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| The Fire Forest; In a hostile environment, a rich ecosystem hangs from the branches of giant trees | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 11 2016, 10:00 PM (4,494 Views) | |
| HangingThief | Feb 11 2016, 10:00 PM Post #1 |
ghoulish
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 Table of Contents 9 million years in the future, life on earth hasn't changed all that much. The anthropocene age was not a severe mass extinction- humans wiped themselves out before they could eliminate many major groups of animals. But they did have a profound impact on the climate- by digging up fossilized swamp plants and algae and using them for energy, they unleashed millions of years of stored carbon back into the atmosphere. As the climate warmed, permafrost melted and bacteria began to digest the frozen plant matter, releasing even more greenhouse gases. They could do nothing as their seas rose and arable land desertified, politics preventing them from taking any steps toward population reduction. The eruption of the Yellowstone caldera midway through the 21st century was the last straw. After the humans, their pollution and their agricultural fields went away, forests and algal blooms went to town converting the human and volcano created co2 into oxygen and creating oxygen rich conditions not unlike the Carboniferous. The ice caps have melted entirely, and barely a dry spot is left- swamp became more common than forest. (EDIT: there's some things wrong with that section^, so just ignore it. For example, the Yellowstone caldera wouldn't actually erupt so soon and cause severe climate change, and it's a cliche anyway. I'll fix it eventually. The basic premise is that the earth is warmer, and this project takes place in coastal arctic regions of North America.) Much of the world became a paradise, especially for ectothermic animals. (However, mammals and birds certainly didn't go anywhere or give up their niches to gigantic insects, as sad as it is.) The coal swamps returned in this thick, humid atmosphere in any reasonably warm lowland area. Life flourished in most areas. But these areas are not what we are going to focus on. The far northern coastal regions is not hot and humid or cold and dry. It is best described as a mild, rather dry Mediterranean climate. In the summer, rain is rare and most moisture comes from sea fog. It should be a desert. But it's not- there are extremely dense forests consisting of the towering descendants of redwoods (Sequoia destruaradix) and bamboos (Tuberculobambusa gigas). The soil is dry and devoid of other plant life. (No thanks to the shade and acidic carpet of needles created by the redwoods.) How do these giant plants get enough water to survive? What is their secret? It's all thanks to their roots. In the redwoods, it's rather simple and has to do with the geography- the areas with redwood forests correlate with shallow water tables. Most trees start their life with a large taproot for getting moisture from the ground, but become shallow rooted in adulthood. The coast redwoods that the future redwoods evolved from were no exception. But the future redwoods evolved to keep it, and grow quite possibly the biggest taproot ever to pierce into the water table and suck out the water. But this brings to light a problem- how do the young trees become established? The establishment of young trees is an unusual case of what could be described as botanical parental care and sacrifice of offspring. Most plants adopt the strategy of spreading their seeds as far away as possible so that offspring aren't in competition with their parent. But a baby tree can't obtain water on its own in this climate- it needs help. So, the parent tree connects some roots with a nearby sapling (which grows in the winter) shares water with it. But this sapling isn't destined to become a giant tree- it's mother simply can't have another redwood grow right next to it. The young tree "understands" this and will sacrifice itself to a sibling- another sapling growing further from the mother. It will connect roots and give the water being pumped to it by their mother to the next sapling. As soon as it has connected to another sapling, it mostly stops growing itself apart from strengthening the roots used to pump water to and from its neighbors. It becomes nothing more than a water transportation unit. A chain of these water transporters continues, sometimes through dozens of young trees, until one that is a sufficient distance from the mother tree is reached. This all must happen before the winter is over- any unconnected saplings die in the summer drought. The final link grows very rapidly, as the mother tree pumps not only