If you have any thoughts or have another series you would like me to cover please feel free to leave a comment. Additionally, this video was created more as a pilot, first draft, and proof of concept for this kind of content, so I had a short timeline, thus resulting in no script. I may remake this video with a proper script and more well-articulated points after the Watcher DLC for Rain World comes out and I get the chance to play it and examine the creatures. Thanks for watching, and If you like this kind of content please like and subscribe.
Aren’t most descendants of purposed organisms? It would explain a lot of the inconsistencies assuming the world had earth-like fauna and flora before the Ancients got good at genetics modification
Blue Fruit are almost certainly Batfly larvae, so they'd be classified under whatever batflies are. Additionally, since Batflies are killed with a spore puff, we know they are arthropods. This is also the case for squidcadas, spiders (all kinds), stowaways and dropwigs, eggbugs and firebugs, noodleflies, and centipedes (all kinds). They also temporarily pacify beehives.
@ramuk1933 The spore puff observation is an interesting one. However, all being arthropods seems to be a reductive assessment. One of the 4 fundamental characteristics of arthropods is an exoskeleton, which the noodlefly doesn't have, as well, amniotic eggs are only inate to phylum chordata when comparing to real world assessment. Whitle it is conceivable to hypothesize more species stem from arthropods, assuming that their current form is arthropods misses out on the 4 fundamental characteristics of arthropod: hemocoel(can't determine so not used as justification in the video), exoskeleton, metamorphosis, and metamerism/ tagmitization. I should have explained this in the video, but because of the lack of exoskeleton on the noodlefly, it categorically can't be considered an arthropod. Most of your examples are compelling, and, if I make a follow-up video, it will act as a good reference, but the noodlefly is an odd edge case. Thank you for your thoughtful analysis and reply.
@@pirateshipguy The noodlefly's exoskeleton may be inside its body. I would feel inclined to believe that its needle is a half-softened skeletal structure, possibly originally having been an exoskeleton. An exoskeleton turned endoskeleton is not unheard of even on Earth. The squidcadas in particular likely have this going on, because they are based off of squid, or- as I like to think- cuttlefish. They both have internal skeletons which, I believe, were at one point exoskeletons. Not anymore, though. But that's less important for squidcadas because there's also a bit of what seems to be exoskeleton on the outside of their body near their shell. So they already have a little bit of exoskeleton, or at least that's what I think. The wings could probably also be called exoskeleton since they're probably made of the same material as arthropod skeletons in this world. Another thing to note is every creature in this game is most likely a purposed organism, so it's possible some of them are hybrids and have both arthropod and non-arthropod ancestry. It's also possible some of them are 100% arthropod but do not appear as such due to how they were engineered. Although here's the most important part, in my opinion. Given that these are fictional creatures, when we say "arthropod," we're really saying that it's the closest comparison we can make to a creature in our world. If squidcadas and noodleflies are related predominantly to creatures that resemble arthropods, then I think it's fair to still put them into the arthropod group, just because they have to go SOMEWHERE and they share a major diagnostic trait with other 'arthropods' of this world. They most likely descend from an ancestor that looks a lot like the other arthropods- having an exoskeleton and whatnot. They simply don't look the same now, which is fine in the eyes of a clade. It only matters that their skeleton looked a certain way at one point in time, it doesn't matter how it looks now.
@ No problem, there’s always bound to be a tiny mistake in a video this complicated and broadly researched, and it didn’t really affect anything, just thought I’d mention it. Really great video!
I'd honestly classify slugcats under the superfamioly musteloidea instead of the order rodentia as they have frontal eyes and are more prone to a carnivourous diet
@_Zomet_ This actually makes more sense than my explanation. Though called rodent in dialog, they do seem to share more charicteristics with facultative carnivores, especially when considering that blue fruits are pupa. My explanation was kind of a reach, especially considering the lack of any clear incisors. Thanks for the comment.
Something else that should be mentioned is that "slugcats" being called rodents... is more so from the perspective of the Iterators, or rather their creators, the Benefactors/Ancients. We don't really know what THEY would classify as what exactly, so it is fully possible that if they were to look at an otter, THEY might call it a rodent, whereas from OUR perspective it's a mustelid
@@victoralexandervinkenes9193Yeah, specifically in vanilla the echo calls them "some kind of rodent" the echo isn't really speaking with confidence. It's also a pretty common mistake for laymen to mistake mustelids for rodents! Of course I don't think any rain world animal is directly comparable to animals on earth, because they are on an alien planet, any similarities are just convergent evolution (or because it's a game, and the creators are very much not aliens, and the players also can only really understand the animals thru our own experiences on earth)
I just assumed the second pair of antennae are fake to confuse predators, like how centipedes in real life have antennae like protuberances on their hind end. Its so if a predator attacks the wrong end, the centipede can curl around and bite it
I initially assumed they were fake antennae too, but after playing as one in Safari Mode, it became clear that they appear dual-headed. When playing as a centipede, your movement depends on which end you're leading with - it's really difficult to operate, you are basically controlling 2 heads at any given moment. It's hard to explain. They don't like, play tug-of-war with themselves, both heads work in tandem with each other. They are definitely connected, they aren’t independent of one another. That said, I don't think this creature has 2 brains. More like it has one half of said brain on either side. Controlling it was like controlling the left and right halves of a creature's nervous system with both halves connected by a long string. Also it can pick up objects with both heads. It also needs to touch one end to the other to electrocute prey, which is also pretty interesting.
Important to note that all other terrestrial lizards also gain hair like the strawberry lizards, but the strawberrys only appear in saint campaign (where the world is all snow)
This is obviously based on an understanding or reptiles in an earth context, but they could have evolved feathers! Since feathers are modified scales n all. We even have examples of less developed feathers in ratites like ostriches and rheas, where the feather is unstructured and hair like.
The lizards were actually like dogs and selectively breed, which would explain why some of them have managed to develop small hairs/bristles. I would personally classify the Strawberry lizard as a reptile.
I would class them as reptiles too. They seem to have splayed out legs, which is common in reptiles. Aside from that, the only thing they could really be compared to is a salamander, but they also have large teeth which salamanders generally do not. I also doubt they have wet skin as that would be horrible for survival in a cold environment, which lizards have shown their ability to survive in. To me, they seem the most like a very early archosaur. Archosaurs normally don't have splayed legs, but given that lizards seem to be warm blooded, yet don't resemble a mammal in any way, an archosaur still feels the closest. If I were to try and fit them into Earth clades I would probably either class them as an archosaur of some sort. Archosaurs are also quite smart for reptiles. Orange lizards are smart enough to hunt in packs and other lizards are smart enough to recognize that the slugcat is better off left alone if it's consistently nice to all the lizards. If you feed the lizards in a region, they all slowly become passive, not to mention the ones you feed will be tamed. They understand the concept of sharing even when it's a strange animal doing it. So they must be pretty dang smart.
@@catpoke9557archosaurs would also explain the development of protofuzz and early feathering in saint campaign. I would probably place them more on the crocodilian side of archosaurs, just because of their exposed teeth and splayed legs.
I don’t believe this was ever confirmed. Perhaps you’re getting mod lore mixed up, because it’s either the hanging garden pearl or one of the lush mire pearls states that.
The grapple worms seem more like weird holothurians (Sea cucumbers) rather than leeches to me. They seem to have more in common, especially the grapple worms ability to fire sticky pink tongue-like structures to grapple on to things, which reminds of of the sea cucumbers ability to expel it's organs as a defense mechanism.
Concerning Chilopoda: all centipedes posses caudal, elongated false legs that form what a would-be attacker would perceive as a head. It could very well be that this is also the case in Rain World, but in addition that end also possesses the mechanism for delivering the electrical shock. I haven't played in a while, so I don't remember whether or not there's a specific end from which the centipede can bite from. Centipedes are generally capable of quite swift and coordinated backwards movement. I'd like to think that the "controlling them at both ends" is an homage to that, but I may just be overthinking.
After examining the remipedes which are blind crustaceans with a centipede-like body plan and their first pair of claws adapted into envenomating needle-like fangs (making them represent the only confirmed venomous crustaceans when Xibalbanus tulumensis had it's venom sequenced) native to anchialine cave systems it's possible that the second set of antennae could be a crustacean-like forked uropod (the tail, which can be a fan or a set of long pointed prongs) adapted into a second set of antennae-like sensory organs.
