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The Conehead Dinosauroids
Topic Started: Mar 17 2011, 06:53 AM (844 Views)
Cephylus
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Torando of Terror
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This is a seperate venture from Terra Ornithischia, and more along the lines of traditional speculations on K-T-less worlds (not Spec, but in a Povorot-ish way), but much more extreme, weird and bizarre.

Some common features many dinosaurs share in this world:

Beaks- Beaks have a strong presence in this world's dinosaurs. Beaks are useful, adaptable tools, it could easily change shape, diverge into more specialized forms, and the 'standard' unspecialized beak, like that found in magpies and ravens, are extremely flexible in terms of diet, it could easily be used for carnivory as well as herbivory or insectivory, and are great manipulators, as the fascinating New Caledonian Crows have proven. In this world, smallish, generalistic 1~3 meter coelurosaurs with corvid-like beaks (with teeth) from the Paleocene or the early Eocene would later diverge its beak to fit in various specialized niches, resulting in the current radiation of 'sabre' beaks, ant-eating beaks, spoon beaks, bone-crushing beaks, grass-mowing beaks and so on. Non-beaked dinosaurs, both coelurosaurs and the few ornithischians survive, are either eliminated or are minorities.

Feathers- Yes. ALL dinosaurs in this project have feathers, or at least quills. Of course, all coelurosaurs, including maniraptorans, have feathers, and all ornithischians have feathers as well. The surviving ornithopods and ceratopsians, have extravegant fluff, wool and quills, scaly skin is out. The color plan of dinosaurs ranges from dull grey or brown to strikingly flashy color designs comparable to birds such as peafowl or birds-of-paradise.

Poison- A majority of small, predatory dinosaurs in the niche of foxes or mustelids possess poison. Most have only weak venom, effective only upon rat-sized creatures at the most. But over time, some of the smaller, agile predators developed more advanced poison, including poison which makes the wound bleed faster, or cause extreme pain, or even partial paralyses. Most just simply bite their prey once and wait for it to drop dead, but some have learned to spit venom at potential predators, causing temporary blindness or pain. A seperate course of evolution, some ornithischians (probably ceratopsians) and coelurosaurs have evolved poisonous feathers, mostly in the form of quills, which enhances the effect porcupine quills usually have on unfortunate tigers and leopards.

Claws- Coelurosaurs have done a lot with their claws, both hand claws and feet talons, each different form specialized for different purposes. For example, there are stabbing spears, slashing machetes, sickles and scythes, pincers (some evolved opposable digits), therizinosaurian 'swords', double sickle claws, slashing claws on the back of the feet, spades, rakes.

And I have in mind a sophont species, as you can probably guess, called the Conehead Dinosauroids. The most plausible ancestor I see for my dinosauroids are fox-sized predators with dextrous hands and (possibly) poison. The Conehead Dinosauroids, obviously, are named for their weird, cone-shaped skulls.


What do you think of the whole thing for now?
Edited by Cephylus, Mar 22 2011, 09:09 AM.
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Cephylus
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Okay, so nobody posts a reply :( But here's a basic overview of the world;

The primary browsing herbivores, in most cases, are small hooved mammals which managed to outcompete the herbivorous protobirds occupying a similar niche. Most are quadrupedal, resembling small herbivores of our timeline such as maras, chevrotains and pig-footed bandicoots, slinking around in the underbrush for food and racing away on their tiny hooves when they encounter a predator. But there are also bipedal kangaroo-like hoppers, something like miniature kangaroos or enlarged elephant shrews/leptictidium, something with a strange proboscis and kangaroo-ish stance. I don't know what they evolved from yet, probably some kind of afrothere or rodent.

There are larger herbivores as well. The middle sized to large herbivore niches, both grazer and browser niches, are mostly occupied by protobirds, although I do see some mammals occupying this niche as well. I haven't figured out the exact details of the dinosaurian herbivores, although I'm pretty sure that they will look like ratites of the sort, although with more variations with the beak. Boar niches are filled by cimolestan mammals similar to pantodonts, weird quilled creatures with pig-like foraging snouts and paws instead of hooves, and generalistic thick-skinned trunked herbivores filling hippo/water buffalo niches.

The biggest herbivores are always dinosaurs, either protobirds or ornithischians. The North Hemispheric megaherbivores are big, therizinosaurian oviraptorosaurs with massive claws and a strange, waddling goose-like stance, while the South Hemispheric megaherbivores are ornithischians, enormous fluffy saurpod-ish grazers. There are also trunked pyrothere/mastodon like herbivores as well, giant beasts with double sets of tusks and prehinsile trunks, some reaching elephant sizes but generally more aggressive.

The smaller carnivore niches are occupied by both mammal and protobird. The standard fox-sized dinosaurian carnivores resemble a larger, more terrestrial version of archaeopteryx, gracile, snake-necked animals with hyperextendable claws and shark-like slashing teeth often with venom, which ranges from Komodo Dragon-ish venom to strong venom which causes total paralysis to spitting venom. The niche is also shared by mammalian predators similar to a fossa with a mongoose-ish head. Australia is also home to weird little carnivores, weasel analogues evolved from basal monotremes.

Larger carnivores are generally troodonts, closely related to archaeopteryx-ish smaller troodonts, but far larger and far more aggressive. These troodonts are largely attrition predators, and occupy dhole/wolf/jackal niches, while there are hyena-like larger dromaeosaurs occupying similar niches in Africa.

Ptolemaiids are also a successful carnivore group in Europe and Africa, the average Ptolemaiid a hyena-sized Deinogalerix-like creature with sabre teeth. Borophagine dogs are cosmopolitan in North America, and Nimravids fill various feline niches, the largest being an impressive sabre-toothed apex predator the size of a tiger.

And speaking of apex predators, in most cases they are protobirds. A good example is a massive dromaeosaur convergent of extinct large therapods, a beefy kea-beaked monster with double sickle claws and vestigial forelimbs. In the Caripicean islands, convergent of the Mediterranean Islands, the Harpoids, a haast-eagle sized flying troodont convergent of large birds of prey are the unchallenged macropredators.
Edited by Cephylus, Mar 27 2011, 11:06 AM.
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Carlos
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Damn good ideas. Specially the predatory "proto-birds" and the ptolemaiids.
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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Zorcuspine
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Enjoying our azure blue world

Cool project. I imagine crocodiles and squamates would also be competition in the predator niches. What are the oceans like?
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