ara-bli

Latest Posts by ara-bli

Lil worldbuilding things for wof au headworld to put all my accumulated fantribe ocs in :)

D’you perchance have any thoughts on the morphological (for lack of a better word?) dire wolves that Colossal Biosciences just revealed to the public? 👀

Oh my god Aenocyon, you can't just ask someone why they're white!

"Morphological dire wolf" my ass. Which is coincidentally where Colossal pulled the white coats from…

Give me an example of a modern temperate/grassland predator that's white*, I'll wait. *Excluding white lions, which are an uncommon but resilient morph resulting from leucism.

I based my Aenocyon design off bushdogs and dholes. They are called Masked Wolves in Kindred's setting, because I enjoy a good pseudo hyena niche uvu-b

Extremely extremely long 'thoughts' below the cut lol c':

Preface: in this discussion the term "dire wolf" has too many meanings, as such I will be referring to them as follows:

Thrones' wolves: for the huge, white, fantasy animals from Game Of Thrones GMO wolves: for Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, Colossal's creations, Canis lupus Aenocyon: for Aenocyon dirus, the true, extinct dire wolf known from fossils across North America

----

Part 1: That's not a dire wolf-

The first question everyone has been asking is "So, are dire wolves de extinct now?" The answer is an emphatic "NO!" from anyone with knowledge of genetics, palaeontology, or taxonomy.

Aenocyon dirus were actually not wolves, nor dogs, but a secret third thing.

They are canids, but last shared a common ancestor with grey wolves and their lineage some ~5.7 million years ago.

For context, this paper suggests a similar divergence time between genus Homo (humans, Neanderthals and co) and Pan (chimps and bonobos); animals that look and behave markedly differently from each other.

The genomes of Canis lupus and Aenocyon dirus being 99.5% similar may sound like a lot, but again, humans share 98.8% with chimps, and 99.7% with Neanderthals, and yet are very distinct from both.

Skeletally, behaviourally, in soft tissue, etc, you could tell any of the three apart; the same goes for Aenocyon and Canis members.

Additionally, Colossal made 20 changes in 14 genes.

The grey wolf genome has 2,447,000,000 base pairs. Does that maths seem a bit off to you?

That's not even enough to change a grey wolf into a domestic dog, let alone an ancient outgroup!

This would be akin to modifying a lion to have bigger teeth and saying you resurrected Smilodon fatalis.

Or editing a Asian Elephant genome so they retain their juvenile hair and calling it a Woolly Mammoth.

It's a bold-faced lie.

Beth Shapiro says "they look and act like dire wolves" but that, too,simply isn't true.

Visually, the GMO wolves simply aren't what Aenocyon would have looked like. It's what a Thrones' wolf looks like.

Hmmmmm, funny about that, seeing George R R Martin helped fund the 'dire wolf project'...

As with many fossil animals, we don't know much about Aenocyon's behaviour.

You can't say the GMO wolves (who are also still pups) act like Aenocyon, because that's based off nothing.

What we do know is Aenocyon were likely pack animals (from the sheer number found in La Brea Tarpits), and crunched more bones than modern wolves (from their many broken teeth).

Also, crucially, they had Wild Sex Lives (from the many, huge, broken and healed bacula... youch).

Colossal is also being colossally shady by: doubling down on their bs use of the outdated "morphological species definition", blatantly misleading the public with their use of the words 'cloning', 'dire wolves', and 'de extinction', and refusing to share their methods in a peer reviewed paper before going public with a clickbait headline.

Do not trust them with your Red wolves either. They're using coyote hybrids and considering what they deem 'close enough' for a dire wolf, I wouldn't put any money on the quality of their GMO red wolves either...

Also can I just say, whatever genes they modified to "make the skull larger" clearly didn't impact the lower jaw...

No, I'm not sorry for this image uvu-b (But for real look at that poor pup and his overbite jfc)

Part 2: -and if it was, that wouldn't be good either.

I fundamentally do not support de extinction.

No, not even for the Thylacine, not even for passenger pigeons, nor the dodo. Even my beloved Homotherium should be left in the past.

This might be an unexpected stance because I am, surprising no one, a big fan of extinct animals, megafauna and otherwise.

But the thing is, I'm an even bigger fan of actual, living animals.

The animal ethics of de extinction are dubious at best.

The surrogate dog mothers of the GMO wolves likely won't live good lives.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were destroyed after being used, because their bodies could contain feto microchimerisms and Colossal absolutely doesn't want their special wolf genome getting out.

I doubt the GMO wolves themselves will live a full life before they outgrow their hearts, like Ligers.

This would likely be the case for any modern animal genetically modified into megafauna; a body not adapted to deal with the increased size.

Purely conjecture, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi have vision/hearing issues from their white coats.

