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The Species Factory; Empty your mind
Topic Started: Nov 6 2014, 06:54 PM (33,420 Views)
Velociraptor
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Reptile
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Insular dwarf arboreal therizinosaurs in the Caribbean in a no K-Pg world. (I really want to make a no K-Pg project but I feel like it would be recieved poorly because they're so common.)
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Unnamed No K-Pg project: coming whenever, maybe never. I got ideas tho.
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revin
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El Dorito
Dec 16 2015, 08:53 PM
But it was met with strong criticism by the projects former owner, who said that given the chance, any mammal would come to dominate the ecosystem regardless of competition. Yeah... No
When did this happen and who is the owner you were referencing? (There were like 2 or 3 previous owners of the project.)
I tend to get dis– Hey, look, an elephant!
Potentially an elephant


Fire into Ice, a project about life on a rogue planet ejected from our own Solar System. Check it out!

My spec evo YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/speculativeevolution

With personal experience as a raven, I am a major proponent of conserving all corvid species at all costs. Save the endangered Mariana crow here.

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Carlos
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El Dorito
Dec 16 2015, 08:53 PM
Sorry about that, but when I went on the wiki a lot (yes I mentioned... that place...), I had the 'revolutionary' idea of having birds be outcompeted by an endothermic, winged, draconic varanid. But it was met with strong criticism by the projects former owner, who said that given the chance, any mammal would come to dominate the ecosystem regardless of competition. Yeah... No

Why? Bats didn't outcompete birds, birds didn't outcompete pterosaurs (something already explained ad nauseaum in these forums).
Lemuria:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

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El Dorito
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chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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Hybrid
Dec 13 2015, 03:07 PM
From what I understand, koalas only eat the leafs. Apparently they don't even eat leafs off a plate, from what I hear (correct me if that's inaccurate). Given the current state of Eucalyptus fruit, I don't think koalas would go after the fruit even if it was slightly more edible. They are specialists of a rather specific part of a plant.

They are marsupial sloths, and that says a lot of about how specialized they are.
[
I think that koalas are the way they are because they eat the leaves. They can't waste energy swinging through trees when they have to eat their entire entire body weight in leaves just to move 100 metres or so to the next tree. That said, there is no way any other mammal is going to evolve to eat eucalyptus leaves while koalas are around, hence there is no advantage to changing when you are a koala.

Possums on the other hand, that might happen, although there is probably 10 million years at most before regular primates reach Australia. Then there wIll be a faunal turnover. Some Australian animals would move north (parrots, maybe emus, maybe even kangaroos), some south East Asian animals would move south ( more carnivorans, more ungulates, mossibly elephants if they still exist then, primates, lots of other things), and reptiles would probably be relatively unchanged - still lots of crocodiles, monitor lizards, lots of snakes.

That's basically it.
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El Dorito
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JohnFaa
Dec 16 2015, 09:38 PM
El Dorito
Dec 16 2015, 08:53 PM
Sorry about that, but when I went on the wiki a lot (yes I mentioned... that place...), I had the 'revolutionary' idea of having birds be outcompeted by an endothermic, winged, draconic varanid. But it was met with strong criticism by the projects former owner, who said that given the chance, any mammal would come to dominate the ecosystem regardless of competition. Yeah... No

Why? Bats didn't outcompete birds, birds didn't outcompete pterosaurs (something already explained ad nauseaum in these forums).
Because without a great big risk comes no great big reward.

Until that moment, the world was almost as if someone had got rid of humans and the Pleistocene magafauna had kept toughing it out. And it was all mammals. Literally the only thing about any form of 'reptile' was a monitor lizard in Africa that somehow differed from its ancestors by scavenging things... Because clearly they don't do that already...

Also Birds aren't going to rule the skies for ever. Yes they have a greater oxygen carrying ability for their size than mammals do, or something like that, but it's not a win-win type of thing, as it means that anything that isn't oxygen is more toxic to them. Birds drop out of the sky dead in their thousands whenever a volcano does so much as generate a new fumarole, mammals like us can endure at least a little while in the same situation.

The world we live in today, and the world our ancestors evolved in, has gone, and it was gone long before we could have even hoped of doing anything to stop it. In fact if the worst case, civilisation-ending, nuclear WW3 happens, then the earth might even go into an entirely new geological eon. Not saying it will, but the ice age we evolved in is all but over, and within our lifetimes ( unless you are older than 20 or something) the entire 45 million year cooling trend of the cenozoic will have been reversed in the geological tiniest fraction of a blink of an eye. In a few hundred years a map of the Cretaceous earth would look more accurate than the one we know today.