@@IC1101-Capinatator It makes sense honestly- the centipede-like morphology is either a convergently evolved feature or one that is a primitive body plan, and it would not be too far fetched to imagine them being able to adapt to terrestrial living if forced to, or engineered to do so. While the electric eel's electrical generation and electrosensory organs take up most of it's body volume with the viscera being confined to the front 20% of it's body length, I imagine a long centipede-like body could host similarly long stacks of parallel and serial biochemical "cells" in a biological voltaic pile similar to an eel, and directly coupling prey across both terminals via contacts whether penetrating or otherwise could defeat what would otherwise be a difficult problem of actually getting the electricity to the prey. If the large scales were metallic or otherwise conductive on both sides with a dielectric in the middle it's possible they could act like plates of a capacitor as well.
Granted I’m not a primatologist, but I do have an interest in said field as well as paleoanthropology; even with the lack of evidence regarding the dentition for scavengers, I think it’s still possible to further classify them down to the family hominidae (great apes) based on other morphological and behavioral characteristics. I’ll provide a brief explanation for why scavengers fit into each taxonomic level leading up until hominidae. Haplorhini (Tarsiers, monkeys, and apes): This group differs from strepsirrhini (lemurs, lorises, and the like) due to a greater reliance on social structures and a diurnal lifestyle. Strepsirhines tend to be more solitary and have adaptations for nocturnal vision (though there are outliers with some lemurs, scavengers differ from these due to typically lacking tails and having a shorter rostrum). We see that the scavengers of Rain World have a reliance on communal living and are likely diurnal; scavengers commonly have lanterns with them in darker regions like the Subterranean and Shaded Citadel, likely to assist in their ability to see. This suggests they lack structures to assist in nocturnal vision. Anthropoidea/Simiiforme (monkeys and apes): This group separates itself from the tarsiers due to a variety of reasons, but I’ll go over a characteristic seen in Rain World’s scavengers. Tarsiers have an extreme reliance on an arboreal lifestyle; while the scavengers can maneuver quite efficiently on poles and the like, they still live mostly terrestrial lives by choosing to remain mostly on the ground, such as those that remain at scavenger tolls. Tarsiers are also often more solitary, while the scavengers are the polar opposite. Catarrhini (old world monkeys and apes): it’s a bit harder to place scavengers into this group due to most of the characteristics that separate this infraorder from Platyrrhini (new world monkeys) being unknown in scavengers. Specifics in dentition, chromatic vision, and nasal structure can’t effectively be determined in scavengers which makes things difficult. However, a terrestrial lifestyle is more commonly exhibited in catarrhines as opposed to platyrrhines, which are more frequently arboreal and have less terrestrial species. This leads me to place the scavengers within the former. Hominoidea (apes): Characteristics that can be seen in scavengers that separate this group from Cercopithecoidea (old world monkeys) are taillessness, flexible shoulders, and a more orthograde posture. Scavengers clearly possess these traits; most lack tails, hang from poles in a similar manner to extant apes, and have a more orthograde posture allowing them to more effectively pick up and throw objects. Hominidae (great apes): lastly, this family separates itself from hylobatidae (gibbons). This classification for scavengers is quite interesting due to them possessing characteristics of both families, but ultimately I feel as though they are hominids. Scavengers possess hylobatid qualities by having disproportionately long arms and short legs as well as engaging in brachiation when moving arboreally. However, scavengers when moving terrestrially, they appear to engage in knuckle-walking as opposed to bipedalism and seem to live in non-monogamous social structures due to the number of individuals present in groups which is more characteristic of hominids. Also, the presence of elite scavengers and the chieftain scavenger suggests a social hierarchy among scavenger tribes, something typically lacking in gibbons. A larger presence of hominid qualities as opposed to hylobatid traits leads me to believe they fit into the former, though it is a bit of a toss-up. I’ve probably missed stuff, but this is just what I’ve gathered based on my knowledge of primates and Rain World.
4:22 I believe that centipedes use antennas to feel vibrations in the air, which explains their "movement-based" vision and why they can see you from either side Cats also use their moustaches for that exact reason For a side indication we can clearly see a weird attachment on their back which is most likely used to attach to creatures, which can probably mean that the side where this thing is absent has a mouth they use to eat and grab onto a prey
Awesome video! I'm pretty sure you catalogued that the best among of all community. But I think that Strawberry lizards are most likely ordinary lizards that can grow feather fluff like structures, some dinosaurs could grow feathers I'm pretty sure, so why couldn't they grow feathers? Edit: I'm pretty sure Lantern mice we're developed as luxurious pets for the advanced civilisation
I think the grappling worms eat by filter feeding on air-born bacteria and/or other bits of organic matter that land on its tongue,i don't really know much about this kind kind of stuff tho, so i could just be completely wrong
I think that Rain World animals can't really be classified as we classify animals on Earth as it definitely isn't Earth, but we can usually kinda call them either vertebrae or invertebrate. Also there could be more moisture in the atmosphere compared to Earth, maybe it allows lizards to have crocodile-like teeth with no lips and it might help plants to grow on structures, also rot may be a huge colony of microorganisms with some corrosive dark substance with which they dissolve creatures, anyways I don't want to make this comment too long, interesting video
@randigo9992 Good observations. The lack of applicability of reql world taxonomy in a literal sense is why I stated in the disclaimer that this was not to build theoretical philogeny but instead to familiarize people with general characteristics of real-world taxonomic groups. The microorganisms hypothesis is an interesting one. Thank you for the feedback.
@@pirateshipguy Thank you for replying. I like speculative biology like the Darwin IV Expedition, I was also imagining scenarios in which we will find life and will need to create entirely new branches. Basically I'm quite familiar with that stuff
I don't think that white lizard camoflauge is the same phenomenon as real-world chameleon camoflauge because it flashes in neon colours when hit, it can only be a single colour at once, and it seems to deactivate and turn a default white when chasing things. I don't know too much about chromatophores and all that in the real world, but these three traits run very contrary to my understanding of those creatures and align more with a more digital type of camoflauge, which makes sense given that nothing in Rain World is completely natural. Edit you made a comment about how "some creatures" descend from purposed organisms, but it's implied that all (or nearly so) extant creatures by the time of the slugcat are descended from purposed organisms, possibly even purposed by multiple waves of civilizations from different creatures evolving to sapience and then fnding a path to ascention. I mean, dirt in this game is just less processed metal, and the game is all about "cycles" and repeating patterns. Moon literaly states that "very little primal fauna" was left by even her time.
Thank you for pointing this out. I should have been more intentional about properly explaining the affiliated lore in the beginning of the video. I will keep this in mind for future uploads. The change of color does more accurately resemble an RGB display change than the more gradient based changes of chromatophore adjustment along with also failing to serve the emotional communication function of chromatophores. thank you for the productive feedback.
2:10 The classification of batflies on the first possibility is easier due to the fact they chirp when grabbed. Some moths in real life chirp to deter bats from eating them by interfering on their ecolocation. So they are either a bat or a moth, also respalded by the fact that moths exist in rain world. 2:18 It kind of looks like a beetle pupa. Or an egg (more details below in the comment). 3:14 Red Swarmers (the red flying things on Farm Arrays) are more detailed and although we can't see their limbs we can say they are related to wasps and hornets. Dragonflies, ants, beetles, flies, moths, wasps and grasshoppers might as well use real life classification I remember there being also minnows in shoreline but that might be mandela effect. 4:12 It is stated in gameplay that centipedes have two heads (they can grab you with both sides) and, despite them being hostile, are not carnivores (otherwise they would drag the dead to a den). This perhaps makes them not true centipedes, and instead they are herbivore/omnivore bicephalous millipedes or something completly different, more related to wings and aquas. 6:54 I have no idea if this makes any difference, but both eggbugs and rubicon's variant care about their young, unlike most arthropods. 7:38 Lizard (removed, later modded characteristic) and noot eggs don't have a hard shell due to it potentially dissolving (egg shells are mostly similar to salt chemically) to the stupidly high humidity. This arrises a question: do these eggs fall under the catergory of vertebrate's or invertebrate's? 7:42 I am against classifying these "snails" into gastropoda, since they have two clear foot-like structures. Their shell is not hard but that is alright after the previous statement about eggs. 8:56 For that kind of cases I say they are "tetrapoda" and keep moving. 9:39 Every lizard is a different species, not variants or types. Regarding white lizards, that is not a naturally occurring camo and is more in tandem with the genus Indominus rather than to chamelions. 11:23 All other non-aquatic lizards other than caramels do also have furry variants in Saint, and zoops (strawberry) have a non-furry variant spawnable by lineage. Fur in lizards makes me think they are either special or not reptiles at all. Two-legged snake-likes are not entirely unheard of, so eels are still grouped as lizards. 12:50 Vultures? They are harder to classify than you think. They have bug-like jaws and no legs at all. The masks are a part of their head. 14:00 I suspect vulture grubs are parasitoid (very likely wasps) towards vultures. Otherwise, why would they attract them with the risk of death? 15:51 Coalescapedes (small spiders) are perhaps juveniles that later specialize to revive spitters (wolf or regular spiders), carry dart maggots (spitter or red spiders) or create more spiders (mother spiders). That's my theory, respalded by the fact that they all ignore eachother. 17:36 Ha, ha, ha! In the intro images, we see in detail that scavs have ant-like external jaws. Very small, but they have them! 20:51 Miros birds can also be classified as "terror birds" despite their beak resemling trapjaw ant mandibles. To which genus specifically is unknown because we can't see their ancestor's legs in game.
