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Out on a Branch; The radiations of clades after the Ages of Man and Jellyfish
Topic Started: Aug 11 2016, 12:53 AM (2,592 Views)
Rodlox Aug 11 2016, 12:53 AM Post #1
Superhuman
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The extinction of humankind marked the end of an era which had wiped out many species and a number of genera. Some groups teetered and tottered after that Great Winnowing, and and it was easier for groups to perish if they had held only a handful of member species during the Age of Man - the Aardvark, for example, and the Monotremes.

Other groups had been pushed to the edge by humans, and they simply did not survive the Cnidariacene. Some, such as the Ratites, went out flamboyantly; others, such as the Cetaceans, did not.

Thus far, my goal is to focus on the second era following the Winnowing, with visits to the first era here and there.

Contents by Era:
The Winnowing
-See Below

Cnidariacene
-The Last Whale - The Last Whale
- The Last Lingering Penguin - The Last Lingering Penguin
-Blind Sharks & their Tangles - Blind Sharks and their Tangles
-The Last Ratite & The Three Major Cats - Ratite and cats
-The Last Crocodilians - Last Crocodilians
-The jellyfish of the land: arid beaches - arid beaches
-Sharks & the ocean bottoms - Sharks and the Ocean bottoms
- Mesoamerican Island Bees - Island Bees
- Australia's Seawoods - Seawoods
- Hawaii's Top Predator - the Vladpsychosis food chain
- Australia's interior - Kangaroos, Oasis Mice, Cats, and Quolls
- in the Arctic: Tunnel Bees and their foes - Tunnel Bees


?era - North American Riverlungers - Riverlungers

The Littoriocene (yes, the Littorial Age}
-Gigagnathid birds - Gigagnathids
-Velvet Worms - Velvet Worms
-Conquests of the Sea - Sea Cats
- what the Turtles became: the Turtlefluke and Flapshells - Turtleflukes
- Antelopes 2 - Sahara Giants

Habitats:
- South American Dryforest - Dryforest
- Fynbos, part 1 - Part One

Interactions
- Grappler vs Bear (amazon dryforest)

What do I imagine would happen within thirty million years of the end of the Littoriocene?
-small-scale mass extinctions, wiping out many of the genera which had made themselves comfortable in the heat of these two after-human eras.
-Like the Tethys before it, the Atlantic would begin to close.
-The return of tropical rainforests.
-The Horn of Africa breaks off. (I want to say it runs aground into Australia, and they form a new land with India - whether or not India is still part of Asia: Gondwana's Revenge!) :)
- Africa and Europe unite.


The Extinct List:
{those with a (?) are unsure at the present time, for one reason or another, but leaning towards total extinction}

*of the Birds:
-Ratites
-Parrots
-Penguins
-
*of the Reptiles:
-Tuatara
-Sea Turtles
-
*of the Mammals:
-Monotrema
-Marsupial Moles
-Microbiotheriidae
-Koalas
-Atlantogenata:
---Xenarthra
-Perisodactyla
-Pholidota
-Pinnapeds
-Primates
-Pigs

Author's Note: I believe the phrase is "kill your darlings." Well, I've just wiped out almost all my favorite animals; time to evolve some new ones. :)
Edited by Rodlox, Nov 27 2016, 03:21 AM.
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Parts of the Cluster Worlds:
"Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP)
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Beetleboy Dec 9 2016, 01:11 PM Post #46
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neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
* * * * * * * * *
Nice work here! :)

Although one little criticism, if I may. I love your creatures and designs, but often there's little or no information describing the animal's appearance. Everything else is really cool, but I struggle to imagine the animals without some kind of description.
Quote:
 

In the early Age Of Man, the Shasta Ground Sloth spread the seeds of the Joshua Tree [Yucca brevifolia spp.]. Following the sloth's extinction, the trees lingered on.

The trees found a new partner in the Cnidaracene -- the Gerboaman rodents {Jerboamimidae}, whose radiation fed many, from Pumas to Grapplers to Hungerbunnies.

Gerboamen were perfect partners all through the Littoriocene and into the Cryocene. Aside from the edges of that had been the Mexican and northern Central American Highlands, Joshua Trees only remained in "the Yellowstone Hotspot" {despite its name, it was by this point alongside the Appalachian Foothills}. And when it reached that point, it would go exterpated when the Hotspot erupted...or extinct if the Hotspot only erupted after the southern lands froze over first.
When this occurs, the survivor will have been defeated, and whether or not it has been living on borrowed time, its like will never again be seen.

For example, the post above is really good, but there is practically no information on the jerboaman, nothing in the way of description.

