She has good eyes, good for many kinds of looking
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Out-of-Placers
A story of inconvenient changes
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What are they doing? Where are they going? Can I come!? I love books! What are those books?
I wish I could wear hats. My head is large.
Remember that this takes place chronologically not that long since Elim was stabbed, and the Culprit (however brain damaged) is yet to be caught. So the extra precautions are likely in response to Brakka’s activities. And sorry about the hat, being too small or large means you pay extra for things.
Looks like some quality Father-Daughter time, or is it Brother-Sister time? Either way, Pekkit and Beizel look very similar. Perhaps their distinctive eye shape will be seen as a sign of intelligence in future generations of Yinglets.
Not only the flat skull shape, they share similar scruff and even the blue tint on areas like paw pads, mouth and tongue. The panels with them interacting is the artist telling us: “see, they’re related. Do you get it now?!”.
Just like the absolute unit in the first panel is clearly related to Poak (& Zally?), with the shorter snout and extra teeth.
Oh wow, I didn’t even realize that until I glanced back at this…
I wander if the new tag alone will meet with Kas and his/her brother. Had the amusing thought with this being a personal meeting so Kas ask’s Elim to escort Pek to the library.
I’m curious about how the female ones seem to view Elim I know the initial reaction but I have to wonder. Although I’m half expecting someone having a crush on him simply due to the fact that Elim considers himself the Brother of a Female Yinglet.
I wonder if Yinglets like being petted like a cat?
Yo, is that ying in the back a descendant of Poak? They’re huge!
It’s Poak’s father, very proud of the child that clearly *must* be his because who else has babies that huge?
My guess is za guard is Vizlet’s son wiff Poak and Beizel, he has za Matriarch’s coat colors, Poak’s frame and Beizel’s eyes. Hopefully he has a similar temperment..
So, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to yinglet genetics, trying to decipher how 1) a mix of males is used to produce individual offspring, 2) the staggering amount of genetic variance they seem to exhibit, and 3) the wide gender imbalance along with the bulk of males exhibiting strong female characteristics while being distinctly male.
One thought I had, is that a complete yinglet nucleus might be quadruploidal; only via all male contributors donating the ‘female’ X chromosome equivalent to a zygote would the offspring be actually female. This would likely result in the high gender disparity. Some males might be as much as “YYYX” while others might by only YXXX or YYXX. YXXX males would likely result in strong effeminate tendencies and ‘human chasers’, such as the exiled yinglets we see and Chaki. Conversely, I suspect yinglets like Poak might be YYYX, and entail a much higher likelihood of contributing to mostly or all male clutches of eggs.
My main reasoning for why size might be a sex linked trait is that while there’s major variance in build and height for yinglet males, most of the females seem to be very close in build and size. With a naturally quadruploidal species, of course, other wide variances in features and traits would be reasonable depending on how dominant or recessive traits would express themselves; perhaps there are semi recessive traits that singularly coded in a genome would be easily suppressed by a dominant gene but when reinforced 2 or 3 times might overpower the normally dominant genes, while double reinforced dominants might express themselves in exaggerated or unusual ways. This could be exceptionally useful for accelerating evolutionary development at the cost of very high amounts of infant/young mortality, thus meaning that yinglets out of necessity would require a very high reproductive drive (almost to the point of indiscriminacy) and a fast maturation ratio. This means that the species could potentially develop extraordinarily quickly, speciate very quickly, and likely view ancestral offshoots instinctively as competition, thus the better to exploit their ecological niche as well as stress test any deviations in the gene pool.
/nerdgasm
Wow, ya been thinking on this for a while, huh? Well, seeing we took over the Star Trek Universe, we were able to decipher some of our secrets after rebooting the Medical Hologram a few times after it went insane trying to figure it out. De best I can give you is that we are a bipolar species Chromosome wise, like humans. The genetic mixing though is done in the female’s Spermataphore pouch, where the male gametes are injected, but are not mature yet. Dey combine with eachother, sharing genetics, then separate with a new combination of genetics for doing so. They do this several times before becoming mature, at which they secrete a hormone that triggers ovulation. Dat way whoever de female was with all became papas, but with a bipolar DNA strand. Of course dis could be da medical hologram’s final attempt at avoiding terminal insanity (again) and may be inaccurate, but is how I understand it to be.
Zat sounds overly complicated, so za sperm do what, break apart and reform? Or zey just break apart and leave unprotected genetic soup? nono… zat would not do well to penetrate za ovum’s membrane…
My guess is closer to Morrigan’s, but instead of rigid quadruploid gender determination, I favour a paucalplodal or ogilioploidal gender system. In hyoomins, only one sperm fertilizes an egg. Immediately as za first sperm enters za ovum, it changes, blocking all ozzers and released a spermicide to destroy za ozzers… In za case of females wiff two X chromosomes, usually most of za genes on one Chromosome are deactivated and go dormant, but sometimes some female hyoomins have some cells zat have za main X turned off znd za ozzer turned on… Is weird, yes…
In yinglets, eizzr zis does not happen and multiple sperm seem to penetrate za egg and provide zeir genetic payload. once inside, za sperm(one or a few) break apart and za chromosomes mix. and some get deactivated… So zere could be two, three, four possibly more sex determining chromosomes…
If you look at za egglaying mammals of Earzh, a male platypus has five chromosomes identified as carrying sex genes, a single sperm will have Y1Y2Y3Y4Y5 or X1X2X3X4X5. none are analogous to placental mammals and may be closer related to bird sex chromosomes! (1)
Birds and snakes each use unrelated systems, but bolf are described as ZZ males and ZW females, where unlike most mammals za males have a matching set and females have one of each… So we shouldn’t expect yinglets to have za same XY systems as hyoomins do.
(1) See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2413164/
I don’t know why but for some odd reason I had a mental image of a yinglet with Cathulu style tentacles somewhere on it.
You’re probably thinking of a displacer beast.
Like Roon from the Learn to Live comic?https://www.deviantart.com/umbrascythe/art/The-Roon-763068036
I would say M and F for male and female as we don’t know if normal mammal genetics is working. Female birds are XY for example, and we can’t say for sure if the male linked chromosome is highly reduced like in humans.
That said a sudden doubling of chromosomes would explain the sudden appearance of the greater Yinglet.
Female birds are ZW, male birds are ZZ. Different letters are used because zey are very different chromosomes zat are not analogues of Therian mammals… zoh see my ozzer reply, egglaying mammals like a platypus have 10 sex chromosomes zat seem to be somezing between and may be closer to birds for sex genes.
I think what happens is Heterozygous reproduction. This is when the children do not exactly resemble the parents unless totally asexual reproduction happens (literal cloning). The most famous place this happens naturally is in Apples. You have to clone the parents to keep the preferred traits of the fruit because what comes from seed is quite random within a range. This is a biological feature to outpace pest and environmental threats to the given species.
I noticed that Yinglet is STILL in the tree, nice touch.
Ze Fifzh Element arrives?