You have a lot of good points here. Batflies do have several charicteristics in common with lepodopterans as pointed out by someone else in the comments. Wasps and hornets belong to order hymenoptera which characteristically have 4 wings when present, and chewing or sucking mouthparts. As these details are not clear in the model, I felt it would be disingenuous of me to assume the presence of these characteristics. While the models of the bugs are named after and resemble real world arthropods, I also believed that it would be disingenuous to assume being the same creature. The two heads and aggression with no clear feeding points are important and I'll keep them in mind, however millipedes by nature have two sets of legs per body segment, and thus are not directly analogous. While uncommon for most arthropods, several spiders and scorpions use brooding strategies that involve crying young on their back. Amnionic eggs don't necessarily need to be hard. Amnionic eggs simply allow for development outside of underwater conditions as seen in noodlefly eggs hatching in shelters. Also, the hard outer covering could hypothetically develop out of various substances not just those found in real world eggs due to the different development conditions. As mentioned in the video my hypothesis is that the two feet structures could be a modified opurcilum structure as seen in the conch. Also, real world aquatic mollusk shells, such as sea snail shells and clam shells, remain rigid underwater quite effectively even after the death of the mollusk. Variant or type can imply a difference on any taxonomic level and simply means a different variety. just like a komodo dragon is a different type of lizard from an iguana. Iguanas and komodo dragons are different species, but they are also different families. I used the term variant or type, because from lizard to lizard further classification could branch off at the family genus or species level. The massive time gap between the rivulet and saint playthrough could have been enough time to permit evolution in the lizard population, making them more like real world mammals, which is an interesting hypothesis I hadn't thought of before. Also, there are also species of amphibian with two (certain salamanders) or even no (cecilians) legs, meaning that the eel lizard could conceivably be an amphibian as well. I didn't explicit say it in the video but vultures were very difficult to try and classify. Chordates can develop protective carapaces as seen with turtles, this or synthetic intervention could explain the mask. Looks to the moon states that the mask is most likely from a purposed organism, so vultures are most likely highly synthetically engineered leading to odd characteristics. As seen with the amphibians and reptiles brought up for the eel lizard, or in whales and dolphins, tetrapod chordates can lose limbs and develop new varieties through evolution. The parisitoid grub hypothesis is interesting. I personally think that due to the signal only being sent when triggered by another animal the response seems to be a defensive one and an example of mutualism. Interesting hypothesis. Can you give me a source on the intro image that shows this? I can't find it and I would love to use it as reference, as detailed pictures make seeing small details much easier. I didn't think of terror birds, thank you for pointing that out. Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful reply.
The seventh image on the order left to right in config, can't show the link cuz nintendo. I will still hold on the idea that there is something parasiting vultures due to the general scarcity of VG.
Obviously as you stated at the beginning of the video that RW and RL taxonomy don’t exactly line up, so take my comment with a grain of salt. But I’m really not sure vultures can fall into any sort of categorization. They seem far more like blimps that use their ‘wings’ for maneuvering while ‘on the ground’.
Regarding "furry" reptiles in Saint's campaign (Strawberry and other lizards): They could be on a similar path to what lead to birds/feathers. Feathers didn't just sprout out of nowhere, they developed on reptilians as what would've started out as being very visually similar to fur. With the game's sonewhat minimalistic art style those differences are hard to parse but that's personally how I see it
@emreszy3463 Thanks for pointing this out. A few others have pointed out that eel lizards can show up in other playthroughs. It was an oversight on my part.
I like to think that the Bug pupa thing is actually a case where Batfly pupa either are inside the fruit or they mimic blue fruit because well, saint can eat them. Otherwise no one tell him. I feel like most if not all rain world creatures have been modified in some way, so classifying them is extra hard because of that. I also like to think that Rain World has a much higher concentration of oxygen like in the carboniferous so that's why the arthropods can get so big
Something important about vultures is that they actually have tentacles as wings, not you typical bird wing. If you look at the concept art for the game and the game dev log, you will see that they have this segmented tentacles things with "feathers". Plus they have a weird face with lateral "mandibles" that they use to grab prey as they hunt. Also, their bottom appendices aren't exactly legs.
Also, the devs commented that their idea for this creature was a flying predator that would be able to use it's tentacles to fly and climb/ walk around.
for batflys, that one image on the bottom shows them having 4 legs and 2 wings. If it were a mammalian bat, it would only have two legs and two wings, since a bat's wings are modified forelimbs. Many bugs in the game, like eggbugs, are shown to only have 4 legs instead of six, probably so that the smaller sprites don't look overcrowded with so many overlapping pixels, So it's most likely batflys are arthropods and not mammals. Great video btw I LOVE taxonomy and biology and Rain World is one of my favorite games so this was just amazing to see :3 edit: forgot to put the thinner wing structure and overall body shape, and attraction to a certain species of plant (batnip) leads me to believe that batflys are specifically lepidopterans, aka the group that contains moths and butterflys.
I've only been able to see 2 legs, but it's probably just due to my poor eyesight. The lepidopteran comparison makes a lot of sense, as they seem to have synchronous flights, and the steep curve at the end of the wing does resemble the curve on certain moth species when viewed in slow motion. Thank you for the feedback.
Not necessarily. In-game, they have 2 additional pairs of specialized limbs on both sides, already have a pair of walking limbs on each terminal segment, and, in arena mode one control option is labeled "switch heads" potentially implying the presence of two heads (though this last fact is irrelevant to the title's posed question). The text in the thumbnail does not imply one set of antennae on each side, but instead, what at first glance seem like two sets of antennae not acting as walking limbs in the head area on a single side.
I don't get how the blue fruit are animals, to get the monk passage you need to follow a vegetarian diet for 6 cycles, eating things like batflies or baby centipedes will reset the progress of the passage but eating blue fruit wont
@roticrack One hypothesis I just thought of is that because the animal in a chrysalis is usually at least partially in a predigested liquid state, it could be easier on the slugcat digestive system. This also potentially explains why the saint can eat them as well. Thank you for bringing up that point.
I haven't watched the videos yet- if you don't put out yeeks are clearly related to jetfish I'm going to riot I feel like I'm the only person who's noticed they have the same body plan and the same number of appendages. 2 limbs, a little nubby body, two trailing tails at the end, two big eyes on its little head, and tendrils (in the yeek's case the tendrils are on its back, in the jetfish's case they function as antennae on its face) They're pretty much the same creatures but one lives on land. Yeeks even jump, which could be through similar mechanisms to jetfish jets- perhaps yeeks let out a burst of air before each jump. They also have a cooldown on how much they can jump which would make sense if they're sucking in air. But the air burst is extremely speculative and there's no real sign of this happening in game- not even an air puff sound, unless maybe the honking noise yeeks make when they jump is a result of them pushing out air.
@catpoke9557 That's an interesting hypothesis. Because the limbs on jetfish resemble pectoral fins and the limbs on yeeks resemble hind legs, both using different muscle groups, I didn't see the connection. Playing into your hypothesis, this could be a case of genetic drift, with jetfish developing pectoral muscle groups because they are useful for underwater steering and yeeks developing strong hind limbs because they are more useful for spontaneous jumping land mobility. Thank you for the comment.
I don't think we can even say they are animals, because that is a particular kingdom unique to our world. In Rain World we have to assume everything evolved completely differently and there is no similarity other than convergent evolution. What I'm saying is we need to make up a new taxonomy for Rain World.
