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| Strange dinosaur adaptations; Who thinks these are plausible? | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 12 2010, 08:59 AM (8,964 Views) | |
| Margaret Pye | Feb 12 2010, 08:59 AM Post #1 |
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Adult
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So, as I said on the introduction thread, I haz a maniraptoran sophont. I've been fleshing out a world for them to live in. And I've been violating the phylogenetic bracket appallingly - in ways that strike me as plausible, but I've been doing it a lot and I wanted some second opinions on the plausibility of some of my critters. I've put fur on a lot of ornithopods, but that doesn't violate the phylogenetic bracket since Tianyulong. (I was writing furry ornithopods before Tianyulong, mind you - how else would Leaellynasaura have avoided freezing into a little hypsilophodont icypole? Especially since it didn't have growth rings in its bones, and therefore probably didn't hibernate.) Things I want criticism and suggestions on, mostly dinosaur-related: Opposable digits. I've been handing out opposable digits like candy, and with blithe disregard for phylogeny (I figured they could evolve repeatedly and independently.) Bipedal browsers get opposable digits with which to hold browse. Most of my small-game hunting coelurosaurs have hands like three-fingered hawk claws. Most of my grazers evolved from browsers, and most of my big-game hunters evolved from small-game hunters. Direct brooding by a lot of ornithopods (I don't know what the ceratopsians and ankylosaurs do, I'll have to figure that out: I think sauropods are extinct, perhaps very recently as a result of sophont activity, and coelurosaurs are the only surviving theropods). No, there's no fossil evidence for it. But it seems enough of an improvement on the megapode model that I'd assume, given enough time, it could evolve. Is this stupid? (The obvious way to get round "It's too heavy to sit on eggs!" is to have them lie next to the eggs rather than on top.) Pouches. I've given a lot of random dinosaurs (again, it seemed a simple enough and useful enough adaptation to evolve repeatedly and independently) some kind of skin pouch in which to incubate their eggs. A lot of the bipeds, including the sophonts, have "saddlebags" either side of the ribcage. Venom. I have a clade of venomous coelurosaurs. In most of them, the venom is quite weak: it's the slashing sharklike teeth that do the real damage, and the vasodilator, anticoagulant venom just makes the wound bleed more so that the prey collapses faster. (Yep, idea stolen direct from Komodo dragon.) I'm thinking about creating some with more powerful venom, and possibly with a fancier venom delivery system than "it's in the spit so it gets all over the teeth." In particular, I was thinking about cheetahs, and I came up with a concept for a Coelophysis-shaped creature adapted for camouflage, stalking and incredible sprinting abilities. Except when it caught up with its prey, instead of wrestling it, it'd bite it once and let go - and the prey would run for another minute or so, then drop dead. External ears. Yes, on dinosaurs. Specifically, on troodonts. Troodonts seem to have had very sensitive hearing, and asymmetrical ears like owls, so it seems reasonable to give them an external sound-focussing device. And yes, I could just give them an owly facial disc of vaned feathers, but external ears didn't seem that improbable. They aren't complex. They're strategically placed flaps of skin, plus a bit of cartilage stiffening and, if you're feeling fancy, some muscle. Asymmetrical external ears, obviously. One pointing up, one sideways. And a non-dinosaurian issue: I want to replace rabbits and hares with bipedal saltorial versions. Do you think I'm better off with wallabies, or with very large jerboas? (I also want some saltorial-biped mammalian predators and omnivores, most of them under 5 kg: they don't have to be related to the kangabunnies, and I don't know whether they're marsupials or rodents either.) |
| My speculative dinosaur project. With lots of fluff, parental care and mammalian-level intelligence, and the odd sophont. | |
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| Carlos | Feb 18 2010, 07:06 AM Post #46 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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1- I think an arboreal oviraptor would be more plausible, but a tree dweelling therizinosaur sounds good. Most likely it would be an insular denizen. 2- An aquatic theropod is fine I guess, since hesperornithes managed to carve a niche (presumably due to the middle Cretaceous extinctions having killed several groups of marine sauropsids). If theropods continued evolving specialising to life in the sea I suppose they'd end up looking similar to hesperornids though; the front legs would be useless, the legs would be the major propulsion organ since the beginning so they'd rotate to an horizontal position like in diving birds, the tail wouldn't serve for much except for a rudder and for an attachment of the leg muscles so it would decrease in size (compare the tails of the duckgongs in Spec) and the snout would become beak like and filled with short but sharp teeth to make fish catching easier. 3- Abelisaurs have quite weak skulls. 4- Sounds cool; search for the zetchlani wyverns on DA, which while intended to be just dragons they look exactly like my invision of flying ceratosaurs. 5- I too like carnivorous ceratopsians; I saw once a concept of a primitive, bipedal ceratopsian having evolved to become terror bird like |
