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| Possibility of a sapient metatherian; Could they evolve? | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 15 2010, 01:38 PM (1,428 Views) | |
| Dean | Feb 15 2010, 01:38 PM Post #1 |
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Infant
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Okay, let's imagine that either eutherians never evolved, or there exists a landmass, where metatherians thrive without eutherian interference. Could a metatherian eventually develop sapience? Metatherians are very similar to eutherians, and given enough time, metatherians could converge into forms resembling eutherians (Thylacosmilus, thylacine, etc...) There seems to be many euarchontoglires-like metatherians, maybe a primate analogue can evolve from one of them. But the main question is, is the metatherian body capable of developing a very large and complex brain? Because of their reproductive strategy, embryos need to over-develop front limbs and facial features, and other parts of the head related to feeding, at the cost of the brain. Also, they don't have a corpus callosum in their brain. Would this make more complex neural processes slower, or would a metatherian on the road to sapience eventually develop an analogue? Sugar gliders seem quite social, and according to old reports about the thylacine, it seemed pretty intelligent, and easy to tame to be a pet. |
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| Carlos | Feb 15 2010, 01:41 PM Post #2 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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South America had primate/rodent like metatherians prior to the arrival of monkeys and rodents, so I think metatherian sapience could occur in a universe where those guys survived |
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| Dean | Feb 15 2010, 02:52 PM Post #3 |
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Maybe something like monkeys could've evolved there, although even Purgatorius and Plesiadapis are a far cry from hominids, let alone monkeys, and the basic rodent/primate body plan is so close to the basal mammal body, that it could branch into numerous things. Although the hypothetical sapient metatherian need not be a primate-like animal. Thylacines or other metatherian predators could also evolve towards sapience, since predators generally need more intelligence. The Sugar glider is also a good candidate. They're omnivores, their high sugar intake could stimulate fast neural function and brain development, they have opposable thumbs, and they're social. Maybe the sugar glider is the metatherian answer to Purgatorius. Edited by Dean, Feb 15 2010, 02:53 PM.
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| Carlos | Feb 15 2010, 03:30 PM Post #4 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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Maybe. It would make sense if the sugar glider became volant, because flight seems to be a road to intelligence (aside from bats the other winged vertebrates, pterosaurs and birds, ended up with fairly large brains) |
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| Dean | Feb 15 2010, 03:57 PM Post #5 |
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Well, maybe the glider could only develop flight, if it evolved true wings, but maybe the crawling hand that evolves early to climb into the marsupium can't turn into a bat-like wing later. Even if it could turn into one, if it becomes over-specialized and can't be used as a hand anymore, it would severely cripple future tool use. Although the present gliding membrane could also somehow evolve into one that can be used for powered flight, and this'd lead to a new type a flight among vertebrates, where the animal can both fly, and have useful hands. |
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| Carlos | Feb 15 2010, 04:06 PM Post #6 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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Like in pterosaurs it probably would only turn one (or maybe two if you prefer) into wing fingers, leaving the rest of the hand availiable; bats do fine with just one "free" finger |
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| Dean | Feb 15 2010, 04:19 PM Post #7 |
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A sugar glider capable of powered flight, tool use with a hand, social behavior, leading an opportunist lifestyle, and greatly increased intelligence because of flying? A mammalian corvid! Even better because it has a tool using hand!
Edited by Dean, Feb 15 2010, 04:21 PM.
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| ATEK Azul | Feb 15 2010, 07:33 PM Post #8 |
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Transhuman
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I have a question, why does the hand need to be incorporated into the wing? Why not just lengthened arm bones and the membranes being the wings? |
| I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's! | |
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| Carlos | Feb 16 2010, 05:23 AM Post #9 |
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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Because there would be no support for the spar of the wing. On the other hand a cartiladge spur as in gliding squirrels could occur and evolve into becoming a wing bone |
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| Dean | Feb 16 2010, 09:48 AM Post #10 |
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Another road towards sugar glider intelligence could be a route similar to that of placental primates. Gliders increase in size, so the relative distance between trees decreases, making their gliding ability less and less useful, until the membrane disappears. Instead, adaptations, that make a tree dwelling existence for a larger creature easier or more comfortable are favored, slowly turning the glider into a monkey-analogue. After this, maybe if they start coming down from the trees, they'd be already on the road towards a hominid-like body plan. I don't know if a marsupial human would be possible, but I can easily picture a human fetus with over-developed hands climbing into a marsupium, so the climbing hand needed to get into the marsupium could easily take the shape of a human hand, after all, human hands are pretty good for climbing. Another creature that could develop intelligence could be the thylacine. It relied more on sight and sound in hunting, was somewhat social, and didn't have that much use of the sense of smell, like placental canids. Maybe vocalizations could become more and more important among them, and this could lead to a "spoken language" and with it a more complex culture, that'd require a large brain to take part in, similar to how corvids got their big brainpower. If the thylacine was as intelligent as a placental dog or cat, making a leap towards at least a corvid level of intelligence wouldn't be that hard like this. |
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| T.Neo | Feb 16 2010, 10:44 AM Post #11 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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I think it would have to be arboreal to develop manipulators. And thylacine pets? That would be awesome.
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| A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork. | |
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| Holben | Feb 16 2010, 10:51 AM Post #12 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Manipulators exist within the cephalopods, primates and rodents, and to a limited extent in most of the mammalian carnivores. Thylacine pets? Do you mean domesticated thylacine analogues, because taking a wild one wouldn't be profitable for the handler. |
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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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| Dean | Feb 16 2010, 01:17 PM Post #13 |
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I'd love to have a thylacine as a pet, I hope cloning them will be successful. Even if scientists would only get to sustaining a low population of them in a nature reserve in my lifetime, it would be great to see modern videos and read modern studies about them. Here's an interesting site, it's about how suitable was the thylacine as a pet, based on reports of people, who had hands-on experiences with them: Thylacines as pets According to this, the thylacine had a personality somewhere between that of a dog and a cat, and it was very easily tamable. |
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| Holben | Feb 16 2010, 01:33 PM Post #14 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Sounds like they would work! |
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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 18 2010, 05:32 AM Post #15 |
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Adult
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I prefer the flying, sapient sugar gliders, because nonhumanoid sophont generally = more fun in my book. But yep, possums or opossums are enough like tree shrews or lemurs that I see no good reason they couldn't evolve into monkey-things and follow a similar pathway. Other fun ideas: Propleopus and friends - extremely primitive, carnivorous or omnivorous kangaroos. Annoyingly, nearly all the fossils of them are disembodied skulls, so we're not entirely sure what their bodies looked like, and they probably weren't very kangaroo-shaped. But they probably did have longer, stronger back legs and a long heavy tail, and it's probably plausible to have the family independently evolve bipedalism, leaving its hands free to evolve into manipulators. Kangaroo civilisation, yay! Something with thylacaleonids, maybe? Hmm, maybe they'd be better as pets. |
| My speculative dinosaur project. With lots of fluff, parental care and mammalian-level intelligence, and the odd sophont. | |
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7:17 PM Jul 10