Unofficial fauna challenge
Animals are cool and have such a big variety. Everyone has some animal they love, or wanna create some new animals. But what if we talk about animals AND some of the mutations that change their appareance?
Animals and conditions, I love both, and I have a great time researching for it. The mix together? Don't tend to read too much of it in WA, and I wanna change that.
You see, everything that has DNA is doomed to have mutations. Your DNA is probably mutation in some of your cells right now, and yet, the word mutation is mostly used for things that change alive things into something else, such as an extra head, one or more limbs, etc. And while, yes, there are bad mutations, there are also neutral and good mutations!
Okay I am rambling, where was I at? Oh yeah... I'd like to challenge you guys, pals, eltrich creatures, and whatever in the middle and outside the range, to write about an animal that is famous because a recurrent mutation! Specifically, a mutation that changes the animal's appearance, but not the extra kind of things, but the ones that change the animal's colors, be it of its eyes, its skin, etc.
Before entering the "tecnical" details of this unofficial challenge, I will give you some examples (you don't have to pick any of these, its just to make you inspired) with a little description and a link to its wikipedia articles. Most of these links have links to other similar conditions on the bottom of the article, so feel free to browser a bit!
- Albinism: its the absence of melanin resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin. Some versions of it have red eyes as well.
- Leucism: Similar to albism, it is the loss of pigmentation, but not necessarily in its whole body.
- Gynandromorphism: This is a bit different than the rest, because not only touches the animal's appareance but also its DNA. Half of their bodies are male and half female, resulting in impressive color changes in animals that have sexual dimorphism.
- Amelanism: While also similar to the albinism because its a lack of melanism, the animal still has other colours depending on its other pigments.
- Erythrism: The animal has a reddish pigment.
- Axanthism: Its the lack of being able to do yellow pigment. Specially notable on green animals, they are seen blue when having axanthism.
- Xanthochromism: The animal is yellow tinted, usually related to the lack of red pigments and yellow replacing it.
- Melanism: Contrary of Albinism, these animals have more melanism and appear black.
- Vitiligo: It causes the animal to loose its color in some parts. It is mostly known because humans who have vitiligo, but animals can have it too.
- Dyschromia: Here you can find other links to more stuff.
Advertence!
I'm a biology nerd by hobby, I do not always understand all and I am nowhere an expert in any of these. It might have errors the descriptions I gave. If you know more of this and see some important errors, feel free to contact me and explain it to me. I will love to be explained the error and more importantly, I will fix it in this article.
What you need to know?
Criteria
These will be the things I'll look into when deciding a winner:
- Creativity: Is it interesting and original? Does it tell us some interesting about the world?
- Concept: Does it make sense? Is it detailed? Can it be believable in your world?
- Presentation: Is it well structured and easy to read? Is it presented clearly?
While I do appreciate CSS (unless it makes the article hard to read) and I enjoy seeing new CSS, it is not something to consider to pick a winner.
Rules
- Articles must be dated during the challenge, remember to reset the stub dates!
- Article must be public and published. One article for person!
- Can be any language but if it is any other than English, Spanish, French, or Catalan, I will be relying in the google translator. I recommend writing it in English, so other people can read it easily.
- Minimum of 300 words. No maximum! (I didn't regret it last time!).
- If necessary, add warnings! And mark entries as NFSW if needed! Security is important.
- Submit your article in the comments :D
- Use the species template!
- Must be sent before 31 of May 23:59:59 UTC+1!
Join the conversation!
If you wanna join me and talk with me and the rest of participants, I strongly recommend joining my discord! I do a whole lot of shenanigans promoting worldbuilding and other nerdy hobbies! And the community is very nice!
Join now!
Winners
Mochi's articles about species are always filled with so many interesting information! This what caught more my attention was all the mutations they explained and how food was able to change the percentage.
Rev wrote about some cool critters that will absolutely kill you with MAGIC and because a mutation caused by the enviroment, you can see the places where magic is stored in their bodies!
Amazing participants <3
Mochi
HELL TO THE YESSSSS FAUNA CHALLENGE WOOOOOO
Catoblepon
I'm glad you are excited xD
Love to code, but this one is driving me crazy!
My world Shattered won as the "Most ground-breaking premise new world"!
Mochi
TA DAA
Plated Devil
A genus of lizards from the Silver Desert on Cilvarth. Plated devils are commonly kept as pets.