World Development: Ecology (part 2 – Fauna)
- Low energy food, need to browse (eat leaves) or graze (eat grass).
- Often are prey species
- Often live in groups (more eyes to watch for predators)
- In mammals, eyes are located more centrally along the side of the head, allowing them greater peripheral vision.
- Not generally nocturnal.
- High energy food, important in seed dispersal/pollination.
- Birds have a high metabolism and thus need to eat high energy food regularly.
- Arborel (tree living) mammals have their eyes located at the front of their head, allowing them better spatial judgement.
- Birds are diurnal.
- – High energy food, requires effort to obtain, one large meal can sustain a carnivore for several days.
- Some species live in groups – packs/prides – and hunt cooperatively for larger prey.
- In mammals, eyes usually positioned towards front of face, allowing better spatial judgement and thus better control over catching their prey.
- Many diurnal, but some nocturnal.
- High energy but need to eat a lot to sustain the animal.
- Many insectivores also occasionally eat meat or fruit.
- Generally solitary or live in pairs (especially if nocturnal as well).
- Many are nocturnal, but not all. Depends on other factors – like predators and active behaviour of the insect food sources.
- Birds are diurnal (mostly)
- The best generalists, because they can adapt to survive in most situations.
- Highly destructive when introduced into new ecosystems.
- Some are social, others solitary or live in pairs.
- Some are nocturnal, some are diurnal.
- Can be a predator, but can also be prey.
Scavengers: Eat dead things (vultures, blowflies etc)
- Work as nature’s “clean up” crew by eating things already dead – including stuff well past its expiration date.
- A very important part of the ecosystem, even if they are kinda dirty and “gross”.
- Vultures have naked heads so that they can stick their heads into the carcass without getting their feathers matted with blood – this could lead to problems with the “waterproof” qualities of their feathers and lead to them dying. They also do not have very strong talons.
- Some scavenger species are actually very effecient hunters (ie: the spotted hyena). Just as some predators rely on scavenging or stealing their kills from other hunters.
Now, how about making up your own species? Sounds like fun?
It sure is!
Here are some ways you can make your native wildlife distinctively different from those on Earth:
1. Focus on birds, reptiles or invertebrates rather than mammals
Consider a world like ours in which there are no mammals – what habitats are there for the reptiles (or birds) to fill? How might they evolve to better exploit these habitats. It might help to study island ecology – looking at places like New Zealand and Hawaii where native mammals were never prevalent. Consider changes the birds might make to fit in here – losing their ability to fly, growing bigger, living in burrows, behaving more like monkeys… etc. Another thing to consider is that mammals hunt by scent (and many have poor colour vision), whereas birds and lizards both have colour vision – so what role might this play in how the native wildlife looks? New Zealand birds are generally drab in colour – which allows them camouflage and protects them from avian predators. This defence proved ineffective when mammals were introduced, and annihilated them.
2. All vertebates on Earth have four limbs – so why not give yours six?
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| Weedy Seadragon/Peacock = Weedy Seacock? |
4. Take Real World animals and alter them to fill different niches
This is particularly fun for Post-Apocalyptic variants of our own world. Okay, assuming the world faces a nuclear holocaust, or climate change or whatever it is that entirely reshapes the face of the world as we know it – what animals will survive?
Probably the hardy generalists and omnivores. The rats, the pigs, the foxes and maybe the cats. Animals such as lemurs, aardvarks and anything with a highly specialised diet or life cycle will be doomed. So, with those animals gone, and the world reverted to its wild self, how might the surviving species change to fill the niches that are left?
Speculative Zoology is fun and challenging. There are several online sites I have found, so here are a couple of links:
Neocene Project
Also worth looking into is Douglas Dixon’s “After Man” – published in 1981, so maybe a bit hard to get nowadays. I picked mine up second hand.
And you don’t *need* to have a Post Apocalyptic setting to make this work – sometimes it is just interesting to think – how would a rabbit look were it arboreal? Or could sparrows live underground?
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| From Budgerigar to Budgieraptor! |
5. Take real world animals and give them elemental powers
However, they might be mistaken for Pokemon. One thing that puzzled me with Pokemon (in the early days) was – what do they eat? Other pokemon? Later development answered this with a “yes”.
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| Meet Makilumi! |
Since dragons are a mythological species with no basis on any particular real animal, authors (and artists) have had a lot of fun developing them in a variety of ways. The typical Western dragon is reptilian, huge and scaly – often with wings – and this seems to have perpetuated throughout many fantasy novels – although sometimes they have three pairs of limbs (four legs, two wings) and other times two (2 wings + 2 legs). Often they also have elemental powers.
My two favourite Western-ish dragons in literature are Patrick Rothfuss’ in “Name of the Wind” and Robin Hobb’s dragon ecology in her “Liveship Traders” series.
In most novels, when a human bonds with a dragon, the two are able to communicate either via telepathy or verbally. This was nicely avoided in the movie of “How to Train your Dragon” which is one of the many things that made that movie original and wonderful.
I personally have several dragon characters, none of which resemble this phenotype:
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 Rhapsody the Sea Dragon (top) |
There are NUMEROUS tropes used in fantasy for designing new species, I have engaged in intensive research at tvtropes to bring you a summary of some of their most relevant ones:
Call a Rabbit a “Smerp”: Which refers to taking standard critters and giving them unusual and original names. This can be especially effective if the Writer wishes to convey an otherworldlyness to their story, or set the culture of the protagonists separate from the typical one. I, for example, generally have used the Malagasy names for the variety of lemur species featuring in my stories, as I feel this adds to the authenticity – as the Malagasy people were there first (likewise, I always list the Maori names on my NZ animal illustrations, when I can find them). It can give the ordinary a somewhat fantastical feel.
Call a “Smerp” a Rabbit: Which refers to having bizarre a variations on the typical – such as giant riding lizards or small wild birds but referring to them as their Earth equivalent – leading to confusion and disorientation on the part of the Reader. If your “cows” are really stocky dragons that eat grass, it might be best to find another name for them. If you do wish to go this route, make it very clear from the start that your cows are not like our cows! This is found in reality too, when early explorers named everything based on what they previously knew – hence the presence of “robins” and “wrens” in New Zealand, despite the fact that they are not closely related to the European birds by the same name.
For more tropes (and before I get off topic) – visit this page here.
Christchurch Writers' Guild 