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Obscure Taxa; For interesting or obscure organisms you'd like to share.
Topic Started: Dec 14 2016, 09:46 PM (48,926 Views)
Rodlox
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Vorsa
Aug 16 2017, 02:27 PM
How can such a large animal subsist purely on bats and crickets? Surely their population would suffer from malnutrition and subsequently collapse?
crocs don't need to eat quite so often as mammals
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HangingThief
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Vorsa
Aug 16 2017, 02:27 PM
How can such a large animal subsist purely on bats and crickets? Surely their population would suffer from malnutrition and subsequently collapse?
Animal protein is animal protein. Not only is the density of bats in a cage often huge, but their excrement brings huge amounts of nutrition into the cave ecosystem that fuels even more ridiculous densities of insects. No reason why any predator can't potentially subsist on small critters if there's enough of them.
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kusanagi
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More likely scavenge the dead bats? They do die and fall.
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HangingThief
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More likely than what? Nobody said anything that would contradict that they might scavenge dead bats.

I'm not sure how thoroughly this crocodile's diet has been studied, but if anyone remembers our salamander friend from a few pages back I imagine it's not impossible that it could supplement its diet with a bit of chiropteran coprophagy... something worth investigating if that isn't known to be untrue.
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Rebirth
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HangingThief
Aug 16 2017, 06:03 PM
More likely than what? Nobody said anything that would contradict that they might scavenge dead bats.

I'm not sure how thoroughly this crocodile's diet has been studied, but if anyone remembers our salamander friend from a few pages back I imagine it's not impossible that it could supplement its diet with a bit of chiropteran coprophagy... something worth investigating if that isn't known to be untrue.
Crocodilians have robust immune systems and can digest all kinds of animal matter, so they probably could eat guano without ill effects. Heck, American alligators are known to eat fruit.
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Vorsa
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HangingThief
Aug 16 2017, 03:11 PM
Vorsa
Aug 16 2017, 02:27 PM
How can such a large animal subsist purely on bats and crickets? Surely their population would suffer from malnutrition and subsequently collapse?
Animal protein is animal protein. Not only is the density of bats in a cage often huge, but their excrement brings huge amounts of nutrition into the cave ecosystem that fuels even more ridiculous densities of insects. No reason why any predator can't potentially subsist on small critters if there's enough of them.
How nutritious is guano though? And whilst the number of bats may be huge, I don't think a crocodile is especially adapted for hunting fast-moving aerial prey and the number of dead bats surely isn't large enough to support a whole, large population.

Clearly, these crocs are living off something, I'm just confused as to what and how they're doing so.
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HangingThief
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Vorsa
Aug 17 2017, 03:48 AM
HangingThief
Aug 16 2017, 03:11 PM
Vorsa
Aug 16 2017, 02:27 PM
How can such a large animal subsist purely on bats and crickets? Surely their population would suffer from malnutrition and subsequently collapse?
Animal protein is animal protein. Not only is the density of bats in a cage often huge, but their excrement brings huge amounts of nutrition into the cave ecosystem that fuels even more ridiculous densities of insects. No reason why any predator can't potentially subsist on small critters if there's enough of them.
How nutritious is guano though? And whilst the number of bats may be huge, I don't think a crocodile is especially adapted for hunting fast-moving aerial prey and the number of dead bats surely isn't large enough to support a whole, large population.

Clearly, these crocs are living off something, I'm just confused as to what and how they're doing so.
Extremely nutritious
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Carlos
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Also notable that it co-exists with various fruit bat species, which aren't small by bat standards.
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kusanagi
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Rebirth
Aug 16 2017, 08:05 PM
HangingThief
Aug 16 2017, 06:03 PM
More likely than what? Nobody said anything that would contradict that they might scavenge dead bats.

I'm not sure how thoroughly this crocodile's diet has been studied, but if anyone remembers our salamander friend from a few pages back I imagine it's not impossible that it could supplement its diet with a bit of chiropteran coprophagy... something worth investigating if that isn't known to be untrue.
Crocodilians have robust immune systems and can digest all kinds of animal matter, so they probably could eat guano without ill effects. Heck, American alligators are known to eat fruit.
Alligators can digest vegetable matter as well as can humans, and have been filmed stealing maize same as folklore tells. But alligator is special in some ways.
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Carlos
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Have South America's most underrated top predators: the carnivorous armadillo Macroeuphractus (100 kg) and the carnivorous opossum Thylophorops (7 kilos).

Both were running the show when sparassodonts and terror birds began to decline and before carnivorans came:

Posted Image

Posted Image
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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Flisch
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Why did sparassodonts and phorusracids decline? Doesn't seem like it was competition issues if something else had to jump in to fill the vacuum.
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Carlos
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Climatic changes + asteroid impact disrupting south american ecologies in the late Miocene.
Lemuria:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

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

My Patreon:

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Carlos
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In general, this also goes to show that the old adage of "carnivorans outcompeted south american predators" is bull, since other than procyonids and maybe canids Carnivora was entirely absent from South America until the mid-Pleistocene, long after sparassodonts and sebecids became extinct and just after these armadillos and opossums died.

Phorhusrhacids got to hang around until the late Pleistocene, at least.
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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Sayornis
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Boquila trifoliata, sometime called the Chameleon Vine, is a vine found in South America which can mimic the leaf shape of the tree it's clinging on (though it need not make direct contact for mimicry). This is most likely a defense against caterpillars and other herbivores.Its mimicry is not perfect; it can't seem to accurately form saw-tooth edges, instead making leaves with a few indentations (as in panels F and D of the below image).

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Just how the plant "knows" what leaf-shape to adopt is unknown. One interesting theory (which seems to be backed up by evidence from other plants) is that the plant can see, an idea first proposed in 1905 but then forgotten.
Posted Image
Alternative ideas include chemical signalling and horizontal gene transfer.

Perhaps relevant: leaf-shape algorithms.
Edited by Sayornis, Aug 20 2017, 09:46 PM.
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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HangingThief
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Ok, this is one of the coolest things i've seen in this thread.
Hey.


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