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Possum Cat - Whoapossums Of The Late Origocene

20 Million Years P.E. (The Late Origocene)

The Whoapossums, an lineage of Betabies that took to the trees and became quite the skilled climbers, with an semi-opposable thumb and an flexible tail, now In the Late Origocene they have become even more skilled, with an even more flexible tail and fully opposable thumbs.

The Bright-Eyed Nightpossum (Simiadidelphidae Oculislucidis) Is an skilled nocturnal insects hunter, using Its sensitive, big eyes and ears to detect insects amongst the darkness.

An Whoapossum that went Into the different direction tho Is the Capped Fruitpossum (Fructusdidelphidae Caputgerens), an frugivore that climbs amongst the treetops In search for brightly colored fruit, which they fortunately can spot with ease, as similiar to the Monarch Pterobats the frugivorous diet of the Fruitpossums favored the developement of color vision.

But the most unique of the Whoapossums of this time would be the Fossums, the Pocket-Paw Fossum (Ungulatus Marsupialiscattus) Is one of them, while Whoapossums started to get more comfortable In the treetops, the Fossums started to settle on the ground again, they are still amazing climbers, theres no doubt In that, but they will also spend alot of time on solid floor.

Fossums are excellent small game hunters, they especially shine In hunting Pterobats, Mausbies, Scoppels and even Shrish.

As you might have noticed, the Fossums favor the similiar prey as the earthern cats and this Is not where the convergence ends.

They posses carnassial teeth as molars and retractable claws.

Their retractable claws are a life safer as they rely on them alot to catch prey and climb.

Them moving on rough surfaces could risk the claws trimming to much to be usable for their tasks.

The Ivory Of Life - The Womboars

20 Million Years P.E. (The Late Origocene)

The Nomwats were the first large scale herbivores and thus faced great success, the success of one specific Nomwat species Is incredibly well reflected In their descendants.

The Womboars are descendants of the Koala-Nosed Nomwat, and species that has specialised In eating though vegetation, as more and more herbivores emerged the plants got only thougher trying to shake of the herbivores, but the Koala-Nosed Nomwats were already In the niche to graze the though grasses, thus It was an easy adaption to feed on these new world grasses.

The Womboars most recognizable trait are their tusks which have formed from their molars, their molars grow throughout their entire lifes, kinda like the Mausbies incisors, this helps them to chew trough the tough vegetation.

The tusks are used for self-defense, rooting up plants, display and fighting rivals.

The Plains Womboar (Ivoriumvombatidae Campi) Is one of the most dominant grazers of this time, males have harrems of females over large territories, If territories are overlapping the males will fight, whoevers tusks break first will loose.

Plains Womboars also posses long tuffed ears which they use as flag posts for communication.

These flag post structure usually evolve from tails, but Womboars have too short tail to be utilized, so the ears are the next best thing.

An smaller Womboar species Is the Peanut Butter Womboar (Silvavombatidaeaper Enuxarachidis), these forest dwellers are smaller but also more agile, this although does not mean that they wont use the tusks when backed In a corner.

The Peanut Womboar Is an herbivore which feast on the forest grasses, seeds and roots.

Flap Your Wings! - The Pterobats

20 Million Years P.E. (The Late Origocene)

The lack of flying vertabrates has greatly encouraged the developement of powered flight In the Protein Gliders of the Middle Origocene.

Now their descendants, the Pterobats have dominated the planet as the dominant flyers.

The more basal species are airborn insect-catchers like the Canopy-Catcher (Cortinacaptor Striatus), still very similiar to their ancestor.

But some Pterobats started to focus on larger prey, similiar as the Birds of prey on earth there are also Pterobats of prey, as of right now they are rather small and thus only hunt small prey like Mausbies or other smaller Pterobats.

One of those Pterobats of prey Is the Dusty Pterohawk (Anuroganthusaccipeter Pulverulentus), flying over open plains In search for prey.

But truly the most unique of the Pterobats In this time would be the Monarch Pterobat (Sucusvespertilo Danausplexippus), as It Isnt even In the slightest predatory.

The Monarch Pterobat Is rather interested In sweet foods like fruits and nectar. Another unique factor In these Pterobats Is their ability to see colors, colorvision appears quite rarely In mammals and usually only evolves In frugivores to find brightly clored fruits and since the Monarch Pterobats are fans of bright colored fruits and flowers, natural selection favored them color vision.

