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Rewriting Earth; a new wave of spec evo projects
Topic Started: Nov 21 2009, 11:38 PM (7,630 Views)
Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

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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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ATEK Azul
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Alright I have noticed the the middle section on Trillibites from side to side is in 3 sections. And I also noticed that from front to back they are in three sections.

Main evolutionary trend that I know of are spikes, mimicing their head with their back end and Curling up in deffense. So I see them taking Beetle, Camoflaged and maybe something like Aphids(though I don't know much about them) niches.

They also might become colonial but that is just me.

As for wings they might evolve from gills like in Insects though I don't know where they are on Trillobites. Another option might be 1 or 2 sets of their limbs converging on Insect wings?

I can see their bodys becoming more aerodynamic by curling the body side to side to the poin of the legs coming from the center of the body and the 2 sides fusing and compacting.
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Thanks for the info Atek.

And as for how their wings develop (IF they develop, because I'm still not sure how plausible the idea is), I was thinking that they would evolve from merging limbs to the sides of their bodies. Not sure wat that is called, but the sides I'm referring to are the 2nd section. You know, the small little exoskeletal protrusions? I was thinking wings would form from merging the limbs to these protrusions.



Any other ideas about flying arthropod or arthropod-like critters? The prescence of these creatures in some form or another are almost critical to the development of other fliers.
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sam999
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I still think useing anomalocaris as the basis would be best.
Edited by sam999, Nov 23 2009, 07:51 PM.
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Basis for fliers? How do you figure?

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just wondering your reasoning.
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The Dodo
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Sorry this has nothing to do with flying animals, but maybe we could do something with the Hallucigenia.
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Holben
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Ooh, we need to keep baby Hallucigenia.
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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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

I don't really see what much we could do with hallucigenia.

However, if someone has ideas, I and the rest of us will contemplate them.
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Holben
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It could start a whole new clade.
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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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

And what might this new clade be? I need details man! :)
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Holben
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I dunno, i do ideas, not idea development.
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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Temporary
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For flying arachnids, how about have Trigontarbida evolve and not go extinct, devloping for a massive size. When something like modern day arachnids evolve, and meet, the Trigons out compete them on land forcing the spiders to evolve to the air. Spiderlings already use silk for gliding, so maybe they create wings of silk around their legs somehow. Maybe they could fill the bird niches for a while.

Fungi dominated the Earth for a while, maybe make plants never outcompete them? I know once there was a tree like fungus so they really don't have many things they can't evolve for.
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Spiders are a definite possibility for fliers. They may not be the most plausible candidates, but they are candidates. Maybe their flight would work by modifying their middle four legs into wings. The silk thing could work, but I just find it a bit too flimsy to be used as a flying surface.



As for fungal forests, they may be able to dominate the forest floor. But I honesty believe that plants, as soon as they evolve (and they most likely will. Plant body type is the premier mode for land autotrophism on Earth), will outcompete the shrooms.
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KayKay
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I've been following the topic with interest. However, a couple of things surprised me, particularly keeping trilobites and arachnids.

I'd like to propose an idea, and it's nothing more than that I'd understand if you didn't want to accept it, that you start just a little earlier on than the Cambrian explosion?

Such as studying life from the Edicaran, then creating your own Cambrian explosion? No trilobites, no hallucigenia, no anomalocaris... but new shapes and forms of entirely your own design, based on the Edicaran life?

It's more work, and Edicaran life isn't all that well known. However, it would also mean that Earth would be re-written that bit more differently. Anyway, there is my suggestion, if you decide to try it.
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Vultur-10


Cambrian takes us back before the emergence of land plants, so we can have all sorts of cool and bizarre flora developing.

I would like to have a lineage of charophyte-like water plants derived from green algae, which would eventually develop into an equivalent of flowering plants, with their gametes spread (pollination) by small aquatic invertebrates. It would be interesting to have "flowering plants" evolve in the water this time around.

But that's a lot farther ahead in time. For the Cambrian, I think the Neocharophyta should be just getting started, appearing in the mid-Cambrian -- green, usually multicellular 'plants'* resembling small threads, 2mm-14cm long (the larger species appearing toward the end of the Cambrian). In the last stages of the Cambrian they would begin to develop 'leaves', though at this point they are simply divisions of the threadlike stem, slightly flattened in the most derived species. Their stem is composed of enormous cells with many nuclei; some of the smaller species are a single cell up to 1.4cm long with hundreds of nuclei. These early neocharophytes would reproduce both sexually (by releasing gametes into the water) and asexually by budding.

Unimpressive at this stage, but holding the still invisible promise of greatness in the future...

So, what do you think? Would you like these to evolve eventually into one of the major plant groups of this Earth? And does anyone have a suggestion for a common name so I don't keep typing "Neocharophyta"? 'Greenyarn' maybe?

*What the word 'plants' includes varies depending on who's talking; some include red algae and green algae, while others restrict it just to the green algae + charophytes + land plants, and some limit it *just* to the land plants (embryophytes). My Neocharophyta would be plants under the first two definitions, but not the second.
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