THE PALAYAN
RAINFOREST
THE FINAL for the creature design class I took at RISD involved picking a biome and fleshing out a fictional ecosystem within it. Naturally, I chose rainforest. I ended up creating 16 fictional animals, giving them all binomial names, fitting them into a taxonomy, and spreading them out across the four layers of the rainforest.
FIG. 1.1 DRUMBEAK: Drumbeaks inhabit the rainforest's understory and communicate by rubbing a hard plate on the back of their ears against the striations on their horns, producing a different percussive sound depending on the species.
FIG. 1.2 COMB BEETLES: Comb beetles use their specialized mandibles to pick parasites out of the fur of other animals. Drumbeaks are especially eager, and line up to get groomed every day at noon.
