not supporting Hamas or believing in the Aryan race or thinking that Jews have no culture and we’re just stealing it from everyone else, but still tolerating those ideas being held in other people— it shows that these people neither understand nor care about the gravity of these views, which then makes those precious biases much, much easier to show

and

— The entire point of the silent majority is that they are silent. Sure, they might chat with their Jewish friends about how bad things are, they might express sympathy in private, things like that. But when push comes to shove, when Jews are being actively murdered wide scale, they don’t show up. They leave us in the dirt. They watch quietly as the Gestappo drags their neighbours away. They look away politely as their Dhimmi shopkeeper is beaten in the street for walking on the wrong side of the pavement. They close their blinds when their friend is tied to the stake and burned alive

I know it’s comforting to think of this vague concept of the silent majority, but it’s not actually reality. I know it sucks feeling like you need to have your guard up all the time (and you don’t, just be careful), it’s going to suck a whole lot more if you put yourself into a false sense of security. The silent majority are not our friends. The silent majority are not there for us. The silent majority don’t care. We can’t just live in a nebulous idea of people who quietly tut to themselves whenever they see someone saying ‘glory to the resistance’ or ‘Jews are trying to taint the Aryan race’, we need to focus on the tangible reality, and the people who are actually present

I think this is also why I, and so many other Jews, absolutely love non-Jewish allies. There’s something so indescribably amazing to see people in this world that’s been so horrible to us standing up for us, listening to us, helping us. Allies go through a lot of shit from others because they care about us, I’ve seen it so much— they’ll get vicious hate for just associating with Jews. And they still do it. They still stick with us. Because they care, and it’s just so wonderful

Spread the love to non-Jewish allies, you are so amazing. And to the silent majority, I hope you can become the help that we desperately need

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enbylvania65000

1 year ago

I never expected a webcomic artist who writes about peace and love for everyone and the importance of standing up for LGBT rights everywhere would link to a site that calls for the end of Israel's existence and a Jewish group that repeatedly uses undeniably antisemitic imagery in their attacks on Israel as well as homophobia.

So far unfollowed two people over the war in Israel and Palestine. Thought that after the last conflict I had already sorted out who not to follow. At least none of them are mutuals, but one of them is a conlanger and linguist I've admired for so many years whose insights on PIE reconstruction have been of great interest to me.

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enbylvania65000

4 years ago

on inattentive traits of adhd

tl;dr at the bottom

so today i was at the dentist and they saw that i take adhd meds. he said something like “your case must not be as severe as some peoples. my son has adhd and he is always bouncing off the walls. but i can just sit here and have a normal conversation with you.”

there is so SO much stigma involved with adhd and it drives me insane. i’m so sick of the “10-year-old boy who can’t sit still” stereotype. this is definitely a way that adhd is presented, and of course they’re struggles are very valid. but neurotypicals only seeing adhd through that lense is so harmful. first of all, adhd is NOT just a “kids disorder”. seriously with this one? every article you find is “my child has adhd how to fix?” or “does my child have adhd?” as if only children struggle with adhd. as if it will just magically disappear. i’m so freaking sick of it. next, it’s the lack of understand of the inattentive side of adhd. this most likely comes from many of the symptoms being more difficult for the untrained eye to pick up on. inattentive adhd isn’t “less severe” then hyperactive adhd or “easier to handle”. it’s just different! as someone who is primarily inattentive, people just seem to constantly underestimate the effect that it has on our lives. they don’t see that we spend hours and hours on a project, all they see is that we turned it in late. they don’t see that we have to actively focus on focusing, all they see is us not paying attention. we have to work longer and harder than our nt piers (i’m not saying we have to work harder than nt at everything, just many tasks that a nt would find easy and fast we don’t because of the way our brain works!), but since people can’t see that, they see us as lazy. “pay attention” “try harder” “look at the board” “are you listening” “look at me when i’m speaking to you” “it’s only a few problems”. these are things i’ve been hearing since i was in kindergarden. this goes for any neurodiverse person: you aren’t “weak” for using your accommodations. they are there to help you, to even out the playing field. i use all of my extra time every time i take a test. is it kind of annoying? yeah. but at the end of the day, it drastically helps me. school and our society in general can be very ableist, and just because you’re struggling with something that neurotypicals aren’t, doesn’t mean that you are “less capable” or “more stupid” than neurotypicals. be kind to yourself and don’t compare yourself harshly to a neurotypical who may be able to do what you can in a much shorter period of time. that’s not fair, because you have an extra barrier to work with. if you struggle with these things and feel unseen, i see you, and there are many others going through the same thing.

if you have primarily inattentive adhd, or inattentive traits in your adhd, or adhd at all, you are such a badass!

!! of course everyone with adhd is valid and a badass! and primarily hyperactive people are amazing and have some of these struggles and some different ones that i don’t fully understand i just wanted to address some things about the inattentive side. i also know everyone’s adhd is different, i don’t speak from everyone whos primarily inattentive and they won’t relate to everything i say!

*this is based off of my experience and research but i’m not saying everything here is a fact, i just want to start a discussion.*

i realize that i just wrote an extremely long post about adhd, so here’s the very crucial tl;dr:

inattentive adhd is so valid and isn’t “less severe” then more hyperactive forms of adhd.

just because people can’t always see your problems right away, that doesn’t mean they aren’t valid.

you aren’t weak for using accommodations!

just because somethings takes longer for you than a nt doesn’t mean you are bad at it, or that you are stupid.

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