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Lemure Island; or archipelago, to be exact.....
Topic Started: Mar 1 2011, 01:51 AM (1,046 Views)
Cephylus
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Okay, here is another *previously discarded* idea I had for a story. And, you guessed it, it's one of those isolated 'lost islands' with exotic fauna which remained untouched by humanity for a long time. And, you guessed it again, it's an island dominated by lemurs.

Lemure Island, in landmass, is about the size of Chile or New Zealand. The island is mostly covered in dry savannahs or open woodlands, with rainforests dotting the coastline. The coasts are steep and rocky, with a large body of freshwater, a marshy swamp-like lake located at the center of the island. Several large slow-moving river systems criss-cross the island.

Lemure Island is located somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean, somewhere far east of Madagascar.

Lemure Island split off from one of the southern Gondwanan continents sometime during the mid-Cretaceous period, around 80 MYA. The island remained empty, uninhabited and isolated for a long time during the Cretaceous and early Paleocene period, only inhabited by few seabirds and small squamates preying on small invertebrates.

So how did lemurs manage to colonize the island? Recent mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequencing indicates that lemurs arrived on Madagascar sometime around 62 to 65 MYA, in a single rafting event. While it still seems that an animal like a lemur could survive such a long period of rafting in the middle of the ocean and while it seems rather implausible that a single rafting event could result in a complete colonization, it did happen with the lemurs of Madagascar, and since both Madagascar and the fictional Lemure Island was located closer to Africa, I guessed that another rafting event could establish African-originated lemurs in Lemure Island. I guessed that given the isolated nature of Lemure Island, and because the island had plenty of food sources for the newly arrived lemurs, and since in the previously uninhabited island the lemurs would face almost zero competition, the lemurs would have a chance at completely taking over the island and producing some derived forms. So all the various Lemures of Lemure Island would be derived from a single population of a single species of lemurs.

The island has its own native sapients evolved from lemurs. They built their own unique polynesia-esque (but more advanced, the lemure sapients managed to bring up quite an impressive civilization compared to various Pacific insular cultures, with own unique religious system and folklore).

The island is now currently has its own unique ecosystem, inhabited by big haast-eagle sized secretary birds, dromornis-like cranes, two-ton tortoises, cattle-sized aadvarks and false pyrotheres.
Edited by Cephylus, Mar 4 2011, 07:11 AM.
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The Dodo
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Looks interesting, but I don't get how the island remained unihabitated for so long. Some of the orginal Gondwana fauna would of remained and even if the island was unihabitated new animals would of evolved to fill the niches before the lemures arrived so they wouldn't be completely free of competition.
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Cephylus
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Okay.... So I need help there. What sort of Gondwanan fauna would have already inhabited Lemure Island? How would they co-exist with the lemurs?
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Carlos
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Paleognaths, to begin with. Also ciclid fish and frogs.
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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Cephylus
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Would Afrotheres be here? The thought of a cow-sized aadvark or deer-like elephant shrew does seem interesting......
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Carlos
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Most likely yes. And possibly also proto-meridiungulates, if a certain fossil from India is of any indication.
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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Nimor
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Is this a true story?
Edited by Nimor, Mar 1 2011, 12:33 PM.
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Cephylus
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@Johnfaa; the proto-ungulate molar found in India?


And to Nimor's question, naw, of course. B) It's just a fantasy story setting I had in mind, a fictional tropical archipelago which exists somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean, with lots of arboreal lemurs, tiger-sized lemurian predators, ground sloth lemurs, big flightless birds, cattle-sized aadvarks and big pachyderm-like para-meridiungulates. With sophonts, of course, evolved from ape-like lemurs.

Another possibility I considered are terror birds, and other big birds, ratite-like and crane-like. I'm thinking of the expansion of secretary birds on the island, diversifying to occupy Haast Eagle niches, terror bird niches, bustard niches, crane niches, smaller ratite niches, with many tinamou/rail/kiwi/rhea-like paleognaths, some giant dromornis-like birds from the ancestral crane lineage... Maybe even flamingos?
Edited by Cephylus, Mar 4 2011, 07:14 AM.
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Nimor
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Lemurs and any types of birds. :P Sounds interesting. :)
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Zorcuspine
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Enjoying our azure blue world

Perhaps some new types of giant reptiles?
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Jasonguppy
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I think flamingoes. Dolphin/seal lemurs?
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.

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Cephylus
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Well, I'm going with secretary birds and big stork-like pelicaniformes (shoebills!).

I don't think dolpin lemurs; too specialized. Of course, maybe they can evolve sometime in the far future, but the chances of an arboreal animal evolving into such specialized forms in less than 65 million years is... too extreme. Plus the evolution of dolphin lemurs will also heavily effect the outside world's evolutionary hisotry. But there will be otter lemurs.

And I don't know about reptiles. Maybe there should be tortoise, big ones resembling meiolanids, varanids maybe, and snakes? In modern day, probably saltwater crocodiles can reach Lemure Island....
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Nimor
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Reptiles and birds: Might be a good combo, but I'm not overly sure.
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Carlos
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Saltwater crocodiles did once live in Seychelles, so they defenitely could reach Lemure Island
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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Ook
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perhaps primitive sirenians of desmostylians might reach the island
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