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Terrestrial Sessility
Topic Started: Feb 25 2011, 03:00 AM (1,088 Views)
macgobhain
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Ok I thought I posted this earlier but I didn't see it on the forum so...

While brainstorming about different stuff to have I got the idea of having some sort of a land shellfish/barnacle-like creature...

Would some kind of terrestrial sessile animal even be possible?
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T.Neo
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It should be possible... trees and fungi are sessile, but they're not exactly animals.

What about Ant Lions? I know they still have legs, but do they ever move after they've dug their little sand trap into the ground?
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Holben
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The female vapourer moth is sessile- and so supposedly is the queen ant and termite after birthing begins. Honeypot ants have a sessile storage caste.
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macgobhain
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I was thinking more along the line of some kind of terrestrial bivalve like critter. That way animals in trees could have specialized claws for cracking them open. some kind of hard fungus maybe?
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urufumarukai
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A fungus with some type of armor seems plausible, although I think it would behave more like a plant than an animal.
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macgobhain
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Lol of course it would if it's a fungus. Another idea I had that keeps the idea of terrestrial cephalopodes having once ruled the world is maybe some kind of snail-like shelled cephalopod. Maybe it's completely sessile and only comes out at certain times like barnicles, but what would it eat?

Another idea I had was maybe a cephalopod/mollusc that grows in a sessile shell which it's able to leave after adulthood. Maybe it goes back to it at the end of the day for shelter? Maybe not?

How does that sound?
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Ddraig Goch
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The latter idea is plausible, although the animal itself might not count as sessile in that situation.

My Fatsacks (http://ddraig-goch.deviantart.com/art/Targeting-Fatsack-176087512) are worm-like invertebrates that live as arboreal ambush predators. Apart from infancy, they are completely sessile. Then again, if your animals aren't large carnivores then it may not work.
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Jasonguppy
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Quote:
 
What about Ant Lions? I know they still have legs, but do they ever move after they've dug their little sand trap into the ground?

They are temporarily "sessile, but then they bury themselves, pupate, an become adults who fly around.
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colddigger
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Oh, antlions, the larvae are actually rather mobile, moving from place to place to set up their trap much like a spider does.
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macgobhain
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yeah I'm thinking something small that gets eaten by everything else, like shellfish and snails.....
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Flisch
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Why does it have to be sessile though?
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macgobhain
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hmmm not really sure. I just like the idea of some kind of shells/barnacles growing off trees. whether they be an armored fungus or some kind of mollusc...
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Holben
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macgobhain
Mar 15 2011, 12:03 PM
Another idea I had that keeps the idea of terrestrial cephalopodes having once ruled the world
:whatever:
Terrestrial cephalopods.


I kind of bivalve like thing, which perhaps drills into the bark and eats the wood? How would it get to these places?
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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colddigger
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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Or how about one that burrows half way into a tree and feeds off the sap? I say halfway so that it'd still have access to the air of course.
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macgobhain
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you guys are so creative. lol. but wouldn't they kill the tree? or maybe some sort of symbiosis? and I have no idea how they get there....
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