Please don't take this the wrong way, I really like this project. Keep up the good work! :)
Also, I want to know what the hell a hungerbunny is. It sounds brilliant.
~ The Age of Forests ~
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Rodlox Dec 14 2016, 12:51 AM Post #47
Superhuman
* * * * * * * * *
whether or not i can get the picture of those Jerboamen specimens scanned in, there's at least this:

JERBOAMEN:

In the north of North America, the voles and the lemmings enjoyed a brief flowering before they met their end at the figurative hands of the Jerboamen clade; their ending was far more complete - near total - than what befel the Walking Frogs as the Jerboamen expanded.

Named for the Type Specimen's similarity to the Jerboa, these species reveled in the spread of arid habitats across the majority of North America. From the 700 lb. Vancouveriensis phytophilia to the 2 oz. Cactifossa elaborata magnificens, they moved not simply into niches once held by rodents, but also into territory more associated with groups such as the mammoth and ground sloths. And it was this wealth of large-bodied herbivores which facilitated the development of the Grapplers {those descendents of the Puma}.

Given that the Jerboamen clade was cut down to only a handful of cold-tolerant(ish) species by the arrival of the Cryocene, it is unsurprising that the clade is no more well-known than the bygone Creodonts. Oddly, Jerboamen fossils are about as common as bat remains.

Many Jerboamen genera were in life observed loping like kangaroos or rabbits; this may be behavioral camoflage to trick hungerbunnies, or a legacy of being ancestrally bipedal before adopting quadrapedalism (and then some of their descendants re-evolved bipedalism).

And it was that sequence of locomotion which provided a key clue in the bones for those which have to date been found: the Arch Bones of the neck. Imagine a large species of kangaroo walking slowly on all fours, the forelegs moving, and then the hind legs moving forwards, and the body would - in the jerboamen, if not in the kangaroos - then rest in that position, feed while held at that angle, etc. The Arch Bones are a result of the neck holding that position so the head could remain held horizontally while the body was at that severe angle. And it was from here that the large-bodied basal Jerboaman species radiated into small- and medium-sized body niches, as well as a few in which it became even larger. The Arch Bones thus became a way of distinguishing true Jerboamen from their nearest rodentish relatives, which possess strong necks but no arch.
.---------------------------------------------.
Parts of the Cluster Worlds:
"Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP)
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Rodlox Dec 14 2016, 01:03 AM Post #48
Superhuman
* * * * * * * * *
Hungerbunnies

Once again, conservation could only do so much, and the North American Jackrabbits failed to survive teh Human-Cnidaracene Boundary.

The common rabbits, however, were not stopped even by the shrinkage of their forests and fields. It was, in fact, this opening of all the spaces in combination with the extinctions of Jackrabbits and Bobcats, which led to a radiation in the Early Cnidaracene of which many did not outlast the Era [marked below with a † † -- single †s denote lineages which did not make it past the Mid Cnidaracene].

In some lineages, the dung-eating habits of the ancestral rabbits came to play a greater or lesser part in the lives of the descendant species - the Squats, for instance, which produced various mollusc-munching subspecies. Whereas the shrew-sized Cactileapers abandoned dung-eating entirely in favor of sipping cactus pollen and devouring any bats which approached their cactus' flowers.

-Carnolagus
....> Carnolagus {meat-eating bunnies}
...........* Killer Bunnies †
...........* Bughops † †
...........* Cactileapers

....>Acyionyxolagus {cheetah-rabbits}
...........* Hungerbunnies
...........* Squats {coprovores}
............* Beachsquats {durophages} † †

-Angerbunnies
....> Angerbunnies †
....> Burrowing Angerbunnies † †
.---------------------------------------------.
Parts of the Cluster Worlds:
"Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP)
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Beetleboy Dec 14 2016, 02:15 PM Post #49
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neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
* * * * * * * * *
This is great thanks for the extra info!!
~ The Age of Forests ~
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Rodlox Dec 14 2016, 11:06 PM Post #50
Superhuman
* * * * * * * * *
Beetleboy
Dec 14 2016, 02:15 PM
This is great thanks for the extra info!!
welcome.

I'm afraid I'm not sure how much longer this project will last, for three reasons:
a. I'm angry at myself for not abiding by the two-Era limit I gave myself at the start (the Cryocene was supposed to only be for the challenge thread)
b. other writing obligations are eating up time I could be critter-making.
c. by the time the writing works are done, I suspect (based on past experiences) that Out On A Branch will have dried up in my brain.

I hope I'm wrong, and I'll try to come back here and detail bits and pieces from time to time (that's part of why I dropped names like "Hungerbunnies" and such - as bait I knew I would grab hold of & speculate on, even if i forgot everything)


i hope i'm wrong; but if i'm not, i figure good readers (such as yourself) deserve a heads-up.
.---------------------------------------------.
Parts of the Cluster Worlds:
"Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP)
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