fluids but also sugar (as their is little sunlight below the canopy) and nitrogen to the young tree to fuel it. Because it receives everything it needs from its mother, it focuses on two things- growing a tall trunk and thick bark, and growing its taproot. Once the taproot hits the water table, however, the mother doesn't cut it off just yet- perhaps if it has many offspring it will cut off the weaker ones, but generally it keeps the supply flowing. Even though the tree is independent, it's not out of danger yet- indeed, it will not be completely out of danger for hundreds of years. It is important that it grows as tall as possible as fast as possible, and not just because it needs sunlight. We will get around to the reason why shortly. The fast growing bamboo grows in the redwood forest when a tree falls down and lets in sunlight. But in general, places with underground reservoirs are practically monocultures of redwoods (at least from a ground level view) and those without are dominated by bamboo. But in many places, due to redwood's previously described water sharing chains, redwoods can slowly encroach upon the bamboo. So how does the bamboo get its water? One clue is that some species of related, deciduous bamboos have colonized the inland deserts. They have become succulents. Not visible stem or leaf succulents like cacti, but rather root succulents- they have enormous underground tubers for storing water and sugar. One curious fact, though, is that the winters are not long or wet enough for a stand to accumulate enough water to last it through the summer. It should run dry after a bit of vigorous spring growth. Yet it doesn't. Tomorrow, I'll post why there are only bamboo and redwoods, why it is necessary for the young redwoods to receive support from their mother even after hitting the water table, and why the bamboo doesn't run out of water- (hint: it's in the title) I probably won't be getting around to animals for a while. Edited by HangingThief, Aug 22 2016, 09:23 PM.
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| HangingThief | Apr 1 2016, 05:45 AM Post #61 |
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ghoulish
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(Flying Spider chapter, as promised) The most ferocious predators by far that are found in the Fire Forest are monstrous flying beasts known as Rocket Tarantulas. Direct descendants of the tarantulas, (Theraphosidae), Rocket Tarantulas have reached enormous sizes (legspans of 13- 25 feet are not unheard of) and developed the power of flight. Ancient tarantulas, unlike more modern groups of spiders, could grow to larger sizes because they possessed a primitive breathing apparatus known as book lungs. Rocket tarantulas have lost their book lungs, and instead breathe through actual lungs, which is the reason they are able to reach even larger sizes. Unlike mammals, however, which only have two lungs, Rocket Tarantulas have four lungs and can thus breathe twice as fast as any mammal. Holocene tarantulas were not only the largest spiders, but also the longest lived, with some captive specimens living well into their 40’s. It only makes sense, then, that Rocket Tarantulas (which can weigh up to 850 pounds) reach even older ages of up to 10,000 years. (Twice the age of the oldest known organism) Larger species of cold- blooded animals are known for often producing a very large number of small young compared to their adult size, rather than a smaller number of relatively large young. Rocket Tarantulas take this to the extreme, with a 400- pound female producing a huge egg sac (Unlike Holocene tarantulas, Rocket Tarantulas have 8 spinnerets- so they spin silk twice as fast) that can hatch into nearly 6 billion young each measuring around 3 millimeters. Most of these young will survive to adulthood, despite the fact that they receive no parental care, are extremely vulnerable, and that their mother would eat them given the chance. But not to worry, for a female Rocket Tarantula has 4 ovaries and can thus produce twice as many young as an ordinary tarantula. The name, Rocket Tarantula, comes from the way they fly. They do not have wings- indeed, at a glance they look like rather ordinary spiders, albeit spiders the size of horses. No, they use a method of flight not perfected since the time of the humans- rocket power. Tarantulas are among the few spiders that don't only have silk- producing spinnerets in their abdomens- they could also produce silk from smaller glands in their feet. Due to possessing an extra set of abdominal spinnerets, Rocket Tarantulas have been able to repurpose these glands in their feet for flight. How, you ask? Take a close look at a Rocket Tarantula’s foot or pedipalp. If you