[ARCHIVED] Coconut Crabs

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[ARCHIVED] Coconut Crabs
Topic Started: May 14 2010, 01:17 AM (4,029 Views)
Pando	May 14 2010, 01:17 AM Post #1
Obey or I'll send you to the moon Posts: 5,648 Group: Members Member #275 Joined: Feb 24, 2010 Area of expertise: Future Evolution	As the Chinese swamp of 120 MYF nears its end (got a batch ready) I've been wondering about Coconut Crabs. The coconut crab is unique among arthropods that as they went on land their gills didn't turn into body tubes, but is currently in a proto-lung. In the Postozoic it goes further and turns into a real lung, allowing them to grow bigger. What is the biggest size they are able to achieve and what diversity can they have? I'm guessing that they will be able to grow as big as a lot of vertebrates as some seascorpions (including a 7 foot long one) went on land and arthropleura existed.

Replies:
Pando	May 15 2010, 11:18 PM Post #46
Obey or I'll send you to the moon Posts: 5,648 Group: Members Member #275 Joined: Feb 24, 2010 Area of expertise: Future Evolution	The swampman uses its snout to catch fish. But if a carnivorous primate were to have the bite force of a crocodile (per square inch) then they could easily break open a future coconut crab. How would a terrestrial octopus fare against a smaller coconut crab? Dropping on the ground would be hard, considering it is a swamp. They would either have to find a rock or slam it against a tree.



Canis Lupis	May 15 2010, 11:26 PM Post #47
Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth. Posts: 5,881 Group: Away Staff Member #95 Joined: Oct 16, 2008 Gender: Female Nationality: United States Favorite Quote: "A speccer once tried to tell me I was wrong. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."	See, rocks are better mitch. Key word there Pando is IF. And it's a pretty big if. I'm sure if there was a lot of muscles around the jaws that the swampman could crush a crab's shell with its teeth. But I'm not sure why it would when rocks and trees are available.



Pando	May 15 2010, 11:28 PM Post #48
Obey or I'll send you to the moon Posts: 5,648 Group: Members Member #275 Joined: Feb 24, 2010 Area of expertise: Future Evolution	I'll start drawing a concept crab tomorrow, as it's 9 PM here. And I've gotta convert my Amy's Choice episode from .flv to .mp4



Canis Lupis	May 15 2010, 11:35 PM Post #49
Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth. Posts: 5,881 Group: Away Staff Member #95 Joined: Oct 16, 2008 Gender: Female Nationality: United States Favorite Quote: "A speccer once tried to tell me I was wrong. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."	"Amy's Choice"? What's that?



Pando	May 15 2010, 11:36 PM Post #50
Obey or I'll send you to the moon Posts: 5,648 Group: Members Member #275 Joined: Feb 24, 2010 Area of expertise: Future Evolution	Doctor Who...



MitchBeard	May 15 2010, 11:38 PM Post #51
proud gondwanan Posts: 431 Group: Members Member #281 Joined: Mar 10, 2010 Gender: Male Nationality: Australian	Primates brains are way too big to allow for a bite force as large as a crocodile. Even with an enormous sagittal crest.



Pando	May 15 2010, 11:40 PM Post #52
Obey or I'll send you to the moon Posts: 5,648 Group: Members Member #275 Joined: Feb 24, 2010 Area of expertise: Future Evolution	Who said they need intelligence? Felines do well with not that much intelligence. Besides, with the mass extinction killing most mammals most prey (and all big prey) are of low intelligence, thus the mammals themselves don't need that much intelligence.



Canis Lupis	May 15 2010, 11:47 PM Post #53
Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth. Posts: 5,881 Group: Away Staff Member #95 Joined: Oct 16, 2008 Gender: Female Nationality: United States Favorite Quote: "A speccer once tried to tell me I was wrong. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."	Intelligence is a huge advantage though, which would allow mammals to retake the world. Even with a decreased brain, the sagital crest would have to be quite large to break through a shell.



Pando	May 15 2010, 11:54 PM Post #54
Obey or I'll send you to the moon Posts: 5,648 Group: Members Member #275 Joined: Feb 24, 2010 Area of expertise: Future Evolution	The reason mammals didn't really take over (unless you consider the neo-reptile class mammals) is because it was too hot for them. At that temperature and moisture and mammal will go into seizure within 6 hours (it was featured on Yahoo).



Canis Lupis	May 15 2010, 11:57 PM Post #55
Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth. Posts: 5,881 Group: Away Staff Member #95 Joined: Oct 16, 2008 Gender: Female Nationality: United States Favorite Quote: "A speccer once tried to tell me I was wrong. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."	True. But lizards are also adversely affected by the heat. There was an article published in the journal Science recently talking about how global warming is causing lizards to overheat and thus cause their extinction. Besides Pando: there are mammals that do survive in some of the harshest deserts. Camels, oryx, kangaroos, meerkats, etc come to mind.



Pando	May 16 2010, 12:01 AM Post #56
Obey or I'll send you to the moon Posts: 5,648 Group: Members Member #275 Joined: Feb 24, 2010 Area of expertise: Future Evolution	But deserts aren't moist! Mammals can't exist in hot moist land!



Canis Lupis	May 16 2010, 12:04 AM Post #57
Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth. Posts: 5,881 Group: Away Staff Member #95 Joined: Oct 16, 2008 Gender: Female Nationality: United States Favorite Quote: "A speccer once tried to tell me I was wrong. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."	Oh, I forgot about the moist part. Oops. Yes, mammals don't do well with humidity. We're a dry group. I'd see amphians as dominating the moist areas. Assuming they survive, anurans would fare rather well.



Pando	May 16 2010, 12:10 AM Post #58
Obey or I'll send you to the moon Posts: 5,648 Group: Members Member #275 Joined: Feb 24, 2010 Area of expertise: Future Evolution	I have amphibians die in the extinction. I have got to get a 120 MYF thread up.



Rhob	May 16 2010, 12:19 AM Post #59
Adult Posts: 527 Group: Members Member #260 Joined: Jan 20, 2010 Area of expertise: Xenobiology Nationality: Floridian Favorite Quote: "We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan	Canis Lupis May 15 2010, 10:47 PM Just pure speculation. I'm not much for calculations. It came from when I was talking to Metalraptor, who is a biology/paleontology major. I'm not sure how we came up with it, but it makes sense to me. Okay. As I've written before, I think another big disadvantage with arthropods (not exoskeletons per se) is their lack of a vascularized or "closed" circulatory system. This probably precludes bigger sizes more than the exoskeleton itself, since you need a bigger volume of fluid to maintain the same pressure differential. Most vertebrate muscles don't seem to undergo drastic size changes between flexion and relaxation, so I don't see there being any real issue with having one's skeleton on the outside instead. However, I think Mitch has a good idea with "rewiring" the musculature of arthropod limbs. Basically I think it's difficult to put a hard upper limit on how big exoskeletal creatures could get. So I won't try to do so.



MitchBeard	May 16 2010, 02:23 AM Post #60
proud gondwanan Posts: 431 Group: Members Member #281 Joined: Mar 10, 2010 Gender: Male Nationality: Australian	Definately a lot of PhD material in figuring out the upper limit of different kinds of arthropods



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