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Biggest biological plot twist
Topic Started: Nov 6 2016, 12:28 PM (19,620 Views)
Sphenodon
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Calcareous

That was excellent, GhoulBoudin!


In the early days of the Ediacaran, there came to be a bizarre group of free-swimming, colonial stem-cnidarians similar to (yet completely unrelated to) siphonophores in terms of design. Although successful, the group was highly limited in their ability to expand; being the only free-swimming, pelagic animals of the time, they enjoyed a global distribution, but their high-energy lifestyle (for the time) combined with a diet completely reliant upon plankton and planktonic bacteria (both of which were scarce at the time) and a rather fragile structure left them unable to expand into many niches.

As time passed, new changes cropped up within the group; the zooids became further specialized and far more numerous, with more recent species forming colonies comprised of hundreds of thousands to millions of tiny, densely-interlocked zooids rather than a few hundred complex ones. In addition, these colonial arrangements began to appear even early on in embryogenesis, forming clonal colonies even when their base organism was only a few cells in size. Individual zooids progressively lost more and more autonomy, eventually being incapable of moving independently from one another or even feeding on their own, relying exclusively on nutrients transferred from zooids located at the front of the colony. Zooids in certain bodily sections refined themselves for increasingly specific purposes - some were devoted only to reproduction, some only to moving in a concerted manner with other zooids to propel the colony through the seas.

Eventually, one tiny species made a massive breakthrough during the late stages of the Ediacaran: each of its constituent zooids was so reduced as to be merely one cell, with zooids being layered three-fold in a manner mimicking the tissue layers of their non-colonial counterparts so as to provide further protection for the colony from abrasion (a layer of zooids, if scraped off, could easily be cloned back in their new monocellular format). Experiencing a brief, yet massive, expansion, they remained limited in their ability to expand further than the substrate dwellers of the time due to the still-scarce plankton upon which they fed.

Finally, one species took to a new route. With their newfound "tissue" layering system allowing for further abrasion, it took to skimming the biomats on the substrate surfaces to glean nutrition, freeing it from reliance upon plankton. Soon after, a derivative species took this one step further: burrowing through the (by now several inches thick even in relatively shallow areas) biomats completely, developing an even more resilient structure in the process. Due to the massive new influx of food material (as well as its density), the colonies began to compartmentalize their internal systems of food management so as to more efficiently process their food. Subsequently, other systems of zooid-cells began to compartmentalize, from robust, abrasion-resistant exterior layers to branching zooid arrays dedicated solely to gathering oxygen and distributing it throughout the colony.

The mass influx of burrowers caused the collapse of the biomat system of eons prior, replacing it with a system of substrate upheaval and overturning. The sessile, jelly-bodied filter-feeders of old died out completely, no longer able to contend with their new competitors. So, too, did the archaic forms of colonial animals die out, their more advanced and efficient relatives rapidly encroaching upon their niches. This was of little consequence for the new conquerors; while some forms died out in the upheaval (such as the primitive biomat specialists, who were replaced by substrate-burrowing relatives as sand replaced sludge), the sudden redistribution of nutrition once locked within the biomats throughout the oceans allowed for not only planktonic biota to thrive more than ever before, but the sudden appearance of substrate with mixed-in nutrients allowed for some types of algae to anchor themselves within it and take on a colonial form, unhindered by lack of sustenance or supporting habitat. Prompted by these and other changes, complex life at all levels diversified at previously unseen levels henceforth.

Such it was that what we now know as the bilaterans were born not of meager Ediacaran worms, but of bizarre zooid-based colonies that re-invented multicellularity and organogenesis as we know it.

And such it was that the Cambrian Explosion was set into motion.
Edited by Sphenodon, Dec 11 2016, 01:45 AM.

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Some of my ideas (nothing real yet, but soon):
Refugium: A last chance for collapsing ecosystems and their inhabitants.
Pansauria: A terraforming project featuring the evolution of exactly one animal - the marine iguana.
Mars Renewed: An insight into the life of Mars thirty million years after its terraforming by humankind.
Microcosm: An exceedingly small environment.
Alcyon: A planet colonized by species remodeled into new niches by genetic engineering.
Oddballs: Aberrant representatives of various biological groups compete and coexist.