Very long story short - without chance there is no certain. Without randomness there is no pattern.
Edited by El Dorito, Dec 16 2015, 10:12 PM.
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LittleLazyLass
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revin
Dec 16 2015, 09:32 PM
El Dorito
Dec 16 2015, 08:53 PM
But it was met with strong criticism by the projects former owner, who said that given the chance, any mammal would come to dominate the ecosystem regardless of competition. Yeah... No
When did this happen and who is the owner you were referencing? (There were like 2 or 3 previous owners of the project.)
We both know full well his full username ends in "Dog" (or Buttermilk, but that's my fault[1]).
[1] Yeah, I admit it, I'm the one who reported Jagger's wikia account for being under-age.
Edited by LittleLazyLass, Dec 16 2015, 10:13 PM.
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I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess.
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El Dorito
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Right, moving on.

Paddlesnake Varanus remus

Due to anthropogenic climate change, the Holocene went from being a mere interglacial in the larger Pleistocene glaciations, to a significant epoch of the cenozoic era. Among the biggest changes to occurs is the almost total loss of all permanent ice. This melting lead to a rise in average sea levels of close to 70 metres. Much of the coastal habitat was flooded, and many specialised species went extinct.

Fastforward 1 million years, and life has started to rebound. Most animals aren't that different to what we are familiar with, but there are some obvious differences, most of them regarding reptiles. In the now very warm climate, hardy reptiles have done well. Crocodiles now grow up to 10 metres long, sometimes even more. Some snakes are even longer. And with the coastal freshwater habitats being flooded long ago, some of their more hardy inhabitants have moved out to sea. One of them is the Paddlesnake, a descendant of water monitor lizards.

While there are at least two species of monitor lizards that spend much of their lives in or around water, none have made much progress towards becoming oceanic. But when rising sea levels flood much of their habitat, some of them finally made the jump and took to the seas properly. The result is the paddlesnake, Varanus remus. Named for its paddle shaped limbs, this lizard might at first seem like a reminder of the mighty Mosasaurs of the distant past. At up to 3 metres long, however the paddlesnake seems to be quite small against them, although it is one of the largest reptiles of its time. Unlike mosasaurs, paddlesnakes rarely go into open water, and still retain the need to lay eggs above the high tide mark. As a measure of protection from sharks and large crocodiles, paddlesnakes have a striped green and red pattern on their neck and head, a potent warning of their venomous bite. Their venom is faster acting on fish than any other lizard, helping them catch fast moving species that would otherwise be out of reach, similar to that of sea snakes.

NOTE: I know this is a fairly common idea, and that I have thought up similar ideas before. But I thought about it more than at other times, which I hope shows in the text.
Edited by El Dorito, Dec 18 2015, 01:52 AM.
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What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens?

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revin
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Myornament
Dec 16 2015, 10:12 PM
Yeah, I admit it, I'm the one who reported Jagger's wikia account for being under-age.
Hypocrite.

Anyways, I still somewhat doubt there will be any significant post-human impacts of global warming. That being said, I have a considerable bias towards Doomsday hypotheses, meaning global warming can't be propagated for much longer, but they're seemingly valid and life has recovered from much worse.
I tend to get dis– Hey, look, an elephant!
Potentially an elephant


Fire into Ice, a project about life on a rogue planet ejected from our own Solar System. Check it out!

My spec evo YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/speculativeevolution

With personal experience as a raven, I am a major proponent of conserving all corvid species at all costs. Save the endangered Mariana crow here.

Please don't click.
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El Dorito
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revin
Dec 18 2015, 01:56 AM


Anyways, I still somewhat doubt there will be any significant post-human impacts of global warming. That being said, I have a considerable bias towards Doomsday hypotheses, meaning global warming can't be propagated for much longer, but they're seemingly valid and life has recovered from much worse.
45 million years of almost uninterrupted cooling reversed in only 200 years... I think what we are doing will last for way longer than we are around
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What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens?

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revin
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Again, it really just depends on how long we survive. Inevitably it will kill a lot of species and will not immediately end, but if it (we) lasts for a short time, then the ice age will probably come back. Eventually it seems like plants will be able to increase significantly in biomass and dissipate the excess CO2. The decomposition manner of releasing carbon dioxide shouldn't be much of an issue, because these days lots of things can decompose trees.

If we continue to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for significantly longer than the normal interglacial period (most put it at 20,000 to 50,000 years), then yes, there will be some significant interruption to the ice age cycle. But the odds of us continuing to use fossil fuels until that long are slim.
I tend to get dis– Hey, look, an elephant!
Potentially an elephant


Fire into Ice, a project about life on a rogue planet ejected from our own Solar System. Check it out!

My spec evo YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/speculativeevolution

With personal experience as a raven, I am a major proponent of conserving all corvid species at all costs. Save the endangered Mariana crow here.

Please don't click.
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Hybrid
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Anthropogenic climate change will certainly have some long term effects, but you have to remember that all it would really do is extend the interglacial period in the long run. After that time is up, the world will move back into another glacial period. Even scientists agree with that projection.

