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Harder K-T extinction; Yay my first alternative project!
Topic Started: Jul 6 2010, 12:39 PM (2,125 Views)
Forbiddenparadise64
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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.
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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Dayshade
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Wow, great job on italy. Realistic.

Why did perrisodactyla almost go extinct but not artiodactyla? The odd-toeds were doing better than the even-toeds before grass. Also, I think marsupials would live, but it's your project.
Edited by Dayshade, Dec 24 2010, 03:08 PM.
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Forbiddenparadise64
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Perrisodactyls are pretty common, in fact they will be more succesful than in real life thanks to there being no afrotheres (ie proboscidians, sireneans, hyraxes etc) in the future. Marsupials relatives were wiped out in the K-T, and the marsupials themselves were hit hard. Anyway, now for North America:

A large plain stands in the North of Canada. It is far warmer than in the age of man, but here it is not warm enough for the tropical rainforests that reach across the world, even further than in R-L, due to slightly warmer temperatures. A herd of elegant creatures feed on the undergrowth plants, they resemble a pig crossed with an antelope, and are in fact basal artiodactyls, although they are closest related to pecarries than to antelopes, and roam the plains in large herds. They stand alongside a group of giant iquanas, that are more than 5m long and serve as intermidiately sized herbivores. Above them all are the giants the uintatheres, even bigger than in R-L. Males can be 2.4m tall at the shoulder and weigh in excess of 3 tonnes. They use their six strange bumps and 30cm canines as deadly weapons against each other, as well as the predators that roam. The herd of artiodactyls are terrified as a large leptictid rises out of the undergrowth, a lightly built creature designed for speed. She has a claw on her right foot she uses to rip flesh with, and to provide more for her great speed. She catches one and kills it quickly. However, she finds it hard to stop a group of early mesochynids, scavengers of the plains from taking her kill. They are much bigger than her, at 200kg and have bone crushing jaws. She has no choice but to retreat. The Uintatheres are usually invulnerable to both these creatures, but one stands out. It is a mained beast, the apex predator. He is the biggest of all the leptictids, as large as a male bengal tiger, as fast as a cheetah, and has a sickle like hand claw. He rushes towards a small youngster, almost catching it in his jaws, but ultimately fails. Than he is caught by a huge charging adult, moving towards him at over 50km/h. He is killed instantly by the blow, being unable to handle the bigger creature. His carcass is soon eaten by the mesochynids. The dumb iguanas are not bothered by the chaos, and continue to feed. A small fox like creature moves out to feed as well, a creodont willing to feed upon its main competitors.

Ok, now that habitat is done, I will move onto a more interesting time period of 30 million AD, the middle of the Oligocene period, where the world is rendered even stranger from ours by a new order of life and even more bizzare creatures to rule it. Expect strange creatures, such as giant tapirs, titanic rhinoceri (yes even bigger than indricotherium), galloping lagomorphs, flying lots of flying plesiadaformes, and even more whales than in R-L. 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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Cephylus
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WoW killer leptictids are awesome! :) Will they be taken over by other predators in the Oligocene?

I'm looking for the titanic rhino....
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Forbiddenparadise64
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Leptictids dominate for millions of years more, but slowly decline as temperatures drop, though not as quickly as in R-L, but a more deadly Eocene extinction occurs, reducing the leptictids to one or two small relicts living in southern Europian islands. Since there are no xenarthans, marsupials, birds or crocodilians, south America is a very hard place to speculate, but I will do an update in teh future.
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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Dayshade
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How about marsupials colonize South America, along with a greater bird presence? Great job on Canada, very interesting.
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Forbiddenparadise64
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Xenarthans, Marsupials, birds and crocodilians all became extinct in my bigger K-T extinction. Instead, bizzare ungulates and rodents will take their place instead. But for now, 35 million years after the greater extinction, and the creatures roaming South America and are already dominated by all sorts of bizzare squamate. Some lizards are bigger than megalania, and are like iguanas, being fed upon by erect legged monitors that tear them apart with ferocious jaws. The flying pterasimians are here too, and have even developed flightless forms. They are becoming successful as gradually plains environments are starting to appear, including grasslands.

In the plains of Asia, giants roam. In the absence of creatures like elephants and other competing herbivores, the perrisodactyls like the rhinos, horses and calicotheres are more numerous and bigger. Bigger herbivores mean bigger carnivores here, especially with no competing birds or large reptiles in this land. Calicorillas move. These enormous relatives of calicotheres move across the plains in great numbers. About 2.5m tall at the shoulder and weighing in excess of 1200 kg, they are much bigger than their R-L relatives, and live in herds, lacking the knuckle walking ways of their smaller relatives. They are soon ambushed by a bizzare group of carnivorous artiodactyls. They are unrelated to the mesochynids which died out long ago, and are faster and more agile, and have already outcompeted entelodonts and are outcompeting creodonts as well due to being just as strong, but faster, something that gives them an advantage as carnivorans come along. Their closest living relatives are cervids incredibly, and they are highly adaptable hooved carnivores. A group of small mustelid like carnivorans moves nearby, as this pack of deinocervids feed. With no probocideans, vast rhinos not only survive successfully but grow even bigger. A group of Titanitherium are on the move. These are truly huge mammals, related to the rhinoceros creatures of old, just a heck of a lot bigger. They reach 8m tall and weighs a huge 25 tonnes. Males have 1m horns on their noses, and are the greatest animals in this habitat. Even the largest deinocervids cannot possibly defeat this giant. Beardogs also roam these plains, and are more common due to most creodonts being gone. Monkeys move in the trees, and include baboon like creatures. In the rivers, hippo like creatures roam, along with the pterosimians that feed upon their parasites. This world is a prosperous one, and yet the world ahead will be even stranger.

