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| Avalonian Fauna | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 6 2009, 11:32 AM (5,276 Views) | |
| VulcanTrekkie45 | Oct 6 2009, 11:32 AM Post #1 |
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Newborn
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Hey everyone. I was hoping you guys could give me a hand. I'm in the middle of a project on another forum called Avalonia Alone, in which Avalonia didn't break up into New England and Western Europe as it did in our world. I've got a general idea for climate, which you'll find in the thread. But I was hoping that you could give me a hand with some of the animals native to the island. My guess is it'd be dominated by multituberculates, with some creatures that are descendants of the last common ancestor of placentals and marsupials. But I'd live some more specifics. If you'd like to help me out, that'd be awesome. Also, if any of you are good artists, I'd love drawings as well. |
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| TheCoon | Oct 20 2009, 07:01 PM Post #16 |
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Happy merry Jesusmas inhabitants of the Spec Forums!
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There's alot of things you need to tell us before we can speculate about the animals. Probably a biome map, indicating if there's forests, grasslands, and the like. Personally, I never heard of Avalonia, but I researched it on Google and I found really interesting things. Still, I have one vital question: At which period the continent was formed or split from mainland? Because if it formed during the age of dinosaurs, I can visualize some multituberculates and who knows, maybe even some dino-birds. If this continent was formed after the mezosoic era, the animals would possibly develop differently. I did once a similar project with Atlantis, and I think I'm able to help you, but first I need to know the different biomes of the continent, and the period the piece of land was formed. |
Greetings young life form! Procyon Lotor at your service.
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| Holben | Oct 21 2009, 03:54 PM Post #17 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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probably mainly temperate forest. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| VulcanTrekkie45 | Oct 21 2009, 07:09 PM Post #18 |
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I can give you an overview of the climate, if that's at all helpful: Western Avalonia: Though the west coast is in fact tectonically active, the geology of the region does not dominate. The warm current and winds off the ocean will. Summer will see somewhat milder temperatures than OTL New England, but it will be quite a bit wetter. Hurricanes and tropical storms coming ashore over the seacliffs around central Massachusetts will not be rare. Further north, the climate will still be very rainy, but no where near as violent as in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Winter will be much the same, except the warm current means that it will snow only rarely in the south. Northern New England might see snow more often, but it will be a rarity in the south. The entire region of New England and Atlantic Canada will be a single temperate rainforest. One could travel from Providence to Cork without ever touching the ground. Central Avalonia: Hurricanes and other storms will lose power moving across Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, but will regain quite a bit of power in the warm Gulf of Maine/Celtic Sea amalgam. Such storms will skirt the Irish coast before slamming straight into Bristol, funneled up by Bristol Bay. Much of the Welsh and Cornish coast will be absolutely drenched. The temperate rainforest will stretch all the way around the Gulf of Maine and the Celtic Sea, all the way to Land's End in Cornwall. North Central Avalonia will be a different story, however. The cold current will blow many storms from the north into Cape Breton and Newfoundland. Such places will still be wet, but in the winter will be buried in snow. Not only will it be wet, but it will be wild as well. The warm systems blowing in from the Western Atlantic will collide with the cold systems blowing down from the Greenlandic Sea. A possible tornado alley? If so, the whole region will be a second-growth mixed forest, with trees being periodically demolished by these mega-storms. Eastern Avalonia: Once we reach the Midlands of England, things begin to calm down. Here, they still get the balmy breezes and wet air from the Gulf of Maine/Celtic Sea, but they've been crossing land for over 100 miles by now. This region will be drier than the western coasts, but sort of the way New England is drier than Seattle. An open woodland will dominate the region from Wales to the South Coast of England. The eastern stretches will also see quite a bit of snow in the winter, as they become more dominated by the cold eastern currents. The southern forests will thin out gradually, until we reach the Appalachian-sized chain along what was in our world the English Channel. On the other side, we have Calais, Benelux, and a sliver of Germany and Poland. No longer are these eastern reaches continental, like Poland was in our world. It's a large version of a slice of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, several thousand miles further west in North America. We have more open woodland, with a good amount of snow blanketing the region in winter, and possibly permanent glaciers on the summits of the Channel Mountains. However, the eastern coast is a stranger place than ever existed in our modern Avalonia. Here, it quickly gets hotter, until we come across the Silesia Volcanic Chain, a chain of high active volcanoes, created by the subduction of the Eurasian Plate under the Avalonian Plate, creating microclimates of their own. This creates a bit of a barrier for people coming to the east, until they learn to skirt the volcanoes to either the north or south, to reach the heartland of Eastern Avalonia. Also, the continent formed as the Atlantic opened up, so about 120 million years ago. However, I don't think there'd be many dinobirds, as all such life was wiped out on Earth 65 million years ago, whether they lived in North America or not. Avalonia would most likely not escape this catastrophe. |
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| TheCoon | Oct 22 2009, 02:59 PM Post #19 |
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Happy merry Jesusmas inhabitants of the Spec Forums!