White coats in wolves are associated with hearing impairments, so the gene used for these animals was from domestic dogs. Meaning Colossal has created a very expensive wolfdog.

Again, what kind of life are these wolfdogs supposed to live? As awful pets for the rich? In a zoo? Released to pollute wild wolf genomes? (assuming they're fertile; I hope not)

Regardless, it's not looking good if they ever planned to have them be 'wild animals'

Even true clones (which the GMO wolves are not) tend to have health issues.

Celia the Pyrenean Ibex (bucardo) was cloned, but the clone died after 9 minutes from a deformed lung.

So in 2003, this made the bucardo the first species to go extinct twice, yippee?

There's also the problem of genetic diversity.

How many intact genomes do you have on hand?

For dire wolves the answer is Zero!

To my knowledge, we don't have the full genome coded from one individual, just Frankenstein-ed from many. Which is fine for sequencing the canine family tree's relatedness, but not for cloning.

The absolute minimum individuals to survive a genetic bottleneck is said to be 50 in larger species. Called the 50/500 rule, it states that 50 is enough to survive, but 500 is required to prevent genetic drift.

To which I say, good luck!

Even with well preserved permafrost species (such as woolly mammoths), you'll have a hard time finding 500 individuals with prefect genomes.

And then, where will you put them?

If you were to, somehow, make a breeding population, where are they going? A national park? A zoo? Is their old habitat still available to them?

In Aenocyon, the answer is simply "they don't have a niche anymore".

Unlike the Thylacine or Dodo, humans did not directly cause the extinction of Aenocyon dirus. And even if they had, it was 10,000 years ago!

Would making room for a de extinct species impact the habitat/niche of another species?

Regular grey wolves fill Aenocyon's role as a canine mesopredator, with Puma as the apex (alongside bears as an apex omnivore).

With the loss of megafauna to prey on, a de extinct predator would just compete with other, also endangered species.

Animals also change the environment they life in.

Mammoths will clear trees like modern elephants. This would recreate the Mammoth Steppe, but those trees making up the taiga and boreal forests are themselves crucial habitat.

Other species have moved in since the mammoths' extinction. Siberian tigers, lynx, muskoxen, brown bears, elk, moose, and so many others; many endangered.

Trees also prevent erosion, which is already happening at unprecedented rates due to agriculture and deforestation.

Crucially: What's to stop an extinct animal going the same way it went out last time?

Ask yourself this:

Would the average American appreciate "flocks of Passenger pigeons big enough to darken the sky and whiten ground with their guano"?

Would people suddenly be okay with lions in Europe eating their livestock, when they are champing the bit to shoot Iberian wolves again?

Would Tasmanians suddenly feel the same about the Thylacine, when farmers in Australia still happily kill dingoes and eagles for lamb predation? [citation, I am an enviro technician and have had farmers tell me they shoot Wedge-tails, knowing I'm a toothless lion to stop them.]

I doubt it

At what cost?

Are we going to find 50 thylacine genomes?

If so (doubtful), how much will cloning and/or modifying a relative into a thylacine cost? Now that x50?

Wouldn't that money be better spent on quoll reintroduction?

What about finding 50 gestational carriers for mammoths?

Are you going to use their closest relative; the already critically endangered Asian Elephant?

Wouldn't that time and effort on those elephant mothers be better used making more elephants?

And the social cost:

If extinction isn't forever, what's to incentivize lawmakers to fund conservation?

Really, it comes down to this:

Why bring back the dire wolf when we could put this money into protecting the Iberian and Red wolves?

Why bring back the thylacine when their cousin is dying of a transmissible cancer?

We've already seen the impacts of "extinction isn't forever anymore", with those in power already trying to cut funding to conservation, because you can "just bring them back".

But as we've seen time and time again: there is no Planet B. There is no De-Extinction, not really.

Maybe what was gone should stay gone, so we can focus on what we still have.

Winterjou <3

It was lovely. Her and her favorite dragon in all of Pyrrhia, together out on the ice. She was teaching her how to swim and capture polar bears. Everything was perfect, but… she wished that she could wrap her wings around her every time she shivered or her breath fogged in the air. Yet, she was an IceWing, she ran just as cold as the air around her. It would only make things worse. She was never one to wish that she was a different tribe- IceWings were objectively the best, after all, have some pride in your tribe, Icicle!- but she just wished that she was as warm as the other tribes, that’s all. To protect her from the frigid cold, from the harsh wind. Blanket her wings around her, shield her from the rest of the world. Icicle watched as Sora stamped her feet, trying to warm up before diving back into the water. Even the way she braved the cold was captivating. Icicle has never felt this at ease with another dragon. Everybody always expected so much from her, being a First Circle next in line for the throne and all. Nobody has ever treated her with kindness like Sora did. All soft around the edges and shy smiles. She was quiet and expected nothing from her. Back at home everything was sharp, orders and expectations weighed heavily on the spines along her back. Icicle never expected to like it as much as she did at Jade Mountain, especially after finding out that she would be roomed with a Mudwing of all tribes. But after getting to know her more, Sora made everything worth it. She didn’t know it was possible for dragons to show her so much kindness before this.  She was so lucky to have her as a clawmate.  “A MudWing, seriously?” The vision melted away.  Icicle did not respond.  “I mean, really, how many MudWings have you killed in the war?” Icicle remained silent. The scene changed around Scarlet and her. A field of dead dragons, MudWings and IceWings alike. A mosaic of blue and red painted the turf. Smoke and decay permeated her nostrils. The smell was impossible to forget, even all these years later. Red MudWing blood stained her claws.

