​Ramul is the creator of Red Earth, a planet about halfway between Earth and Mars in all its characteristics. It is home to a staggering number of octopod species, but my favorites are the worm grasses (plant-like animals), siltribbons (worms with long mouths that suck up muck), monolingulates (filter-feeding squid-things), and the era worms, which are known to hatch all at once and secrete a poison that kills everything around them.

Biofauna25 is the creator of not one, but two worlds, Epimethius and Odin. Either project has the potential to be a great book.

Epimethius is a larger, stormier version of Earth. There are at least four lineages of plants, including the ridge-leaves, the maze-roots, the feather plants, and the peeling plants. There are an incredible variety of radially-symmetrical animals, some resembling insects, crustaceans, mollusks, amphibians, and mammals. Variations on the theme include laterally flattened shrimp-like forms (making them bilaterally symmetrical) with their eyes on the back end. There are even more bilaterally-symmetrical animals. They have dual ribcages. The ventral ribs house the digestive organs and the dorsal ribs house the heart and respiratory organs. Many resemble fish and snakes. Others resemble deer or crocodiles. Some make silk, some retract their heads into hoods, and others have their simple mouths in the chest. My favorites are probably the frog-like potes.

Odin is a small, relatively dry planet largely covered by inedible sheddings of red plants floating in the air. Different species of floating plants receive energy from sunlight, lightning, or wind motion. They form wide nets to safely diffuse electrical discharges. There are three main groups of animals. The first has a four-stage life cycle, the second has a five-stage life cycle including a sessile phase that feeds the young with nectar, and the third has a five-stage life cycle like the others, but in reverse. I don’t know exactly how he organizes them into groups, but I estimate there must be at least twenty-seven orders.

Juniorwoodchuck is the creator of Aurora, planet with long days and animals which spend one life stage as a plant. He also speculates about future Earth life, my favorite examples of which are the turtles that swim with their necks and the squid-moles.

​Snaiad is an exobiology project created by C. M. Koseman. The planet Snaiad is inhabited by many creatures, of which the vertebrate phyla are described on the website. These animals have hydrocarbon bones, hydraulic muscles, endocrine-based cognition (as opposed to neural), and two heads. The lower heads are mostly boneless and used for eating. The upper heads are actually heavily modified genitals used for defense and covered in sensory organs. There has been talk of turning it all into a book. I really hope this happens, but only if the invertebrates, plants, and microbes are also described.

Planet Epona is a dying world with only periodic volcanism. It is during these short bursts of ten million years or less that life flourishes and diversifies. Otherwise, it survives only in the seas where it can barely scrounge up enough carbon to grow. There are several lineages of plant and animal life, including bubbleweed, tiered seaweeds, pentapods, bivalve ambush predators, and colonial flying insectoids. The pentapods and tiered land plants make use of bone-muscles that expand rather than contract. They have variable metabolisms based on interesting biochemistry. While the project seems to have stalled, it can always be revived and in any case is worth the read.