Sorry its brief, but its all I can think of at the moment. See yuou soon.
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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Cephylus
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Fantastic job, man! :lol:
A quick question: are the pterasimians the dominant flying vertebrates? Are there any flying birds (I know they went mostly extinct in the K-T, but are there any left?)? What about bats, my favorite group of mammals?
Maybe the erect-legged varanids can become endothermic? Are they now the dominant carnivores of SA for now?
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dialforthedevil
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OMG!!! Chalicotheres! I love those guys! Please can we hear more about them! :D :D
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/

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Dayshade
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Do Litopterns and Notoungulates survive? You could incorporate them into South America to replace other ungulates from North America.
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Ook
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and cross the Beringia >:)
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Forbiddenparadise64
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Well, yes they do. In the absence of many animals in North America, the main herbivores are bovids and other artiodactyls, as the giant rhinos are mostly limited to Asia. Despite a relative lack of diversity groups wise, the North American land, becomes very diverse species wise and is filled with various carnivorans and deinocervids (which tend to take bigger niches). South America on the other hand, becomes dominated by lots of giant squamates, including rhinoceros sized lizards and giant snakes, but there are also lots and lots of notungulates and lipoterns. In the absence of animals like ground sloths, glyptodons, anteaters and marsupial herbivores, they are of a much greater variation. The giant lizards take the niches of glyptodons, meiloanid turtles and some of the smaller ground sloths. The lipoterns, range from very fast, rhea analogue creatures, like antelopes in life, to giant high browsers in replacement of megatherium, resembling giraffes. The notungulates are also much more variant in niches, being very large grazers and browsers, including elephant-sized beasts. The predators are dominated by bizzare predatory rodents and deadly varanids. When the great faunal interchanges occured like in R-L, some groups were considerably more successful than in R-L. While most of the giant lizards became extinct as animals like camelids and certain antelopes came in, with the largest modern ones no more than 2m long. The main revolution was in predators, as deadly cats and deinocervids (there are no canids or bears or vivverids, and deinocervids have filled their niches) outcompete the local predatory rodents and most of the endothermic varanids. The southern ungulates are very successful and spread north, actually replacing many of the artiodacyls in the region. Some perrisodactyls, like horses and more recent arrivals like some titanirhinids and even a species of calicothere, survive and persist. One species of lipotern even crosses the Bering straight and goes as far south as China. By what in R-L is known as the holocene, the Americas are a land of giants, with enormous notungulates, lipoterns and perrisodactyls being dominant while being preyed upon by various felids, deinocervids and in the equatoral regions endotherm varanids. Even giant pterasimians with wingspans of 7m or more are found here along with 3m bats and without amphibians more insectivorous mammals, which has led to bigger insectivores as well.

In other lands, even stranger creatures exist. In Australia, by what would be the age of man, in the absence of birds, crocs and marsupials, a totally different order assembled itself. As only a few species of native monotreme survived in Australia, they underwent significant diversification into many insectivores, semi-aquatic piscivores, small herbivores and medium sized predators. However, the main dominants of HKT Australia are reptiles. After the extinction, surviving testudines took over large herbivore and aquatic carnivore niches, and developed into a range of slow moving species, including elephantine giants. Again, varanids took the position of apex predator, more developed than the south American forms and fully endothermic, including megalania sized (but a lot more agile) superpredators. The skies of Australia are filled with bats, containing almost a quarter of the 3000 species that exist in HKT world, although pterasimians are still dominant. In island ecosystems, even stranger lands exist. In this world, Zealandia resurfaced 20 million years ago, and is dominated by giant pterasimians and a few tiny insectivorous lizards, but nothing else. In Hawaii, rodents are very common, and include sheep sized creatures in the mountains. On Madagascar, in the absence of many birds, crocodilians and local testudines, there are even more gigantic lemurs in existance, as well as slightly more species of terrestrial hippo, with the main predators being vicious pterasimians that come from the skies. Small islands are filled with colonies of pterasimian, and on the shores of Antarctica, strange flightless species live like seals on the coasts, feeding on small fish crustaceans. The oceans are dominated by a wide range of cetaceans, more than 120 species overall even including sirenian and turtle niche forms.

Ok thats a basic explanation of the kind of species that roam this universe in the present day. We will meet them in the future. 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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Cephylus
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Wow :) . Better and better. Weirder and weirder. So the flying primates become seal analoges? Do they develop beaks? I mean, a light beak is far better than a heavy mammalian jaw.... Anyway, some pterasimians or bats could become albatross analogues, since they give birth to live young, and with a better flight system, they should be better at filling the niche than seabirds. Maybe owl analogues? And are the 7-meter wingspan pterasimians like azhdarchids or something?
And what about trunked notoungulates? I mean, RL pyrotheres were effectively spreading onto mastodon niches in Miocene SA.... Maybe some gomphothere-like notoungulates?
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Cephylus
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sorry, clone post....
Edited by Cephylus, Feb 4 2011, 03:24 AM.
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