@sonwig5186 I understand your point, and as mentioned in the disclaimer, this was intended not as a mechanism for a deep understanding of the world of Rain World's phylogeny but instead as a thought exercise to aquaint others with an understanding of real world taxonomic groups and their characteristics. Fundamentally, this doesn't aim to be a speculative evolution piece, but instead an introductory educational piece on real-world taxonomy. Thank you for your reply.
@@pirateshipguy Sorry I didn't want to be too critical or anything and I liked the video. It was good fun and well made! I just think making them into real world things have problems, like people equate miros birds and vultures because they both have bird names even though they probably have absolutely nothing to do with each toher. Then this bleeds into the lore of the game through miros vultures.
@sonwig5186 I totally understand having holdups both in seeing taxonomy used in a non-standard way and my analysis of the vulture specifically. Honestly, I failed to highlight just how hard it was to try and compare the vulture to anything in the real world and didn't properly touch on its outlier characteristics. Fundamentally, there are several improvements I need to make in presentation and explanation, and feedback like yours helps me see what I need to improve or be more thorough on in the future. Thank you.
@HYDROCARBON_XD In order to aquanit people with general characteristics of real-world taxonomic groups. The intention was not to try and actually classify them but to use the creatures as an example of traits for taxonomic groups to reinforce or introduce the knowledge of these groups charicteristics. Also, for fun, like overanalyzing any fictional media from a real-world scientific standpoint.
@stonnacc Honestly, anything related to the void is canonically difficult to contextualize in any sense relative to the natural world other than the end of all things. As such, the closest comparison is probably a biblically accurate angel. Due to the weird metaphysical lore, lack of environmental interactions, and lack of clear real-world animal comparisons for void-related entities like echoes and void worms, I thought that classification would be less useful even for comparason to real-world creatures. Additionally, I was trying to be as spoiler free as possible, thus avoiding anything that could spoil the game and could not be easily classified. Thanks for the reply.
the issue with classifying rainworld life is that they just dont fit into modern animal life. there is nothing even remotely similar to a squidcada or noodlefly in rl.
that doesn't mean they can't belong to a class or clade, of course, or even descend from rl animals. neoteny is quite common, and if some insects evolved to retain a softer, grubby exterior yet develop wings then just about every other trait is easily explained. i default to this explanation, as any other requires insect wings to evolve again or something even less likely and more complex.
i also just dont like when people limit themselves to modern faunal groups. plenty of extinct lineages fit rw animals much better than modern ones. i generally argue that lizards are basal temnospondyls, due to the relative genetic variability of lissamphibians and their generally terrestrial lifestyle. scavengers and raindeeri generally argue as dicynodonts, though i haven't checked as recently and i might change my stance.
i also just dont like when people limit themselves to modern faunal groups. plenty of extinct lineages fit rw animals much better than modern ones. i generally argue that lizards are basal temnospondyls, due to the relative genetic variability of lissamphibians and their generally terrestrial lifestyle. scavengers and raindeeri generally argue as dicynodonts, though i haven't checked as recently and i might change my stance.
yeeks, jetfish, and the snails/turtles i argue as eachothers closest relatives due to the two limbs of yeeks and turtls, and the jet propulsion of snails and jetfish. i think they are a wholly independent lineage of terrestrial life, probably fish, maybe cephalopods, possibly a more basal jawless chordate.
First comment: That's true, which is why I mentioned in the disclaimer that this was not applicable for building theoretical phylogeny and explicitly stated the criteria for placement and tried to highlight outlier traits. Second comment: the only holdup I have with this hypothesis is that they seem to have internal skeletal structures (they have one somewhat rigid body region, with the surrounding regions being floppy). Thrid and Fourth comment: A few people in the comments have already pointed this out or gave suggestions for classification based on extinct animals. This feedback is useful, and I plan to take it into account for future uploads. Fifth comment: Someone else pointed out the yeek and jetfish comparison, and this progression seems to be an interesting hypothesis. Thank you for your feedback.
An idea I had: what if the “centipedes” are terrestrial remipedes? It makes sense (both are long, predatory arthropods) and explains a lot of the weirdness (multiple antennae are a result of being a crustacean, remipedes are blind, so electroreception makes sense (and it could eventually become an offensive weapon like ingame), and the “lack of cephalisation” is because the things are blind with antennae on both ends; they can move either way about as well). Plus, it means the aquapedes and centiwings could be more basal forms derived from an ancestral aquatic form, with the latter taking a “flying fish” route to flight. Also, regarding the eggbugs being tetrapodal arthropods, proturans (a kind of non-insect hexapod) actually do that with their front legs used as antennae. Unfortunately they’re blind, and the eggbug has eyes, so… Although dropwigs being proturans makes more sense, as they do seem to be blind. And on the Strawberry Lizard, allowing extinct animals makes things a lot easier, with other stuff too. The noodlefly could be an opabiniid (proboscis, no exoskeleton but arthropod-like limbs), the strawberry lizard a biarmosuchian (closest synapsid group to mammals that still looks somewhat lizard-like) and the eel lizard a lepospondyl (extinct amphibians with usually long bodies and small limbs).
@IC1101-Capinatator This is a very intriguing set of hypotheses. The extinct animals point is useful, and I'll keep it in mind for future uploads. Dropwigs don't seem completely blind, being able to differentiate between varieties of animal walking beneath or around them. The limb differentiation also seems to be more like that of an arachnid or insectoid hexapod body form, which is more noticeable on dropwigs with a larger abdomen. Though the forelimb differentiation does act as an interesting parallel. The remipede hypothesis is interesting, and I'll look further into it for future reference and the potential follow-up video. However, traditional centipedes have a few points in their favor as well. Real world centipedes have poor vision, with some having simple eyes (like planarians or the third eye on a tuatara), which could account for the motion based vision of in-game centipedes, and others being outright blind. It is most likely that in-game centipedes are outright blind and rely mostly on sound, as evidenced by their reaction to a cherry bomb. Their legs, especially in motion, also seem to be uniramous, which is a chariteristic of subphylum myriapoda, and remipedes have biramous appendages. Thank you for the feedback and all of the unique and interesting perspectives.
@@pirateshipguyAnother idea regarding the eggbugs and dropwigs: they *have* six legs, the third pair is just vestigial or hidden for whatever reason. And about the uniramous legs on centipedes, the exopod wouldn’t really serve much purpose on land (only really good for gills or swimming), so it’d likely be lost to give a uniramous walking limb. And related to the “extinct animals” thing, centipedes could actually be related to the extinct _Cambronatus_ due to them both being blind and having antennae on each end.
i feel like the animals are their own thing, so taxing them by human standards dosent make sense. its a different planet. it always annoys me when people call slugcats rodents the most. differencing insects reptiles and mammals at least makes sense as they present likenesses. also dont like the voice. this video is not my thing im sure some like it but i dont so yeah ill click off now
If you have any thoughts or have another series you would like me to cover please feel free to leave a comment.
Additionally, this video was created more as a pilot, first draft, and proof of concept for this kind of content, so I had a short timeline, thus resulting in no script. I may remake this video with a proper script and more well-articulated points after the Watcher DLC for Rain World comes out and I get the chance to play it and examine the creatures. Thanks for watching, and If you like this kind of content please like and subscribe.
Aren’t most descendants of purposed organisms? It would explain a lot of the inconsistencies assuming the world had earth-like fauna and flora before the Ancients got good at genetics modification
Blue Fruit are almost certainly Batfly larvae, so they'd be classified under whatever batflies are. Additionally, since Batflies are killed with a spore puff, we know they are arthropods. This is also the case for squidcadas, spiders (all kinds), stowaways and dropwigs, eggbugs and firebugs, noodleflies, and centipedes (all kinds). They also temporarily pacify beehives.
@ramuk1933 The spore puff observation is an interesting one. However, all being arthropods seems to be a reductive assessment. One of the 4 fundamental characteristics of arthropods is an exoskeleton, which the noodlefly doesn't have, as well, amniotic eggs are only inate to phylum chordata when comparing to real world assessment. Whitle it is conceivable to hypothesize more species stem from arthropods, assuming that their current form is arthropods misses out on the 4 fundamental characteristics of arthropod: hemocoel(can't determine so not used as justification in the video), exoskeleton, metamorphosis, and metamerism/ tagmitization. I should have explained this in the video, but because of the lack of exoskeleton on the noodlefly, it categorically can't be considered an arthropod. Most of your examples are compelling, and, if I make a follow-up video, it will act as a good reference, but the noodlefly is an odd edge case. Thank you for your thoughtful analysis and reply.
