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The Even Newer Dinosaurs; no, don't shoot me....
Topic Started: Feb 2 2011, 10:01 AM (1,648 Views)
Cephylus
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Torando of Terror
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This is a mini-project I had in mind for some time. I've been looking through the book, the 'New Dinosaurs; an alternative evolution', by our infamous Dougal Dixon. People have often criticized it for lacking plausibility, and I have to agree (seriously, snake dinosaurs are just....) but if I change around the world a bit, add new creatures for biodiversity, make adjustments, with new names, descriptions, ancestors and recreate the original creations, I think it could be pretty cool (I think). So don't blame me if I do have some cliche stuff.

I'll be posting some essays (if you can call them essays) on the fauna soon.

Edited by Cephylus, Feb 2 2011, 10:06 AM.
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Jasonguppy
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I've been always wanting to remake the Dixon books, especially this one.
I do art sometimes.

"if you want green eat a salad"

Projects:
Amammalia: A strange place where mammals didn't make it and the land is, once again, dominated by archosaurs.

Oceanus: An endless sea dotted with islands, reefs, and black holes. Literally endless, literal black holes.

❤️❤️~I'm not a boy~❤️❤️
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Rick Raptor
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I´ve lost count on the number of Alternate Earth topics you have posted :P I´m sure among those already is one which fits to this description^^


An original Dougal Dixon creature you can keep is the Dip. Just make it a descendant of Unenlagiines and it´s perfect ;)
[My DeviantArt account]
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Jasonguppy
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Cardinal
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Which was the dip?
I do art sometimes.

"if you want green eat a salad"

Projects:
Amammalia: A strange place where mammals didn't make it and the land is, once again, dominated by archosaurs.

Oceanus: An endless sea dotted with islands, reefs, and black holes. Literally endless, literal black holes.

❤️❤️~I'm not a boy~❤️❤️
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Scrublord
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Father Pellegrini
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The grey-feathered heron-like one
My Projects:
The Neozoic Redux
Valhalla--Take Three!
The Big One



Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com

In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
--Heteromorph
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Jasonguppy
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Found it. A lot of the animals could be redone and made plausible.
I do art sometimes.

"if you want green eat a salad"

Projects:
Amammalia: A strange place where mammals didn't make it and the land is, once again, dominated by archosaurs.

Oceanus: An endless sea dotted with islands, reefs, and black holes. Literally endless, literal black holes.

❤️❤️~I'm not a boy~❤️❤️
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Cephylus
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Rick Raptor
Feb 2 2011, 03:23 PM
I´ve lost count on the number of Alternate Earth topics you have posted :P I´m sure among those already is one which fits to this description^^


An original Dougal Dixon creature you can keep is the Dip. Just make it a descendant of Unenlagiines and it´s perfect ;)
@Rick; Yeah, I'm gonna re-use some critters. I don't have patience to continue with one project, so I keep re-making ;) It's almost all the same project, now in the form of Terra Ornithischia, which I hope will be the final. And yeah, there sure is one I can re-ise....
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Cephylus
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will be edited...
Edited by Cephylus, Feb 23 2011, 01:30 AM.
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Jasonguppy
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Yay! Though you got rid of saueopods, which featured in the biook.
I do art sometimes.

"if you want green eat a salad"

Projects:
Amammalia: A strange place where mammals didn't make it and the land is, once again, dominated by archosaurs.

Oceanus: An endless sea dotted with islands, reefs, and black holes. Literally endless, literal black holes.

❤️❤️~I'm not a boy~❤️❤️
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Cephylus
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Sauropods certainley won't have diversity. I excluded them, they'll be replaced by notosuchid and noasaurid descendents.
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Cephylus
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First Essay!

The Notosuchids of South America

Notosuchids, which largely went extinct in the K-T boundary event in RL, survives in this scenario. These crocodilians included some highly derived forms with features unusual for other crocodilians. They were extremely mammalian, with distinctly mammal-like dentition, erect legs and endothermy, and some had weird characteristics like armadillo-like armor, overhanging snouts, buckteeth, lagomorph-like incisors, fleshy cheeks and pig-like snouts. This suggests that these animals were adaptable, diversifying under the reign of non-avian dinosaurs.

In this world, South American and African notosuchids survive, few small erect-legged omnivores. While the African notosuchids were gradually outcompeted by mammals (except for few lanky herbivores), in South America, due to the isolated nature of the continent throughout much of the Cenezoic, notosuchids had chance to colonize the South American soils, devoid of much competition from mammals.