get that close, it will probably kill you, not to mention that Rocket Tarantulas don't even exist at the time of this writing. So, I'll just tell you that each foot ends in a hollow tube, extending about 3 feet into the spider’s leg. At the end of the tube, hidden deep inside the leg, the repurposed silk gland oozes a thick, wax like substance with a very similar chemical composition to rocket fuel. When ignited, this substance will combust violently. All the tarantula needs to do in order to fly is ignite each leg in one of the forest fires that happens every day in the fire forest. This is easier said than done, however, as they must all be lit simultaneously or else legs could be torn off as they blast away from from the huge spider’s body. So, it climbs a tree and jumps directly onto a large fire from above. It's rocket- feet work so fast that it blasts away from the fire instantly, and is in no danger of being burned. A Rocket Tarantula takes off! The Saturn V rocket only had five rocket thrusters. Including the pedipalps, a Rocket Tarantula has a total of 10- and can thus fly twice as fast as the Saturn V. (49,582 miles per hour.) So, when it is hungry, a Rocket Tarantula blasts into the canopy and flies around hunting whatever animal suits its fancy. It can take down prey as large as an elephant, impaling its victim with its sharp, venomous, (twice as toxic as the deadliest known Holocene spider venom), six foot fangs- of which it possesses four. Thus, it can capture and kill prey twice as fast as an ordinary tarantula. The other weapon it possesses are spears, derived from the urticating hairs of its ancestors, which fly off the tarantula’s abdomen and hit birds and other small flying creatures with frightening accuracy. (Twice the accuracy of the best human archer) However, they rarely bother with prey as tiny and insignificant as a bird and appear to do this chiefly for sport. If a Rocket Tarantula is extremely hungry, which it often is, and it cannot find anything satisfactory on land, which it often can't, it will fly out over the ocean and hunt whale-sized sea creatures. To avoid accidentally extinguishing its rocket thrusters, it prefers to hunt whales by harpooning them with a venom- coated spear- bristle, and waiting for the corpse to float to the surface or wash ashore so that it can feed upon it. Rocket tarantulas are very intelligent creatures. Their brains are as large as a human’s. They also have two brains, so they are at least twice as intelligent as a human. But, being giant, rocket- powered spiders that have no enemies and live several thousand years, they have no real problems and no reason to advance from their current situation. They are completely content and have no need for such silly things as “science,” “medicine” (Although the smoky environment does render them prone to lung cancer, they have two spare lungs so this is rarely of any consequence) or “civilization.” Thus, there is little danger of the Rocket Tarantulas inventing time travel and going back to the Anthropocene to |
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| Torvonychus | Apr 1 2016, 06:17 AM Post #62 |
nani the fuck
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^I can't tell if that's an April fool or legit, but either way its epic. |
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Dys, Darwin's Inferno: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5949354/1/   Spoiler: click to toggle
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| LittleLazyLass | Apr 1 2016, 02:18 PM Post #63 |
Proud quilt in a bag
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I can't really say anything on it's plausibility, since I know crap all about arthropods, but it's really cool. |
totally not British, b-baka! You like me (Unlike)I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess. Me What, you want me to tell you what these mean? Read First Words Maybe | |
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| HangingThief | Apr 1 2016, 03:01 PM Post #64 |
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ghoulish
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Well, plausibility is really what I was going for. I tried to make it as plausible as possible by basing it in actual, present- day astronautical science. |
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| El Dorito | Apr 1 2016, 11:33 PM Post #65 |
chlorinated opthalmic trigonometric shape of conspiracy and dank memes
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When do they evolve space flight? Because that is the only thing I can think of that would be a next step in the evolution of a (basically) indestructible rocket super-spider.
Edited by El Dorito, Apr 1 2016, 11:34 PM.