Aren't squidcadas cephalopods like jetfish and vultures?
They were called kraken before, so I've always thought of them as some sort of cephalopod like creature, though they're obviously a purpused organism
@@pirateshipguy The noodlefly's exoskeleton may be inside its body. I would feel inclined to believe that its needle is a half-softened skeletal structure, possibly originally having been an exoskeleton. An exoskeleton turned endoskeleton is not unheard of even on Earth. The squidcadas in particular likely have this going on, because they are based off of squid, or- as I like to think- cuttlefish. They both have internal skeletons which, I believe, were at one point exoskeletons. Not anymore, though. But that's less important for squidcadas because there's also a bit of what seems to be exoskeleton on the outside of their body near their shell. So they already have a little bit of exoskeleton, or at least that's what I think. The wings could probably also be called exoskeleton since they're probably made of the same material as arthropod skeletons in this world.
Another thing to note is every creature in this game is most likely a purposed organism, so it's possible some of them are hybrids and have both arthropod and non-arthropod ancestry. It's also possible some of them are 100% arthropod but do not appear as such due to how they were engineered.
Although here's the most important part, in my opinion. Given that these are fictional creatures, when we say "arthropod," we're really saying that it's the closest comparison we can make to a creature in our world. If squidcadas and noodleflies are related predominantly to creatures that resemble arthropods, then I think it's fair to still put them into the arthropod group, just because they have to go SOMEWHERE and they share a major diagnostic trait with other 'arthropods' of this world. They most likely descend from an ancestor that looks a lot like the other arthropods- having an exoskeleton and whatnot. They simply don't look the same now, which is fine in the eyes of a clade. It only matters that their skeleton looked a certain way at one point in time, it doesn't matter how it looks now.
i always figured blue fruit were the larvae for the creatures that give you arena unlocks, since they have the same stem.
Was not expecting the slide show lol
a 30-minute speculative rain world video? the perfect thing to tune into at 1am :)
Indeed it is.
11:58 I just want to note that eel lizards can be found in even the vanilla campaigns if downpour is enabled
@ChowdiusPupperMemusII Thanks for pointing this out. Honestly, it was an oversight on my part.
@ No problem, there’s always bound to be a tiny mistake in a video this complicated and broadly researched, and it didn’t really affect anything, just thought I’d mention it. Really great video!
I'd honestly classify slugcats under the superfamioly musteloidea instead of the order rodentia as they have frontal eyes and are more prone to a carnivourous diet
@_Zomet_ This actually makes more sense than my explanation. Though called rodent in dialog, they do seem to share more charicteristics with facultative carnivores, especially when considering that blue fruits are pupa. My explanation was kind of a reach, especially considering the lack of any clear incisors. Thanks for the comment.
Something else that should be mentioned is that "slugcats" being called rodents... is more so from the perspective of the Iterators, or rather their creators, the Benefactors/Ancients. We don't really know what THEY would classify as what exactly, so it is fully possible that if they were to look at an otter, THEY might call it a rodent, whereas from OUR perspective it's a mustelid
@@victoralexandervinkenes9193Yeah, specifically in vanilla the echo calls them "some kind of rodent" the echo isn't really speaking with confidence. It's also a pretty common mistake for laymen to mistake mustelids for rodents!
Of course I don't think any rain world animal is directly comparable to animals on earth, because they are on an alien planet, any similarities are just convergent evolution (or because it's a game, and the creators are very much not aliens, and the players also can only really understand the animals thru our own experiences on earth)
Plus mustelids and scugs are both sigmas
I just assumed the second pair of antennae are fake to confuse predators, like how centipedes in real life have antennae like protuberances on their hind end. Its so if a predator attacks the wrong end, the centipede can curl around and bite it
Except this centipede ACTUALLY HAS 2 HEAD so lol
Edit: nvm you said that you assumed im stupid
I initially assumed they were fake antennae too, but after playing as one in Safari Mode, it became clear that they appear dual-headed. When playing as a centipede, your movement depends on which end you're leading with - it's really difficult to operate, you are basically controlling 2 heads at any given moment. It's hard to explain. They don't like, play tug-of-war with themselves, both heads work in tandem with each other. They are definitely connected, they aren’t independent of one another.
That said, I don't think this creature has 2 brains. More like it has one half of said brain on either side. Controlling it was like controlling the left and right halves of a creature's nervous system with both halves connected by a long string.
Also it can pick up objects with both heads. It also needs to touch one end to the other to electrocute prey, which is also pretty interesting.
Important to note that all other terrestrial lizards also gain hair like the strawberry lizards, but the strawberrys only appear in saint campaign (where the world is all snow)
@@handsomeavocado14 Someone else also brought that up. Thank you for bringing it to my attention as well.
This is obviously based on an understanding or reptiles in an earth context, but they could have evolved feathers! Since feathers are modified scales n all. We even have examples of less developed feathers in ratites like ostriches and rheas, where the feather is unstructured and hair like.
genuinely so engaged in this wtf need to get this more views
25:01 He said it. He said the line.
The lizards were actually like dogs and selectively breed, which would explain why some of them have managed to develop small hairs/bristles. I would personally classify the Strawberry lizard as a reptile.
I would class them as reptiles too. They seem to have splayed out legs, which is common in reptiles. Aside from that, the only thing they could really be compared to is a salamander, but they also have large teeth which salamanders generally do not. I also doubt they have wet skin as that would be horrible for survival in a cold environment, which lizards have shown their ability to survive in.
To me, they seem the most like a very early archosaur. Archosaurs normally don't have splayed legs, but given that lizards seem to be warm blooded, yet don't resemble a mammal in any way, an archosaur still feels the closest. If I were to try and fit them into Earth clades I would probably either class them as an archosaur of some sort. Archosaurs are also quite smart for reptiles. Orange lizards are smart enough to hunt in packs and other lizards are smart enough to recognize that the slugcat is better off left alone if it's consistently nice to all the lizards. If you feed the lizards in a region, they all slowly become passive, not to mention the ones you feed will be tamed. They understand the concept of sharing even when it's a strange animal doing it. So they must be pretty dang smart.
@@catpoke9557archosaurs would also explain the development of protofuzz and early feathering in saint campaign. I would probably place them more on the crocodilian side of archosaurs, just because of their exposed teeth and splayed legs.
I don’t believe this was ever confirmed.
Perhaps you’re getting mod lore mixed up, because it’s either the hanging garden pearl or one of the lush mire pearls states that.
The grapple worms seem more like weird holothurians (Sea cucumbers) rather than leeches to me. They seem to have more in common, especially the grapple worms ability to fire sticky pink tongue-like structures to grapple on to things, which reminds of of the sea cucumbers ability to expel it's organs as a defense mechanism.
of course I'll watch another half hour lore video on rain world
Concerning Chilopoda: all centipedes posses caudal, elongated false legs that form what a would-be attacker would perceive as a head. It could very well be that this is also the case in Rain World, but in addition that end also possesses the mechanism for delivering the electrical shock. I haven't played in a while, so I don't remember whether or not there's a specific end from which the centipede can bite from. Centipedes are generally capable of quite swift and coordinated backwards movement. I'd like to think that the "controlling them at both ends" is an homage to that, but I may just be overthinking.
Great video! Makes me want to make my own speculative biology video about rain world!!
im pretty sure that it is said in lore that miros birds and miros vultures where purposed to protect iterator superstructures
To my knowledge, it was never explicitly stated in lore. However, it seems to be a prevailing hypothesis in the community.
After examining the remipedes which are blind crustaceans with a centipede-like body plan and their first pair of claws adapted into envenomating needle-like fangs (making them represent the only confirmed venomous crustaceans when Xibalbanus tulumensis had it's venom sequenced) native to anchialine cave systems it's possible that the second set of antennae could be a crustacean-like forked uropod (the tail, which can be a fan or a set of long pointed prongs) adapted into a second set of antennae-like sensory organs.
Oh hey, we both came to the same conclusion about the “centipedes” actually being terrestrial remipedes!
@@IC1101-Capinatator It makes sense honestly- the centipede-like morphology is either a convergently evolved feature or one that is a primitive body plan, and it would not be too far fetched to imagine them being able to adapt to terrestrial living if forced to, or engineered to do so. While the electric eel's electrical generation and electrosensory organs take up most of it's body volume with the viscera being confined to the front 20% of it's body length, I imagine a long centipede-like body could host similarly long stacks of parallel and serial biochemical "cells" in a biological voltaic pile similar to an eel, and directly coupling prey across both terminals via contacts whether penetrating or otherwise could defeat what would otherwise be a difficult problem of actually getting the electricity to the prey. If the large scales were metallic or otherwise conductive on both sides with a dielectric in the middle it's possible they could act like plates of a capacitor as well.
