ceo of hamster evolution

[ceo of hamster evolution]

Just some quick anatomy concepts since I’ve been getting plenty of questions about them!

I’ve been asked about whether ratbats were more like true bats or like pterosaurs anatomically, especially regarding the flexibility of the wing fingers, and I realized I’d never brought those up. Basically, the basal ratbat lineage that arose in the Late Rodentocene had similar anatomy to true bats, with flexible wing fingers and a sprawling gait on the ground, though their hind legs are not reversed like true bats and they cling to branches when “perched” with all four limbs (the large, early Rodentocene ratbats did hang upside-down to roost, so they can easily drop into flight, though I’m not all too certain whether that would require them to have reversed legs.)

Later forms, however, would adapt to soaring, developing more rigid pterosaur-esque wing fingers, especially the leading one of the two, and a more erect stance on the ground that made them significantly more competent on land, which facilitated some species to become flightless on islands without competition. However, even in the Temperocene the basal flexible-winged clade thrives as small fast-flying insectivores as they have much more agility and maneouverability midair when chasing evasive bugs.

Another FAQ was the leviahams’ flipper-propelled swimming style more akin to sea lions and pliosaurs as opposed to the fluke-powered style of whales and seals. Their ancestors the searets did have longer tails, but they were mostly used for steering and changing direction while the hind limbs did much of the propulsion. Basal leviahams that arose quickly in the Therocene would quickly grow big to occupy marine predator niches, but still kept land features like whiskers and claws after becoming fully-aquatic, now using all four limbs in alternating front-hind strokes, and here the tail becomes smaller to serve primarily as a rudder, and by the Late Therocene and Glaciocene the really big ones had lost these remnant features and resembled marine chelonians and pleisiosaurs in their mode of swimming.

[ceo of hamster evolution]

Some design process stuff to make up for the hiatus and lack of Spectember content! A few more-detailed facial close-ups of several zingos and lemunkies, two clades from Hamster’s Paradise that got quite a lot of comments of them just being “just primates” and “just canines”. So I’ve been playing around with how to make it more evident that these are in fact very derived rodents: so how would they be designed to mix together features of canines and primates with more traditional rodents for a face that seems somewhat familiar, but not quite?

Naturally the split upper lip of the ancestral hamster is present, and most obviously the dentition lacking canines and lateral incisors, while more-subtle details like the ears and noses somewhat help in highlighting their rodent ancestry.

Pictured here are a couple of basal zingos with one being more jackal-like and the other being a smaller, fox-like species, while keeping some rat-like features to avoid them looking too canine (while still functionally being suited for canid-convergent hunting behaviors), as well as a marewolf, a large macropredator (think amphicyonids and borophagines) of the Glaciocene and largest of the zingos that was inspired by several “carnivorous horse” prompts on the Spec Evo subreddit and was a bit of a challenge trying to merge canine, equine and rodent features into a cohesive and natural whole.

Also depicted is the lemunky known as the chimpmunk, another challenge to make something look primate-ish but not too simian, with forward-facing eyes for an arboreal lifestyle and a rather flatter face from a bigger cranium and jaws suiting a frugivorous diet, but keeping rodent characteristics, like the split upper lip, gnawing incisors, higher-set ears and more rodent-like nose, as well as whiskers that are retained perhaps for tactile social interaction. Also pictured is a descendant of the chimpmunk from after the Glaciocene, a large herbivore converging with orangutans, gorillas and Gigantopithecus that again was an exercise in uncanny-valley straddling.

[ceo of hamster evolution]

“GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU BITCH!”

Been experimenting on more detailed, textured art styles for Hamster’s Paradise and also doing some practice on drawing backgrounds, so here’s a snapshot of Fissor wildlife in the Late Therocene. A mother greater snoa aggressively puts herself between a hungry giant armadile and her young calf, while the predator, facing the prospect of her fearsome claws, wisely beats a hasty retreat.

This took me more than a week and was way harder than it looked, so don’t expect to see this kind of style too often 😅