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Getting Rid of Snakes; what's possible?
Topic Started: Feb 20 2011, 08:41 PM (528 Views)
macgobhain
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So as you guys may have read and didn't post on my other thread titled "Calma" I've come to the realization that I need to fill a few more niches. Otters, polecats, lizards, etc.


That brought me to snakes... I like them but not enough for true snakes to have a place in what I'm writing.

Since I don't think I even have true lizards, then why would their be true snakes? The question is, what to do with them.

Is this niche something that you guys think would belong exclusively to a reptile when reptiles already exist or not?

Some people think that snakes may have evolved from mosasours, making them aquatic reptiles that recolonized land. If this were true, why couldn't other fish slither on to land the same way?

Is a terrestrial conodont or pipefish-like animal a plausible concept or am I getting ahead of myself?
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FallingWhale
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macgobhain
Feb 20 2011, 08:41 PM
Some people think that snakes may have evolved from mosasours, making them aquatic reptiles that recolonized land. If this were true, why couldn't other fish slither on to land the same way?
There are at least 5 mistakes in this alone.
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macgobhain
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would u care to elaborate on that?
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FallingWhale
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macgobhain
Feb 20 2011, 10:00 PM
would u care to elaborate on that?
It opens with weasel words, snakes were around before mosasaurs, snakes were on land before water, mosasaurs weren't fish, there was no way to slither onto land.

And really, I'm a disgraphic, and yet I type out words.
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macgobhain
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wow, thank you. I did in fact know that mosasaurs aren't fish, I don't know where I implied that but ok... and that is one of the theories as to the origin of snakes that I read about.

i posted for ideas as to what could fill the niche? does anyone have any of those or am I just posting in the wrong place?
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Cephylus
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Well, it is an inacurate theory. I think snakes and mosasaurs both diverged from the same ancestor; monitor lizards. Varanids.

I dunno about conodonts though, they are pretty damn interesting animals.

Maybe you can replace snakes with caecilians. :lol: Legless snake-shaped amphibians; they would be great at filling in boa/python niches. Anaconda caecilians are pretty cool, in my opinion.
Edited by Cephylus, Feb 21 2011, 04:25 AM.
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Holben
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Wikipedia-
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There is fossil evidence to suggest that snakes may have evolved from burrowing lizards, such as the varanids (or a similar group) during the Cretaceous Period.

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An alternative hypothesis, based on morphology, suggests the ancestors of snakes were related to mosasaurs—extinct aquatic reptiles from the Cretaceous—which in turn are thought to have derived from varanid lizards.
The second was what Cephylus said.

If you want to replace snakes, think niche, and what replaces them where no snakes go.
Smaller ones eat amphibians, small reptiles, and small mammals. Larger ones eat anything that can fit in their stomach, and more.
They are either arboreal or plains-living, though water snakes and anacondas, for example, flaunt this.
I'll assume we're doing solely terrestrial small snakes, like vipers.

Carnivorous mammals or birds to do this ncihe from that.
However, their niche can be expanded as many ambush... it's tricky.
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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macgobhain
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thank you!
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