We're still in an ice age, and probably will be for a long time. Even the things we've done can't change that, since ice ages aren't just caused by CO2 in the atmosphere. They involve things such as the Milankovitch cycles and other factors, which are beyond our control.

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Until that moment, the world was almost as if someone had got rid of humans and the Pleistocene magafauna had kept toughing it out. And it was all mammals. Literally the only thing about any form of 'reptile' was a monitor lizard in Africa that somehow differed from its ancestors by scavenging things... Because clearly they don't do that already...

What are you even talking about?

Quote:
 
as it means that anything that isn't oxygen is more toxic to them.

That is incorrect, it means they can live in environments that have less oxygen in the atmosphere compared to us mammals.

Quote:
 
Birds drop out of the sky dead in their thousands whenever a volcano does so much as generate a new fumarole, mammals like us can endure at least a little while in the same situation.

According to what evidence, mammals would die even faster in that situation.

Quote:
 
Not saying it will, but the ice age we evolved in is all but over, and within our lifetimes ( unless you are older than 20 or something) the entire 45 million year cooling trend of the cenozoic will have been reversed in the geological tiniest fraction of a blink of an eye.

No it wouldn't.

Quote:
 
In a few hundred years a map of the Cretaceous earth would look more accurate than the one we know today.

Seriously no, it would not. Where are you getting this information, because whatever it is, it's straight up wrong and a complete exaggeration.

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Very long story short - without chance there is no certain. Without randomness there is no pattern.

How is that relevant to volant varanids outcompeting birds (which would probably not happen)? You're not even on topic anymore.
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LittleLazyLass
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El Dorito
Dec 18 2015, 03:52 AM
revin
Dec 18 2015, 01:56 AM


Anyways, I still somewhat doubt there will be any significant post-human impacts of global warming. That being said, I have a considerable bias towards Doomsday hypotheses, meaning global warming can't be propagated for much longer, but they're seemingly valid and life has recovered from much worse.
45 million years of almost uninterrupted cooling reversed in only 200 years... I think what we are doing will last for way longer than we are around
The warming has not been that extreme. Hell, the Pleistocene has had several warming periods before going back into full Ice Age. Sure, we are influencing this oddly large one, but it's not anything like you make it sound. Hell, the Holocene warmed significantly even when man was first figuring out farming, when we certainly weren't influencing it.
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I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess.
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revin
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Even the Holocene isn't particularly long. In fact, average interglacial periods last around 30,000 years. All the talk that either the ice age is coming or that we have already delayed it is based on old inaccurate observations of previous interglacials. Also, when it comes to rising sea levels, yes, low-lying countries might be submerged. But don't take this as an indicator of a major map change in the future. For the Cretaceous map to be more accurate than the modern one in 200 years, you would need to melt Greenland, Antarctica, and then some.
I tend to get dis– Hey, look, an elephant!
Potentially an elephant


Fire into Ice, a project about life on a rogue planet ejected from our own Solar System. Check it out!

My spec evo YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/speculativeevolution

With personal experience as a raven, I am a major proponent of conserving all corvid species at all costs. Save the endangered Mariana crow here.

Please don't click.
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El Dorito
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First of all, Hybrid, most of that talk was about a project on the wiki, which as far as I know you have been on once. Just clearing that up.

Things that react with haemoglobin, like carbon monoxide and cyanides, would have an even more rapid effect on birds than the already quick effect they have on mammals. If the respiratory system of birds was so infinitely better than ours, birds would have beat us to world domination. I'm not actually 'making it up' when I say that birds drop out of the sky in their thousands when they fly through volcanic gas clouds. And about the thing that mammals would die even quicker, people have been mining Sulfur from volcanoc craters for hundreds of years before respirators were invented, and most of them didn't just drop down dead the moment they walked in or they would have stopped doing it.

Finally, I'm not really sure why any of you think that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have nothing to do with global temperatures, that's the one thing I have struggled to understand.

Also, 'a few hundred years' doesn't necessarily mean 200, it could be anywhere from 200-900 years. If things go the way they are predicted, most of the worlds permanent ice will be gone in about 400 to 1000 years, which is what I meant. Sorry for confusion.

EDIT: Most maps of a post glacial earth fail to take the effect of thermal expansion. Some recent estimates suggest that up to seven metres of sea level rise could happen in the next century if you factor in thermal expansion. I think that is just a bit much, but thermal expansion would increase the sea level by a significant amount over melting alone.
Edited by El Dorito, Dec 18 2015, 06:10 PM.
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LittleLazyLass
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First of all, Hybrid, most of that talk was about a project on the wiki, which as far as I know you have been on once. Just clearing that up.
I remember him stating at one point he was at least at one point a frequent lurker of the wiki.
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