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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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| Even | Feb 18 2010, 07:10 AM Post #47 |
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Roman Catholic theistic evolutionist
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5) Isn't that Rhino Rhangler's |
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Currently a part of Specworld's revival and The Dark Phoenix's Dinosaur Spec... Still open for idea exchanges and commentaries GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment. My Pets
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| Holben | Feb 18 2010, 08:14 AM Post #48 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Oh, yes! I forgot! Abelisaurids had weak, thin, brittle, fragile skulls and crests. They couldn't withstand an impact of, well, much really. |
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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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| Toad of Spades | Feb 18 2010, 01:19 PM Post #49 |
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Clorothod
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I didn't know abelisaurs had weak skulls. I was thinking of carnotaurus for some reason.I was thinking of a descendant of herrerasaurs or an undiscovered even more primitive saurischian. I also have a few more ideas. A tarsier-like descendant of small arboreal troodontids or dromaeosaurs. An ape-like descendant of oviraptorids. A heron-like dromaeosaur. A swamp dwelling ankylosaur with a duck-like bill to feed on swamp plants. Edited by Toad of Spades, Feb 18 2010, 11:15 PM.
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Sorry Link, I don't give credit. Come back when you're a little...MMMMMM...Richer. Bread is an animal and humans are %90 aluminum. | |
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| Venatosaurus | Feb 18 2010, 01:32 PM Post #50 |
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HAUS OF SPEC
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To Even - Yeah it was RR's ! ...What about some hadrosaur-like archosaurs that are actually derived from Notosuchians like Simosuchus etc ... unless hadrosaurs continue to survive in your world, in which case I take back that idea as I may use it
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| The Dodo | Feb 19 2010, 12:42 AM Post #51 |
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Prime Specimen
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What about Peirosauridaes becoming top predators in South America, at least before the Great American Interchange. |
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| Holben | Feb 19 2010, 04:49 AM Post #52 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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1. What kind of ape like? 2. I would have thought that would be an ornithomimid thing, but hm. 3. Lots of jaw and teeth modification required. Again, a flamingo-like ornithomimid i think would outcompete it. |
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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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| Margaret Pye | Feb 19 2010, 07:40 AM Post #53 |
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I have heaps of surviving... well, I'm not sure if they're technically hadrosaurs, but they look similar. Um... what's a peirosaurid? Problem is, all the forest ecosystems I've designed have an extensive primate and squirrel fauna, which rather restricts the niches for arboreal dinosaurs. Like the tarsier one, though. And I've been thinking about aquatic theropods, but I think rather than designing new varieties I'd like to use the existing hesperornithids and penguins. I've come up with a fully-aquatic penguin design that I think makes sense, involving an airtight pouch which gets ventilated every few minutes. (Talking of pouches, I've decided to take the pouches off most of the theropods. They can be an ornithopod thing. Not sure whether to leave them on the sophonts or not. I have got to figure out which eggs, in this world, need turning.) I'm actually not sure what lives in this world's seas, except for penguins. More penguins? Mosasaurs, probably. Crocodiles with baleen? The manatee/sauropod idea's interesting, but I think I'd rather use a therizinosaur. |
| My speculative dinosaur project. With lots of fluff, parental care and mammalian-level intelligence, and the odd sophont. | |
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| Carlos | Feb 19 2010, 09:17 AM Post #54 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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Its a kind of terrestrial crocodillian. Anyway, marine sloths did occur, so a marine therizinosaur sounds decent. However, I'm more inclined towards hadrosaurs or ceratopsians, since they were already prominent in wetland ecosystems. Also, plesiosaurs could easily survive to the modern day, and nobody should forget champsosaurs and mammals as potential producers of sea dweeling forms |
