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| Harder K-T extinction; Yay my first alternative project! | |
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| Topic Started: Jul 6 2010, 12:39 PM (2,126 Views) | |
| Forbiddenparadise64 | Jul 6 2010, 12:39 PM Post #1 |
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Adult
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Ok, here is my newest projects premise. A "minor" alteration is made to Earth's history, in that the K-T asteroid was either A )50% larger or B ) twice as big as it was in RL, resulting in a larger crater, damage area, a greater amount of debris ejected into the atmosphere and a larger extinction. How would the world be like today, in both A and B? I'm short of ideas for alternative evolution, so this is not going to be as well planned as my other future evolution projects, unfortunately, but i will try. Anyone want to contribute?
Edited by Forbiddenparadise64, Jul 6 2010, 12:39 PM.
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Prepare for the Future Walking with the future: Allozoic (pts 4-6)http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/3252142/14/#new
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| Ook | Jul 6 2010, 12:47 PM Post #2 |
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not a Transhuman
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birds could go extinct,some mammals too |
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| Forbiddenparadise64 | Jul 6 2010, 12:52 PM Post #3 |
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Adult
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I suppose the only neornith birds survived the K-T, and bird or indeed dinosaur like animals don't do well in K-T style events, despite being dominant after P-T style events. What mammals would rule in A and B though as several groups of mammal died out in the RL KT, And who would rule the sky? Bats? squamates? something else altogether. The time periods for each A and B will be Eocene, early Miocene, Ice age and modern. |
Prepare for the Future Walking with the future: Allozoic (pts 4-6)http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/3252142/14/#new
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| Holben | Jul 6 2010, 01:46 PM Post #4 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Perhaps the alleged 'weight threshold' of the KT extinction would be lower, so many large mammals would die too. Chelonians and crocs, snakes and fish would also suffer wrose then. |
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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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| Forbiddenparadise64 | Jul 14 2010, 01:36 PM Post #5 |
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Hi. I wanna update this post now. I've come up with some ideas for the harder k-t post now. Birds are wiped out completely in this super-K-T event. The skies are temporarily empty. Many birds perised in RL KT, so a larger extinction wipes them out. Groups of mammals like mammaliformes, godwanatheres, multituberculates and even marsupials, which were hit hard by the RL K-T die out in this reality. Several placentals are also either wiped out or heavily reduced: such as perrisodactyla, afrotheria, xenatheria and tree shrews and culogos. Crocodiles are above the weight limit and are wiped out. There are also far less chelonians and a reduced number of snake like squamates. Fish also take longer to recover, and there is a larger extinction among cephalopods, so no nautiloids and a reduced number of squid and cuttlefish. The octopus, being more adaptable has fewer losses. Overall, the extinction takes an extra 5-10 million years for life to recover from. Anyone can help me design fauna for this more ravaged, mammal dominated world. Anyone interested so far? Edited by Forbiddenparadise64, Jul 14 2010, 01:40 PM.
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Prepare for the Future Walking with the future: Allozoic (pts 4-6)http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/3252142/14/#new
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| Ook | Jul 14 2010, 01:48 PM Post #6 |
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not a Transhuman
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perrisodactyls and colugos evolved in paleocene,tree shrews propably after KT too |
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| dialforthedevil | Jul 14 2010, 02:02 PM Post #7 |
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Frumentarii Administrator
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could we have a worlds herbivorous niches dominated by chelonians though? |
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Please come visit A Scientfic Fantasy http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/3433014/1/ ALSO!!! JOIN THE NEW RPG SITE!!! FOR ALL MEMBERS!!! IM GOING TO RUN MA GLOBAL SIMULATORS THERE!!! http://s4.zetaboards.com/jasonguppy/index/ Join the Campaign to save minotaurs from extinction!!! (include this in your signature to show your support!) | |
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| KayKay | Jul 18 2010, 03:37 PM Post #8 |
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How would sharks be affected by this? Sorry I don't have any suggestions of my own, but I thought it might be a useful question to ask. |
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| T.Neo | Jul 18 2010, 07:36 PM Post #9 |
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Translunar injection: TLI
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Size of the impactor and/or impact and resulting phenomena might not correlate directly to extinction of organisms...
