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| If all terrestrial tetrapods were wiped out... | |
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| Topic Started: Apr 4 2011, 11:27 AM (372 Views) | |
| Deleted User | Apr 4 2011, 11:27 AM Post #1 |
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Deleted User
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Which group of fish might be the best poised to make the jump to land? I was thinking of a project in which a gamma ray burst wiped out almost all tetrapods, with the niches they left behind being filled in over hundreds of millions of years by the descendants of mudskippers and snakeheads. However, what about other groups of amphibious or air-breathing fish? Might the lungfish follow in the footsteps of it's cousins? What about the labyrinth fishes, or the walking catfish? |
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| Cephalian | Apr 8 2011, 03:20 PM Post #2 |
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Adolescent
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Really, if you're dealing with hundreds of millions of years, you can justify most shallow-water fishes moving to land and even some deep water ones following in a prey migration scenario - once plants and insects recover numbers from the "gamma ray burst", you've got a plentiful food source without competition. I think you'd also see some new, larger arthropods moving to land as well - there are already crabs that spend a good portion of their time on land, and arthropodia has always been quickest to evolve into new niches. In addition, a few million years of no major herbivores and no more human pollution would mean plant life could explode in the interim, raising global oxygen levels again to allow for any of these creatures to have an easier time thriving. Do keep in mind that it's likely any fish moving to land would likely come to resemble Tetrapods in some fashion, since there are just enough skeletal similarities between fish and Tetrapods that similar builds would emerge. Also, I'm assuming here that gamma ray is code for "Magic Tetrapod Killing Radiation", just because I can't imagine any type of radiation powerful enough and focused enough to completely wipe out Tetrapods but leave most other species relatively untouched. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but perhaps some kind of highly engineered pathogen or specifically designed chemical or other, non radiation based huge extinction event would present a more plausible explanation for the sudden lack of Tetrapods than massive gamma ray burst, because such an event would either be powerful enough to sterilize the planet or leave some Tetrapods alive to re-evolve. |
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Check out my settings, either Urban Jungles or Terra Cephalapodia! Also, I apologize in advance to sometimes responding to quoted posts separately, my iPad makes it nearly impossible to multi-quote multiple posts. | |
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2:28 PM Jul 11