This is awesome
Granted I’m not a primatologist, but I do have an interest in said field as well as paleoanthropology; even with the lack of evidence regarding the dentition for scavengers, I think it’s still possible to further classify them down to the family hominidae (great apes) based on other morphological and behavioral characteristics. I’ll provide a brief explanation for why scavengers fit into each taxonomic level leading up until hominidae.
Haplorhini (Tarsiers, monkeys, and apes): This group differs from strepsirrhini (lemurs, lorises, and the like) due to a greater reliance on social structures and a diurnal lifestyle. Strepsirhines tend to be more solitary and have adaptations for nocturnal vision (though there are outliers with some lemurs, scavengers differ from these due to typically lacking tails and having a shorter rostrum). We see that the scavengers of Rain World have a reliance on communal living and are likely diurnal; scavengers commonly have lanterns with them in darker regions like the Subterranean and Shaded Citadel, likely to assist in their ability to see. This suggests they lack structures to assist in nocturnal vision.
Anthropoidea/Simiiforme (monkeys and apes): This group separates itself from the tarsiers due to a variety of reasons, but I’ll go over a characteristic seen in Rain World’s scavengers. Tarsiers have an extreme reliance on an arboreal lifestyle; while the scavengers can maneuver quite efficiently on poles and the like, they still live mostly terrestrial lives by choosing to remain mostly on the ground, such as those that remain at scavenger tolls. Tarsiers are also often more solitary, while the scavengers are the polar opposite.
Catarrhini (old world monkeys and apes): it’s a bit harder to place scavengers into this group due to most of the characteristics that separate this infraorder from Platyrrhini (new world monkeys) being unknown in scavengers. Specifics in dentition, chromatic vision, and nasal structure can’t effectively be determined in scavengers which makes things difficult. However, a terrestrial lifestyle is more commonly exhibited in catarrhines as opposed to platyrrhines, which are more frequently arboreal and have less terrestrial species. This leads me to place the scavengers within the former.
Hominoidea (apes): Characteristics that can be seen in scavengers that separate this group from Cercopithecoidea (old world monkeys) are taillessness, flexible shoulders, and a more orthograde posture. Scavengers clearly possess these traits; most lack tails, hang from poles in a similar manner to extant apes, and have a more orthograde posture allowing them to more effectively pick up and throw objects.
Hominidae (great apes): lastly, this family separates itself from hylobatidae (gibbons). This classification for scavengers is quite interesting due to them possessing characteristics of both families, but ultimately I feel as though they are hominids. Scavengers possess hylobatid qualities by having disproportionately long arms and short legs as well as engaging in brachiation when moving arboreally. However, scavengers when moving terrestrially, they appear to engage in knuckle-walking as opposed to bipedalism and seem to live in non-monogamous social structures due to the number of individuals present in groups which is more characteristic of hominids. Also, the presence of elite scavengers and the chieftain scavenger suggests a social hierarchy among scavenger tribes, something typically lacking in gibbons. A larger presence of hominid qualities as opposed to hylobatid traits leads me to believe they fit into the former, though it is a bit of a toss-up.
I’ve probably missed stuff, but this is just what I’ve gathered based on my knowledge of primates and Rain World.
4:22 I believe that centipedes use antennas to feel vibrations in the air, which explains their "movement-based" vision and why they can see you from either side
Cats also use their moustaches for that exact reason
For a side indication we can clearly see a weird attachment on their back which is most likely used to attach to creatures, which can probably mean that the side where this thing is absent has a mouth they use to eat and grab onto a prey
”moustaches”
brilliant 😂
@Banaanionmarja yes, I am
Real centipedes don't have the best vision, although I'm pretty sure their antenna are used to smell (could be wrong tho).
Great Video, I absolutely love Taxonomy and speculative evolution!
It rubs me the wrong way when people say slugcats are rodents. They just feel like their own thing to me. I really like this video though!
Great video! I love speculative/fictional biology.
The only slide video I can bring myself to watch during college's summer break haha...
Awesome video! I'm pretty sure you catalogued that the best among of all community.
But I think that Strawberry lizards are most likely ordinary lizards that can grow feather fluff like structures, some dinosaurs could grow feathers I'm pretty sure, so why couldn't they grow feathers?
Edit: I'm pretty sure Lantern mice we're developed as luxurious pets for the advanced civilisation
Was not expecting a slideshow but hey it was great
Bro this is the coolest shit for real
I think the grappling worms eat by filter feeding on air-born bacteria and/or other bits of organic matter that land on its tongue,i don't really know much about this kind kind of stuff tho, so i could just be completely wrong
I think that Rain World animals can't really be classified as we classify animals on Earth as it definitely isn't Earth, but we can usually kinda call them either vertebrae or invertebrate. Also there could be more moisture in the atmosphere compared to Earth, maybe it allows lizards to have crocodile-like teeth with no lips and it might help plants to grow on structures, also rot may be a huge colony of microorganisms with some corrosive dark substance with which they dissolve creatures, anyways I don't want to make this comment too long, interesting video
@randigo9992 Good observations. The lack of applicability of reql world taxonomy in a literal sense is why I stated in the disclaimer that this was not to build theoretical philogeny but instead to familiarize people with general characteristics of real-world taxonomic groups. The microorganisms hypothesis is an interesting one. Thank you for the feedback.
@@pirateshipguy Thank you for replying. I like speculative biology like the Darwin IV Expedition, I was also imagining scenarios in which we will find life and will need to create entirely new branches. Basically I'm quite familiar with that stuff
I don't think that white lizard camoflauge is the same phenomenon as real-world chameleon camoflauge because it flashes in neon colours when hit, it can only be a single colour at once, and it seems to deactivate and turn a default white when chasing things. I don't know too much about chromatophores and all that in the real world, but these three traits run very contrary to my understanding of those creatures and align more with a more digital type of camoflauge, which makes sense given that nothing in Rain World is completely natural.
Edit you made a comment about how "some creatures" descend from purposed organisms, but it's implied that all (or nearly so) extant creatures by the time of the slugcat are descended from purposed organisms, possibly even purposed by multiple waves of civilizations from different creatures evolving to sapience and then fnding a path to ascention. I mean, dirt in this game is just less processed metal, and the game is all about "cycles" and repeating patterns. Moon literaly states that "very little primal fauna" was left by even her time.
Thank you for pointing this out. I should have been more intentional about properly explaining the affiliated lore in the beginning of the video. I will keep this in mind for future uploads. The change of color does more accurately resemble an RGB display change than the more gradient based changes of chromatophore adjustment along with also failing to serve the emotional communication function of chromatophores. thank you for the productive feedback.
this surely brings me back to the ol' days! ❤
2:10
The classification of batflies on the first possibility is easier due to the fact they chirp when grabbed. Some moths in real life chirp to deter bats from eating them by interfering on their ecolocation. So they are either a bat or a moth, also respalded by the fact that moths exist in rain world.
2:18
It kind of looks like a beetle pupa. Or an egg (more details below in the comment).
3:14
Red Swarmers (the red flying things on Farm Arrays) are more detailed and although we can't see their limbs we can say they are related to wasps and hornets.
Dragonflies, ants, beetles, flies, moths, wasps and grasshoppers might as well use real life classification I remember there being also minnows in shoreline but that might be mandela effect.
4:12
It is stated in gameplay that centipedes have two heads (they can grab you with both sides) and, despite them being hostile, are not carnivores (otherwise they would drag the dead to a den). This perhaps makes them not true centipedes, and instead they are herbivore/omnivore bicephalous millipedes or something completly different, more related to wings and aquas.
6:54
I have no idea if this makes any difference, but both eggbugs and rubicon's variant care about their young, unlike most arthropods.
7:38
Lizard (removed, later modded characteristic) and noot eggs don't have a hard shell due to it potentially dissolving (egg shells are mostly similar to salt chemically) to the stupidly high humidity. This arrises a question: do these eggs fall under the catergory of vertebrate's or invertebrate's?
7:42
I am against classifying these "snails" into gastropoda, since they have two clear foot-like structures. Their shell is not hard but that is alright after the previous statement about eggs.
8:56
For that kind of cases I say they are "tetrapoda" and keep moving.
