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What if marsupials never arrived to Australia?
Topic Started: May 7 2010, 02:28 PM (1,647 Views)
Pando
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In the early Paleocene marsupials rafted from Antarctica to Australia. But what if they never did, and instead froze in the Oligocene never leaving Antarctica?

I'd expect more diverse monotremes, more terrestrial birds, and marsupials restricted to the opossums and monito del monte in the Americas.
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Ook
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lol,in americas propably will be more diverget marsupials..in australia will be mainly flightless birds,more monotremes,but still specialized-platypus couldnt evolve into metazoiva like herbivores,giant land carnivore.. and lot of placentals,mainly rodents
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Carlos
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Probably placentals or basal native australian mammals like ausktribosphenids would take their place. Probably however, eurasian metatherians would invade Australia, since they survived in South Asia until the Pliocene.

Also note that multituberculates occured in Australia during the Cretaceous, so...
Edited by Carlos, May 7 2010, 02:36 PM.
Lemuria:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

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

My Patreon:

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Pando
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Bexi: Why would there be more marsupials in the Americas?????? Nothing different happened to them. North America is EXACTLY the same.

JohnFaa: Why would Asian eutherians invade? The reason marsupials didn't arrive to Australia from Asia is because it was too far apart. But maybe the newly arrived rodents could take the place of the Multies (weren't they the Gondwanatheres, not Multies? Multies were northern hemisphere) a few million years into the future, as they did with the Multies in the Eocene.
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Ook
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more placentals arrive to australia,but they were outvompeted by marsupials and only rodents succesfull adapt.If marsupials never arrive,we will propably have got giant australian rodents


and there is lot of ways pando.If they never arrive to australia,some can arrive to south america and...
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Pando
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It wouldn't change the course of South American history. After all, South American marsupials arrived to Antarctica, not the other way around. And again, the only thing that changed is that marsupials never went to Australia.
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Ook
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maybe there can be lot of echidnas as small(to size of hedhehog) insectivores..
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Carlos
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An Australia ruled by rodents would be boring; note that diprotodont marsupials (not just the diprotodontids, mind, but oppossums, macropods and all) are analogous to rodents and yet survived and mutiplied, thus maybe it'd be possible if multies kept most of the niches.

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(weren't they the Gondwanatheres, not Multies? Multies were northern hemisphere)


It doesn't really matter; gondwanatheres, it seems, were technically multituberculates, while the more familiar multies were within the clade Cimolodonta. Cimolodonts lived mostly in the north, but some reached Gondwanna
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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Ook
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its boring,but more possible.I prefer to write more possible things


and what about australia ruled by fire breathing dragons?thats not boring;)
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Pando
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Bexi: What's impossible about it (I mean this, not the dragons)?

What about Monitor Lizards become the top predator of Australia like they did before humanity?
Edited by Pando, May 7 2010, 06:31 PM.
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Toad of Spades
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An Australia ruled by giant monitors, giant herbivorous amagids, other large lizards, and terrestrial crocodiles is a good idea.

Edited by Toad of Spades, May 7 2010, 06:35 PM.
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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Pando
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Why lizards?

But I do imagine this as a land where the only inhabitants are egg-laying. The Gondwanatheres, birds, monotremes, lizards, and amphibians which rule it are all egg laying (well, I consider allotheres egg-laying).
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The Dodo
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There would still be bats and rodents come in later on.
What about Condylarths, would they still be there?
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JohnFaa
May 7 2010, 03:33 PM
An Australia ruled by rodents would be boring
How would it be boring !? Imagine the dozens of forms that would arise trying to compete with one another, each next step looking stranger than the next ! Imagine if you will, lithe wolf-like predators with scaly tails, huge blumbering mega-herbivores, some that resemble pigs with buck-teeth, gibbon type brachiators that resemble goblins of legends told, otter types with flat heads, capable of chasing prey even into the tightest of crevices, or other fishing forms that use their worm-like tails as lures, imagine the horrific, nightmarish digging and nocturnal forms that could arise, with beady or huge 'soul-peering' eyes, what about woodpecker types with toothy beaks...why not even go as far as suggesting a rising intelligence capable of complex mathematics and philosophy, making their lab-rat cousins look like primordial ooze in terms of intelligence !



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MitchBeard
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Pandorasaurus
May 7 2010, 06:44 PM
Why lizards?
Australia is a hotspot for squamate diversity.
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