Words form the author:Continuing the series that I began with the Mantisfinches. I always thought that the environments in the Future is Wild seemed a little bare- which is perfectly understandable, given the short timespan allotted to each environment in the documentary. In the cartoon, however (which in many ways was better than the documentary) several episodes are frequently spent in a single locale, and much attention is paid to the behaviours and lifestyles of the animals. It all seems a little underdeveloped. Were Falconflies really the only major deterrent to human colonization in Antarctica? When Emily was stuck in the Northern Forest, what else might she have had to worry about besides Megasquids? How come the crew of the Time Flyer keeps running into the same few species over and over again? You see my point. Here is an attempt to rectify this deplorable lack of diversity. The creatures you see in this picture show my idea of what might coexist with the Squibbons, Flish, Megasquids and Slithersuckers of the Northern Forest of 200myh. Only a few of the potential species, mind you- I had several more ideas that I couldn't fit on the paper, and in a healthy ecosystem there would be thousands more to round out the trophic levels. Right. Let's get to it.
Blademantle (Metopospathus septentrionalis) Inhabiting the cool, rain-drenched windward slopes of the northern mountains, Blademantles are much smaller relatives of the Megasquids. Unlike their cousins, they are strict herbivores- using the callused skin on the palms of their manipulator tentacles, they strip branches of leaves, needles and other edibles. A powerful, crushing beak makes short work of the tough plant matter, mashing it into an easy-to-digest mush which is swallowed and left to ferment in the gut, located in the cone-shaped mantle. Adorning this mantle is an enormous bony blade-like structure, developed from the "pen" of their squid ancestors and covered in scales of hardened skin. This blade can be as tall again as the rest of the squid; It is used to establish dominance between conspecifics, and to impress potential mates. It's not simply a display structure, however; the blade resembles a sword in shape, and the males use them as such. During the rutting season, males crash their blades together, bellowing at the top of their inflatable vocal sacs. A pushing contest occurs, each Blademantle trying to drive his rival backwards; as adult males can weigh up to two hundred kilograms and stand almost four meters tall, the forces involved are immense. Blades are frequently broken in these engagements. The victor of the sparring match gains access to the entire local population of females, which have much shorter, more curved blades. Blademantles live in small herds of a dozen or so individuals; their primary defense against predators is their long, nimble arms, which allow them significant speed. Their call is much higher-pitched than Megasquids, though not as loud.
Granch (Platymorpha crypta) The Granch is a fairly innocuous terrasquid that can often be found clinging to the trunks of trees with its suction-cup-like arms, its textured mantle and brownish-gray colour perfectly camouflaging it against the bark. Granches live solitary lives as ambush predators of small animals; during the day they squat on the bark, not moving a muscle, waiting for nightfall. When darkness comes, they leave the sanctity of their tree trunks and climb around the canopy, looking for small creatures like Choirbugs, Treetles, roosting Flish, and slow-moving slithersuckers, which they capture with their long, hook-covered arms. Granches are not fast animals and rely on camouflage, silence and the cover of darkness to sneak up on their unsuspecting prey. There are a number of species of Granch, ranging from a few centimeters across to nearly a meter across; The larger species can take prey up to the size of a Squibbon, although this particular variety is only the size of a dinner plate and prefers smaller, more manageable food. Though Granches are silent most of the time, if disturbed they emit a loud, cranky-sounding croak, from which they get their name. Tyrant Squidbiter (Tyrannopices squibbovenator) The two species of Flish shown in the documentary were rather harmless creatures, one plucking Silverswimmers from the waters surface and the other chasing flying insects among the trees of this very forest. Unfortunately, not all Flish are so benign. Soaring through the canopy, this giant monster hunts for anything it can cram down its extendable, toothy maw. Slightly larger than a modern-day Harpy Eagle, the Squidbiter Flish's wings are short and rounded, allowing for very maneuverable flight among the tangled mess of the lichen-coated forest, and they are fringed with short serrations, allowing for near-silent flight. Squidbiters, as their name suggests, feed primarily on arboreal terrasquid, including Squibbons and their many relatives. Tyrant Squidbiters are solitary and territorial, behaving with extreme agression towards others of their own species; during mating season, the larger female frequently tries to kill her suitor if his gift of a dead terrasquid isn't large enough. Like most Flish- but not all of them- Squidbiters are protoandrous, hatching out as males and spending the first few years of their life as males, before turning into females at a certain size. Eggs are laid in clusters, glued to the trunks of trees, and are valiantly defended by the mother until they hatch. At this point, all motherly instincts vanish, and the young become little more than prey. Young Squidbiters hunt small prey in the understory until they are large enough to mate, at which point they return to the canopy and stake out their own territory. Tyrant Squidbiters make a low, growling call quite unlike the shrill scream of their oceanic relatives or the high-pitched buzz of the green Forest Flish. Choirbug (Chorus inermis) The smooth-skinned, brightly coloured and rather loud Choirbugs are a diverse group of neotenic beetles that envelop the forest with their calls on a nightly basis. The hundreds of different varieties are mostly carnivorous, spending their days hunting for insects and other small prey among the leaf litter or in burrows. At night, however, they climb into the trees and let loose their cacophony, a mesmerizing chorus of stridulent notes produced from pouches on the beetles' chests. Each species has a slightly different call, and plays their notes at slightly different intervals; in the overwhelming noise of the nightly serenade, a female Choirbug (dull brown, larger than the male, and conspicuously silent) must be specially attuned to the individual song of its own species. Females make their way up the tree trunks to where the males wait, gripping the bark with their posterior legs and leaning backwards with their anterior arms outstretched, the