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Fragment by Warren Fahy
Topic Started: Aug 7 2009, 10:45 PM (6,011 Views)
VampiricTyrant
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What do you think of the Stomatopod predators of the book?
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Bipedal gorgonopsids=AWSOME!!
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The Dodo
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I haven't read the book and have no idea what the creature on the front is, but this looks like an interesting book.
Fragment
Here's a book review of it if anyone else is interested.
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Xenophile
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I would comment, but Im reading the book right now!
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sam999
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I can think something like them could evolve and work there is just one thing I do not get. Lots of them have different body plans. The sprigers and henders rats have six legs and a tail that is used like a leg. The disk-ants have no mought I can find and tons of legs. The henders wasp has five eyes and a jaw where its butt should be. What happened? Did lots of animals that didn't go on land in our wourld go onland there. If so why did one not outcompeat the others? Also there was no henders herbavor I could find. Just some plant eating type of disk-ant.
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Xenophile
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Well, I have finished reading the book and I must say it was terreffic! However, I encountered some problems with the speculative biological aspect of the book. The majority of the creatures on the island were descended from stomatopods ( or at least arthropods ), with many species reaching considerable sizes. Although our planet has had its fair share of giant arthropods such as the giant drangonflies of the carboniferous, our current atomospheric oxygen levels would limit the size an invertabrate could reach. Unless of course the seperate 500 million years of time has allowed creatures of Hender's island to evolve an equalivent to lungs. In the book it counters my problem by saying that the carrier of oxygen in their blood is hyper-efficient, but I wonder how much oxygen hemocyanin could carry. Well any way, it was a great book that I think all of you should read.
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sam999
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alienboy
Jan 3 2010, 07:21 PM
The majority of the creatures on the island were descended from stomatopods ( or at least arthropods ), with many species reaching considerable sizes. Although our planet has had its fair share of giant arthropods such as the giant drangonflies of the carboniferous, our current atomospheric oxygen levels would limit the size an invertabrate could reach. Unless of course the seperate 500 million years of time has allowed creatures of Hender's island to evolve an equalivent to lungs.
this is the Earth as it might have looked after evolving on a separate path for half a billion years...

That's quoted from the inside cover of the book shows what I mean.
I had an idea, do you think we should get to specing if the henders critters are able to work?
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Xenophile
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Sure. Lets begin researching stomatopods.
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sam999
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alienboy
Jan 3 2010, 08:28 PM
Sure. Lets begin researching stomatopods.
Know any good websites for that?
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Xenophile
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis_shrimp
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The Dodo
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Here's one.
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sam999
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http://www.warrenfahy.com/page_gallery.html
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Xenophile
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I think that 500 million years is a sufficient amount of time for stomatopds to evolve lungs and their other adaptations for Henders island. Besides, the island had an evolutionary arms race gone wild. Any other opinions?
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sam999
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A problem I found was this: if no henders creatures are "plants" then what would make the oxagen in their eacosystam? Therefore a purely henderslife planet would die while the humans on their ilands would use gasmasks to ride out the diaster.
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The Dodo
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One thing I don't get is why these animals are superior to all the other animals. Usually an island ecosystem's animals are outcompeted by the ones on the mainland if they arrive because they have had more competition then the island organisms.
Also, most the animals seem to be predators.
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sam999
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The Dodo
Jan 21 2010, 07:41 PM
One thing I don't get is why these animals are superior to all the other animals. Usually an island ecosystem's animals are outcompeted by the ones on the mainland if they arrive because they have had more competition then the island organisms.
The island organisms competition was with each other. Wach a mantis shrimp on Utupe they are little killers anyway.
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