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I REGRET NOTHING What if denizens of the United States call themselves 'Americans' so as to avoid being called USAliens? DeviantArt: EL-D0rito My Projects: Atlantis: The Next Union On hold until I regain interest. Argus: The Cyber-Planet Will be rewritten and redone almost completely | |
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| Corecin | Apr 2 2016, 01:20 AM Post #66 |
Prime Specimen
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My god man, this science is so legit. |
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| HangingThief | Apr 3 2016, 10:06 AM Post #67 |
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ghoulish
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I assume when they evolve a few more sets of lungs so they can breathe in the vacuum of space. |
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| HangingThief | Aug 22 2016, 09:19 PM Post #68 |
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ghoulish
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(Nope, this project ain't dead. Just severely neglected.) Any creature living on the gloomy floor of the fire forest has to be able to climb or fly to safety, or else burrow into the ground if it is to survive the frequent blazes. One species that has chosen the latter path is Lenivermis serpentina, the Serpentine Cableworm. A member of the family Elateridae, or the click beetles, it is named not for the fairly ordinary adult beetle but for its unusual, predatory larva. The larvae of many click beetles, which include herbivorous, omnivorous and predatory forms, are referred to as wireworms due to their tough exoskeleton and smooth, cylindrical shape. This helps them burrow through their typically subterranean habitat with ease. It also makes them difficult for predators to grasp them and extract them from the soil. L. serpentina takes this particularly far, being one of the smoothest insects in existence. All of its facial appendages are tucked out of the way and shaped so as to give the larva a perfectly smooth, blunt head. Its six small legs are flattened and can be pressed into small depressions along the body. Its sclerites are slick and seamless. This means that the larva can slither snake- like through the soil with surprising speed. It is also the longest species of click beetle larva, growing up to 30 centimeters in length. But it is scarcely thicker than a shoelace, (meaning that several others including Holocene species grow more massive), which adds to its serpent- like appearance. It could be mistaken at a glance for some sort of blind snake. The larva spends most of its time in a carefully constructed burrow, sensing vibrations from passing prey and leaping out to grab it with its hook- tipped legs. There is considerable sexual dimorphism, with males completing development in just months with a maximum length of 8 cm. They then metamorphose into a 3 centimeter long beetle. It is the females that reach a large size and may take several years to reach adulthood, depending on food availability. The majority of its diet comes from insects and other very small animals. But, despite lacking venom or any immediately obvious weapons, it is capable of taking down surprisingly large and powerful prey, including vertebrates larger than itself. How do they do it? The answer lies in the cableworm’s snake- like body. Just like snakes, they subdue prey using constriction. If a small lizard or rodent strays too close to the its burrow, the cableworm bursts out and locks onto the animal’s head or neck with its legs and mandibles. It wraps its long yet very muscular abdomen around the victim’s body and squeezes, immobilizing its prey while chewing into the neck and killing it. It then drags the carcass down the burrow (constructed to be considerably wider than its inhabitant, for this purpose) to eat it at leisure. Such large meals certainly provide a great nutritional boost for the growing larva, but they are not the only (or perhaps even the main) reason cableworms go after such large prey. There is one type of animal that the cableworm will never pass up the opportunity to attack, even if it isn't hungry and despite the risk involved with attacking mammals. Dwarf Porcupine Mice (Segnisacomys diminutivus) are pint- sized, insectivorous rodents very common on the forest floor. Most predators avoid them, due to the sharp quill- like hairs that their name suggests they possess. They have large ones on their back, and much smaller quills on their flanks which are barbed and become lodged in flesh, rendering them extremely unpalatable to many predators. But they have little effect on the smooth, armored body of the cableworm, even when it wraps its body around them. Porcupine mice aren't just a handy food source. The cableworm has a very specific use for those quills, which are involved in the constriction of its complex burrow. The burrow of L. serpentina is not a simple hole in the ground. It’s walls are not