| Speculative biology is simultaneously a science and form of art in which one speculates on the possibilities of life and evolution. What could the world look like if dinosaurs had never gone extinct? What could alien lifeforms look like? What kinds of plants and animals might exist in the far future? These questions and more are tackled by speculative biologists, and the Speculative Evolution welcomes all relevant ideas, inquiries, and world-building projects alike. With a member base comprising users from across the world, our community is the largest and longest-running place of gathering for speculative biologists on the web. While unregistered users are able to browse the forum on a basic level, registering an account provides additional forum access not visible to guests as well as the ability to join in discussions and contribute yourself! Registration is free and instantaneous. Join our community today! |
| Obscure Taxa; For interesting or obscure organisms you'd like to share. | |
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| Topic Started: Dec 14 2016, 09:46 PM (48,924 Views) | |
| DINOCARID | Sep 9 2017, 09:57 AM Post #586 |
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Adolescent
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I haven't posted much lately at all, so here, dragonflies!![]() A dragonhunter demonstrates how their species got it's common name. The Dragonhunter (Hagenius brevistylus) is a large (up to 5 inches long) dragonfly native to the eastern US and southeast Canada. Interesting for many reasons, this gomphid's primary claim to fame is it's big-game hunting lifestyle; they hunt such prey as large dragonflies, butterflies, and other hefty fliers, and have even been found targeting a hummingbird, despite the vertebrate's eventual escape, with the help of human hands. ![]() I personally don't think anyone should have intervened. They have also been recorded eating the palatable parts of monarch butterflies and leaving the rest, avoiding the cardenolide toxins they concentrate in their tissues. Their preferred hunting habitat is openings, especially around flowing water, where they either lie in wait on a perch, or patrol back and forth. Males, as typical of dragonflies, become territorial during the breeding season, defending a prime patch of flowing water, the habitat that their nymphs require. If a female accepts his advances, he will use claspers at the end of his abdomen to grab her by the neck, in a very rough manner, sometimes puncturing her exoskeleton or gouging her eyes. Once they mate, in the typical odanatan "wheel" position, the female will distribute her eggs, sometimes flying down repeatedly from a perch to lay one in the water, and sometimes making a long flight over an open stretch. Nymphs (or naiads) live in the leaves at the quiet edges of the stream, using their flat body to hide from prey and predator alike. ![]() The nymphs grow for four or more years before molting into the imago stage, which can be seen from April to September, depending on the location. The reason for this is mostly because I've been in a little pond near my house a lot, and besides tadpoles, Ranatra, giant water bug live individuals and sheds, and damselfly nymphs, I have found a lot of dragonfly nymphs there. |
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Check out my deviantart here Projects The Fieldguide to Somnial Organisms The Tetrarch (coming soon) | |
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| IIGSY | Sep 9 2017, 10:14 AM Post #587 |
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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Dragonflies. You can never go wrong with them. |
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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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| lerzid | Sep 9 2017, 01:02 PM Post #588 |
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Adolescent
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Spinolestes. I just found out that there was a recent analayst on Spinolestes , that revealed that it had a layer of hedgehog like spines under it's fur. And under that layer of spines, it had dermal scutes, like those on turtle shells and crocodile hide. The discovery of a new 125 million-year-old fossil spinolestes in Spain has pushed back the earliest record of preserved mammalian hair structures and inner organs by more than 60 million years. Here are some links. https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2015/10/16/125-million-year-old-fossil-reveals-early-mammalian-hair-and-spines[/URL] http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/science-spinolestes-xenarthrosus-cretaceous-mammal-03339.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v526/n7573/fig_tab/nature14905_F1.html?foxtrotcallback=true |
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I like oranges I also like a wide variety of Abantu abathandekayo, Happy Birthday! Is anyone truly sane? Is anybody truly insane? Does Appa have diabetes? Is Appa the avatar? Do I look like Ajit Pai? My friends have been asking me why I removed net neutrality. Am I even real. Existential Crisis in progress, DO NOT DISTURB. | |
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| trex841 | Sep 9 2017, 03:09 PM Post #589 |
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Entity
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I was just reading a joke on Tumblr that name dropped the Alpine salamander, whose claim to fame is that they are ovoviviparous, and in higher altitudes, their pregnancy can last for 3 years. |
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F.I.N.D.R Field Incident Logs A comprehensive list of all organisms, artifacts, and alternative worlds encountered by the foundation team. At the present time, concepts within are inconsistent and ever shifting. (And this is just the spec related stuff) | |
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| lerzid | Sep 10 2017, 09:00 AM Post #590 |
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Adolescent
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Eusocial Pistol Shrimp : Eusocial behavior has been discovered in the genus Synalpheus. The species Synalpheus regalis lives inside sponges in colonies that can number over 300 members. All of them are the offspring of a single large female, the queen, and a single male. The offspring are divided into workers who care for the young and predominantly male soldiers who protect the colony with their huge claws. S. regalis are exceptionally tolerant of conspecifics within their colonies, and aggressive towards conspecifics not of their own colony. These peaceful interactions are attributable to close genetic relatedness among nestmates. Allozyme data revealed that relatedness within colonies is high, averaging 0.50, indicating that colonies in this species represent close kin groups. The existence of such groups is an important prerequisite of explanations of social evolution based on kin selection. During the intruder experiment, resident shrimp contacted foreign conspecifics less and snapped more frequently than they did when faced with a nestmate. Because nestmates are generally close kin in S. regalis, this discrimination may reflect kin recognition and may help maintain the integrity of kin-structured social colonies. Nestmate discrimination likely involves both waterborne and contact chemical signals which have been shown to mediate sex recognition in other alpheids. The high frequency of intruder contacts with the queen may suggest that she produces pheromones like in social insects. |