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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 | Feb 19 2010, 10:51 AM Post #55 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Indeed, the Loch Ness monster. ![]() Although elasmosaurs were doing best in the cretacous, and cryptoclidids weren't doing so well with all those disappearing shallow seas. Icthyosaurs were extinct at the end of the cretacous, and pliosaurs survived only in the southern polar region. |
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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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| Toad of Spades | Feb 19 2010, 09:08 PM Post #56 |
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Clorothod
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A niche similar to ground-dwelling/semi-arboreal omnivorous apes. A lifestyle sort of like a solitary chimpanzee. I also got the idea of two kinds of sauropod-sized therizinosaurs. One quadrepedal, the other bipedal. The quadrepedal one resembles a big feathery sauropod with a beaked mouth. The arms and legs are the same length, and their necks are slightly shorter on average than sauropods. It's hindlimbs are sauropod-shaped with four toes. Its walks on its front limbs using its wrists that have a big hoof-shaped growth of bone under the skin of each wrist. The bony growth is covered with thickened skin and a fatty pad. The long claws are still retained on the fingers and can be used for defense. The main use for the claws is to aid in food gathering. The fingers and claws are in the same position as "normal" therizinosaurs when the wrist is folded against the arm. When they unfold they still function just like the hands of their ancestors. However the very large species can't rear up, and mainly use their claws to bump at predators for defense. Because of their backward facing pubis, they can eat more and have a longer digestive tract than sauropods. Because of their more advanced air-sacs, more hollow bones, as well as a larger number of hollow bones, they can reach larger sizes than sauropods. On average they are lighter than sauropods. One with the dimensions of an Argentinosaurus would weigh a 10-15 tons less. The largest could be a 1/5 larger than the dimensions of an Argentinosaurus, but could weigh only a few tons more. Of course these giants can't rear up, so their necks are in the same range of length as most sauropods. The bipedal ones are quite different. It has evolved a unique way of moving around. It gets around by scooting or shuffling its feet across the ground instead of picking them up off the ground. The leg bones are very thick and solid. The tail is mainly used as balance and can be used for defense as well. Because of their method of locomotion, they can't get as large if they were quadrepedal. The largest can only get around 25-30 tons. Edited by Toad of Spades, Feb 19 2010, 10:30 PM.
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Sorry Link, I don't give credit. Come back when you're a little...MMMMMM...Richer. Bread is an animal and humans are %90 aluminum. | |
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| Vultur-10 | Feb 19 2010, 09:56 PM Post #57 |
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Yay, carnivorous ceratopsians -- some people have suggested they actually weren't pure herbivores but were more like pigs. So I can easily see carnivorous ones evolving, though they'd probably be carnivorous like bears rather than like cats - I doubt they'd ever be hypercarnivores. (Though, heck, polar bears are about as hypercarnivorous as anything...)
Edited by Vultur-10, Feb 19 2010, 09:56 PM.
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| Kamidio | Feb 20 2010, 10:05 PM Post #58 |
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The Game Master of the SSU:NC
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Actually giant ground sloths were therizinosaur-like, not the other way around. |
SSU:NC - Finding a new home. Quotes WAA
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| Practically Uninformed | Feb 20 2010, 11:05 PM Post #59 |
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Informed enough to care
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Mind if I throw in my 2 cents? I don't know if a flightless azdharchid pterosaur has been brought up yet, but it'd be cool to see what sort of curious critter the last pterosaurs like Quetzacoatlus could become were they to become flightless. If flightless azdharchids are old hat, then I'd suggest burrowing ceolurosaurs, like a raptor analogue to the prairie dog. |
| You may be a king or a lil' street sweeper, but sooner or later, you'll dance with the reaper! | |
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| The Dodo | Feb 21 2010, 01:34 AM Post #60 |
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Prime Specimen
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I think flightless azdharchids have been brought up on these forums quite a few times, not in this topic though. I think burrowing ceolurosaurs could work, I wouldn't be surprised if something like that already had existed. |
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