..and probably some other stuff at some point (perhaps a no K-T project). Stay tuned!
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ÐK
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Pagan Peasent Tet
Dec 11 2016, 12:49 AM
Snakes are just weiner dogs from the far future. Dog breeders bred the wiener dog to have shorter and shorter legs and over time it became serpentine. Then humans sent a bunch of them to the Paleozoic where they continued to evolve into their modern forms. The only reason they don't have hair is because in the Cretaceous they caugh a genetic skin disease that made them go bald and grow scaly skin.
The Biggest Biological Plot Twist™ here is that they somehow managed to catch a genetic disease.
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pfft, DK making a project

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I'm sorry but in what alternative universe would thousands of zebras be sent back in time by some sort of illegal time travel group to change history and preparing them by making gigantic working animatronic allosaurs?

~Komodo, Zebra's sent back in time (4/1/13)
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Even
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Deltatheroideans survived K-Pg for a good 10 million years (this is real!)
Edited by Even, Dec 11 2016, 01:05 AM.
Currently a part of Specworld's revival and The Dark Phoenix's Dinosaur Spec... Still open for idea exchanges and commentaries

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HangingThief
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Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Dec 10 2016, 10:46 PM
Hilarious. I feel Jurassic zebras will now be a running joke.
It already is. It's a reference to a thread where somebody asked what would happen if a bunch of zebras were introduced to the Jurassic, which led to a very interesting discussion involving robotic theropods.
Hey.


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IIGSY
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HangingThief
Dec 11 2016, 01:25 AM
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Dec 10 2016, 10:46 PM
Hilarious. I feel Jurassic zebras will now be a running joke.
It already is. It's a reference to a thread where somebody asked what would happen if a bunch of zebras were introduced to the Jurassic, which led to a very interesting discussion involving robotic theropods.
Ah, I see
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.

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IIGSY
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HangingThief
Dec 11 2016, 01:25 AM
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Dec 10 2016, 10:46 PM
Hilarious. I feel Jurassic zebras will now be a running joke.
It already is. It's a reference to a thread where somebody asked what would happen if a bunch of zebras were introduced to the Jurassic, which led to a very interesting discussion involving robotic theropods.
Please link me the thread.
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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HangingThief
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ghoulish
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Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Dec 11 2016, 07:31 PM
HangingThief
Dec 11 2016, 01:25 AM
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Dec 10 2016, 10:46 PM
Hilarious. I feel Jurassic zebras will now be a running joke.
It already is. It's a reference to a thread where somebody asked what would happen if a bunch of zebras were introduced to the Jurassic, which led to a very interesting discussion involving robotic theropods.
Please link me the thread.
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5035895/1/
Hey.


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Sayornis
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Birds are not dinosaurs. They're monotremes. Why do you think the platypus has a bill?
The Library is open. (Now under new management!)
Dr Nitwhite
Aug 19 2016, 07:42 PM
As I said before, the Library is like spec crack.
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Rodlox
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Sayornis
Dec 11 2016, 09:52 PM
Birds are not dinosaurs. They're monotremes. Why do you think the platypus has a bill?
because the alligator's arms were too short to reach so he could pay.
obvious commercial reference is obvious.
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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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Rodlox
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the true meaning and nature of the scathopods is that they are Scathing Feet!
:D
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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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IIGSY
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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Invertebrates are actually monophyletic.
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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Velociraptor
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Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Dec 10 2016, 11:45 PM
Rodlox
Dec 10 2016, 10:52 PM
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Dec 10 2016, 09:49 PM
"Fish" are a monyphyletic group
um, yes, that one's true.
No, its not, because "fish" excludes tetrapods.
It is if you don't arbitrarily exclude tetrapoda from fish.
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Unnamed No K-Pg project: coming whenever, maybe never. I got ideas tho.
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TerrificTyler
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Snazz God
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Crocodiles and squamates belong to the same clade.

Platypuses are actually just extremely derived ducks from the far future.

Posted Image


The Time Bubble- A universe-sized terrarium

My Deviantart


Wkhuh duh rqob wzr jhqghuv
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IIGSY
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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Velociraptor
Dec 12 2016, 07:04 PM
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Dec 10 2016, 11:45 PM
Rodlox
Dec 10 2016, 10:52 PM
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Dec 10 2016, 09:49 PM
"Fish" are a monyphyletic group
um, yes, that one's true.
No, its not, because "fish" excludes tetrapods.
It is if you don't arbitrarily exclude tetrapoda from fish.
The joke was supposed to be that a tetrapod excluding "fish" group was actually monphyletic
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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LittleLazyLass
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Proud quilt in a bag

Yeah, and the joke works, because nobody seriously calls tetrapods fish, there's nothing "arbitrary" about it.
totally not British, b-baka!
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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
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