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Ok. Now I have an idea of the biomes. I'm gonna post some of the animals and the ecosystem in general. If you need specifical animals species, just tell me and I'll start making some . In Avalonia, the land is governated by the last Multituberculates in the whole world. They occupy most of the big niches, while placental mammals such as rodents and insectivores also live in here, but occuping the smaller niches. The hervivores of Avalonia range from small pig-like creatures that eat roots and fallen leaves, to much more larger creatures, similar to the rhinoceros, but with huge tusks instead of horns. The predators are also multituberculates. In lower lands, they are similar to wolverines or racoons, but way larger and feroceous. As we move forward to higher lands, the creatures seem to take more felid forms, with larger tails and shorter face. In the trees, squirrel-like multituberculates live in the higher branches along with real rodents and feroceous hawk-like birds, probably descendant of the North American prey birds that migrated to Avalonia millions of years ago. |
Greetings young life form! Procyon Lotor at your service.
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| Carlos | Oct 22 2009, 04:22 PM Post #20 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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May I also suggest the presence of choristoderes if they haven't been mentioned already? |
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Lemuria: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/ Terra Alternativa: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Carliro ![]() | |
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| irbaboon | Oct 22 2009, 05:01 PM Post #21 |
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These guys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choristodera ? |
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| Carlos | Oct 22 2009, 05:20 PM Post #22 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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Yes. They are sadly very ignored by us the evil bipedal primates |
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Lemuria: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/ Terra Alternativa: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Carliro ![]() | |
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| The Dodo | Oct 22 2009, 05:29 PM Post #23 |
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Prime Specimen
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They do seem to be very poorly known by the public, I agree though they would be a good canditate for a resident for Avalonia. |
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| Holben | Oct 23 2009, 10:05 AM Post #24 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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They're quite a lot like the phytosaurs, though. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| Carlos | Oct 23 2009, 10:28 AM Post #25 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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No, they are not like phytosaurs. Phytosaurs are basically just like crocodillians that are too primitive to be crocodillians and that have nostrils in the wrong place; choristoderes were more like lizards that lived in the water and some happened to look like gharials. Also phytosaurs were retards that couldn't even survive the Triassic mass extinctions, while choristoderes only died out very recently Edited by Carlos, Oct 23 2009, 10:29 AM.
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Lemuria: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/ Terra Alternativa: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/ My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Carliro ![]() | |
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| Holben | Oct 23 2009, 10:30 AM Post #26 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Haha. ![]() Erm, but the christoderes were much cooler anyway. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| The Dodo | Oct 23 2009, 03:32 PM Post #27 |
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Prime Specimen
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Maybe choristoderes could take the niches usually held by crocodilians, I don't know if the temperature is suitable for a lot of them at this time though. |
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| VulcanTrekkie45 | Oct 23 2009, 07:23 PM Post #28 |
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Thanks so much for the interest in this! As for the christodere idea, they might not be able to survive in most of Avalonia (too cold), but they might be able to survive in the rivers near the volcanic chain in the east. As to creating specific species, I'd definitely like to see some, maybe even some illustrations if you can/have the time. |
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| VulcanTrekkie45 | Oct 23 2009, 09:55 PM Post #29 |
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Oh, and also, if it affects evolution at all, in the modern era, Avalonia is, at shortest distance, 402 miles from mainland Europe, and 965 miles from mainland North America. |
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| Holben | Oct 24 2009, 11:02 AM Post #30 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Where's Rockall in all this? |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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