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What if the Air had been Colonized?
Topic Started: Dec 18 2009, 03:16 PM (1,668 Views)
Scrublord
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Father Pellegrini
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OK. You might remember that I earlier posted a topic about the plausibility of the atmospheric animals in Kenneth Oppel's novels. Well, that inspired me to post an entirely new topic of the sort about how the Earth's atmosphere could have been colonized by vertebrates, starting about 30 million years ago.

Step 1, 30 million years ago: The first colonist, an the keystone species of this aerial ecosystem, is a species of fly. This fly's larvae have evolved the ability to "balloon" great distances, like baby spiders, feeding on airborne pollen grains and algae. They only touch the ground to pupate and when they are eggs--the adults are also exclusively airborne.

Step 2, 25 million years ago: One species of these flies evolves swarms, great masses of larvae that float thousands of feet in the air. They are, however, easy prey for predatory insects such as wasps, some of which evolve a similar life cycle to prey on them specifically.

Step 3, 20 million years ago: The next breakthrough occurs when birds begin to evolve species specialized in these atmospheric insects. Most of these birds are related to swifts and swallows, and they spend the majority of their lives in flight, hunting the insect "plankton." Naturally, they are followed by birds of prey.

Step 4, 15 million years ago: Here's the difficult part. Some of these birds become even more specialized. They overcome their inability to evolve vivipary by storing their eggs in a brood pouch of skin as they fly, and almost never land. They reach enormous sizes, with 12-foot wingspans and weighing over 35 lb. With arrays of bristles around their mouths to funnel in insects, they are the baleen whales of the sky. They, in turn, are preyed on by highly specialized raptors. By this point, the sky is a fully functioning ecosystem

Any thoughts?
Edited by Scrublord, Dec 23 2009, 05:39 PM.
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Carlos
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Yes it is
Lemuria:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

Terra Alternativa:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/

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Iowanic
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Venatosaurus:

These kite-like critters....

Will they be plant-like; with the 'kite-'tether' working like a root system?


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agatharights
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I actually just recently designed an air-dwelling species, although they seem highly impracticle and I'm pretty sure they couldn't fly on a planet unless it had decently lower gravity and a thicker atmosphere.
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I just wonder how social patterns would work differently in the air...
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Everything is Transformers and Dungeons & Dragons and nothing hurts.
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Carlos
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If it lives on the air wouldn't it be more pratical if it lacked legs?
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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Iowanic
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I'm probably wandering off-subject just a bit, but.....

Yellowdrake; I was wondering, assuming such creatures came to be....
What would compell creatures to live in the air all time?(Evouloutionly, speaking, of course)

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Scrublord
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That's the whole reason I created those flies: as a food source that would compel animals to take to the air.
My Projects:
The Neozoic Redux
Valhalla--Take Three!
The Big One



Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com

In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
--Heteromorph
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Holben
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You don't need to use much energy on movement, predators find it hard to reach you, you can go faster, you can see further, 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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Margaret Pye
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This is really clever!

Maybe bats would work better than birds, since they're viviparous and don't have to worry about eggs?
My speculative dinosaur project. With lots of fluff, parental care and mammalian-level intelligence, and the odd sophont.
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Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

Unless the birds could do a surinam toad and have the eggs inside its back. Learning to fly, however, could prove troublesome...
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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