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| [ARCHIVED] Postozoic (old); Earth, 25, 100, & 200 MYF -- old thread | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 24 2010, 03:42 AM (5,046 Views) | |
| Pando | Feb 24 2010, 03:42 AM Post #1 |
Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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In this world, Earth is inhabited by humans for the next 5 million years, until they finally leave. Even though they have found out how not to harm nature, a mass extinction has occurred, and animals that are Extinct in the Wild have not been released back into the wild of Earth. Plus evolution has been slow as we have not allowed any mutants that have occurred to breed. Here we jump forward to year 25 million, where we will be looking at life. Also I would like to do 100 million years in the future and 200 million years. World in 25 million years: California has separated and drifted north west, and is covered in lush forests. North America has separated from South America (though not by much) and moved slightly North, causing huge taiga in the North, forests around the current U.S.-Canadian border and around the coasts, huge prairie in the center, in Central America is a rainforest, and the south-eastern corner of the U.S. (around Florida to Louisiana, north to Southern Missouri (due to Mississippi river) and north to South Carolina) is a huge swamp from the slightly higher ocean level (due to more ice melted in Antarctica than frozen in Greenland). South America has drifted slightly northward, causing the entire Northern 2/3 to be covered in rain forest, and the southern third to be covered in savannah. Antarctica has drifted north too, and the southern half is covered in ice sheets, while the northern half covered in tundra savannah (coniferous trees). This has caused unique fauna to evolve in Antarctica. Africa has crashed into Gilbratar, blocking off the Mediterranean and causing it to dry out, forming a huge salt desert. The northern half of Africa is dry savannah with Acaica plants littering the landscape, similar to todays African Savannah. Europe’s western and northern side is covered in forest, the southeastern side is covered in prairie. Asia is covered in rain forest to the south-east, the center of Asia in a huge strip is covered in forest, and now-Russia is covered in taiga. There is also a huge desert in the area of the Gobi desert today. Australia has moved northward to the equator and crashed into Papua New Guinea, it is now covered in rain forest everywhere except for the central savannah, not too different from Africa’s savannah. Africa east of the Nile has broken off and formed East Africa (AKA Lemuria) and is covered in rain-forests. Madagascar has drifted farther from Africa, and is still covered in rain forest. The primary herbivores are lemurs, the primary carnivores are tenrecs, which are very diverse, resembling hedgehogs, otters, weasels, rats, etc... Greenland has become bigger by way of the Canadian isles, and has moved northward to become an Australia-sized north pole Antarctica, effectively keeping the sea level at about the same level. There is also approximately 30% oxygen content in the air from the extra plants in Antarctica, allowing arthropods to become 150% bigger (15 inches big approx), and bigger chordate limit. You can call the habitats by these names. Antarctic savannah tundra. South American savannah/rain forest. North American grassland plains/forest/Central American rain forest/taiga/swamp. Californian forest. West African rain forest/savannah. East African rain forest. Madagascar rain forest. Australian rain forest/savannah. European forest/grassland plains/Mediterranean desert. Asian desert/forest/rain forest/taiga. To name an animal, putting in the begging (name)/(ancestor)/(scientific name, if any)/(habitat) would be nice. I'll put a survivor list, then creatures I created soon. I'll also attach an early draft of it I made, but you need Pages (Mac OS X only) or possibly OpenOffice to open it.
Edited by Pando, Mar 13 2010, 09:27 PM.
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Animals_2.pages (166.85 KB)| Replies: | |
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| Pando | Feb 27 2010, 05:47 PM Post #46 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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3 more species for 100 MYF: Theriumonitor/Monitor Lizards/Eurasia, Africa, Australia 100MYF: A long-legged 3-30 foot long black monitor lizards with the legs under them. Apex predators of where they are native at. Tree Octopus/Octopus/Europe, Asia, and Africa 100 MYF: An arboreal octopus descendant. 4 of it's legs are long, thick, and used for swinging, while the other 4 are wider, sticky, and stronger, used to catch prey and climb trees. It also has an extendable mouth used to kill and eat. Ratanteater/Ratel (Honey Badger)/Africa: A slightly longer digging ant-eating brown ratel with a longer snout. Digs at anthills and termite nests and fills an aardvark-like niche. The only non lagmorph or rodent outside of Australia, South America, or Antarctica. Also, I have edited the 4th post (the first post of 100 MYF) so that you can see what continents are ruled by which creatures. Edited by Pando, Feb 28 2010, 12:33 AM.
