Josh was quite right about the beast I showed last time: it is indeed a shallow-beaked Grogan from Venus. You can find it, and three others like it, on the website of the inimitable Dr. Grordbort. 'Dr Grordbort' is a steampunk subsidiary from Weta in New Zealand, the people famous for the special effects in King Kong, The Lord of the Rings, etc. Should you wish to, you can buy marvellous ray guns in steampunk fashion from Weta (although you may find them to be a trifle costly).
Last time I had erased the name of the shallow beaked Grogan from the image, as that would make it a bit too easy. To rectify that, here it is again. I cannot make out the name of the artist, which is a pity, as I would like to give credit where it is due. If you look at the other animals on the site, the number of legs seems to vary. The Grogan seems to have six originally, and the middle one is split halfway. Arthropods on Earth can have a biramous leg design, with one branch forming the walking leg and the other part can be something else, such as a gill. But the split occurs then very close to the body, so the two branches are completely separated mechanically. In the Grogan's case, the split occurs halfway down, which doesn't seem very handy, as the top branch, that seems to be there to grasp things, would wobble along when the animal walks. Still, the grasping legs are intriguing: could this be a Venusian example of Centaurism? (discussed here and here). The neck looks odd as well, but could work, I think.
Next, a lively image of a Grogan hunt. Steampunk adventurers don't go in for conservation, it seems, but prefer to view wildlife lined up in their sights. What ho!
By the way, a Weta is a large New Zealand insect. If you care to look closely at them, you will see has a pair of appendages at their rear end: cerci. In my musings on Centaurism, I wondered whether centaurism occur on the hind end of animals as well. StevenH came up with the earwig, with a pincer at its rear end. Wikipedia treats cerci as being derived legs, so, if that is true, there is 'posterior centaurism' as well. How nice to bring two threads together.
In the hope of uncovering unknown fictional biology from Japan or wherever, I repeat my question to let me know of any unknown worlds. Again, I will whet the appetite asking you for the source of the following image. It's from Weta, but you have to be more specific than that.
Click to enlarge
