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Description
A commission for Lucern7
This one was a bit different than most because I was requested to come up with a life form for a planet orbiting a blue giant sun, with little atmosphere, 70% of landmass and only a fraction of the Earth's gravity and draw a transformation from human into that

The creature I came up with has to deal with bright, UV filled rays (the planet is much further away from the blue sun, so its larger size and heat aren't an issue), so it would either have to develop a thick (armored or spongy), reflective skin, stick to dark caves and have a nocturnal lifestyle or live exclusively underground
The cost of a thick skin is its weight and the larger amounts of energy (both food and air) required to haul it around, especially at faster speeds. While the lower gravity allows larger sizes to take place, this creature actually developed a hollowed skin structure to reduce the weight (much like a bird's hollow bones). And it's also filled with a gas, byproduct of the cells' respiration, that helps to partially "float"

Another important detail is that planet didn't evolve plant life. Because the blue sun's rays are so damaging it was the spongy coral like structures that learned how to get nourishment from photosynthesis, rather than scrapping the mineral nutrients out of rocks, scavenging the deposits of dead matter that formed the soil or actively hunting other organisms in the shadows. From there the growth of branch like structures to passively capture the best sunlight evolved to either develop a symbiosis with creatures that hunted in their shadows, or actively become mobile and just move to more sunny grounds
This creature is from one of the symbiosis evolutionary lines, using its entire back to both breath and gain some extra nourishment from the sunlight. The armor like structure above it protects the more sensitive sections, while also providing some shade during the hottest hours of the day, when the rays would actually burn its organs. The tail section is a bit different it serves a different purpose that requires some mobility to shake away all the "spore eggs"

Description
A commission for Lucern7
This one was a bit different than most because I was requested to come up with a life form for a planet orbiting a blue giant sun, with little atmosphere, 70% of landmass and only a fraction of the Earth's gravity and draw a transformation from human into that

The creature I came up with has to deal with bright, UV filled rays (the planet is much further away from the blue sun, so its larger size and heat aren't an issue), so it would either have to develop a thick (armored or spongy), reflective skin, stick to dark caves and have a nocturnal lifestyle or live exclusively underground
The cost of a thick skin is its weight and the larger amounts of energy (both food and air) required to haul it around, especially at faster speeds. While the lower gravity allows larger sizes to take place, this creature actually developed a hollowed skin structure to reduce the weight (much like a bird's hollow bones). And it's also filled with a gas, byproduct of the cells' respiration, that helps to partially "float"

Another important detail is that planet didn't evolve plant life. Because the blue sun's rays are so damaging it was the spongy coral like structures that learned how to get nourishment from photosynthesis, rather than scrapping the mineral nutrients out of rocks, scavenging the deposits of dead matter that formed the soil or actively hunting other organisms in the shadows. From there the growth of branch like structures to passively capture the best sunlight evolved to either develop a symbiosis with creatures that hunted in their shadows, or actively become mobile and just move to more sunny grounds
This creature is from one of the symbiosis evolutionary lines, using its entire back to both breath and gain some extra nourishment from the sunlight. The armor like structure above it protects the more sensitive sections, while also providing some shade during the hottest hours of the day, when the rays would actually burn its organs. The tail section is a bit different it serves a different purpose that requires some mobility to shake away all the "spore eggs"