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Marine Insects
Topic Started: Apr 4 2011, 03:26 PM (1,715 Views)
Scrublord
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Father Pellegrini
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Let's face it: insects are everywhere. In over 350 million years of evolution, they've conquered the land, the air, and have learned to breathe underwater. Yet very few insects have made it to the ocean. The only truly marine insects are a few beach-dwelling flies and beetles, and five species of water striders. Why is this, and could insect one day evolve marine forms?
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seascorpion
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Why Can't I Hold All These Mongols?

Arthropods did once dominate the ocean, but since the evolution of the jaw (and thus giving vertebrae an advantage over the arthropod armour) most of those species have found themselves extinct due to outcompetition and predation
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Zorcuspine
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Enjoying our azure blue world

Its because their cousins the crustaceans tend to hog all the niches.
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Scrublord
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Father Pellegrini
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Perhaps I should move this to Alternative Evolution (how do you do that, by the way?). What, then, would a world of marine insects instead of crustaceans be like? What groups might be adapted for sea life?
My Projects:
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The Big One



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In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
--Heteromorph
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Jasonguppy
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Cardinal
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Moving is a mod power.

Marine insects could include giant neotonous larvae
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Amammalia: A strange place where mammals didn't make it and the land is, once again, dominated by archosaurs.

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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Successfully moved. I feel proud of myself!
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Jasonguppy
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Cardinal
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YAy FOR YOU
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.

❤️❤️~I'm not a boy~❤️❤️
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Carlos
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Halobates water striders are insects that live on the open ocean.

The more you know...
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http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

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Scrublord
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El Squibbonator
Apr 4 2011, 03:26 PM
and five species of water striders.
I believe I said that already.
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The Big One



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In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
--Heteromorph
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Zoroaster
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this very question was asked on QI last night! (a repeat)

Steven Fry's answer? Because there's no flowers or trees... sounds a bit oversimplified to me...
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Scrublord
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Father Pellegrini
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Insects live in plenty of places without flowers or trees.
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The Big One



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--Heteromorph
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Brock Slabson, Ph.D.
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Alas, poor Yorickosaurus.
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Too many predators that would simply gobble them up without even knowing it. Well, that would be out in a more pelagic area with like whale sharks.
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Cephalian
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If we're assuming the fact that there are now niches open for them to move into, I really think it comes to one main problem for insects and arthropods in general in marine environments - mobility. Yes, arthropods can "swim" - but compare that to the way a fish or marine mammal or bird or reptile can move and water, and their aquatic mobility seems pretty poor. (at least, for all examples I can think of) To make matters worse for them, they don't have much to work with, from an evolutionary standpoint, to improve mobility - the wings arthropods evolve would be godaweful at marine movement, and an exoskeleton, even with segmentation, is limiting. Sure, the segmentation allows for great flexibility. However, it also is heavy relative to skin - I don't see an exoskeleton holding up (Look, a pun!) against endoskeletal or non-skeletal creatures - and I think evolution has proven this point so far. After all, arthropods once dominated the oceans. They dominated at a time when what they were dealing with, mainly, were other arthropods - so the fact that their movement/support structure is poor compared to that of modern marine life is irrelevant If an insect (or other terrestrial arthropod) were to come to a dominant role in a marine environment, it'd have to evolve a more effective means of locomotion that works with an exoskeleton - muscular fins that are hidden under the carapace, expelling water from the trachea to "jet" like cephalopods, or whatever else you can think of.

So what you need to ask is "how could an arthropod move bettter underwater than they already do, and what species would be most likely to evolve that?" Answer that, and you can go from there.
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zaktan
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The wings could function like paddles, kinda like penguins.
Or swimmerettes, like crabs.
Even swimming can be done away with, like crabs or sedentary insects.
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Scrublord
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Father Pellegrini
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Who says they have to swim? Maybe they could become planktonic, or live on the ocean floor.
My Projects:
The Neozoic Redux
Valhalla--Take Three!
The Big One



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In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
--Heteromorph
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