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Grandulus

Trifasciatus grandulus

I should preface the description of this creature by giving a short statement about the natural history of its home planet. Early in its evolutionary history, life on this world did not split into such rigidly defined taxa as it did on Earth. For example, the majority of multicellular earth-life is divided into autotrophic creatures (plants) which are immobile, and the highly mobile heterotrophs (animals). On grandulus’s planet, the peculiar biochemistry allows for a much higher rate of horizontal gene transfer and endocytosis. This means that instead of a taxonomic “tree of life” like on Earth, their evolutionary history looks more like a web. In short, this allows for a wide array of photosynthetic, yet mobile creatures. The grandulus is one of these. It moves around slowly with its sticky appendages and positions itself in a spot with maximum sunlight to unfold its inflatable photosynthetic organ from its posterior shell. It also feeds on the internal fluids of metaflora, as well as decaying organic matter. Its many species range in size from that of a quarter to the size of a hippo.

Placid Segmaris

Caelumbestiae placidus

The Placid Segmaris is the sole food source of the Sky Shepherd. They are essentially floating livestock that are nurtured, herded, and protected until such time as the shepherds need to consume them. The tri-part symbiosis between the Sky Shepherds, the Segmaris, and their large floating counterpart (partially visible as the reddish-brown creature on the right side of the image) is rather complicated, and will be the subject of further works. Helpless on their own, the Segmaris relies on its symbionts for neary everything- protection, reproduction, much of their locomotion, and Hydrogen. The only thing it is capable of accomplishing by itself is the acquisition of food- which is does by filtering particles and small microfauna from the dense atmosphere where it lives. Adults are around 50 feet long at maximum, young start out around a foot long.

Egg Chamber

In some environments, it's hard to tell the difference between genders and species. Organisms share genetic material more easily on this planet, and that leads to some complicated taxonomy. In this case, we see a group of aquatic creatures acting as nurses for a seemingly endless field of eggs. But the network of underwater chambers in which they reside is in fact another living creature. By some categorizations, it would be considered the female of the species - it produces and to some extent nourishes the field of eggs, some of which mature to be gigantic network-chambers themselves. Whether this is an extreme example of sexual dimorphism, or the result of some sort of horizontal gene transfer is a matter of conjecture at this point.

Veteris-42820 C

Finally a planet to house (most of) the creatures I've designed so far. A terrestrial planet with about 2/3 the mass of Earth, it orbits its K-type star, Veteris, within the habitable zone. This system is around 8 billion years old - about twice that of ours, hence the name Veteris, which is Latin for "old". It sits at the outskirts of the nebula behind it, which will still be busy birthing star systems for billions of years to come. Veteris is a good analog for earth- it has a similar chemical composition (including its atmosphere, which is slightly more dense - at about 1.5 atm) so it's a good place to begin our journey.

This was a colored-pencil rendering of the creatures involved in the ecosystem portrayed in the "Aglow" piece. The pancake creatures on the floor are mobile decomposers. The floating lanterns are semi-autotrophic creatures that travel in groups. They travel by spouting air directionally through their vents which are visible along the middle of their bodies.

More strange megafauna.

Pelagic predator pen sketch. More on this soon.

Part of a color study for the next painting I plan to start this week.