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Two-way GI Tract; Possible or ridiculous? Why?
Topic Started: Jan 19 2011, 05:04 PM (966 Views)
colddigger
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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Sphincters are your friend~

The movement that an esophagus uses to pass food into te stomach would prevent it from toppling out, then once it's passed into a stomach use a sphincter or three to close it off. Another good idea is that rather than having the stomach directly above the esophagus have the tube bend back down at the end and place the stomach beneath said arch, this will prevent chyme from falling into the esophagus as easily when swallowing.

I'm curious as to how you expect these things to move, is it an inchworm or a somersault end over end kind of movement? Either way the torso bones (assuming you're going for internal distinct bones) are going to be fairly large to allow constant use or impact.

I'm assuming you're aiming for a column of vertebrae like our backbones are, so I'm imagining a nice clean arch of a body, but there's the possibility that if you're aiming for an inchworm style of locomotion you'd have a central hip-like structure and maybe a few limb bones jutting off from it, since you mentioned a femur I'm wondering if this is what you had in mind instead. If that's the case and the bones are not like the bones in our torso then you can simply have the organs in a sac or coelum that goes along the bones, but quite separated from them.
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Rhob
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- Sharing space like that may be too complex for such creatures to thrive and radiate. It all works fine when the creature is a primitive leech creature, but imagine an esophagus running through your shin, and a stomach hugging your femur. I might have to make radiated terrestrial bauplans exoskeletal...


Keep in mind that an exoskeleton doesn't have to serve as a cuticle.

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- Food will have to go up said GI tract. Fighting gravity might be a problem, and if the creature relaxes its esophageal muscles then everything might come tumbling back out. To prevent this I'm thinking of a spiraling series of crops to hold food before being squeezed up to the next one, kind of like a biological archimedes screw.


Colddigger beat me to it...

colddigger
 
Sphincters are your friend~

The movement that an esophagus uses to pass food into te stomach would prevent it from toppling out, then once it's passed into a stomach use a sphincter or three to close it off. Another good idea is that rather than having the stomach directly above the esophagus have the tube bend back down at the end and place the stomach beneath said arch, this will prevent chyme from falling into the esophagus as easily when swallowing.


More accurately, peristalsis is your friend~

A person can swallow while standing on their head. It's not as easy, but it can be done. Just ring the OEsophagi with circular smooth-muscle segments that contract in a rhythmic manner after swallowing.
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colddigger
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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;P I was thinking about preventing delightful chyme from falling into the esophagus when I said that~

Though having a spiral of crops would be interesting...
Edited by colddigger, Jan 20 2011, 06:44 PM.
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Are you plausible?

colddigger
 
Another good idea is that rather than having the stomach directly above the esophagus have the tube bend back down at the end and place the stomach beneath said arch, this will prevent chyme from falling into the esophagus as easily when swallowing.

That's essentially what I was imagining with the 'spiraling crops.' And if peristalsis and sphincters will work enough for the stomach to sit above the mouth like this then I guess that problem is solved more or less.

colddigger
 
I'm curious as to how you expect these things to move, is it an inchworm or a somersault end over end kind of movement?

That may actually be a point of radiation for the clade. One branch may evolve from creatures that somersault, and skeletal structure will likely resemble vertebrae. Others may inch along, and joints may hinge from a central hip structure, as you mentioned. Still others may learn to swing their 'mouth-limbs' much like our own legs move. From any of those all sorts of projections may develop to maintain balance (and possibly find secondary uses as well).

Rhob
 
Keep in mind that an exoskeleton doesn't have to serve as a cuticle.

Oh, definitely. I'm thinking that digestive organs may be held within the exoskeleton while locomotive musculature connects outside it.
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food for thought
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Holben
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Jan 20 2011, 05:45 PM
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Just feel i should clarify- the torsion seperates an ancestral tract going through the body, so they are cut off from each other. You can out them at any angle you want to each other in this scenario.

I'm afraid I don't follow. What is an ancestral tract? And what do you mean by angles?
I made the assumption that the organism this one is evolving from had a single tract. Was that wrong?
And by different angles, i mean that both tract openings could be on the same side, or opposite, or at right angles, etc.
Due to the torsion.
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.

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Are you plausible?

Holbenilord
 
I made the assumption that the organism this one is evolving from had a single tract. Was that wrong?

No, not necessarily wrong. I brought this up in case people wanted to consider the concept in different subdivisions of the community. If someone approaches this idea from an "Evolutionary Continuum" direction, then it will likely evolve it from something with a more familiar gut. If "Alternative Evolution" tackles the idea then it could either develop from a single tract ancestor, or, if you roll the clock back far enough then it could have two distinct tracts from the ground up. "Habitable Zone" projects would have a similar flexibility.

Holbenilord
 
And by different angles, i mean that both tract openings could be on the same side, or opposite, or at right angles, etc.
Due to the torsion.

Ah, I see now. Torsion would definitely introduce some variety into the clade. :)
Edited by Empyreon, Jan 21 2011, 03:36 PM.
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colddigger
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So what is this for? Did you make any "final" decisions?
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Are you plausible?

No final decisions at this point. I may use this bauplan for 'insectoids' on Charybdis, or if I'm feeling ambitious I might make this a dominant clade for some other project. For right now I'm just bouncing ideas around.
Take a look at my exobiology subforum of the planet Nereus!

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