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| 3 Simple steps to make plausible giant arthropods; without having to drastically change their anatomy | |
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| Topic Started: Nov 13 2016, 06:00 PM (2,990 Views) | |
| Rodlox | Nov 14 2016, 10:38 PM Post #31 |
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Superhuman
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What he is saying is that arthropods have a more variable number of legs than vertebrates. That being said, what prevents vertebrates from becoming degenerate in the way the mollusks and arthropods have? And don't you dare say it's because they're "more complex".[/quote]depends what you mean by degenerate. snakes lost their limbs. crocodilians lost endothermy. (and some say Naked Mole Rats are heading that way too) |
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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 | Nov 14 2016, 10:39 PM Post #32 |
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Superhuman
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one vertabrate? domestic dogs. one vertabrate group - fishes, as a clade, not as a grade. |
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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 | Nov 14 2016, 11:09 PM Post #33 |
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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depends what you mean by degenerate. snakes lost their limbs. crocodilians lost endothermy. (and some say Naked Mole Rats are heading that way too) [/quote]Why is endothermy italicized? Is it significant? |
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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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| IIGSY | Nov 15 2016, 06:30 AM Post #34 |
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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? |
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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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| Flisch | Nov 15 2016, 10:43 AM Post #35 |
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Superhuman
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I would argue that fish are very different from birds, even when compared to the differences between arthropods. Plus, a maggot is very different from its adult form, but that is also the case with vertebrates and their embryos. Another thing to remember is, even though maggots look superficially different from their adult forms, they still have all (or at the very least most) of the anatomical features of the imago, such as the mouth parts, eyes, legs. Even internal anatomy is similar, they use trachea and the same blood circulatory system. They have all the parts of their adult forms, just arranged and shaped differently. An insect larva is little more than an external embryo. Of course it doesn't make the full metamorphosis higher insects go through less fascinating, but it helps putting things into perspective. Even though the body is more or less liquified, the base anatomy doesn't take a 180° turn.
Because it's very hard, if not impossible, to evolve new limbs out of nothing. Arachnids don't have more limbs than insects. Insects just have less. Somewhere during their evolution, one pair of limbs on insects evolved or degenerated into something else. Feelers are derived limbs, the flat fin-like scales at the end of lobster tails are derived limbs. Mouthparts are derived limbs. Arthropods did not evolve new limbs during their evolution, they simply started with a lot and then lost some of them, ending up with, for insects, three pairs of limbs. Some insects go even further and are on their way of evolving their front pair into yet another non-limb appendage, for example mantises and water striders. It could be that in the future there will be an arthropod group evolved from insects that has only four limbs. And before anyone points out that myriapods have a lot of limbs and that the number changes between groups: Yes, that is true, but do you know why that is? Because the middle segments of myriapods are repeated. A random mutation resulting in the loss or addition of more middle segments isn't going to mess up the inernal anatomy. The same can't be said for crustaceans, arachnids and insects. Their segments are highly specialized and can't simply disappear or multiply without causing severe health defects. Also how are arthropods more "diverse" because they have a variable number of limbs anyway? Have you ever heard of snakes, whales, aistopoda, eels, sirenia, slowworms, legless skinks and birds? |
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| Beetleboy | Nov 15 2016, 11:04 AM Post #36 |
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neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
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I clicked on this thread and what I saw was a really serious |
| ~ The Age of Forests ~ | |
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| Vorsa | Nov 15 2016, 12:04 PM Post #37 |
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Mysterious tundra-dwelling humanoid
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And to think. This all started because I said cockroaches haven't changed. |
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My Deviantart: http://desorages.deviantart.com/ Birbs "you are about to try that on a species that clawed its way to the top of a 4 billion year deep corpse pile of evolution. one that has committed the genocide you are contemplating several times already. they are the pinnacle of intelligence-based survival techniques and outnumber you 7 billion to 1" - humans vs machine | |
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| HangingThief | Nov 15 2016, 12:41 PM Post #38 |
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ghoulish
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Maggots lack true eyes, have mouthparts with a completely different structure than adult flies, and are totally legless. The world's leggiest myriapod has 750 limbs. I somehow doubt that basal myriapods all had 750 or more legs and and all modern species' figures represent reduction from that number. And one more thing:
Edited by HangingThief, Nov 15 2016, 04:51 PM.
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Hey. | |
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| Beetleboy | Nov 15 2016, 12:52 PM Post #39 |
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neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
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Can we please end this pointless argument? |
| ~ The Age of Forests ~ | |
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| Rodlox | Nov 15 2016, 01:53 PM Post #40 |
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Superhuman
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and you just demonstrated that you aren't reading the things you're replying to. |
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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 | Nov 15 2016, 03:31 PM Post #41 |
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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Guys, beetleboo is right, we are deviating too much. Also, we are not talking about "invertebrates" (please stop with that outdated group, it's not even good as convenient grade like 'fish'. It's like saying 'non mollusks' or 'not annelids', it's just stupid). We are talking about arthropods specifically. |
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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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| Flisch | Nov 15 2016, 06:46 PM Post #42 |
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Superhuman
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Can we please stop with this silly nonsense of calling a normal discussion a "heated" debate? Just because people disagree with each other doesn't make it a flamewar. Sigh.
Just like vertebrate embryos through various stages of their development.
I actually adressed this very point in my post? |
| We have a discord. If you want to join, simply message me, Icthyander or Sphenodon. | |
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| Vorsa | Nov 15 2016, 06:55 PM Post #43 |
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Mysterious tundra-dwelling humanoid
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Not really. You made a topic about plausible giant arthropods and we're discussing the accuracy of your ideas and whether or not arthropods are more diverse than vertebrates, which is actually quite an interesting discussion. Besides, invertebrates is a catch all term for any animal that is within animalia but isn't a vertebrate. There's nothing wrong with using it to describe all animals outside chordata as it's easy, simple and isn't exactly wrong. Yes, in this context we are only discussing arthropods but there's nothing bad about "invertebrates". |
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My Deviantart: http://desorages.deviantart.com/ Birbs "you are about to try that on a species that clawed its way to the top of a 4 billion year deep corpse pile of evolution. one that has committed the genocide you are contemplating several times already. they are the pinnacle of intelligence-based survival techniques and outnumber you 7 billion to 1" - humans vs machine | |
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| IIGSY | Nov 15 2016, 07:01 PM Post #44 |
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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Isn't exactly wrong, but it is very misleading. People get triggered every time someone uses "reptile", but they through around "invertebrate", like it's a valid group. Again, it's like saying "non annelid" or "not mollusk". It's technically not wrong, but it's very misleading. |
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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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| IIGSY | Nov 15 2016, 07:06 PM Post #45 |
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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Also, I would like to add that "age of mammals/dinosaurs" is very arbitrary. You could well say that it's been the age of tapeworms ever since the late paleozoic. Also, of course invertebrates are more diverse than vertebrates. You are comparing one little branch to the rest of the tree. It's simply not a fair comparison. A more fair comparison would be protostomes vs dueterostomes. Protostomes still win by a long shot though. Edited by IIGSY, Nov 15 2016, 07:07 PM.
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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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