Day One Of Hermit-A-Day May!

Day One of Hermit-A-Day May!

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Fun biology in TOTK’s designs

I'll keep this post updated as I go through the game. I'm going to skip the more general identifiable things like apples (they're based on apples!) because there are tons of more unusual species to talk about.

Overall, the really interesting thing I've noticed is that many of the more unique Earth-based lifeforms in TOTK are super ancient, like predating dinosaurs ancient, which is a really cool tie-in to the overall time-hopping plotline of TOTK. Specifically, they're found in the new areas (caves, depths) while the surface remains a bit more normal.

(There will be no plot spoilers in this post, and also I've barely gotten into the plot because I'm spending all my time wandering, so shhh no spoilers in the tags for like a month please.)

PLANTS

Bryophytes my beloved. Bryophytes are among the earliest land plants, waaaay predating flowers and even seeds. In our world, they’re small by necessity—they lack vascular systems to help move water around like other plants, so they have to stay small and moist (hence their frequency in caves in TOTK—though they do need some light in real life.)

In TOTK they’re quite large and I think that’s very sexy and art directors should give us big bryophytes more often

Anyway, there are three types of bryophytes: mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. Left image is a moss, right is a liverwort. Those red-brown and palm-tree-like structures, respectively, are their reproductive structures.

A screenshot showing moss. It's green and on the walls and floor of a cave, with some thin long red-brown protrusions coming out.

A screenshot of liverworts. They're mostly flat on the ground, but have palm-tree-like growths that rise above the leaves.

Not yet spotted: Hornworts! Did they forget the third bryophyte sister :(

I think these next guys are probably lycopods (specifically club moss, which is not a true bryophyte moss, thanks science.) Very old, but vascular, so they're a bit more evolutionarily recent than bryophytes.

Link standing next to some lycopods, or something. They're like long green sticks with lots of thin wispy spines coming out, like pipe cleaners.

All the enormous curly-topped trees in the depths: Ferns! Another very old plant, though younger than bryophytes and lycopods.

Link standing near a towering curled fern head.

Brightblooms and some of the other giant plants in the depths: Possibly based on a cycad? Again, a very ancient plant lineage. At this point, evolutionarily, they've developed seeds—that giant cone in the center is called a strobilus, and that's the seed structure.

A brightbloom plant that has had the brightbloom picked off already. What's left is a few leaves of a central plant, with a bare cone-like structure in the middle.

Link standing on the apex of one of the giant depths plants. There's a cone-like structure behind him.

These next few plants are angiosperms, meaning they produce flowers. Angiosperms are a more recent evolutionary lineage—still many millions of years old, but it took a while to develop flowers as a reproductive tactic.

Sundelions (left) are a fun recolor of a lily. I wanted to point out that the artists did a nice job with the overall accuracy on the shape and parts—though they only have 5 stamens instead of the lily's characteristic 6, but hey, fantasy. There are also some scenery lilies in various places—I found these (right img) in the depths but near a lightroot (which gives them literal and thematic connection to the surface.)

A sundelion. It's like a lily, six petals and stamens and all, but is colored fluorescent orange-yellow with black tips.

These next ones are Peruvian lilies/alstroemeria, just used as a scenery plant but a very fun inclusion. Fun fact, not true lilies, so they're not deadly to cats like true lilies are.

A bunch of trumpet-like purple flowers on green plants.

A photo of pink alstroemeria, a bunch of trumpet-like flowers branching off of one central stem tip. They look like the purple flowers from the game.

Real photo © Dick Culbert, Wikipedia

Plum trees: These are also called out as plum trees in game! There's a journal in Kakariko that refers to the plum orchards.

A plum tree with bright pink flowers. They're the same shape as the other tree.

Okay I'm a little proud of figuring this one out. Bomb flowers blend a few botanical references. Superficially, the fruit resembles a type of seed pod called a capsule—specifically it's very similar to a poppy capsule. The little red thing in the center is a nice addition to resemble both a flower stigma (reproductive part that leads to the ovary) and a bomb fuse. Now, poppy capsules disperse their seeds via wind, but there are other plants who do explode their seeds outwards as a dispersal tactic! This is called explosive dehiscence.

There is one tree in particular called the sandbox tree, AKA monkey-no-climb or dynamite tree (yes, really.) Their capsules look more like little pumpkins, but are known for violently exploding when ripe—they can launch seeds at 150 miles per hour (250 km/h) and spread them roughly 200 feet (60 m) away. The photo comparison is a poppy capsule but you should def go look up dynamite tree videos.

A photo of a bomb flower in TOTK. It is purple and round with a little crown of offshoots, and a red stem in the center.

Poppy capsules in real life. They are grey-green, round, and have the same crown of offshoots.

Real photo © PommeGrenade, pixabay

Fire fruits (and the other elemental fruits) grow on the same generic plant that looks kind of like it has grape leaves. Fire fruits resemble a specific botanical thing too though—the black netting is a papery calyx (part of the flower) seen in a nightshade genus, Physalis (golden berries, tomatillos, etc.)

Fire fruits in TOTK. They're a fiery red fruit with a black netting around it, growing on a little golden grape-like plant.

A photo of real Cape gooseberries AKA golden berries. They have a papery envelope around a fruit, one of which is partially decomposed and looks like the fire fruit's black netting.

Real photo © Helene Rogers, Alamy

MISCELLANEA

Cup lichen! Lichen is not a plant, but a symbiotic structure of an algae + a fungi. Cup lichen is just a type of lichen formation that has a kind of vertical cup-like structure.

Link kneeling next to some grey tubes (cup lichen) on the ground.

ANIMALS

Sticky lizards: Based on Diplocaulus, a very early (now extinct) amphibian! Their skulls are wacky. We're not sure whether the long sides stood out separately or were smoothly connected to the body by skin flaps, but the separate arrow-like shape is the most popular rendition.

A sticky lizard in the game. It's kind of yellow-green with an arrow-shaped head, patterns down its back, and a bulbous tail.

A photo of a Diplocaulus skeleton and reconstructed Diplocaulus from a museum display. It has the same arrow-like head as the sticky lizard.

Deep firefly: Might be a stretch because it could just be a multi-winged fantasy critter, but I think the "wings" and antennae are very reminiscent of anomalocaris, an ancient aquatic arthropod.