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Species Mutualism; Megatherium pachydermus
Topic Started: Oct 3 2009, 03:48 PM (1,375 Views)
Ddraig Goch
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Ar hyd y nos

One species that I have been toying with for Vabmojer are the newly-dubbed Titans, herbivores native to the Northern-Vaghis Savannah. In overall appearance, they probably wouldn't look that intersting, except that they are 32 metres tall, and 62 metres long. They live in symbiosis with a number of plants, which cover the titans' backs - these range from small patches of moss, to entire forests of trees. The two groups, plants and titans, both benefit from each other - the plants are protected from herbivores, and in return they provide nutrients and glucoses from photosynthesis.
The plants and the titans are intertwined, and the titans seem to have plant-like characteristics - although able to walk, they will pause, usually for weeks, in a single location, and expel thick roots from their feet, soaking up water from the ground, and passing it up to the plants on its' back. Incedentally, to support its' weight, its' feet are spread like a tree trunk, with a central "foot", and then three other, outer "feet" surrounding it.
Carring a forest around on it's back means that it provides a ready-made ecosystem for other animals. Most notable among these, are flifs (of various description) which roost amongst the trees, and the "titan truckle", which leeches the sap from the trees, and are not known to exist anywhere else but on the backs of these immense behemoths.
I like the idea of this, and I will supply a picture as soon as I can work out how to get it onto this website, but I do not even know if such a creature is plausible, or even possible... any ideas?
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Iowanic
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Some say that mammals did make a go at it....they were called Indricotheres. Males may have got up to 4.5 meters at the shoulder and might have pressed the 15 to 20 ton mark.

though with them saying dino's might not have actually weighted what they did, I don't know....

I suspect the reason more mammals haven't produced larger land-critters has to do with the diet avaible.
Also; millions of years later; we have to guess how many of these living-mountains there actually were. It might have been possible to grow such big critters, due to there being less compeation for food-stuffs.

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Then there's energy requirements. A mammal that size would probably need far more energy then a reptile. I don't know if sauropods were supposed to be exothermic or endothermic, but I know that a proportionate mammal would have a larger brain, so they would need far more food.
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Ddraig Goch
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Oh, yeah... forgot about the Indricotheres. I meant animals of today,though. Okay, so as you say it would be impossible to get relly big, but giraffes are tiny when you compare them with, even "small" sauropods like Camarasaurus and Vulcanodon.
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Vultur-10


Indricotheres were 'only' 10+ tons, the biggest might have gotten to 15, or even maybe 20 ... but that would have been a freakishly huge bull like the Smithsonian Rotunda elephant. Argentinosaurus was 80+ tons, maybe 100; Paralititan was about 60 tons; Bruhathkayosaurus and Amphicoelias fragillimus are known from very fragmentary, and in the case of the latter no longer in existence, remains, but would have been well over 100 tons.

No one really knows why no mammals got so big; sauropods probably were endothermic.
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Ddraig Goch
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Thank you for your replies. Parasky, I've decided to use your larvae idea, and hopefully should have some drawn soon. I imagine them as lizardy-things...
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