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| Evolve That Creature! #6; Fire Salamander | |||
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| Topic Started: Jul 30 2012, 01:31 PM (669 Views) | |||
| Ddraig Goch | Jul 30 2012, 01:31 PM Post #1 | ||
Wneud y pethau bychain
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Welcome to another edition of Evolve That Creature!. The idea is simple - evolve a species! The base species you are given to evolve could be a present day organism, a prehistoric lifeform or an alien species. It is then your job to evolve it into a new form. How exactly you do this is up to you, since all you are given is the species. You decide the size, shape, colour, habitat, and position in the food chain of your entry. The only rule is that your entry must retain the bauplan of the base species (for instance, if the base species has four legs, your entry must have four legs, although they can be atrophied or evolved into something else). Participants are encouraged to be as creative as possible, and make their designs unique and interesting. In particular, we'd like to see unexpected adaptations. Stray as far from the base species as possible, whilst keeping within the realms of plausibility. Your species for this month is the European Fire Salamander, Salamandra salamandra. Information about this species can be found here: Your aim this month is to evolve the Fire Salamander into a new form. You have a timeframe of forty five million years for this evolution. The environment it lives in, its role in its ecology and the scenerio that led to its adaptations are up to you. Happy speccing! |
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| El Squibbonator | Aug 6 2012, 03:34 PM Post #2 | ||
Recovering EVAholic
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Allow me to cast the first entry: Cave Angler Speleaodraco photurus The water that collects on the bottom of a cave in southern Europe is a breeding ground for insects--blind, flightless beetles and tiny midge-like flies. They spend their entire lives underground, never seeing the sun, and depending ultimately upon the bacteria nourished by underground hot springs for nutrients. But wherever there is life, there is likely to also be predators. The cave angler, at up to 16 inches long, is the largest animal living exclusively in these cave. Descended from the modern-day Fire Salamander, it takes its ancestor's name quite literally. The cave angler has an ability that makes it unique from all other amphibians, and indeed all other tetrapods--it is bioluminescent. Symbiotic bacteria that live in the certain regions on the salamander's back and tail provide the glow, and it uses this to attract the insects it eats. The manner in which the cave angler controls its glow is even more remarkable. Lid-like flaps of skin are pulled over the glowing patches when the salamander wishes to hide them, a technique formerly employed only by one other animal-- the flashlight fish. Cave anglers do not lay eggs, nor is there a tadpole stage. They are born directly out of the female as juvenile salamanders. |
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| Fakey | Aug 9 2012, 11:05 PM Post #3 | ||
I'll help you burn calories. And then the rest of your body. Post Rank: What The?
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| Nanotyranus | Aug 10 2012, 12:52 PM Post #4 | ||
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He Who Fails
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The picture in the link has the same text as posted here. Pelagic Dracomander The pelagic dracomander is a species of marine lissamphibian, descended from the fire salamander. The ancestors of these creatures lived in beaver lakes, growing large on fish and, eventually, the beavers themselves. These ancestral dracomanders sometimes clambered over the beaver dams, attempting to get the beavers out by digging at the dam, and some fell downstream. Dracomanders at the very last beaver dam on a river ended up in a slower zone, with plenty of food: the river estuary. Dracomanders ended up living in brackish water for weeks or even months at a time, returning to fresh water to breed and remove the salt through osmosis. Dracomanders began to waste less time letting salt soak out, though, through evolving tougher and less permeable skin that could slough off if it became too salty. These dracomanders would be the ones to conquer the marine environment. Modern dracomanders have powerful limbs, like a plesiosaur, that enable them to twist and turn in the water. They can drink sea water, like a turtle, and use the backs of their jaws as salt glands. Pelagic dracomanders live in the pacific, and are about 6 metres long (diver shown for scale). They prey on large fish and marine tetrapods (such as penguins, seals, dolphins and smaller dracomanders) by biting them with powerful, toothed jaws and then using their powerful tongues to drag it into the throat. Like all dracomanders, they return to fresh water to breed. They swim upstream before spawning in a suitable area that has enough fish, using their muscular fins to crawl over or around any obstacles they may encounter. The baby dracomanders, after a short larval stage with a similar appearance to a crocodile-headed axolotl, head to the nearest river and swim into the ocean. They will eventually grow into 6-metre predators like their parents. Edited by Nanotyranus, Aug 10 2012, 12:55 PM.
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| zaktan | Aug 11 2012, 06:33 AM Post #5 | ||
Soshified!
