Real world animal, meet D+D monster

[mythusmage]

And? I doubt any party is going to encounter larval echinoderms and thus I only mentioned the adult form.

Still applies. Symmetry in animals is based on their original condition, not what develops later in life. Echinoderm larvae are bilaterally symmetrical, so the adult form is accounted bilaterally symmetrical. As a matter of fact, you take a good long look at the echidnoderms you'll find that they exhibit all the hallmarks of bilateral symmetry even as adults.

Out of the 36 phyla of inverts, 18 are not worms- sponges, arthropods, molluscs, comb jellies, echinoderms, cnidarians (jellyfish and coral), rotifers and the very cool kinorhynchs* among them.

Now that I got wrong.

Where did you come up with crustacean? That isn't even a phylum.

A catch-all term for a number of phyla with a hard exoskeleton. In vertebrates you have thecodonts (reptiles) and condylarths (mammals). In the case of the crustaceans, they all look pretty much alike to the casual observer, so they got called "crustaceans". Only later with close study did the differences in basic body plan become apparent.

All adult echnioderms have radial symmetry.

See above. Besides which, what matters is not the adult shape; which isn't really radial to begin with.

*These guys would make great monsters- armored, aquatic ambush predators that are very tough to damage because of their armor. And the loricferians look like pineapples with all kinds of spikes on its head. The glomerus from the plane of Mineral (from a Dragon issue) reminds me of them.

So somebody from the Plane of Mineral took home a pet kinorhynch for their aquarium and it got loose.

 

[Slife]

Hippos will also bond with Tortoises

Box Jellyfish are evil. They don't even need to be scaled up to be challenging

 

[Siochain]

Bwaa, this thread has me thinking about all the almost-but-not-quite nasty things we have around here (the Canadian prairies, nothing lethal, but I can come up with some...mutations".

Wolf spiders - really common just about anywhere. Doesn't spin a web. Hunts. Now, do the giant versions hunt alone? In packs? Venom in "normals" is painful but non-lethal. Big guys have a nastier bite? Or just a pain-related symptom (minus to str/con, etc., temp of course).

Ooooh, a really good one...local lake around here has a small parasite, normally affects ducks, called "The Itch". Don't know the latin name, sorry guys ;P Thing mistakes us for a duck, takes a nip, leaves a nasty little bump that swells and itches (like a mosquito bite) and then dies. Aquatic only, but, still...what attacks dire ducks? Dire itch!

And my personal fave for turning into something REALLY mean - porcupine. Normally friendly, really indifferent to people (heck, I've walked 3 feet away from one and it just stared.) Now, Mr. Dire porcupine is going to have some savage AC, mean tail attack, and, well...hope the monk in the party has fists of steel

And going for just straight crazy - anyone ever thought of "ricing" a squirrel or a chimpmunk? Leave it the same size. Just make it breathe fire, or spit acid, or something else mean. Hello Mr. Happy little druid AHRGHRHGRHG MY EYES AHGHGHGH

<whistles>
I'm evil

Peace out all

 

[JimAde]

In my campaign I have the dreaded thorn squirrels. They look like cute little chipmunks and live much like prairie dogs. But when they overpopulate, they become very fast, very aggressive and carnivorous. They also grow hard spines all over which secrete a paralytic poison. So swarms of these things sweep across the plain, laying waste to all in their path until they spread out enough (or enough of them die) to ease the population pressure. Then they go back to being cute little fluffy creatures.

Here's the write-up if you're interested:
http://home.comcast.net/~jim.ade/ilium/creatures/ThornSquirrel.html

EDIT: Typo

 

[Hand of Evil]

Red Tides and other algae blooms: http://www.whoi.edu/science/B/redtide/ think swarming oozes!

 

[Hand of Evil]

Exploding toads puzzle German scientists

More than 1,000 creatures have puffed up and popped

The Associated Press

Updated: 12:43 p.m. ET April 27, 2005

BERLIN - More than 1,000 toads have puffed up and exploded in a Hamburg pond in recent weeks, and scientists still have no explanation for what's causing the combustion, an official said Wednesday.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7654561/

 

[Slife]

BERLIN - More than 1,000 toads have puffed up and exploded in a Hamburg pond in recent weeks, and scientists still have no explanation for what's causing the combustion, an official said Wednesday.

Didn't they watch the Hulk movie? Exploding frogs are a thing of the past.

 

[DMH]

Last night on Discovery (or was it National Geographic?) there was a program about cave dwelling crocodilles in Madagascar. They are driven there when there is a drought and do go in a good distance (how they exit from that maze is anyones guess). Since crocs need a lot less food than a mammal of similar mass, they survive on the small cave animals. Because the water is warm, they don't need to sun themselves and they have great night vision, so near the places where sunlight comes in through the ceiling, they can see.

The big questions are how do they get out and how do they hunt in total darkenss.

 

[DMH]

In last week's Science News, there is an article about a young orca that learned to used bait (bits of fish) to attract gulls which are then eaten. The others of the pod learned to do it, or a similar behavior using whole dead fish, over a period of months. This happened in MarineLand, Niagara Falls, Canada.

The only monsters I can think of that uses bait as their main form of attracting food is the infamous wolf-in-sheep's-clothing and the mimic. There should be more that use odor as well as sight- a monsterous squid that feeds on sharks, an ooze that smells like bacon , or a dragon that wounds cows to attract humanoid prey as well as scavengers.