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Seprate Island; What if there was an island that was separate from all other continents.
Topic Started: Sep 10 2010, 03:05 PM (835 Views)
Adman
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Totally not lamna
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What if a piece of continent was separate from all others from the time of the first microscopic life? How would life develop on that piece of land? Would multicellular life develop independently from the rest of the world? And, what if this island wasn't discovered until the late 1930's?
Projects and concepts that I have stewing around
Extended Pleistocene- An alternate future where man died out, and the megafauna would continue to thrive (may or may not include a bit about certain future sapients)
Inverted World- An alternate timeline where an asteroid hit during the Barremian, causing an extinction event before the Maastrichtian. Dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and notosuchians make it to the present, along with a host of other animals.
Badania- Alien planet that has life at a devonian stage of development, except it exists in the present day.
Ido- Alien world where hoppers (derived flightless ballonts) and mouthpart-legged beasts are prevalent.
Leto- Life on a moon orbiting a gas giant with an erratic orbit; experiences extremes of hot and cold.
The Park- ???
Deeper Impact- a world where the K-Pg extinction wipes out crocodilians, mammals, and birds; squamates, choristoderes, and turtles inherit the earth.
World of Equal Opportunity- alternate history where denisovans come across Beringia and interact with native fauna. Much of the Pleistocene fauna survives, and the modern humans that end up crossing into North America do not overhunt the existing animals. 10,000 years later, civilizations exist that are on par with European and Asian societies.
The Ditch- Nothing is what if seems..
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Rick Raptor
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Adolescent
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I doubt an island could have stayed isolated for several billion years.
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The Dodo
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Multicelluar life first developed in the oceans so that wouldn't change, maybe something unique terrestrial life would evolve, but you would probably have some organism from other land masses arrive and diversify as well.
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Toad of Spades
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I'm sure that some kinds complex life from the other continents will arrive eventually. Hawaii is very isolated in the middle of the Pacific, yet diverse amounts of plant and animal life has arrived then flourished.
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The Dodo
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Maybe it will be inhabited by a bizarre array of organisms that have managed to cross the sea and get on the island.
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Adman
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Totally not lamna
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well, let's put it this way. what if no other lifeform reached the island? and, what if multicellular life developed in the isolated island? look. the scenario is if a piece of continent stayed isolated for that long, what would the life be like? and, maybe some creatures reached the island, but they arn't that prominent, and have arrived recently, with the arrival of man.
Projects and concepts that I have stewing around
Extended Pleistocene- An alternate future where man died out, and the megafauna would continue to thrive (may or may not include a bit about certain future sapients)
Inverted World- An alternate timeline where an asteroid hit during the Barremian, causing an extinction event before the Maastrichtian. Dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and notosuchians make it to the present, along with a host of other animals.
Badania- Alien planet that has life at a devonian stage of development, except it exists in the present day.
Ido- Alien world where hoppers (derived flightless ballonts) and mouthpart-legged beasts are prevalent.
Leto- Life on a moon orbiting a gas giant with an erratic orbit; experiences extremes of hot and cold.
The Park- ???
Deeper Impact- a world where the K-Pg extinction wipes out crocodilians, mammals, and birds; squamates, choristoderes, and turtles inherit the earth.
World of Equal Opportunity- alternate history where denisovans come across Beringia and interact with native fauna. Much of the Pleistocene fauna survives, and the modern humans that end up crossing into North America do not overhunt the existing animals. 10,000 years later, civilizations exist that are on par with European and Asian societies.
The Ditch- Nothing is what if seems..
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KayKay
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As interesting as it would be for multicellular life to evolve independently, inevitably some multicellular life would arrive from other continents or oceans. Worms, fish, flying insects, birds... you couldn't really stop them without some kind of unnatural barrier.

You would still get a lot of interesting and unique creatures, it just couldn't be as isolated as you want it to be. There is still even the possibility of some new multicellular phylum found nowhere else on Earth emerging, but they would eventually have to contend with animals and plants that emigrate from other continents either by air or by water quite early on.
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lamna
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Indeed, other forms of life would come to the island and "contaminate" it.

Perhaps you would be better off with a major island "slipping" from our timeline and being replaced by one from another were life evolved along entirely different lines. Perhaps Madagascar? Or Ceylon if you need to to be explored by English speakers. I'm fairly sure the international community would agree that whoever owned the "real" island gets the parallel one too.
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