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Description
Another Venusian animal, this one from Heinlein, and quite a bit more alien. My idea is it is a distant relative of the tongzan [link] and V-frog [link] but only as close as amphibians are to mammals. In the dragon's lineage, the six "petals" that formed the mouth did not fuse into upper and lower jaws, but into a big hollow cone, with only the gap between the lower two petals left open. Through this gap protrude extensions of the tongue, which the dragon uses for sensation and manipulation (maybe they also excrete digestive enzymes)

I tried taking M0AI's advice and color-dodging the shadow layers of this one.

What do you all think?

Here's the oringial description

Dragon (Heinlein): Beside the queue was sprawled the big, ungainly saurian form of a Venerian "dragon." The dragon swiveled one fluttering eyestalk in his direction. Strapped to the "chest" of the creature, between its forelegs and immediately below and in reach of its handling tendrils, was a small box, a voder. The tendrils writhed over the keys and the Venerian answered him, via mechanical voder speech, rather than by whistling in his own language. The dragon reared up on six sturdy legs and climbed aboard. He moved over to the dragon's chin, braced his feet against the deck plates and shoved, thus exposing the Venerian's nostril plate, which was located under the creature's head in the folds of his neck. Granted that Draco Veneris Wilsonii is a civilized race, to stick one's head and shoulders between those rows of teeth seemed to be inviting a breach in foreign relations.

Another passage: Don knew that she was young as her rear pair of eyestalks were still buds; she could not have been more than a Venus century old. He stared at Sir Isaac and eight blank, oscillating eyes looked back at him.

Done while listening to: Temporal Void (yuck!) Destroyer of Worlds (meh)

Description
Another Venusian animal, this one from Heinlein, and quite a bit more alien. My idea is it is a distant relative of the tongzan [link] and V-frog [link] but only as close as amphibians are to mammals. In the dragon's lineage, the six "petals" that formed the mouth did not fuse into upper and lower jaws, but into a big hollow cone, with only the gap between the lower two petals left open. Through this gap protrude extensions of the tongue, which the dragon uses for sensation and manipulation (maybe they also excrete digestive enzymes)

I tried taking M0AI's advice and color-dodging the shadow layers of this one.

What do you all think?

Here's the oringial description

Dragon (Heinlein): Beside the queue was sprawled the big, ungainly saurian form of a Venerian "dragon." The dragon swiveled one fluttering eyestalk in his direction. Strapped to the "chest" of the creature, between its forelegs and immediately below and in reach of its handling tendrils, was a small box, a voder. The tendrils writhed over the keys and the Venerian answered him, via mechanical voder speech, rather than by whistling in his own language. The dragon reared up on six sturdy legs and climbed aboard. He moved over to the dragon's chin, braced his feet against the deck plates and shoved, thus exposing the Venerian's nostril plate, which was located under the creature's head in the folds of his neck. Granted that Draco Veneris Wilsonii is a civilized race, to stick one's head and shoulders between those rows of teeth seemed to be inviting a breach in foreign relations.

Another passage: Don knew that she was young as her rear pair of eyestalks were still buds; she could not have been more than a Venus century old. He stared at Sir Isaac and eight blank, oscillating eyes looked back at him.

Done while listening to: Temporal Void (yuck!) Destroyer of Worlds (meh)