made of soil, but rather of a kind of cement made from its own excrement. It might not make sense for a predatory insect that eats infrequently to be able to produce enough excrement to line a deep burrow, but most of that excrement doesn't come from its food. Although it gains no nutritional value from it, the cableworm eats large quantities of soil to produce the cement. The soil is mixed with a glue- like secretion in the larva’s hindgut, and dries quickly once excreted. Most of the burrow, as mentioned before, is considerably wider than the worm’s body, allowing it to drag down prey. But a few inches below the surface, there is a squeeze only a little wider than the cableworm. Hidden along one side of the burrow is a secret hatch as wide as the rest of the burrow, which leads back to the main burrow behind the narrow section. It is kept sealed off with a cement plug most of the time, and opened only when the worm needs to get back below the narrow section. If it has caught a large prey item, it will chew a hole large enough to accommodate it. Now, what does the cableworm use those porcupine mice for? After eating the edible parts, it uses the quills to make that narrow section of the burrow into a one- way exit. If it hasn't caught a porcupine mouse before, it will probably already have done this with twigs, conifer needles, cactus spines, insect legs and other debris. From a fairly early age, it spreads a thick layer of excrement in the chosen section of the burrow and embeds these sharp objects in the cement so they point outwards. This allows the smooth, slender cableworm to quickly slither out, but lets nothing back in. Then, it uses the concealed passage to return to its usual place and patches it back up. As soon as it is large enough to catch a porcupine mouse, it will do so at the first possible opportunity and replace most of the twigs and needles with the sharp quills and barbed bristles, which are considerably more effective. Any of the smaller predators that might harm the cableworm- wasps, lizards, shrews, even ants- are effectively excluded, perhaps after injuring themselves trying to get in. Even large mammals that try to dig them out are likely to be deterred by the spines in the burrow, and they’ll hardly have better luck trying to dig around it since L. serpentina constructs a burrow with several sharp turns.  Cross- section of larval female Lenivermis serpentina burrow But there is one predator that has learned how to exploit the cableworm’s very specific needs. Due to their spines, the crow relative Picidacorvus septemtrionalis doesn't usually find porcupine mice worth the trouble of eating. But it does know that gingerly picking up a live porcupine mouse and dropping it near the burrow of a serpentine cableworm will rarely fail entice a tastier treat out of the ground. Even though female cableworms are much larger than males and take much longer to reach adulthood, once they metamorphose into beetles the small, rather ordinary looking male will live much longer. This is because the young female imago ecloses already bulging with eggs, all the eggs she will lay in her lifetime. She mates once, spends a week or two laying them, then dies. The male has a much different story. He may live up to 2 years- spending much of his time feeding on fruit and flowers to keep up his energy, but also searching for females. There is only a short window of time to mate with a newly emerged female, so he doesn’t restrict his search to adults. If he discovers a burrow belonging to a large female L. serpentina larva, at great risk he will crawl down the burrow to stake her out until she metamorphoses. He avoids being attacked by freezing (since her feeding response is triggered by movement) and releasing an appeasing pheromone. Eventually she stops seeing him as food and he can move about freely, including brief forays from the burrow to find fallen fruit or nectar to eat. If he finds another male in the burrow upon his return, it will usually just flee- if not, he will start chewing at their legs and antennae until they are forced to move, causing the female larva to attack the unfamiliar smelling male. If he is lucky, the female will pupate and become an adult beetle in just weeks or months, and he may get a chance to mate again. If not, he may spend much of his lifespan awaiting the transformation of a single female. When it finally happens, she is often so bloated with eggs she cannot move- so after mating, she unloads a large number of eggs into the bottom of the burrow. When they hatch, the young larvae will begin to cannibalize their siblings until all but one have fled or been eaten. This one, if it is a female, will eventually inherit the burrow, while the others will disperse and build their own. After this, the female beetle clumsily digs her way out for the last time. She spends the rest of her life crawling around the forest floor laying eggs until her energy runs out or she is killed by a predator. Edited by HangingThief, Aug 23 2016, 07:29 AM.
