Terra 2: A Second Tree Of Life

On Digits (Adressing Toes Out-of-universe)

(The following chapter is written directly from me, contrary to the usual tone of me speaking as if this experiment is real, as the creator of Terra 2. It was originally going to be a section in the "A Few Disclaimers" chapter, but I decided it needs to be addressed more significantly to do it justice.)

Digits have been quite an insignificant part of Terra 2's evolutionary history and overall narative, especially in the beginning. But as I write further and further into Terra 2's timeline, I keep coming upon situations, mistakes and decisions that have fingers and toes being quite an important part of the equation. There are multiple art pieces, paragraphs and more that are either wrong, innacurate, impossible or inconsistent about how many digits a certain animal has. So, in this hopefully short, out of universe chapter, I will not only be acknowledging these mistakes but also correcting them and clarifying for the future of Terra 2. Ready? OK, let's get started.

In this image from "10 Million Years PE: Almara" the capyram is shown for the first time. The feet in this piece are messy, which is most likely because it was one of the first drawings I did for Terra 2. The forelimbs are meant to have 4 equal toes while the hindlimbs are meant to have 3 equal toes.

Here we see a descendant of the Kiwi, known for having 3 toes on both feet, not four as seen above. Another thing to note here is that pretty much every kiwi descendant on Terra 2 lacks forelimbs entirely, at most having a few bones near the neck.

A common method I used to use in my early Terra 2 artwork was tracing over imported pictures of other animals, hence why the kiwis seen in this picture have 4 toes each instead of 3.

The problem in this artwork is not the number of digits but rather their arrangement. In the robins that this animal is descended from the arrangement was of 4 toes, three facing forward and one backwards (this is called an "anisodactyl" foot structure). However, in this image the fourth digit is facing forward. But this is canon, not a mistake. I am simply offering a canon explanation not given in the original description of the bird. Due to the ganettbird's evolution for a heavy build, their hallux (hind-facing toe) pivoted over millions of years to accommodate their weight gain. It's that simple.

Number 8, the klonpike, should have 3 toes, not 4 as it is indeed a kiwi. As far as I can tell, the rest work.

This image here is what invoked me to write this fix-it chapter in the first place. The rabin, shown above, was pointed out to me as having the wrong amount of fingers (4) as robins normally have 3 in their wings from which these arms evolved. It was then pointed out to me that it was in fact quite strange that it had fingers at all. So how did they evolve? A little process called "genetic atavism". Robins, and all birds for that matter, are direct descendants of ancient earth dinosaurs which had 5 fingers. As the Cretaceous came and passed, the survivors of the mass extinction (birds) would either fuse or lose the remaining digits, leaving them with three in most cases, including the robin. However, the genes for these fingers have not gone away, not even here on Terra 2. They reemerged. And so, certain enviromental pressures such as the enclosing ice age and rise of predators forced such genes to appear again and give large megafaunal robins true foredigits. The image is a bit innacurate still, though, as it depicts 4 fingers instead of 3. I guess we can just assume this individual had polydactyly.

And that's it! Just a simple tinker to help clarify my project and ensure continuity. The next chapter awaits!