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| Pando | Feb 27 2010, 09:56 PM Post #47 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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Could a Jerboa evolve into a kangaroo-like form in the Asian desert? And could there be an omnivorous squirrel that feeds on bird eggs and insects, along with nuts, or possibly families that live in a tree and attack creatures that walk below, like piranhas of the air? I know the second squirrel seems unlikely, but it still might happen. Both for 25 MYF. Another creature for 25 MYF: Hippobara/Capybara/South American Rain Forest: A hippo-sized long-and-wide mouthed hairless capybara. It fills a hippo-like niche that has been empty since the Great American Interchange. It is the largest rodent ever. Edited by Pando, Feb 27 2010, 10:13 PM.
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| Margaret Pye | Feb 28 2010, 02:51 AM Post #48 |
Adult
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Ooh, I like the lizardeer - very elegant-looking! I assume it's a browser? Does it chew its food with its mouth, or use a gizzard and gastroliths? Just one thing: shouldn't a full-time herbivore have a rounder abdomen? Most squirrels are pretty omnivorous already, and it'd make perfect sense for one to evolve into a predator (although since they don't have canines, it'd need to kill with its front teeth like a thylacaleonid - that or just use its hands.) The piranha-squirrel concept sounds a bit dodgy, though. If we're talking about VERY BIG SQUIRRELS - like, medium dog size or bigger - jumping five or ten feet onto prey a couple of times their size, that could certainly work. But: Coordinated swarms of tiny predators taking down large prey, like rats and piranhas are supposed to (in real life, they only do it to animals that can't escape or fight back) only works if the predators are eusocial (living in hives like bees.) If a bunch of rat-sized creatures are attacking a human, then a few of them will probably get torn apart of trampled in the process. So unless the creatures really don't care about their individual lives, they won't attack such dangerous prey unless they're starving. Of course, you could evolve eusocial squirrels, with a specialised hunter caste that lives only to bring back meat :-) . No reason why not. Or it'd be safer for them if they were venomous. And also, how far are they jumping? There's only so far an animal can jump safely and accurately. And the tree octopi sound like great fun, but should you give them skeletons for protection and support? On the jerboas: good question. The biggest bipedal hopping placental at the moment, the springhare Pedetes capensis, is only the size of a housecat. So the question is, is it possible for placental hoppers to grow any bigger? I've heard theories that it's impossible because placentals don't have the right hip structure to take the strain, or that a pelvis strong enough for hopping at large sizes isn't compatible with placental reproduction, but really who knows? I don't think anyone'll object if you create therian kangaroos. Though you might want to make them give birth to very small offspring... hey, most rodents do that anyway. |
| My speculative dinosaur project. With lots of fluff, parental care and mammalian-level intelligence, and the odd sophont. | |
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| Pando | Feb 28 2010, 01:23 PM Post #49 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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I was just doing the body shape, I didn't want to go into into specifics. The tree octopus could have some sort of endoskeleton on its body, but not on the tentacles. They would also be poisonous, which will help with its weak biting ability. For the squirrels, a caste system with a poisonous warrior caste sounds best. For the Jerboas, if the young can't be born big to hop, then they will be born small. Edited by Pando, Feb 28 2010, 01:45 PM.
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| Pando | Mar 1 2010, 12:06 PM Post #50 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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More on the lizardeer: It will probably use guzzard. And for the squirrel: Terror Squirrel/melanistic Eastern Gray Squirrel/Sciurida Infernalis (squirrel from hell)/North American Forest: A black mostly carnivorous squirrel. They live in eusocial families, with the 3 foot long matriarch caste of 2-3 giving birth. There are also several other castes, such as a reproductive male caste (which don't always mate with the matriarch, which prevents inbreeding, and take care of the young, 1 foot long), and a venomous warrior caste which is around 2 feet long with a gliding membrane. When prey comes under their tree, around 5 jump down onto it, poison it, then quickly climb back up. There is also the gathering caste, (1.5 feet long) which are in charge of gathering the food, whether it be nuts or meat, and have bigger claws for ripping into flesh. Edited by Pando, Mar 1 2010, 02:37 PM.
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| Pando | Mar 1 2010, 01:35 PM Post #51 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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I think I've got the herbivores for Europe: European plains: Water deer and rabbits are the herbivores. A species for it: Buffalo Rabbit/Rabbit/European Plains: A 5 foot tall brown rabbit. They no longer hop and have a loner snout and slightly longer neck. For the European forest: Wallabies and muntjac take the ground herbivores, rats and squirrels take the tree niche. For the predators: European baboontheres take the tree niche, hedgehogs and rats rule the plains, lynx, wolverines, and foxes rule the forests. Edited by Pando, Mar 7 2010, 12:34 AM.
