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Obscure Taxa; For interesting or obscure organisms you'd like to share.
Topic Started: Dec 14 2016, 09:46 PM (48,942 Views)
lamna
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In the past lagomorphs were considered to be within rodents, and when they got split off, some people suspected other rodents should go with them.

In fact, lagomorphs have had some pretty weird stuff proposed for their classification.

http://darrennaish.blogspot.co.uk/2006/05/most-freaky-of-all-mammals-rabbits.html

Anyway, onto the coolest kinds of animals, those with Notochords!

One my post about the mole-rat bauplan, one of the groups I mentioned were the blesmols, the one that include what most people think of as mole rats*. The group they are part of is called Phiomorpha. Africa, during the early Cenozoic was an island continent, and developed its own unique fauna including the Afrotheres. But it's pretty hard to keep rodents out, some managed to migrate onto the continent, and that's where Phiomorpha originated.

While blesmols are still a successful group, in general the group has been replaced by squirrels and mice. The last three surface dwellers remaining are the dassie rat and the cane rats.

The dassie rat is interesting as it has adapted to live in rocky areas. They have bare padded feet to help them grip and have many adaptations to allow them to squeeze into crevices in the rocks.They have flattened bodies, ribs that are able to flex and they even have nipples on the side of their bodies rather than on their belly.
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The other two are both cane rats, or grasscutters, and they are quite large rodents, weighting between 6-10kg, which if you need a comparison, means they are larger than cats. They are large enough that they can be farmed, like rabbit or guinea pigs.
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I suspect that they're going to start ending up in petshops in the near future.

*Unhelpfully the naked mole rat is actually distinct enough that it's usually placed in its own Family Heterocephalidae rather than in Bathyergidae, true blesmols. But they are close.
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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IIGSY
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lamna
Apr 22 2017, 12:02 PM
In the past lagomorphs were considered to be within rodents, and when they got split off, some people suspected other rodents should go with them.

In fact, lagomorphs have had some pretty weird stuff proposed for their classification.

http://darrennaish.blogspot.co.uk/2006/05/most-freaky-of-all-mammals-rabbits.html

Anyway, onto the coolest kinds of animals, those with Notochords!
Wait a minute. Are you saying that lagomorphs don't have notochords?
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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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Carlos
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JohnFaa
Dec 22 2016, 04:54 PM

Resurrected here and here, btw.
Lemuria:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

Terra Alternativa:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/

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lamna
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You guys like rodents? No? Too bad.
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Africa is a bit of a gold mine for unusually "relict" groups of rodents. I suspect that's because of it's unique position. Australia has been so isolated that it's rodent fauna is comparatively recent and they are all mice. Still interesting, I'll probably get round to them. But mice.

South America was also very isolated until recently, and still have a lot of their native Caviomorphs*. Africa however, while isolated enough for different groups to emerge, is close enough to Eurasia that there has been a lot of contact too.

Now you might be familiar with the Hystricomorphs and the two main branches. The Phiomorphan branch, old world porcupines and our old friends the blesmols, dassie rats and cane rats and the Caviomorphan branch, home New World animals like chinchilla and guinea pigs.

But there is a third group one that split off before those two were separated by the Atlantic. This is the Ctenodactyloidea. It includes the Laotian rock rat and the African Gundis.

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There are currently five species of gundi spread across four genera. Speke's gundi, felou gundi, desert gundi, mzab gundi and the common gundi. They are found throughout northern Africa in drier regions, and they lack the strong layer of orange enamel many rodents have.

They are also very good and soft looking.


Top quality rodent.

*Though interestingly, the seem to mostly larger animals and mole-rat like creatures. Are mice not as good as these roles? Is this the last refugee of other rodents?
Edited by lamna, Apr 23 2017, 07:45 AM.
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Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural


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JohnFaa
Apr 23 2017, 06:32 AM
JohnFaa
Dec 22 2016, 04:54 PM

Resurrected here and here, btw.
You think those are obscure? I'v had to deal with xenopods and miomopterans!
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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Carlos
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Those are at least known in the general biologist/zoologist community.

Everyone except a few paleontologists knows about anything I post.
Lemuria:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

Terra Alternativa:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/

My Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/Carliro

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IIGSY
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JohnFaa
Apr 23 2017, 05:46 PM
Those are at least known in the general biologist/zoologist community.
Yeah, no. Ask an average biologist or even a paleontologist what a protelytropteran is and they'll be stumped. Have you heard of haptopods? No, you haven't.
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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Scrublord
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Oh yes I have. It's a basal clade of arachnids whose relationships to spiders, scorpions, and mites is unclear.
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IIGSY
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Scrublord
Apr 23 2017, 06:45 PM
Oh yes I have. It's a basal clade of arachnids whose relationships to spiders, scorpions, and mites is unclear.
Nice. But I was talking to Johnfaa.
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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Lycaon
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How are you so sure he doesn't know about them? I found them within a second on Wikipedia of all places..
Lamna
 
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LittleLazyLass
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Why are we arguing over this again? Some people will know about any given group and some people won't know about that same group.
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IIGSY
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Strashilids where an odd group of insects from the Jurassic. At first, they where though to be large, early relatives of fleas that sucked blood from dinosaurs. This was due to their large claws. But new revelations have dispelled this. They where actually amphibious flies.
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A new fossil of two individuals mating showed that claws where using to hold mates, rather than grasp unto hosts. These fossils also had gills, which showed they where aquatic.

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Reconstruction of Strashila daohugouensis

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Reconstruction of habitat and probable mating behavior
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
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Inceptis
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Behold the glorious Asaphoidea!

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These guys evolved in an inland sea in post-europe in the Ordovician. They gradually evolved longer and longer eyestalks, likely due to the changes in turbidity. It's thought that they lay in the sediment, waiting for prey to pass by. They dissapeared in the O-S mass extinction. Quite popular among fossil collectors.
This was getting fairly big.
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Datura
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Nature beat me to the sarcosporales, it seems.
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Velociraptor
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Reptile
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This is the helmeted hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil)

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It is native to Malaysia, Borneo, and Sumatra. It is unusual in the fact that unlike most hornbills, which have hollow casques used as resonating chambers, its casque is solid. Males of this species fight for territory by ramming into each other in midair with their casques, kind of like an avian pachycephalosaur.

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Sadly this species is critically endangered, due to the demand for its casques for "hornbill ivory" or "red ivory", which is carved into decorations and is highly sought after in China.

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Unnamed No K-Pg project: coming whenever, maybe never. I got ideas tho.
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