Their color vision eventually allowed them one more trait except to find food with ease, communication.

With their bright orange-yellow colors on their otherwise black fur, their colors quite pop and make themselfs visible to other members of their species.

You might think that these colors might attract predators as well, but the predators In question dont posses color vision themselfs and since Monarch Pterobats are mostly adorned with black and orange colors they can actually be pretty hard to spot, or well, atleast not easier then other Pterobat species.

Pterobats get their name from their unique flying build which resembles that of early Pterosaurs.

Since the Pterobats are marsupials, they heavily rely on their claws In order to get Into their mothers pouch.

Thus natural selection has favored an build for flight which retained most of the claws.

Unlike the placental Bats from Earth they only use a single finger to support their skin membrane.

Being an flying marsupial although has more issues then just the claws, the joeys In the mothers pouch can put on quite alot of weight and hinder their flight capabilites.

Although they have found an solution for this issue as well.

Pterobats will stay together as an mated pair until their joey are old enough, when the joeys are getting to heavy for the mothers pouch, she will leave the young with the father, who will then find an safe spot that will hide the joeys, the father will then also feed their offspring and keep them safe untill they are old enough to depart.

Pterobats have 2 ways of takeoff, either from the solid ground by using their front legs to push them into the air, or hang and swing from trees or cliffes.

Blubb Blubb - The Shrish

20 Million Years P.E. (The Late Origocene)

While Macroterra Is a planet of Bilbies, the invertabrates, which have been seeded to sustain the ecosystem, have changed over the years as well and the most succesfull and dominant ones would be the Shrish. Descendants of Planktonic Krill, they have come to dominate the oceanic ecosystem.

The Shrish started out as shrimp like swimmers that propelled themselfs through the water with feathery legs, Shrish like these still exist, the OJ Reefer (Pseudocaris Citrinasuccus) Is an good example. But some didnt bother to actively swim and become bottom feeders, like the Gravel Trilokrill (Trilobitacaris Fundusmaris).

Although some Shrish have optimized their swimming abilities,

some Shrish would eventually develop a shorter and more streamlined body, and give rise to active swimmers that propelled themselves with undulating waves of their abdomen and tail. Becoming a more efficient means of propulsion, these shrish would eventually modify their rearmost swimming legs along with their tail fan into a caudal fluke of sorts.

But these fluked Shrish didnt just stop there, as another adaption proved efficiency, pseudo-jaws.

These pseudo-jaws are formed from their elongated barbed rostrums and first front legs.

With these they can easily catch slippery prey an apply pressure to crack their hard shell.

two of these jawed Shrish are the Great White Shraw (Pisciscaris Magnusalbus) and the Cherry Shrimpede (Centipedecaris Cerasus).

Both are fearsome predators In their own right, the Shrimpedes are small slender Eel-like ambush predators, while the Great White Shraw are rather large at 1 meter In size they are true giants among the arthropods.

But not all of those jawed Shrish are predators, the Green Weedpicker (Herbariumcolligens Viridis) Is an rather peacefull grazer, using their jaws to pluck and crush tough algea, seaweed and corals.

Remember Your Ancestors - The Sandy Betaby

10 Million years P.E. (The Middle Origocene)

10 Million years into the history of Macroterra many descendants of an single animal, the Greater Bilby have risen and fallen.

Lurking In the shadows of various succesfull lineages there Is one that seems like It Isnt going to stick around that much longer.

The Betabies (Family: Betamacrotidae) were one of the lineages which emerged relatively early In Macroterras history and given rise to even more lineages like the Hedgey´s, Whoapossums and Bilcoons. The Betabies themselfs though are kinda victims of their own succes as they find themselfs In tough competetion with their relatives.

As of the Middle Origocene their Is only one Betaby species alive, the Sandy Betaby (Betamacrotis Arenosus).

It manged to stick around as an oppurtunistic desert dweller, but know there are other oppurtunistic more adapted species like Jerbaroos and Needle-Manes.

While It Is tragic that the Betabies will soon fade away from the face of Earth, or Macroterra, this Is just life, extinction Is the rule and evolution Is the exception.

But the Betabies managed to produce descendants that do quite well for themselfs, so while they themselfs will be gone, their lineage will be continued.