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Alternative Vertebrate Evolution; Maybe someone thought of this before...
Topic Started: Jun 6 2011, 02:10 AM (562 Views)
macgobhain
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So what if vertebrates actually evolved from invertebrates that had already colonized land? Would that work?
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lamna
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From worms? Arthropods? Molluscs?
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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Spugpow
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Vertebrate analogues maybe, but that's probably what you meant.

I couldn't really see it happening in arthropods because they shed their skeletons, so any attempt to internalize the support structure would be doomed, IMO.

It could happen in mollusks, since plenty of gastropods have internalized shells and we have an example of vertebrate-like molluscs already (cephs).
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Holben
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Rumbo a la Victoria

If you go far enough back, maybe those ancient 'velvet worms' developing an endoskeleton?
They'd have to develop ways of getting into arid areas like reptiles did, and all sorts of lovely adaptations, but it doesn't seem too implausible.

EDIT: Speelingg fayl
Edited by Holben, Jun 6 2011, 04:04 AM.
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.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Ook
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well,vetulicolians looks very like primitive jawless fishes...
I can also see some kind of sea cucumber convergently evolving on vertebrates
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macgobhain
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Well I was honestly thinking about my world Calma when I posted this.

Vertebrates first evolved in the ocean from Myllokunmingia, or similar forms anyways. I'm not sure about the evolutionary history of chordates and craniates or what they're affiliated with, but whatever it is, is it possible that this process might have happened on land?

Maybe land would first be colonized by molluscs and worms, and one of the two evolve the first notochords, and colonize the sea instead? Or maybe internalize their shells and make spinal cords out of them.

Could it work? And if it could, how would this affect the world?

Remember Calma has 18 parallel dimensions in which life has evolved differently. The book isn't going to touch much on them or what's on them, but it creates sort of a "waste basket" place for ideas that don't work for the mainstream world in which the story is based I guess.
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