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Ediacaran-like World; Simple animal life dominates.
Topic Started: Dec 27 2008, 01:56 PM (1,338 Views)
Toad of Spades
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Clorothod
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Many creatures of the Ediacaran fauna were simple creatures that got raw nutrients straight from the water and adapted themselves for ways to obtain it.

This got me thinking, what if animal life evolved in this direction? What if instead of finding different ways to obtain nutrients from each other triggering the predator-prey arms race, they evolved new ways to obtain raw nutrients faster and better, as well as ways of pushing away competitors. Adaptations could be covering larger surface areas, parasitism by stealing nutrients, filtering appendages, and boundry defending spines or spikes. In this way, with no predator prey arms race, things could stay simple and evolve slowly. Any thoughts?
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Bread is an animal and humans are %90 aluminum.
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T.Neo
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Translunar injection: TLI
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1. Because this is speculative evolution,


Well, of course- but this is speculative evolution, not fantasy evolution. If I were to do that, I might as well postulate an alternate world where jellyfish became the dominant land animals.

That's not to say that I don't find the idea of dominant ediacaran life interesting.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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CarrionTrooper
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I require more vespene gas?!?
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Allright then... what if the countrycarans have a powerfully active immune system that may as well be toxic to other creatures? That could solve the predation problem. As for competition, what if most of the surface of the sea-floor were already covered by these countrycarans by the time 'better' food-acquiring systems were evolved? The countrycarans would have its parasites attack other hostile organism in exchange for nutrients, even if the other organism is another countrycaran.
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sam999
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What about a hive where the different types serve the functions of orgens? Nutrients gained from the seabed (or prey) and shared around it. For example, a type might be: puller-a strand of fleshy fiber that clenchs itself when it gets nutrients or: biter-a needlelike shell-covered thing that wiggles about once stuck in prey sreding it or maybe: shell-a hunk of hardened skin made to keep out predators. All in all, predators would have evolved from the ediacarans but they would be unlike anything OTL had ever known.

Are you O.K. if I try to turn this into a project?
I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad.
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sam999
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T.Neo
Aug 22 2009, 03:26 AM
I might as well postulate an alternate world where jellyfish became the dominant land animals.
I did that once! :D
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Margaret Pye
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Or, as an alternative reason why predators haven't evolved and destroyed this ecosystem as they did on Earth:

Maybe it just hasn't happened yet. Maybe in a few million years worms will evolve and gleefully devour the squishy Ediacarans and then start growing armour and oh look here we go again, but the necessary mutations just haven't shown up yet. And we're paying attention to what's going on now, not to what theoretically might happen in the future.
My speculative dinosaur project. With lots of fluff, parental care and mammalian-level intelligence, and the odd sophont.
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sam999
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Evloution has no gole in mind. Remember this, it's just random.
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Margaret Pye
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I do know that. What I'm saying is, just because worms can evolve doesn't mean they will, and in particular it doesn't mean they'll evolve now.
My speculative dinosaur project. With lots of fluff, parental care and mammalian-level intelligence, and the odd sophont.
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