Continue reading

A quick scene from what i hope becomes a longer fic. I haven't written for WOF in 9 years now, and i havent reread the books besides skimming book 6 for this so who knows how its gonna be lol

i need to reread 6 if i wanna continue this because of the plans i have so...

Combusken if it were awesome.

So save your prayers / For when we’re really gonna need ‘em…

Drew this almost a year ago now! Time passes

Tigerstar's Death, my take on the page in Rise of Scourge...

i did the lineart for this traditionally then scanned it over to colour it digitally. these designs are a little outdated for me now because i drew this like before christmas, i wanna just design everyone and everything again and again and again yk

my first post on Tumblr tho hi everyone :3 more coming soon..........

lionblaze, shadowsight, and the prisoners they released

Would love to make these into keychains some day. Have more im drawing and ill post them later :)

The Felidae

Collection of arts for Lordmarble ...... Guys my head hurts so bad

SO SORRY FOR ALL THE INACTIVITYY i've been mining around and working hard on my toyhouse for the past few weeks !!!! i'll try my best to get back into posting more, so here are a few adopts ive got sitting around in my toyhouse as proof im still alive & kicking !!

Just some Mudwing sketches because I love them <3

soooo cute

Whiteout and Darkstalker from that one scene where Darkstalker comes home and she's screaming and overstimulated from Foeslayer and Arctics fight

I hope I didn't remember it wrong as its been a while since I've read it but Darkstalker came off as a super caring brother, I mean until another certain scene..

(Read more because I yap too much)

There was in fact a background, and the concept was really cute in my mind. But I just wasn't liking it, At some point I might redraw this and include that background. But No Idea if and when that might be.

Moonelian cause i can <3

That's a lot of blue!

I suddenly remembered that this template exists and felt like doing it with my favorite character in all of Fiction.

Making this was so fun omg. I went searching for the prettiest Tsunami designs I could find and you should check out their original creators! They're all wonderful artists

@biting-rose

@mountainsofewoks

@prince-sawgrass

@aeg3an

@anik8tion

@seven-gill

Template by @caninedragons

oh gosh I've always loved that scene what an honourr. I guess I was sorta imagining the same vibessss thank you so muchhh!!

Ship art of my OC and her wife :D

SkyWing is my OC Carmine and the SandWing belongs to my friend @Phiebo_ on Instagram

bows! Archery! Dragons would probably do archery mostly the same way humans do, pull the string back and stuff. One slight issue is that dragons might have a shorter arm-to-body ratio than us humans, which can be an issue since a dragon might not be able to pull the bowstring as far back as required to effectively use the weapon… But that can be fixed with an extended grip! Which then creates a new problem as the dragon would lose or at least be limited with their ability to stabilize the arrow with their talons… so then you could get an arrow shelf to hold the arrow! Problem solved!

You can also fix the short arms problem by just, like, using certain art styles— Like, my art style for dragons has them have really long friggin arms, but a dragon in joy ang’s style is probably gonna have stubbier arms and thus a far harder time using a bow!

Now for flight archery! I think horse archery would be a good parallel to shooting a bow whilst flying since both involve shooting bows at fairly high speeds. there’s a bunch of horse archery styles and techniques in the world, so I’ll narrow it down to Mongolian horse archery since they’re the most famous!

Mongolian horse archers typically use a different style of shooting than how most modern archers, where instead of using the Mediterranean draw where you pull the string back with your index, middle, and ring finger, they’d instead pull the string back using the knuckle and thumb in something called a thumb draw! (or eastern draw/Mongolian draw/Turkish draw/—I’ll just call it thumb draw)

Mongolian horse archers also placed their arrows on the outside of the bow (that being the right side of the bow arm facing outward if your right handed and vice versa) which makes it easier and faster to knock arrows.

Both of these techniques, the thumb and placing the arrow on the outside, when paired together actually help stabilize the arrow. The thumb draw provides a constant torque/force against the arrow which helps keep it pinned against the bow arm which makes it less likely to get knocked about. This can be rather useful when shooting from an unstable and shaky platform like a galloping horse, or in this case, a flying dragon!