As with mammals and proto-avian dinosaurs on mainland, notosuchids started radiating out into various niches, growing larger and claiming most of the herbivore niches in SA. These notosuchids successfuly outcompeted their mammalian counterparts, the meridiungulates derived from condylarth ancestors. As a result, meridiungulates in this world stay rather small and unspecialized, existing mostly as dog-sized early horse-like animals.

Notosuchids, on the other hand, colonize most parts of SA, dominating the roles occupied in our world by large xenarthrans and various meridiungulates. SA notosuchids become slow-moving, heavily armored glyptodont/meiolanid analogues and take up the niches of smaller ground sloths. There are strange trunk-snouted pyrothere analogues, lagomorph-like foragers, small canid-like pack hunters and lanky litoptern-like forms sprinting across the pampas. Even weirder are mole-like burrowing forms and platybelodon-like shovel tuskers, and towards the later periods a large, sabre-toothed predator.

The South America-North America linking, as it did with meridiungulate and xenarthran diversity in our world, heavily impacted the South American notosuchid population. As the South American notosuchid populations were yet to fully recover from the asteroid impact South America received in the Cenezoic, the inflooding of mammalian/dinosaurian herbivores and carnviores caused the extinction of several lineages. Notosuchid carnivores were completely driven to extinction, as well as the lagomorph-like forms (outcompeted by the inflow of caviid rodents). The shovel tuskers and the gomphotherian forms were also nearly driven to extinction, only two species remaining in the entire continent. The smaller litoptern-like herbivores were completely eradicated, while only a single genus of the larger herbivores survived. However, the ground sloth/glyptodont/pyrothere analogues did well and even radiated into the Northern continent.

The major forms to appear in this world:

Llama Crocs (Auchenisuchids)

A successful group of once cosmopolitan herbivores and omnivores, which produced forms analogous to RL litopterns and camelids, characterized by their long necks and lanky limbs. The also supported their bodies with two keratinous digits modified into 'hooves'. These long-legged herbivores colonized the Oligocene~Pleistocene South American pampas, and in the later periods producing some large species bigger than RL moose in size, standing 3 meters tall at the shoulder, with various smaller species analogous to RL camelids, cervids and bovids. Almost all of the Auchenisuchid diversity was wiped out with the inflow of fast-footed maniraptorans and hooved mammal herbivores. Only a single genus survives to this day, the Auchenisuchus. They are easily domesticated as beasts of burden, and some species have been domesticated by the native Protobird Dinosaurids to transport luggage and to be used in agriculture.

Rhea Crocs (Dromaeosuchids)

Closely related to the Llama Crocs, the Dromaeosuchids are a lineage of pampas-dwelling, cursorial herbivore/omnivore/carnivores mostly analogous to RL rheas. Unlike Llama Crocs, they don't have hooves, and are generally a bit smaller and slightly more lankier. Rhea Crocs survived the NA/SA faunal interchange, although they are being outcompete with several species of Rhea Crocs inhabiting the Southern grasslands along with a single species of partially carnivorous Terror Bird analogue.

Wolf Crocs (Venatosuchids)

These animals were agile, fast-footed pack hunting predators (with some larger hyena-like scavenging forms) from Oligocene~Pleistocene of South America. Mostly about the size of a wolf, they were successful predators during the Miocene but were ultimately outcompeted by the inflow of predatory beaked dromaeosaurs and creodont-like carnivorous mammals.

Sabre Crocs (Smiloyacarids)

A lineage of macropredators (reaching lengths of 4 meters from head to tip of the tail) from the Miocene, Pliocene and Early Pleistocene of South America, they dominated the apex predator roles during the Miocene and Pliocene, devoid of competition except from terror bird azhdarchids and unenlagiines, which largely occupied different niches. With a set of massive, sabre-like incisors protruding several centimeters past the lower jaw, these animals were likely the most terrifying predators during their time. They were designed to take down larger herbivores, the Llama Crocs, the Pyrocrocs and the Gomphocrocs, and were likely ambush predators rather than attrition predators. As their extinction date is roughly similar to that of NA/SA linking, these animals were likely outcompeted by the Caedovenators (Cutglassbeaks) which occupys a similar niche.

Rabbocs (Lagoyacarids)

These strange crocodilians were analogous to lagomorphs in the Oligocene~Miocene of South America, with relatively long incisors, occupying small forager niches. They were ultimately outcompeted by caviid rodents.