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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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| KayKay | Jul 19 2010, 02:08 AM Post #10 |
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Maybe not but depending on where it hits it has the potential to make a huge difference. |
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| Alloclaw | Aug 1 2010, 03:09 PM Post #11 |
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Hmmmm bats would probably be the top dogs in the sky....without birds.. Maybe some lizards would become aquatic and take the niche of crocodiles..;) |
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Snaiad is Awesome!! | |
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| Holben | Aug 2 2010, 02:19 AM Post #12 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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Or cetaceans would develop more river niches. Amphibious bipedal ambulocetids, anyone? |
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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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| Rick Raptor | Aug 2 2010, 06:23 AM Post #13 |
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Adolescent
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Why bipedal? |
| [My DeviantArt account] | |
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| Forbiddenparadise64 | Oct 10 2010, 11:53 AM Post #14 |
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Sorry I haven't replied in ages. I've been focussing on other stuff. Anyway, I'm analysing and considering your ideas. Perhaps animals like xenarthians and Afrotheres dying out in the harder K-T extinction as well, meaning the surviving mammals have even more to fill in. Yeah, with no birds, bats will dominate the skies. Some will evolve into huge creatures with wingspans of more than 6m that are like Alkazarid pterosaurs, and be like storks. There would inevitably be less specialised sharks, and perhaps none of those sharks that have survived since the Jurassic. Apart from that, sharks recover decently. I was planning on Chelonians becoming dominant in Australia. As all but a few monotremes were wiped out on the mammal side there, and with no birds and few squamates, some surviving chelonians took the herbivorous niches. Due to the extra heat triggered by the impact(as well as more greenhouse gases being expelled), the heat stayed in for longer, and the world is overall about 1-2 degrees F warmer than in R-L, so the turtles are slightly more advantagous. Some long necked turtles evolve like paleochestes niche, with long necks to reach plants. The largest of the tortoises would be a massive tortoise, perhaps 3-4 tonnes (lower metabolism than diprotodon, as well as slightly warmer and wetter climate) named the epukara, after that hindu tortoise that supports the world. In the absence of crocodiles, Australia as well as parts of Asia is home to large predatory turtles instead. In the oceans, turtles even bigger than archelon exist, but are rarely seen compared to the more diverse cetaceans. Elsewhere, mammals like artiodactyls and perrisodactyls are more dominant though, as well as some squamates. On islands where birds are the dominant vertabrates in RL, they are either dominated by mammals, squamates or tutles Yeah, in parts of south America, predatory snakes take the niche of crocodilians and caimans. In Africa, Europe and North America, primitive ambulocetus like bipeds roam, like holbeinlord suggested in the early cenozoic, but are outcompted in Asia later by a more diverse range of river dolphins. In the oceans, cetaceans are even more dominant than in R-L, with lots of forms filling in niches of pinnipeds, penguins and even some large sharks, like the marine reptiles did in the mesozoic. Anyone more interested in this project now? I will start by speculating the Early Eocene world first, than Oligocene, than Pliocene, than present day. |
Prepare for the Future Walking with the future: Allozoic (pts 4-6)http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/3252142/14/#new
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| Forbiddenparadise64 | Dec 24 2010, 02:21 PM Post #15 |
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Ok, I am going to finally do a post again. I will set this post in Eocene Italy, 50 million BC, and explore a different new world order to that found in R-L: A vast forest stands in what will become Northern Italy. The world is a very different place to what it is today. The extra heat created by a larger asteroid has warmed the world about a degree celcius more than in R-L, even 15 million years later. A vast rainforest covers what will one day become the alps, which is now smothered in vast trees and swamps. It is strangely familiar, yet strangely alien at the same time. Out of the undergrowth, a large, clawed creature comes out. It is bipedal, and at first looks like a theropod. It stands more than a metre tall and 3m long. It has crushing jaws to latch onto medium sized prey items like mammals and reptiles. But this is no dinosaur. It is in fact, a giant leptictid adapted to the niche of apex predator. In the absence of birds and crocs, mammals have risen straight to dominance instead, and the leptictids have triumphed as predators in Europe, although elsewhere, other creatures have. The predator drinks from the river, scattering a few damselflies as it does so. It than goes in the forest to ambush its primary prey items. The forest canopy is filled with bizzare creatures. Leathery wings flap in the skies. A pair of large eyes, a screech. These creatures are the new kings of the air. They are adapted plesiadapiforms, essentially proto-primates. They triumphed over bats due to bigger brains and 3 colour vision. True primate also exist here, and are even more numerous than in R-L due to extra heat. In fact in some places, they are even taking the roles of predators. The leptictid snatches a baby pterasimian in its jaws and swallows it whole. He moves towards his main quarry. It is a group of tapir like perrissodactyls. Without large omnivores and herbivores like the gastornids and terrestrial crocodilians, they have adapted into large herbivores. They are bulky animals, even the smaller females are as big as water buffalo. The males are a half bigger still. Only the young are vulnerable to the predator. He sneeks after this herd, waiting for the time to pounce. He is up in an instant, chasing the bulky young, and desperately trying to avoid the giants as they charge at him. He chases the baby for almost half a mile before he finally catches up with it. He kills the baby quickly, and decides to take on a second baby that has also travelled with the other. As he is about to corner it into the river, it is snatched by a pair of large jaws. A pair of ambulocetids swim away with it in the females mouth. They are similar to their R-L counterparts, but slightly larger, and with more developed webbing due to no competition from crocodilians. They disturb a group of smaller ambulocetid species that are also roaming here, looking for fish and molluscs at the bottom. Some of them are also ambush hunters of land prey though, but these bigger creatures, about 4.5m long, are top dogs in these waters. It is not only them, a large species of predatory turtle lies in wait for its prey. It is twice the size of an alligator snapping turtle, but resembles it in lifestyle, waiting for a fish or baby ambulocetid to find its worm like tongue. Than it will clamp on it down and kill it instantly. A fish eating pterasimian picks a fish out of the water. Amphibians also went extinct, so there are more insectivores in this world able to feed on the vast array of insects in the forests. One of the ambulocetids goes to ambush a group of miniature horses similar to propaleotherium that are eating fruits by the waters edge, accompanied by a strange artiodactyl, resembling a pig. It is about the size of a wild boar, much bigger than the horses and feeds higher than they do, feeding on the larger fruit instead. Insects feed on its blood, and a small pterasimian picks these off in part of a mutualistic relationship. This bizzare world is just a hint of what is to come in the future. Ok, how is that? Next I will do the more open plains of North America, which as uintatheres, basal artiodactyls and giant iguanas being fed upon by larger leptictids, and early ancestors of mesochynids and creodonts. See you next post. |
Prepare for the Future Walking with the future: Allozoic (pts 4-6)http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/3252142/14/#new
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1:45 PM Jul 11