9:39
Every lizard is a different species, not variants or types. Regarding white lizards, that is not a naturally occurring camo and is more in tandem with the genus Indominus rather than to chamelions.
11:23
All other non-aquatic lizards other than caramels do also have furry variants in Saint, and zoops (strawberry) have a non-furry variant spawnable by lineage. Fur in lizards makes me think they are either special or not reptiles at all.
Two-legged snake-likes are not entirely unheard of, so eels are still grouped as lizards.
12:50
Vultures? They are harder to classify than you think. They have bug-like jaws and no legs at all. The masks are a part of their head.
14:00
I suspect vulture grubs are parasitoid (very likely wasps) towards vultures. Otherwise, why would they attract them with the risk of death?
15:51
Coalescapedes (small spiders) are perhaps juveniles that later specialize to revive spitters (wolf or regular spiders), carry dart maggots (spitter or red spiders) or create more spiders (mother spiders). That's my theory, respalded by the fact that they all ignore eachother.
17:36
Ha, ha, ha! In the intro images, we see in detail that scavs have ant-like external jaws. Very small, but they have them!
20:51
Miros birds can also be classified as "terror birds" despite their beak resemling trapjaw ant mandibles. To which genus specifically is unknown because we can't see their ancestor's legs in game.
You have a lot of good points here. Batflies do have several charicteristics in common with lepodopterans as pointed out by someone else in the comments.
Wasps and hornets belong to order hymenoptera which characteristically have 4 wings when present, and chewing or sucking mouthparts. As these details are not clear in the model, I felt it would be disingenuous of me to assume the presence of these characteristics. While the models of the bugs are named after and resemble real world arthropods, I also believed that it would be disingenuous to assume being the same creature.
The two heads and aggression with no clear feeding points are important and I'll keep them in mind, however millipedes by nature have two sets of legs per body segment, and thus are not directly analogous.
While uncommon for most arthropods, several spiders and scorpions use brooding strategies that involve crying young on their back.
Amnionic eggs don't necessarily need to be hard. Amnionic eggs simply allow for development outside of underwater conditions as seen in noodlefly eggs hatching in shelters. Also, the hard outer covering could hypothetically develop out of various substances not just those found in real world eggs due to the different development conditions.
As mentioned in the video my hypothesis is that the two feet structures could be a modified opurcilum structure as seen in the conch. Also, real world aquatic mollusk shells, such as sea snail shells and clam shells, remain rigid underwater quite effectively even after the death of the mollusk.
Variant or type can imply a difference on any taxonomic level and simply means a different variety. just like a komodo dragon is a different type of lizard from an iguana. Iguanas and komodo dragons are different species, but they are also different families. I used the term variant or type, because from lizard to lizard further classification could branch off at the family genus or species level.
The massive time gap between the rivulet and saint playthrough could have been enough time to permit evolution in the lizard population, making them more like real world mammals, which is an interesting hypothesis I hadn't thought of before. Also, there are also species of amphibian with two (certain salamanders) or even no (cecilians) legs, meaning that the eel lizard could conceivably be an amphibian as well.
I didn't explicit say it in the video but vultures were very difficult to try and classify. Chordates can develop protective carapaces as seen with turtles, this or synthetic intervention could explain the mask. Looks to the moon states that the mask is most likely from a purposed organism, so vultures are most likely highly synthetically engineered leading to odd characteristics. As seen with the amphibians and reptiles brought up for the eel lizard, or in whales and dolphins, tetrapod chordates can lose limbs and develop new varieties through evolution.
The parisitoid grub hypothesis is interesting. I personally think that due to the signal only being sent when triggered by another animal the response seems to be a defensive one and an example of mutualism.
Interesting hypothesis.
Can you give me a source on the intro image that shows this? I can't find it and I would love to use it as reference, as detailed pictures make seeing small details much easier.
I didn't think of terror birds, thank you for pointing that out.
Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful reply.
The seventh image on the order left to right in config, can't show the link cuz nintendo.
I will still hold on the idea that there is something parasiting vultures due to the general scarcity of VG.
Thank you.
Obviously as you stated at the beginning of the video that RW and RL taxonomy don’t exactly line up, so take my comment with a grain of salt.
But I’m really not sure vultures can fall into any sort of categorization. They seem far more like blimps that use their ‘wings’ for maneuvering while ‘on the ground’.
Regarding "furry" reptiles in Saint's campaign (Strawberry and other lizards): They could be on a similar path to what lead to birds/feathers. Feathers didn't just sprout out of nowhere, they developed on reptilians as what would've started out as being very visually similar to fur. With the game's sonewhat minimalistic art style those differences are hard to parse but that's personally how I see it
Umm...I don't think they pay taxes
I have seen a eel lizard as a monk…
@emreszy3463 Thanks for pointing this out. A few others have pointed out that eel lizards can show up in other playthroughs. It was an oversight on my part.
fantastic little video, i enjoyed it! always love a look into speculative biology of rain world.
I like to think that the Bug pupa thing is actually a case where Batfly pupa either are inside the fruit or they mimic blue fruit because well, saint can eat them. Otherwise no one tell him.
I feel like most if not all rain world creatures have been modified in some way, so classifying them is extra hard because of that. I also like to think that Rain World has a much higher concentration of oxygen like in the carboniferous so that's why the arthropods can get so big
Something important about vultures is that they actually have tentacles as wings, not you typical bird wing.
If you look at the concept art for the game and the game dev log, you will see that they have this segmented tentacles things with "feathers".
Plus they have a weird face with lateral "mandibles" that they use to grab prey as they hunt. Also, their bottom appendices aren't exactly legs.
Also, the devs commented that their idea for this creature was a flying predator that would be able to use it's tentacles to fly and climb/ walk around.
Also, a little tip, you can find the concept art and other illustrations for the game creatures in the wiki, it's under Official Art :)
for batflys, that one image on the bottom shows them having 4 legs and 2 wings. If it were a mammalian bat, it would only have two legs and two wings, since a bat's wings are modified forelimbs. Many bugs in the game, like eggbugs, are shown to only have 4 legs instead of six, probably so that the smaller sprites don't look overcrowded with so many overlapping pixels, So it's most likely batflys are arthropods and not mammals. Great video btw I LOVE taxonomy and biology and Rain World is one of my favorite games so this was just amazing to see :3
edit: forgot to put the thinner wing structure and overall body shape, and attraction to a certain species of plant (batnip) leads me to believe that batflys are specifically lepidopterans, aka the group that contains moths and butterflys.
I've only been able to see 2 legs, but it's probably just due to my poor eyesight. The lepidopteran comparison makes a lot of sense, as they seem to have synchronous flights, and the steep curve at the end of the wing does resemble the curve on certain moth species when viewed in slow motion. Thank you for the feedback.
SLAAAAAY
well that was thoroughly enthralling
so smart.... love this vid! :D
I was wondering about jet fish
Very cool!
10/10 video, was really interesting to see how you classified each one!
Eel Lizards are not exclusive to the Rivulet campaign and can be found alongside Salamanders in other campaigns
Thanks for the correction. This was honestly just a mistake on my part.
Fascinating video! Any chance you'll return to cover the new creatures coming in the new DLC this year?
@TeslaX106 I plan to. Though I play on Nintendo Switch, so it may take a while after release to get ported. Thanks for the reply.
Maybe in the future you can try to do some modded creatures and that might help fill in the gaps for the taxonomic tree.
Didnt watch I just couldn't let that thumbnail slide. They have extra-long back legs to look like both sides are the head
Not necessarily. In-game, they have 2 additional pairs of specialized limbs on both sides, already have a pair of walking limbs on each terminal segment, and, in arena mode one control option is labeled "switch heads" potentially implying the presence of two heads (though this last fact is irrelevant to the title's posed question). The text in the thumbnail does not imply one set of antennae on each side, but instead, what at first glance seem like two sets of antennae not acting as walking limbs in the head area on a single side.
@@pirateshipguy I exclusively refer to actual centipedes, however theses in game ones function is not within my jurisdiction
cool video!
I don't get how the blue fruit are animals, to get the monk passage you need to follow a vegetarian diet for 6 cycles, eating things like batflies or baby centipedes will reset the progress of the passage but eating blue fruit wont
@roticrack One hypothesis I just thought of is that because the animal in a chrysalis is usually at least partially in a predigested liquid state, it could be easier on the slugcat digestive system. This also potentially explains why the saint can eat them as well. Thank you for bringing up that point.
