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Avalonian Fauna
Topic Started: Oct 6 2009, 11:32 AM (5,274 Views)
VulcanTrekkie45
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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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Holben
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Steering back on course...
Avalonia is mainly glacial, isn't it? So the people would adapt to this, surely?
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
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TWLM
Nov 7 2009, 03:44 PM
Steering back on course...
Avalonia is mainly glacial, isn't it? So the people would adapt to this, surely?
If by glacial you mean gets iced over during colder periods, then yes, the western half does. And in the east, we'll still see permanent glaciers along the mountain ranges and such, but they will not extend far beyond the foothills.
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The Dodo
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I was thinking for some of the flora of Avalonia there would be a lot of conifer forest, maybe the last surviving Northern Hemisphere Araucariaceae could live there and have become adapted for the cold.
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Holben
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Furry...
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
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The Dodo
Nov 8 2009, 01:24 AM
I was thinking for some of the flora of Avalonia there would be a lot of conifer forest, maybe the last surviving Northern Hemisphere Araucariaceae could live there and have become adapted for the cold.
That could work. My only concern is whether they can stand the colder weather Avalonia would present for them than what they have here in our world.
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Holben
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They could get a really thick insulatory layer.
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
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That's true. The question is how much time they'd have to get to Avalonia. What we'd need to figure out is how fast the continents break up, and how fast the life moves in. Also, there's the question of how many seeds would end up getting blown or carried across the sea from either North America or Europe.
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The Dodo
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Well they lived in the Northern Hemisphere until the end of the Cretaceous I think. So they could of been present when Avalonia connected with Europe and North America and got in when they connected.
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VulcanTrekkie45
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The Dodo
Nov 12 2009, 01:24 AM
Well they lived in the Northern Hemisphere until the end of the Cretaceous I think. So they could of been present when Avalonia connected with Europe and North America and got in when they connected.
I'm aware that they were in the Northern Hemisphere at the time. However, the question is, will they be outcompeted by any species blown/carried there over time? That seems to be what happened in our world in the Northern Hemisphere.
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Carlos
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Are you guys talking about Araucarias? Because late Cretaceous Laurasian forms were already very rare, based on fossialized polen. However, podocarps and some ancient conifer lines (nowadays extinct) were still common enough
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Holben
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I guess so.
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
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JohnFaa
Nov 12 2009, 03:08 PM
Are you guys talking about Araucarias? Because late Cretaceous Laurasian forms were already very rare, based on fossialized polen. However, podocarps and some ancient conifer lines (nowadays extinct) were still common enough
I'm not sure if that'd work. They were only really ever found in Gondwana. And Avalonia was stuck between North America and Europe at the time. So, unless life sprang up in the Atlantic basin almost immediately as it opened up, I can't see any way of it getting there.

Oh, and I've just thought of something: we couldn't have the American continents actually called that. Possibly Galacuasiet-Macamigu for North America? It means "land of the setting sun" in Micmac, an ethnic group that would be present in western Avalonia.
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VulcanTrekkie45
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Quick bump. If any of you are interested in coming up with animal species, I'd love to see some, especially good candidates for domestication by the Avalonian natives.
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Holben
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They'd probably domesticate altenative dogs, cattle, etc.
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
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TWLM
Nov 17 2009, 11:40 AM
They'd probably domesticate altenative dogs, cattle, etc.
This is very much true, but what would they look like? I know I haven't given you guys much to go on, but anything you can come up with would be great.
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