Speculative biology

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I want to create fictional creatures, but have them be "grounded" where there is a logic to how they've developed their morphological features, why they behave the way they do, why they developed certain traits as opposed to others, etc. The goal isn't to be 100% realistic (I'm not aiming to make an entire tree of life), just "convincing" or "good enough". What are some books I can read to help with this?