Some may consider it a rule of thumb that humans are afraid of the dark. In the dark we are vulnerable; our eyes do not work very well in low light conditions. Nature does not share this fear, and often the most incredible and beautiful of creatures only come out after the sun disappears. Though we did not want to acknowledge it at first, we all knew we were missing out on a substantial amount of animals by only working during daytime. We had heard stories of colleagues dragged into the dark by monsters on stilts, and none of us was about to become the next victim. Though a fair amount of cathemeral creatures are known from the Rhynia, exclusively nocturnal animals are still rare in our records. For reasons unknown, our night vision wildlife cameras have proven less than successful. Whether it is some animals' ability to detect infra-red, or just our placement being poor, remains to be seen.
One of the few cameras did yield a significant result was one placed in an open forest on the northern micro-continent. Over the course of several days, it showed a small tortoise-like animal following a path every night between 22:00 and 23:00, and returning on the same path at sunrise. With a such regularity in its behaviour, it was too good an opportunity to pass, as no other animals were ever in its vicinity at night besides chimaeraflies.
We set up camp about 15 meters from the camera and waited, and waited…, and waited some more…
By 02:00 we still had seen nothing pass by. We turned to the camera, but discovered that the animal had crossed the path at 21:42. The critter had snuck past us while we were setting up camp.
There was an eerie silence in the forest, devoid of sound besides wind rustling through the trees and distant screams of shantaks every now and then. Still wide awake from a not particularly healthy amount of coffee, we decided it was safe enough to take walk outside after the creature.
We followed the trail eastward, the same direction the animal kept going, until we heard a strange noise coming from some nearby bushes. It sounded like a chewing pig, while also periodically grunting like an annoyed dog. I pushed branches aside, pointed my flashlight at the source of the sound, and there it was. It was a small animal, only about the size of a football, with spiky protrusions on its back, legs and tail. We expected it to flee immediately once the light came on, but it didn’t, it just kept sitting there. We carefully approached, but it still didn’t budge. It just kept chewing. Something was up with this creature.
We sat down beside it, at first suspecting it was frozen in fear, playing dead. But as it just kept chewing, it became clear that was not the case. We did not understand what was going on with it, but it did give us a very good opportunity to study it up-close. Its carapace measured 32 cm in length and its heavily scaled tail added another 15 cm. As its only two limbs and fused armor demonstrated, it was obviously a type of latapod placoderm, though what clade it belonged to was not easy to see. Its body looked quite primitive on the whole, with thick, fused bony plates covered in keratin and legs with only two segments, but it’s tail was another story. The scales that covered the tail did not resemble those of other primitive latapods, as they were round and did not overlap, but the strangest aspect about the tail was the tip, which was covered by a tuft made up of rough filaments that felt similar to an old paint brush.We named it the Diamond Pleccle (Rhacophytophagus buressi), for it resembled a turtle more than anything else we had encountered before.
We were even able to pick it up! As its limbs and tail sort of just hung there, I suspected there might have been something else going on. I noticed leaves in its mouth that produced white foam when it chewed upon them. Their blades were long, thin, and terminated in a wide round tip. They reminded us of the toes of a frog and as such, we called them frogpaws. We suspected the plant might be poisonous, as it seemed to have a paralysing effect on the pleccle, which we nicknamed Hannibal. It just it just kept eating the “lettuce”.
Hannibal’s pupils were as dilated as could be and did not shrink when we pointed our flashlights at them. The pieces fell into place: Hannibal was as high as a kite. We took Hannibal back with us so we could observe him and save his life if necessary. Along with him, we brought samples of the frogpaw to analyse it.
Back at the facility, Hannibal remained in trance for nearly 3 more hours before he got his consciousness back. He recovered just fine, and once he realised where he was, he was indeed nearly frightened to death and tried to flee. Thoroughly studied and equipped with a tag while he was dancing in the clouds, he was released after he woke up. Though you would not have guessed it by looking at a Pleccle, genetic and molecular analysis has revealed them to occupy a quite basal position within Pandromaepoda and more specifically, appear to be the sister lineage of the armored rammers of the southern micro-continent.
The analysis of the Frogpaw samples also revealed some interesting information. The plant did not contain any toxins (for humans that is), but did possess a very high quantities of chemicals that resembled psychedelic and dissociative hallucinogens that could be released through the white foam when chewing on it. Unbeknownst to any of us, our engineer Lara Carr went ahead and 'sampled' a frogpaw-leaf after it was determined non-toxic. When we found her, she was in a trance, completely limp, with pupils dilated to the maximum width, just like Hannibal.
When she was questioned about it afterwards, she said she saw clouds of rainbows alternating with waves of sparkling stars that were being flushed away by spirals of green fire. She said, and I quote: “It was the most amazing trip of my life.” After her experience, it was decided that the frogpaw had earned the name Irideidophyton batrachodactylus, the frog fingered plant that made her see rainbows.
These illustrations, as well as the accompanying text were a fan-submission by DemonicManchot from DeviantArt, best known for his flattacanth project. If you have similar fan-contributions in mind, you can send them to us and we might include them if we consider them fitting for the world.
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