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| Pando | Mar 3 2010, 06:22 PM Post #52 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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For the 100 MYF world I'm guessing that grass would be extinct or surviving only in the swamps, as the rest of the world is rain forest. Cacti and relatives would probably be extinct too. Also, there could be tall dandelion trees that branch, and the top part has become branch-like the the seeds turning into leaves and fruits. Also, fungus would be more populous as they like warm, damp, and dark environments, so they could be prospering at the floor of the rain forests. --EDIT-- In case you were wondering, I put the maximum cap of life on Earth at 1.5 billion years future, with the Sun expanding and the axis of the Earth going to change, only bacteria would survive a little big past that, but eventually all life on Earth will be gone. But I don't think that you can predict past around 250 MYF maximum. Edited by Pando, Mar 4 2010, 02:44 AM.
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| Holben | Mar 4 2010, 01:05 PM Post #53 |
Rumbo a la Victoria
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Whew lots of data. By slug muscles i meant, well, muscles. Slugs move by contracting, what have you changed? By 100MYH, completely new animals groups will have formed. We don't have any certainty what they'll adapt to though. |
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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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| Pando | Mar 4 2010, 05:08 PM Post #54 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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Actually I think that diversity has been slowing down... I mean what new sea creature has evolved recently that could colonize land? There could be a new class of tetrapods, but seeing as it will be impossible to imagine what they will be like, we will just be using present day classes. I think the newest ones to land were snails/slugs and giant hermit crabs... What was the newest aquatic class? --EDIT-- As for the snails, they walk. They have leg-like structure, which have evolved in all other present-land classes, so it is definitely possible. As for the skeleton part, all other land classes have some sort of skeleton. They do not hop like in TFIW, and have 2 legs. --EDIT 2-- I'm guessing for the whalosquid, they will probably sacrifice their torpedo shape for a kite shape, like in Spec or The Neozoic. Also, is there a future for the nautolid, I really like those tentacly guys, but I'm not sure they'll survive  --EDIT 3-- I think that the sharks that replace dolphins in the future could develop a wide mouth with the outward layer of teeth looking like anglerfish teeth, but the bottom pair are sticking out to scrape the bottom of the sea, and the inner layers of teeth are normal for chewing the food. And/or it could develop cheeks and a long snout with the front row of teeth being like an anglerfish's teeth and can extend to grab the food at the bottom of the ocean. The 200 MYF whale-sharks could have the teeth turned into baleen-like teeth, just like the whale-squids beak turned into a baleen-like thing. Edited by Pando, Mar 4 2010, 06:42 PM.
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| Pando | Mar 6 2010, 05:49 PM Post #55 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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I have a scenario for North America in 100 MYF. Up in the treetops, a flock of flying lizards are flying, and then they swoop down to feed, and show one of the reasons why they outcompeted birds: A 2 small fingers with which they can climb with, so they are more agile. An arboreal chameleon comes to chase them off, only to be snatched by a tree octopus. Down below: A group of lizardeer are strolling through, scaring away some feeding kochlidtheres and quadrupedal rabbits. As they run away, a few are preyed upon by a theriumonitor. Like it? |
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| Pando | Mar 7 2010, 12:23 AM Post #56 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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2 more species for 100 MYF: Megasuchus/Saltwater Crocodile/Suchustherium/100 MYF Coasts from Australia around the north of the Pacific to the Mexican coasts: A 50 foot long dark gray crocodile. Megafowl/Junglefowl/100 MYF India and East Africa: A junglefowl. It has gained a longer neck and the crest on top has widened hardened into a ramming object, but the most radical change is that it has gained 3 fingers like the hoatzin, which have widened into circular shapes, rendering it flightless. The last finger has then become a back finger, and it has gained quadrupedal form. It's beak has also flattened, lengthened, and became thicker, becoming like a platypus or ostrich beak. There are also small half-molar half-beak things that it uses to grind down food. It feeds on the grasses from the small savannas and leaves and fruits from the rain forest. It's a family with species from 1-9 feet tall. For the megafowl the genes for teeth and extra fingers are still in birds, so it is perfectly plausible. Another thing about 100 MYF: There is a savanna in the once-Gobi Desert, and is the biggest savanna in 100 MYF. Edited by Pando, Mar 7 2010, 01:32 PM.
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| OmegaBeaver | Mar 7 2010, 02:02 AM Post #57 |
Adolescent
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I really like what you have here, it looks great, and your creatures are great. Hopefully mine will be be this good :p |
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| Pando | Mar 7 2010, 02:16 AM Post #58 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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Too bad that I need Spore to show my creatures, the best thing I can draw is a simple 2d drawing of their side. |
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| OmegaBeaver | Mar 7 2010, 02:26 AM Post #59 |
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Adolescent
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Im pretty good at drawing birds...thats it. Maybe some mammals. But birds are the only things I draw nice. Cept for the legs...darn legs. >.> |
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| OmegaBeaver | Mar 7 2010, 02:26 AM Post #60 |
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Adolescent
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Im pretty good at drawing birds...thats it. Maybe some mammals. But birds are the only things I draw nice. Cept for the legs...darn legs. >.> |
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