I haven't watched the videos yet- if you don't put out yeeks are clearly related to jetfish I'm going to riot
I feel like I'm the only person who's noticed they have the same body plan and the same number of appendages. 2 limbs, a little nubby body, two trailing tails at the end, two big eyes on its little head, and tendrils (in the yeek's case the tendrils are on its back, in the jetfish's case they function as antennae on its face)
They're pretty much the same creatures but one lives on land. Yeeks even jump, which could be through similar mechanisms to jetfish jets- perhaps yeeks let out a burst of air before each jump. They also have a cooldown on how much they can jump which would make sense if they're sucking in air. But the air burst is extremely speculative and there's no real sign of this happening in game- not even an air puff sound, unless maybe the honking noise yeeks make when they jump is a result of them pushing out air.
@catpoke9557 That's an interesting hypothesis. Because the limbs on jetfish resemble pectoral fins and the limbs on yeeks resemble hind legs, both using different muscle groups, I didn't see the connection. Playing into your hypothesis, this could be a case of genetic drift, with jetfish developing pectoral muscle groups because they are useful for underwater steering and yeeks developing strong hind limbs because they are more useful for spontaneous jumping land mobility. Thank you for the comment.
I don't think we can even say they are animals, because that is a particular kingdom unique to our world. In Rain World we have to assume everything evolved completely differently and there is no similarity other than convergent evolution. What I'm saying is we need to make up a new taxonomy for Rain World.
@sonwig5186 I understand your point, and as mentioned in the disclaimer, this was intended not as a mechanism for a deep understanding of the world of Rain World's phylogeny but instead as a thought exercise to aquaint others with an understanding of real world taxonomic groups and their characteristics. Fundamentally, this doesn't aim to be a speculative evolution piece, but instead an introductory educational piece on real-world taxonomy. Thank you for your reply.
@@pirateshipguy Sorry I didn't want to be too critical or anything and I liked the video. It was good fun and well made! I just think making them into real world things have problems, like people equate miros birds and vultures because they both have bird names even though they probably have absolutely nothing to do with each toher. Then this bleeds into the lore of the game through miros vultures.
@sonwig5186 I totally understand having holdups both in seeing taxonomy used in a non-standard way and my analysis of the vulture specifically. Honestly, I failed to highlight just how hard it was to try and compare the vulture to anything in the real world and didn't properly touch on its outlier characteristics. Fundamentally, there are several improvements I need to make in presentation and explanation, and feedback like yours helps me see what I need to improve or be more thorough on in the future. Thank you.
Soup
Found you
If you said real life taxonomy doesn't apply then why did you use classification?
@HYDROCARBON_XD In order to aquanit people with general characteristics of real-world taxonomic groups. The intention was not to try and actually classify them but to use the creatures as an example of traits for taxonomic groups to reinforce or introduce the knowledge of these groups charicteristics. Also, for fun, like overanalyzing any fictional media from a real-world scientific standpoint.
What about void worm?
@stonnacc Honestly, anything related to the void is canonically difficult to contextualize in any sense relative to the natural world other than the end of all things. As such, the closest comparison is probably a biblically accurate angel. Due to the weird metaphysical lore, lack of environmental interactions, and lack of clear real-world animal comparisons for void-related entities like echoes and void worms, I thought that classification would be less useful even for comparason to real-world creatures. Additionally, I was trying to be as spoiler free as possible, thus avoiding anything that could spoil the game and could not be easily classified. Thanks for the reply.
@pirateshipguy understandable, also thanks for the reply too.
weow :O
Later edit: God I love this
the issue with classifying rainworld life is that they just dont fit into modern animal life. there is nothing even remotely similar to a squidcada or noodlefly in rl.
that doesn't mean they can't belong to a class or clade, of course, or even descend from rl animals. neoteny is quite common, and if some insects evolved to retain a softer, grubby exterior yet develop wings then just about every other trait is easily explained.
i default to this explanation, as any other requires insect wings to evolve again or something even less likely and more complex.
i also just dont like when people limit themselves to modern faunal groups. plenty of extinct lineages fit rw animals much better than modern ones. i generally argue that lizards are basal temnospondyls, due to the relative genetic variability of lissamphibians and their generally terrestrial lifestyle. scavengers and raindeeri generally argue as dicynodonts, though i haven't checked as recently and i might change my stance.
i also just dont like when people limit themselves to modern faunal groups. plenty of extinct lineages fit rw animals much better than modern ones. i generally argue that lizards are basal temnospondyls, due to the relative genetic variability of lissamphibians and their generally terrestrial lifestyle. scavengers and raindeeri generally argue as dicynodonts, though i haven't checked as recently and i might change my stance.
yeeks, jetfish, and the snails/turtles i argue as eachothers closest relatives due to the two limbs of yeeks and turtls, and the jet propulsion of snails and jetfish. i think they are a wholly independent lineage of terrestrial life, probably fish, maybe cephalopods, possibly a more basal jawless chordate.
First comment: That's true, which is why I mentioned in the disclaimer that this was not applicable for building theoretical phylogeny and explicitly stated the criteria for placement and tried to highlight outlier traits.
Second comment: the only holdup I have with this hypothesis is that they seem to have internal skeletal structures (they have one somewhat rigid body region, with the surrounding regions being floppy).
Thrid and Fourth comment: A few people in the comments have already pointed this out or gave suggestions for classification based on extinct animals. This feedback is useful, and I plan to take it into account for future uploads.
Fifth comment: Someone else pointed out the yeek and jetfish comparison, and this progression seems to be an interesting hypothesis.
Thank you for your feedback.
An idea I had: what if the “centipedes” are terrestrial remipedes? It makes sense (both are long, predatory arthropods) and explains a lot of the weirdness (multiple antennae are a result of being a crustacean, remipedes are blind, so electroreception makes sense (and it could eventually become an offensive weapon like ingame), and the “lack of cephalisation” is because the things are blind with antennae on both ends; they can move either way about as well). Plus, it means the aquapedes and centiwings could be more basal forms derived from an ancestral aquatic form, with the latter taking a “flying fish” route to flight.
Also, regarding the eggbugs being tetrapodal arthropods, proturans (a kind of non-insect hexapod) actually do that with their front legs used as antennae. Unfortunately they’re blind, and the eggbug has eyes, so…
Although dropwigs being proturans makes more sense, as they do seem to be blind.
And on the Strawberry Lizard, allowing extinct animals makes things a lot easier, with other stuff too.
The noodlefly could be an opabiniid (proboscis, no exoskeleton but arthropod-like limbs), the strawberry lizard a biarmosuchian (closest synapsid group to mammals that still looks somewhat lizard-like) and the eel lizard a lepospondyl (extinct amphibians with usually long bodies and small limbs).
@IC1101-Capinatator This is a very intriguing set of hypotheses. The extinct animals point is useful, and I'll keep it in mind for future uploads.
Dropwigs don't seem completely blind, being able to differentiate between varieties of animal walking beneath or around them. The limb differentiation also seems to be more like that of an arachnid or insectoid hexapod body form, which is more noticeable on dropwigs with a larger abdomen. Though the forelimb differentiation does act as an interesting parallel.
The remipede hypothesis is interesting, and I'll look further into it for future reference and the potential follow-up video. However, traditional centipedes have a few points in their favor as well. Real world centipedes have poor vision, with some having simple eyes (like planarians or the third eye on a tuatara), which could account for the motion based vision of in-game centipedes, and others being outright blind. It is most likely that in-game centipedes are outright blind and rely mostly on sound, as evidenced by their reaction to a cherry bomb. Their legs, especially in motion, also seem to be uniramous, which is a chariteristic of subphylum myriapoda, and remipedes have biramous appendages.
Thank you for the feedback and all of the unique and interesting perspectives.
@@pirateshipguyAnother idea regarding the eggbugs and dropwigs: they *have* six legs, the third pair is just vestigial or hidden for whatever reason. And about the uniramous legs on centipedes, the exopod wouldn’t really serve much purpose on land (only really good for gills or swimming), so it’d likely be lost to give a uniramous walking limb. And related to the “extinct animals” thing, centipedes could actually be related to the extinct _Cambronatus_ due to them both being blind and having antennae on each end.
i feel like the animals are their own thing, so taxing them by human standards dosent make sense. its a different planet. it always annoys me when people call slugcats rodents the most. differencing insects reptiles and mammals at least makes sense as they present likenesses. also dont like the voice. this video is not my thing im sure some like it but i dont so yeah ill click off now