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Banded Slime-tail: Mucoserpentis harelequin harlequin Size: 1m Habitat: Temperate European Woodland Spoiler: click to toggle A small toad scrabbles through the leaf litter, searching for grubs, making the most of the brief summer. The rustling of leaves startles it and it looks up just in time to see a long, serpentine shape seize it. Before the hapless toad can retaliate, muscular coils bind it tightly and a viscous mucous is produced. A poisonous bite finally dispatches the toad. Backward pointing teeth ensure its smooth journey down the gullet of the Banded Sllime-tail, the warlord of this ecosystem. As odd as it seems, the Banded Slime-tail is descended from the Fire Salamander, of which similar forms still exist in this world. As mammals such as foxes and wolves were driven to extinction, niches opened up for large predators in the woodlands. The Banded Slime-tail is descended from ancestors that took up a burrowing lifestyle, losing all their limbs and secreting lubricating mucous. However, the Slime-tail returned to the surface to hunt small prey, using a combination of ensnaring mucous and toxic mucous-laden bite, a throwback to its ancestor the Fire Salamander. There are many color variations of the Slime-tails, all of them advertising their toxicity with bright colors. The Slime-tail starts off as an egg, laid in streams or large ponds en masse and abandoned by the females. After a few weeks they hatch into voracious gilled larvae that devour almost anything that wriggles, including their own kind. They mature quickly, but are prey to many other creatures, keeping their environmental impact low. The larvae grow long and sinous, external gills are replaced by lungs and forelegs shrink and disappear completely. The full-fledged Slime-tail slithers onto land for the first time. -------------------------------------------- Whew... Had to use Photoshop on the pic cause my black color pencil is lost somewhere... Yes I still use the old-fashioned methods. Was a bit poetic in the first paragraph xD Edited by zaktan, Aug 11 2012, 06:39 AM.
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| Mindfields51 | Aug 11 2012, 10:49 AM Post #6 | ||
Newborn
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The Whiptail Salamander: Flagecoda salamandra Spoiler: click to toggle Due to continental drift and climate change the large parts of the European mainland has fallen into desertification (BWk). The Whiptail Salamander descended from the European Fire Salamander, adapting to the warmer and dryer conditions over the last 45 million years. The tail is on average twice as long as the body and tapers into a thin whip-like form, acting predominately as a counter balance for fast movement. Bumpy scales follow from the neck and merges on the tail, acting as leathery armour. These bump increase the surface area of the animal to help it regulate its temperature. Two folds of skin extend from the top of the head, increasing its surface area further, but also acts as sexual display being more pronounced in adult males. The Whiptails defend themselves with a highly potent neurotoxic secreted from glands along the nasal bridge, along the spine and around the dorsal skin surface. An adult male can grow to be 25–45 cm long and adult females between 15–25 cm long. Due tot he dry climate the Whiptail Salamander gives birth to live young, the larvae developing within the mother until she births them in a dark moist borrow to finish their development. She'll typically birth 2 young during a breeding season. Edited by Mindfields51, Aug 11 2012, 10:53 AM.
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| Fakey | Aug 11 2012, 12:08 PM Post #7 | ||
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I'll help you burn calories. And then the rest of your body. Post Rank: What The?
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Okay, the new guy wins. | ||
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| El Squibbonator | Aug 12 2012, 02:23 PM Post #8 | ||
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Recovering EVAholic
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What do you mean? The competition hasn't ended yet! | ||
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| trex841 | Aug 12 2012, 02:33 PM Post #9 | ||
Superhuman
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He just thinks it's that awsome. | ||
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| Nanotyranus | Aug 30 2012, 03:27 PM Post #10 | ||
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He Who Fails
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Two days until voting (iirc)! 
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| El Squibbonator | Sep 1 2012, 09:32 PM Post #11 | ||
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Recovering EVAholic
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Can we get the poll up? | ||
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| Ddraig Goch | Sep 3 2012, 02:45 PM Post #12 | ||
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Wneud y pethau bychain
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Poll now added! | ||
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| El Squibbonator | Sep 6 2012, 08:48 AM Post #13 | ||
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Recovering EVAholic
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When are the next COM's going to be up? | ||
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| Ddraig Goch | Oct 4 2012, 03:46 PM Post #14 | ||
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Wneud y pethau bychain
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And the winner, with a resounding majority, is Mindfields51, with his Whiptail Salamander. Congratulations! | ||
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5:31 AM Jun 20