better to amplify the call. After mating, the female returns to the ground and lays several thousand eggs in the soil; Most of them get eaten by other insects or predatory slime molds. Those that don't hatch out into miniature versions of their parents and crawl around in the leaf litter until they grow large enough (and loud enough) to breed. Pustulent Blue Slithersucker (Cyanomyx ferox) Slithersuckers are a diverse group of brightly coloured, predatory Slime Molds that are much larger and more mobile than their ancestors. Whereas Holocene-era slime molds could only move in terms of fractions of an inch per hour, the slithersuckers of the Tentacled Forest can move much faster, covering distances of ten meters or so in the same time. This increased speed is still paltry by animal standards, and so Slithersuckers often resort to luring and trapping their prey instead of outright pursuit. Not so with the Pustulent Blue. This variety, coloured a vibrant sky blue that would be attractive if it didn’t belong to what amounts to a puddle of mucus, actively searches out its prey. Said prey is composed of colonial insects; namely, flightless flies. These flies live on the forest floor and scavenge the ground for rotting plant and animal matter, which they carry back to their nest for the communal meal. When they find something that is too large for them to carry back alone, they take what they can to their nest, leaving pheromone trails behind them to mark the path to the carcass. When a Pustulent Blue stumbles across one of these trails, it follows it back to the flies’ nest. The flies, with their long legs and active metabolism, are far too fast for the Slithersucker to catch; this is where the “pustulent” part of the name comes in. Scattered in the blue cytoplasm of the Slithersucker are little hard blobs of darker blue which contain a toxic ooze which release fumes that clogs the tracheids of the flies. When the flies attack the blue intruder, the Slithersucker releases the ooze, choking the defending flies, which are then enveloped and digested by the slime mold. Meanwhile, the rest of the colony escapes with their larvae and what they can carry of their food supplies. River Sharkopath (Ceratosquala riparia) The Northern Forest is a rainforest; it rains almost constantly, soaking the woods in a torrential downpour. This abundance of precipitation leads to an almost ridiculous number of lakes and rivers, and in these rivers lives a wide variety of fauna almost as diverse as what inhabits the land. The River Sharkopath is small, for a Sharkopath- only about a meter long. Like all Sharkopaths, it’s endothermic and absolutely packed with sensory organs. Its head is ornamented with a set of horns and ridges that are covered in a dense array of electrosensory ampullae and pressure sensors which allow the Sharkopath to “see” with total clarity their prey, hidden as it is beneath the rocks and stones of the river. Far more intelligent than their shark ancestors, River Sharkopaths are social creatures which take care of their young and each other. Touch is very important to these creatures’ social lives, and when not hunting they constantly rub against each other, strengthening social bonds and scraping off parasites and dead skin with the sandpapery hides. The bioluminescent patches on their flanks and tail are used to communicate when hunting, alerting the other members of the shoal to the presence of prey or predators. Mimid (Mirabiloteuthis gi) Slithersuckers pretend to be fruit. Granches cling to the trees and pretend to be patches of lichen or bark. There are many animals in the Northern Forest that imitate something else for camouflage or protection. But despite all this mimicry, no animal in the woods is quite so adept at pretending to be something it’s not than the Mimid. Masters of deception and sneakery, Mimids are a kind of Terrasquid that can change the colour and texture of their skin in a vast array of patterns, and they adjust their movement and behaviour accordingly. Like their close relatives the Squibbons, Mimids are highly intelligent and learn through experience and watching others; unlike Squibbons, however, Mimids are solitary and learn by watching members of other species. One Mimid was catalogued as being able to replicate the shape and colour of over two hundred different forest animals, including Squibbons, Forest Hoppers, Flish, Slithersuckers, Krakens, and even (in a quirk of posture and through the use of a tree trunk) a Megasquid. In addition to their shape-shifting abilities, Mimids can perfectly imitate almost any sound they hear with amazing accuracy; they can reproduce the calls of individual Squibbons so well that the intelligent cephalopods themselves are fooled. Mimids use their skills in a variety of ways; by mimicking the call and colour of a Megasquid’s vocal sac, One Mimid in the lowlands was seen to scare away a troop of Squibbons from a prime fruit-bearing tree, leaving the shapeshifter free to gorge itself at leisure. Another draped itself over a branch and turned a virulent orange; the image of a feeding Slithersucker attracted a large predatory beetle, which the Mimid promptly ate. Despite all this intelligence, Mimids are solitary creatures. The females care for the single young, teaching it all the tricks they know, until it is old enough to make its own way in the forest and fool more unsuspecting creatures into thinking it’s something it’s not. Thorny Treetle (Sarcokochyla spiralis) Related to the Desert Hoppers of the southern wastelands, Treetles are armored gastropods that climb trees in search of vegetation to eat. Unlike their desert-dwelling relatives, Treetles’ feet are short and very un-leg-like; however, they still retain the three-pronged toes, with two toes pointing forward and the third pointing back, beneath its shell. Each toe has developed into a paddle-like organ, lined with hooks and with a suction-cup-like lower surface; With these the Treetles climb up the trees with a pondering, turtle-like gait. Different species feed on different things, according to size; while the smaller species are light enough to reach the tips of the trees’ branches and the leaves that grow there, larger species can grow up to a meter long and over 30 kilograms- too large for the branches to support their weight. These species must be content to scrape bark and lichens off the surface of the tree. The Thorny Treetle, however, is a little bit different. Although small enough to reach the tips of the branches, this species has a specially adapted radula that drills a hole into the pith of the tree, where it sucks up the gooey, nutritious sap. When threated, the Treetle clings to the bark of the tree and pulls its head into its shell, much like a turtle; Thus positioned, only the strongest of forest dwellers can pry it off the tree to expose its soft underside.