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| Artiodactyls After Man; A group that isn't given enough credit | |
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| Topic Started: May 14 2016, 06:09 PM (501 Views) | |
| Scrublord | May 14 2016, 06:09 PM Post #1 |
Father Pellegrini
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A quick glance through a lot of future evolution projects on this very forum reveals a recurring trend: the artiodactyls (the even-toed hoofed mammals) are invariably either extinct or substantially reduced. As usual, the origins of this cliche lie with Dougal Dixon, who replaced deer and antelope with rabbits in After Man. However, while many artiodactyls today are indeed rare and endangered, there are plenty that are not, and the group as a whole has tremendous evolutionary potential. Artiodactyls are one of the most variable of all mammal groups. They range in size from the lesser chevrotain, which is no larger than a rabbit, to the blue whale, which is the largest animal on Earth. They are also found on every continent except Australia and Antarctica (and have been introduced to the former as livestock) and live in the oceans in the form of whales and dolphins. Finally, artiodactyls have a history of evolutionary innovation. Whales have evolved a fully aquatic lifestyle, ruminants a multi-chambered stomach for digesting grass, and camels an extraordinarily efficient liquid-waste system. So what does the future hold for this extraordinary lineage? Well, there is no denying that today a great many artiodactyl species are threatened. But there are also many that are not, as well as feral farm animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs, which could become the ancestors of a new generation of hoofed mammals. Many of these animals have been introduced to places, such as New Zealand and Hawaii, where no such animals lived in the past. Leaving aside the obvious ecological destruction they have caused, this could serve as an interesting evolutionary "experiment". In the relatively near future, evolutionarily speaking, we might see deer that have adapted to the steep topography of New Zealand like mountain goats, or perhaps goats that have evolved to browse in Hawaii's tropical forests. As mentioned before, it's also entirely possible that we could see new innovations in this adaptable group. Today, the only purely carnivorous artiodactyls are the whales, but pigs, duikers and chevrotains all occasionally eat meat, and other carnivorous artiodactyls existed in the past. If existing predator groups were to decline, could they perhaps evolve into full-time predators? Alternatively, perhaps a family will evolve a novel type of display structure for mating purposes, just as deer did with antlers. It's worth noting that the artiodactyls are far more ecologically diverse and evolutionarily innovative than their distant relatives the perissodactyls, which today only include the horses, tapirs, and rhinoceroses. This group was once substantially more diverse than it is now, but the ruminant radiation caused many of them to be outcompeted. Today the ruminants--the deer, cattle, goats, sheep, antelope, pronghorns, and giraffes-- are the most successful group of mammalian herbivores, and seem unlikely to be dethroned from that position in the near future. Artiodactyls are one of the most diverse mammal groups in the world, and this ensures that they will continue to thrive in the future. |
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My Projects: The Neozoic Redux Valhalla--Take Three! The Big One Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com 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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| trex841 | May 14 2016, 06:14 PM Post #2 |
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I do like the idea of hooved carnivores, and pigs are a bit overdone for that. |
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F.I.N.D.R Field Incident Logs A comprehensive list of all organisms, artifacts, and alternative worlds encountered by the foundation team. At the present time, concepts within are inconsistent and ever shifting. (And this is just the spec related stuff) | |
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| Dragonthunders | May 14 2016, 07:23 PM Post #3 |
The ethereal archosaur in blue
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I remember that weeks ago someone was talking about this here, but here seems a bit different because the topic includes more about the others groups.
Eh, How many? and where I can find those "lots" of projects? Seeing most of the projects here, there is a great part created with a very different context like a big mass extinctions that wipe out even artiodactyls, very distant times, or terraformed worlds, so the thing of "recurring trend" seems questionable in the way that people are applying it in their projects. And I do not think we can discuss about these short projects that sometimes are based on the TFIW/After man premise that just last like 1 month before people leave it in the darkness.
There is a probability that can evolve full carnivorous diet (something like Entelodon-like forms?) but that thing of decline is not really necessary, they could become carnivores and at the same time live together with other lineages , but of course, depending on what role they can take: a scavenger, an active hunter, an ambush predator, ect.
Seems more that perissodactyls were reduced was climate change in the oligocene, and rumiants took advantage of the ecological gap. |
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Projects "Active" projects The Future is Far Welcome to the next chapters of the evolution of life on earth, travel the across the earth on a journey that goes beyond the limits, a billion years of future history in the making. The SE giants project Wonder what is the big of the big on speculative evolution? no problem, here is the answer Coming one day Age of Mankind Humanity fate and its possible finals. The Long Cosmic Journey The history outside our world. The alternative paths The multiverse, the final frontier... Holocene park: Welcome to the biggest adventure of the last 215 million years, where the age of mammals comes to life again! Cambrian mars: An interesting experiment on an unprecedented scale, the life of a particular and important period in the history of our planet, the cambric life, has been transported to a terraformed and habitable mars in an alternative past. Two different paths, two different worlds, but same life and same weirdness. My deviantart | |
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| Scrublord | May 14 2016, 08:59 PM Post #4 |
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Father Pellegrini
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Those "short" projects that never seem to pan out are what I was talking about. The vast majority of them are (or were) just After Man/TFIW clones, with many of the cliches that implies. And my point still stands: artiodactyls are a diverse group of evolutionary innovators, and will not be killed off or marginalized so easily. Edited by Scrublord, May 14 2016, 09:09 PM.
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My Projects: The Neozoic Redux Valhalla--Take Three! The Big One Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com 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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