Pyrocrocs (Proboscisuchids)

These animals are among the strangest and the largest of SA notosuchids. Analogous to pyrotheres/tapirs/mastodonts, these huge, heavily built herbivores are characterized by their strange trunks, hanging over the upper lip much like that of RL pyrotheres or tapirs, along with two sets of tusks protruding from the upper lip and the lower lip. Their proboscis is much less prehinsile and short in length compared to that of RL mastodonts. They are successful herbivores, and some species have radiated up into North America, colonizing some Southern regions and are quite widespread in the South American pampas. The larger species is close in size to RL Asian Elephants, but considerably shorter as their bodies are relatively squat. Being docile compared to the deadly Sloth Crocs, Pyrocrocs were the first animal to be domesticated by the Protobird Dinosaurids and used in a wide variety of labors, beasts of burden, vehichles and also used in agricultural tasks.

Gomphocrocs (Gigantoanatosuchids)

A lineage of notosuchids analogous to gomphotheres, these large herbivores probably evolved from buck-toothed notosuchids in Late Cretaceous. As some notosuchids made use of this buckteeth, as elephants in our world made use of their tusks, this produced the Gomphocrocs. Gomphocrocs are largely divided into two lineages, the Mammutcrocs, analogous to gomphothere forms such as cuiveronis, with long, curved tusks, and the Shovel Buckteeths, notosuchids analogous to forms such as platybelodon, with flattish tusks for scooping up aquatic plants. Both have duck-like, broad, overhanging snouts. They were largely outcompeted by Pyrocrocs and Sloth Crocs, a single species of Mammutcroc survives in the Andean mountains and another single species of Shovel Buckteeth quite widespread in swampy regions with slow-moving water.

Dillocrocs (Armadilloyacarids)

A lineage of armadillo-like notosuchids quite widespread across SA, mostly smallish (mostly less than a meter long) adaptable omnivores with armadillo-like armor, large foreclaws and enlarged incisors.

Pampayacares (Pampayacarids)

Another successful lineage of armadillo-like notosuchids, closely related to Dillocrocs but far larger, with larger species weighing up to few tons. Pampayacares, unlike the mostly insectivorous Dillocrocs, are pure herbivores and analogous to armored SA xenarthrans such as pampatheriids and glyptodonts. Pampayacares are squat-bodied and heavily armored, some with stegosaurian thagomizers, and few carnivores on the Pampas are able to take down a Pampayacare with a hard shell and tail spikes. Many species radiated into North America, some pig-sized species have been domesticated by Protobird Dinosaurids for meat and their shells (used for decoration).

Sloth Crocs (Segnonychids)

Sloth Crocs are giant, extremely aggressive omnivorous notosuchids found in South America. They are analogous to the various lineages of ground sloths, and like their RL counterparts, they are famous for being bad-tempered. These Sloth Crocs are mostly browsers, usually feeding on bark, twigs and leaves, but they frequently scavenge, bully smaller predators from their kills and they have been observed turning over Pampayacares on their backs, killing them with their massive claws and feeding on their carcass. They are covered in pangolin-like scaly armor and possess massive hooked claws attatched to powerful forelimbs. A single strike is enough to kill a Cutglassbeak, and they have no predators on the Pampas (although smaller woodland species with less thicker hides are sometimes preyed upon large predators). Most range from cattle size to hippo size, but a single species analogous to megatherium reaches elephant size. They successfuly radiated into North America and Central America and hold a strong position as large herbivores. A few species have been semi-domesticated as labor beasts, although they are difficult to tame and even the slightest abuse results in serious maiming or deaths.

Anteating Crocs (Murmekovenatosuchids)

Anteating Crocs are closely related to Sloth Crocs. They lost almost all of their teeth, although they retain a few small molars, and like echidnas and anteaters, they have tubish mouths and long, sticky tongues for hunting ants. They have formidable hooked claws and are armored with scaly pagolin armor, sometimes spikes.
Edited by Cephylus, Feb 25 2011, 01:32 AM.
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Jasonguppy
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Cardinal
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O My Go-Llama.
I do art sometimes.

"if you want green eat a salad"

Projects:
Amammalia: A strange place where mammals didn't make it and the land is, once again, dominated by archosaurs.

Oceanus: An endless sea dotted with islands, reefs, and black holes. Literally endless, literal black holes.

❤️❤️~I'm not a boy~❤️❤️
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Dark-Matter
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Here is an online version of the book:
http://www.sivatherium.narod.ru/library/Dixon_2/00_en.htm




I hoop this help you out a little. ^_^
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Jasonguppy
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I think he owns it...
I do art sometimes.

"if you want green eat a salad"

Projects:
Amammalia: A strange place where mammals didn't make it and the land is, once again, dominated by archosaurs.

Oceanus: An endless sea dotted with islands, reefs, and black holes. Literally endless, literal black holes.

❤️❤️~I'm not a boy~❤️❤️
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Carlos
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Adveho in me Lucifero
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Whatever notosuchians I designed were put to shame...
Lemuria:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

Terra Alternativa:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/

My Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/Carliro

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