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Malicious-Monkey — Phylogeny of Red Plant Derivatives
Published: 2012-08-21 00:29:08 +0000 UTC; Views: 4272; Favourites: 35; Downloads: 36
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Description
As you might have noticed, I've been uploading a lot of art related to a science fiction short novel I've been writing (read it here [link] ). It includes quite a bit of speculative biology, so I thought it might be useful to include some relevant charts and diagrams for all you biology nerds.This is the evolutionary tree of all known alien species that belong to the red plant derivative clade, as discovered and cataloged by the crews of the Odyssey missions to the planet Ilion. I'll update this as needed.
Species I've illustrated and written up so far:
Bald-necked bottleneck [link]
Sawback Thrax [link]
Firebear [link]
Calavera Seedpod (related to, but not a member of the RPD phylum) [link]
Pantopods, aquatics, vermovillosa, banded bottleneck, thraxes, spoonworms, and more [link]
Wooly Starrus [link]
Star Walrus [link] and [link]
Hexapedes [link]
The drawings on the tree are pen, all the lines and text were made in MS Paint.
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Comments: 9
Nice tree. It is loaded with geekyness. 
The drawings of the organism are also well done and are comparable to any drawings you would have found on the earliest phylogeny charts. Did you base this on the evolution of known earth species? In other words, 'based on what we know of our evolutionary history this is most likely what might have evolved on another planet and how, etc.'
Nice work.
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Thanks for the extensive feedback. I didn't base it on the evolution of specific species, but on the principles themselves, like convergence and natural selection.
I think of it as a sort of symbiosis. The speculative stuff like this adds depth to the world the story takes place in, while the story adds context to the science. There are a lot of great speculative biology artists who create rich worlds that could totally be the setting of a book, but the book almost never happens. Which is a shame, because I would read the hell out of a Snaiad book.
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You're welcome. 
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so....if I'm reading this correctly, plants developed mobile fruiting bodies...and *those* returned to the sea (like whales), to produce the aquatics?
very impressive taxonomy.
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Plants with mobile fruits are fairly common. One particular aquatic plant gave rise to the aquatics while the rest remained dependent on the plant portion of the life cycle.
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