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| Yiqi15 | Oct 31 2016, 03:06 PM Post #69 |
Prime Specimen
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Two questions: 1. Are there any birds or amphibians native to The Fire Forest? 2. Where is The Fire Forest located in the world? |
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Current/Completed Projects - After the Holocene: Your run-of-the-mill future evolution project. - A History of the Odessa Rhinoceros: What happens when you ship 28 southern white rhinoceri to Texas and try and farm them? Quite a lot, actually. Future Projects - XenoSphere: The greatest zoo in the galaxy. - The Curious Case of the Woolly Giraffe: A case study of an eocene relic. - Untittled Asylum Studios-Based Project: The truth behind all the CGI schlock - Riggslandia V.II: A World 150 million years in the making Potential Projects - Klowns: The biology and culture of a creepy-yet-fascinating being My Zoochat and Fadom Accounts - Zoochat - Fandom | |
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| CaledonianWarrior96 | Oct 31 2016, 03:29 PM Post #70 |
An Awesome Reptile
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Damn, I thought this had come back with another update there for a minute |
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Come check out and subscribe to my projects on the following subforums; Future Planet (V.2): the Future Evolution of Life on Earth (Evolutionary Continuum) The Meuse Legacy: An Alternative Outcome of the Mosasaur (Alternative Evolution) Terra Cascus: The Last Refuge of the Dinosaurs (Alternative Evolution) - Official Project - Foundation The Beryoni Galaxy: The Biologically Rich and Politically Complex State of our Galaxy (Habitational Zone) - Beryoni Critique Thread (formerly: Aliens of Beryoni) The Ecology of Skull Island: An Open Project for the Home of King Kong (Alternative Universe) The Ecology of Wakanda: An Open Project for the Home of Marvel's Black Panther (Alternative Universe) (Click bold titles to go to page. To subscribe click on a project, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "track topic" on the bottom right corner) And now, for something completely different
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| HangingThief | Nov 3 2016, 06:28 AM Post #71 |
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ghoulish
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1. Yes. In fact, there are multiple sections that briefly describe some bird species. 2. This takes place along what is now the western coast of Canada and Alaska |
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| IIGSY | Mar 26 2017, 03:21 PM Post #72 |
A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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Hey buddy, this is a really nice project. But, I must ask, is there LEECHES? |
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Projects Punga: A terraformed world with no vertebrates Last one crawling: The last arthropod ARTH-6810: A world without vertebrates (It's ded, but you can still read I guess) Potential ideas- Swamp world: A world covered in lakes, with the largest being caspian sized. Nematozoic: After a mass extinction of ultimate proportions, a single species of nematode is the only surviving animal. Tri-devonian: A devonian like ecosystem with holocene species on three different continents. Quotes Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups In honor of the greatest clade of all time More pictures Other cool things All African countries can fit into Brazil
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| cheesemeat | Mar 26 2017, 05:00 PM Post #73 |
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Fetus
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Why do wire worms really lay their eggs, (instead of just having their corpse burst with larvae) especially if there's not going to be a second batch? Also, why do they need that many nutrients? They may be big, but they're also thin, do they not catch things often? I also have a problem with pinevines. Why do they spend so much energy migrating instead of growing to the ground, reinforcing the husk of their dead host, and acting like a tree? Edited by cheesemeat, Mar 26 2017, 05:03 PM.
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| HangingThief | Mar 26 2017, 05:25 PM Post #74 |
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ghoulish
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Why would their corpse burst with larvae? For one thing, females don't lay all their eggs in the burrow. They lay a few hundred in the burrow, then they crawl out to wander around and scatter small batches of eggs. Since females don't feed as adults, they need lots of nutrients as larvae to produce eggs and fuel themselves. They also need protein to create the glue used to make cement. And yes, they don't catch prey often. Pine vines aren't like strangler figs. They're parasitic plants with limited ability to photosynthesize, so they need a living host, and if they stay one one tree for too long the branch they've attached themselves to will eventually die and fall off. |
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| HangingThief | Mar 26 2017, 05:28 PM Post #75 |
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ghoulish
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Um... no? It's not really an environment that would have many leeches. |
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11:56 AM Jul 13