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Description
400 million years in the future, Earth might as well be an alien planet. In the wake of a gamma ray burst that wiped out 99.8% of life on Earth, arthropods now reach sizes that put arthropleura to shame, developing efficient lungs and closed circulatory systems in the absence of vertebrate competition. Fly descendants, now known as "walks" for obvious reasons, now stalk the lichen savannahs, hunting in groups of two or three.

While all terrestrial vertebrates were wiped out by the burst, highly derived bat descendants are now having a resurgence, emerging from an extensive system of sealed caves. During their time in the caves, they subsisted off of small insects, using their modified digits as legs and their modified ears as a second set of jaws. When they re-emerged, they found themselves in a similarly dark environment - the dark understory of a forest. The only difference between this forest and their cave environment was the abundance of food and predators. Despite having all their former niches taken by arthropods, these new chordates carved their way into the dark forest ecosystem, gradually expanding to fill their former niches as they developed primitive eyes and pigmented skin, coming to resemble the arthropods with which they share the planet.

Pictured here is a mother coriocollus imbricatus defending her young from a pack of liquivorous walks. While they wouldn't dare go after the mother, fearing a shell-shattering kick from her specialized digits, the walks tried and failed to snatch the infant while the two were sleeping. If they don't have better luck within the next week, the walks may have no choice but to resort to cannibalism.

To describe the walks' biology in a bit more detail, the "antennae" are actually modified wings, now used as balance organs. Their hunting strategy is to sneak up on prey, inject it with a cocktail of paralyzing fluids, and let it run until the paralyzing chemicals take effect. Then, the entire pack injects its prey with digestive fluids, drinking its liquefied remains. This has about a 20% success rate, as it relies heavily on stealth, which is exceedingly difficult on these savannahs without tall grass.

In the foreground, a trio of rotazoans flees the hunt to avoid being trampled. Descended from sea cucumbers, a combination of biological limitations and unique hunting strategies have made rolling the most efficient way for them to move. The species shown here carves flat "highways" out of the scrub, and with a nearly flat, frictionless surface to roll across, predators don't stand a chance at catching these living wheels. The rotazoans deserve their own post, in which I'll describe their three different modes of locomotion, along with their anatomy, senses and hunting strategies.

In the lichen tree, a pair of squid descendants floats using sacs of methane, picking parasitic insects from the branches. These floating squid are a common sight 400 million years in the future, serving as insectivores and nectarivores.

Description
400 million years in the future, Earth might as well be an alien planet. In the wake of a gamma ray burst that wiped out 99.8% of life on Earth, arthropods now reach sizes that put arthropleura to shame, developing efficient lungs and closed circulatory systems in the absence of vertebrate competition. Fly descendants, now known as "walks" for obvious reasons, now stalk the lichen savannahs, hunting in groups of two or three.

While all terrestrial vertebrates were wiped out by the burst, highly derived bat descendants are now having a resurgence, emerging from an extensive system of sealed caves. During their time in the caves, they subsisted off of small insects, using their modified digits as legs and their modified ears as a second set of jaws. When they re-emerged, they found themselves in a similarly dark environment - the dark understory of a forest. The only difference between this forest and their cave environment was the abundance of food and predators. Despite having all their former niches taken by arthropods, these new chordates carved their way into the dark forest ecosystem, gradually expanding to fill their former niches as they developed primitive eyes and pigmented skin, coming to resemble the arthropods with which they share the planet.

Pictured here is a mother coriocollus imbricatus defending her young from a pack of liquivorous walks. While they wouldn't dare go after the mother, fearing a shell-shattering kick from her specialized digits, the walks tried and failed to snatch the infant while the two were sleeping. If they don't have better luck within the next week, the walks may have no choice but to resort to cannibalism.

To describe the walks' biology in a bit more detail, the "antennae" are actually modified wings, now used as balance organs. Their hunting strategy is to sneak up on prey, inject it with a cocktail of paralyzing fluids, and let it run until the paralyzing chemicals take effect. Then, the entire pack injects its prey with digestive fluids, drinking its liquefied remains. This has about a 20% success rate, as it relies heavily on stealth, which is exceedingly difficult on these savannahs without tall grass.

In the foreground, a trio of rotazoans flees the hunt to avoid being trampled. Descended from sea cucumbers, a combination of biological limitations and unique hunting strategies have made rolling the most efficient way for them to move. The species shown here carves flat "highways" out of the scrub, and with a nearly flat, frictionless surface to roll across, predators don't stand a chance at catching these living wheels. The rotazoans deserve their own post, in which I'll describe their three different modes of locomotion, along with their anatomy, senses and hunting strategies.

In the lichen tree, a pair of squid descendants floats using sacs of methane, picking parasitic insects from the branches. These floating squid are a common sight 400 million years in the future, serving as insectivores and nectarivores.