That doesn't mean its impossible to use the mediteranean draw on the standard olympic side on horseback of course, as proven by Lajos Kassai, a Hungarian bowyer who exclusively uses the Mediterranean draw due to a thumb injury he sustained!

The parallel between horse archery and flight archery isn’t perfect though, as in horse archery the archer is independant from the horse, meaning that the archer can shoot in whatever direction they want whilst also being able to move in a straight line at the same time.

For a dragon however, the direction of their flight is directly tied to the rotation of their own body, as their wings are connected to their torso. So if a dragon twisted their torso to the right, then the angle of their wings would also be changed and the dragon would begin to veer towards the right.

And In order to pull a bow, it has to be around perpendicular to your torso, meaning that you can only fire an arrow from your left or right flanks.

So for example, a human horse archer could just twist their body and shoot straight forward, and the horse would continue to run in the same direction. If a dragon wanted to shoot at a target that was directly in front of them however, the dragon would have to twist their torso about 90 angle or less either left or right in order to get the bow lined up with their target, which would then cause the dragon’s flight path to veer off course.

Of course, a dragon could probably just reorientate themselves right afterwards and continue on with their straight flight path, though it might slow down their speed a bit. That might not sound like too big of a deal, but in a scenario where the dragon is pursuing another target, it could become a bit of a hindrance as the dragon would be forced to slow down or make their flight path longer every time they fired their bow!

Also, it also might be practical for a dragon to learn how to be ambidextrous with a bow. For example, if the dragon was holding their bow in their left hand and wanted to shoot at a target to their right, they might find it faster to switch the bow to their other hand, rather than turning around in the opposite direction just to aim at the target.

A dragon also can’t exactly flap their wings whilst drawing a bow, as the bow would get in the way of the wings when being aimed. So a dragon would most likely have to glide whenever firing a bow to avoid accidently clipping their wings.

There’s also a problem with aiming, as most WoF dragons have helluva long necks, so their eyes aren’t going to be as aligned with the arrow. It’s not impossible to shoot an arrow like this, but its definitely trickier! I suppose the dragon could technically twist their neck down to the arrow and aim it regularly, though that does sound rather uncomfortable and there’s probably a good chance the string might slap the dragon’s cheek or ear whenever it’s released, which can be a problem if your use a heavy draw weight bow.

Oh, also one final tangent that isn't too relevant but I thought was cool, a WoF dragon bow would be really big. According to that one official Rose and Smolder measurement chart, adult dragons can be like around 17 ft/5m tall. Long bows can usually be as tall as humans, so if you upscaled that to a dragon height you could probably end up with a bow in the 15-20ft range depending on the type of long bow, that's basically a seige ballista right there! Imaging getting hit by that? You’d just immediately vanish! Poof! Gone! Nothing!

…Yeah that's about all, cheers!

A redraw of the recently revealed Darkstalker gn cover

Which if you haven’t seen it, looks like this

Day three, snow leopard! Since I'm more familiar with how this cat looks I decided to play around with a different style with no line work and using an oil pastel brush for the main part of piece.

My old power of three au,,,, for nostalgias sake

Next (buffering) Previous First

That's all folks, this hellish moon is over! I thiiiiiink I may take a break from updating so I can get by buffer looking a bit healthier (and take part in Febroary mayhaps)

Idk if it's clear but just stating for clarity that Burnet was actually out for A While, not 3-5 seconds like page 1 may suggest ugh c'x

Also Burnet actually stayed pretty on model this page set, yaaaay. That's probably the only good thing that happened to her this moon though :'D

i love waxwings, aren't they cute? c:

Kindred of the Mammoth is on Comicfury as well!

Febraory - Day 1 Mountain Lion. (2025) What is Febroary? Febroary is an art challenge where the goal is to draw wild cats, big and small, every day for the duration of the month February. Both as a fun exercise and to draw awareness to these beautiful animals. While there are still many mountain lions, their population is decreasing due to habitat loss. Did you know? That the Mountain lions are the largest cats that purr!

Rosetail if she had kits and those kits were Dustpelt and Ravenpaw

WEEK 2 | SHRIMP

I wanted to draw anomalocaris cause its name means “abnormal shrimp” in the first place but my buddy Dennie gave me the idea to use mantis shrimp colors on it and my god it turned out cool!!

Top Ten Qinter Moments

Scavengersona design by Human-WoF-Designs because their designs are amazing

Picrew

Cat Maker 2.0

Make a cat! If tabby looks strange, change its color :) 猫を作ってみましょう！縞模様が変に見えたら、色を変えてください :) Free to use for any non-commercial purpos

PLAY MY NEW PICREW PLEASE PLEASE