Shorah larryf58,

It was fun getting to meet you last night in the 'hood. I will try to stop by now and again to keep in touch face-to-face.

Regarding the Piranha Bird, my comments about its head were solely meant in regard to its disproportionate size. I found it particularly interesting that it could hold its head up at all, considering that it's about twice the size of the rest of the body. I still wonder what adaptive advantage the overall body size/shape of the Piranha Bird offers. Such a small lower body would not need a great quantity of food, I would think.

Ah well, such questions keep my interest piqued in all matters zoological!

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The pir bird's cranial structure reminds me of ceratopsian dinosaurs from the Age of Earth. They, too, had large bony crests which significantly increased the size of their head. Their head structures were also often hollow-boned and had large gaps, even though when flesh covered it it presumably would have looked like a single crest. While we cannot know the exact purpose of the structures, given that the animals are long-since extinct, suggestions have ranged from anchors for additional musculature, display structures for mating or differentiation purposes, heat radiators to help regulate the animal's body temperature, defensive structures, etc.

Perhaps on the pir bird, the skull is intended primarily as a display, either intra-species (I have good genes pick me pick me!) or inter-species (I am brightly colored and warning you to not eat me!). I wonder if it being hollow and possibly holed means that it is very light and thus the animal's head does not weigh more than the rest of its body. Even if it's light, though, I imagine it must be unwieldy to move. I thought briefly that maybe the black eye-like spots weren't actually the real eyes and were markings to attracts attention (and their real eyes would be hidden in a less vulnerable place), but sadly there's no evidence for that.

It's hard to know more about their anatomy for sure without finding a skeletonized pir bird, but I'm definitely not killing and cleaning one to get down to the skull! They're too cute, and I'd rather try raising one as a pet.

Shorah fellow explorers,

As many of you may be aware, I've been very busy lately with the Heritage Documents project, which has kept me away from my zoological and glyph studies. In the course of gathering photographs for that project, I managed to stumble across one of several elusive Cavern creatures, the Tredfish. Although the D'ni Zoological Society has no photos of either the Tredfish or the Senomar (the two documented denizens of the Cavern lake), there fortunately exists an enhanced photo of the Senomar, which allowed me to eliminate this animal as the subject of my recent unplanned photo safari. So enjoy! (Perhaps I will have time to post a couple of other impromptu animal safaris before the end of the weekend.)

Senomar photo (found on Chiso):

My accidental zoological encounter began here at the Bevin lakeside:

I had to watch the murky waters in the near distance carefully in order to spot him:

He cruises through the area slowly:

The waters are much quieter here in Bevin than in the Ae'gura harbor, so perhaps he prefers that:

He seems shy of the brighter waters near the Bevin dockside:

I used my zoom to get a closer image:

He actually is quite large, though it is difficult to tell so here:

As he continues circling by, he finally crosses into the brighter waters:

But this is short-lived as he soon fades out of sight:

Bonus zoological study in the works: the Cavern pests! This will likely be posted to a separate thread once my research is done. Stay tuned! [[Done!]]

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Last edited by Ainia on Fri Apr 05, 2013 3:38 pm; edited 1 time in total

Shorah fellow zoological enthusiasts,

I have put together a number of new zoological study slideshows from my collections of photos.

The first is of the Panuhdoy of Negilahn as he climbs about and feeds. Next are two of the Negilahn Urwin, one as he goes walkabout, the other as he feeds. And then there are two similar ones for his Payiferen cousin, the Sandscrit, as he goes walkabout and as he feeds.

Reziksehv has some amazing animals indeed. Enjoy!

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Shorah fellow animal enthusiasts,

This is just a quick notification that I've updated a couple of the slideshows to include more information and so slow down their frame rates. So now there is more to read about the Panuhdoy and the Sandscrit feeding cycle. Be warned, I am presenting my recent theory posted on the Payiferen rocks thread as my current assumption and belief about the Sandscrit.

Enjoy!

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