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I like oranges I also like a wide variety of Abantu abathandekayo, Happy Birthday! Is anyone truly sane? Is anybody truly insane? Does Appa have diabetes? Is Appa the avatar? Do I look like Ajit Pai? My friends have been asking me why I removed net neutrality. Am I even real. Existential Crisis in progress, DO NOT DISTURB. | |
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| Rebirth | Sep 11 2017, 05:42 PM Post #591 |
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Adolescent
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Here are two New Zealand gecko species, both in the same genus (Mokopirirakau). Spoiler: click to toggle The black-eyed gecko (M. kahutarae) lives in higher altitudes than any other New Zealand lizard, up to 2,200 meters above sea level in mountains near Kaikoura and Nelson. It can be active at temperatures as low as 7 degrees C (harlequin geckos of Stewart Island can be active at 4, as said earlier in the thread) and is able to survive snowy weather in winter. They are endangered, the largest subpopulations having only 500 individuals and possibly declining due to introduced predators, and cannot be kept in captivity (it's been tried but like the harlequins they couldn't be kept cold enough). Their diet is largely unknown but is presumed to consist of invertebrates, and they can grow up to 18 centimeters long. Spoiler: click to toggle The forest gecko (M. granulatus) is one of the most common native lizards and is one of the most abundant NZ lizards in captivity, both in zoos and private collections. They were also one of the few lizard species (along with some North Island Naultinus) legally found in overseas collections (mostly in Europe) as they were not fully protected until 1996. They can reach 19 centimeters long and come in a ridiculous variety of colors (not morphs but natural variation) and are pretty easy to keep outdoors, making them quite popular among native reptile keepers here. Other alpine and forest species in the genus exist, from the far north all the way to Stewart Island, but these are my favorites. |
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My Projects Spoiler: click to toggle
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| Dragonthunders | Sep 12 2017, 12:21 PM Post #592 |
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The ethereal archosaur in blue
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Well after revisiting the whole topic page by page, I managed to draft a table of contents, in this case classified by month of publication. Table of content I have probably omitted some posts since from my point of view they did not seem to me properly entries or that they are repeated which are very few, from Thylacocephala, Ice crawlers and Synalpheus. I would like to know if anyone has a suggestion or criticism about this. BTW, something I notice, some of these entries need to change the images because they are no longer working. |
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Projects "Active" projects The Future is Far Welcome to the next chapters of the evolution of life on earth, travel the across the earth on a journey that goes beyond the limits, a billion years of future history in the making. The SE giants project Wonder what is the big of the big on speculative evolution? no problem, here is the answer Coming one day Age of Mankind Humanity fate and its possible finals. The Long Cosmic Journey The history outside our world. The alternative paths The multiverse, the final frontier... Holocene park: Welcome to the biggest adventure of the last 215 million years, where the age of mammals comes to life again! Cambrian mars: An interesting experiment on an unprecedented scale, the life of a particular and important period in the history of our planet, the cambric life, has been transported to a terraformed and habitable mars in an alternative past. Two different paths, two different worlds, but same life and same weirdness. My deviantart | |
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| LittleLazyLass | Sep 12 2017, 02:17 PM Post #593 |
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Proud quilt in a bag
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Hey, did you remember that we can also cover things that aren't plants or animals? Shocking, truly. Anyway, I read about this one and knew I just had to share. In bio-class we reading our (digital) textbooks independently, and one thing we had to find was information about Mitochondria. So, knowing about their interesting bacterial origins, I look for that, and manage to come across a phylogenetic tree. At a glance I thought I saw them, "mitochondria"... but in fact, I was looking at the term "midichloria". What on earth was that doing there? Yes, a scientist named a bacterium Midichloria, and yes, it's named for the exact reason you think it is. Pretty cool, right? Well, turns out this thing gets even more interesting, since seeing it associated with mitochondria is no coincidence. They're related to Rickettsia, one of the closest relatives of mitochondria (that, is hypothetical proto-mitochondria), and so this more interestingly named genus is too. Doesn't stop there though. See, these bacteria weren't found just anywhere. No, they were inside ticks (Ixodes ricinus), more specifically tick cells... inside of the mitochondria. This is the only case of this in all of Animalia (referring to the ticks, midichlorians obviously aren't animals), although related bacteria do the same stuff to other ixodids. More specifically, the membrane and not the interior, similar to Bdellovibrio bacteria which apparently prey on other microbes, and something similar is seemingly going on here - it feeds on mitochondria. |
totally not British, b-baka! You like me (Unlike)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 Words Maybe | |
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| lerzid | Sep 17 2017, 08:08 AM Post #594 |
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Adolescent
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The Bili Ape The Bili apes or Bondo mystery apes are large chimpanzees that inhabit Bili Forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "The apes nest on the ground like gorillas, but they have a diet and features characteristic of chimpanzees", according to a National Geographic report. While preliminary genetic testing with non-nuclear DNA indicates a close relationship with the eastern chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) subspecies of the common chimpanzee, a range of behaviors that are more closely related to those of gorillas have greatly intrigued primatologists from around the globe. Though their taxonomic classification has been clarified, the need for further information about these chimpanzees persists. In local parlance, the great apes of the Bili Forest fall into two distinct groups. There are the "tree beaters", which disperse high into the trees to stay safe, and easily succumb to the poison arrows used by local hunters. Then there are the "lion killers", which seldom climb trees, are bigger and darker, and are unaffected by the poison arrows. When Karl Ammann, a Swiss photographer and anti-bushmeat campaigner, first visited the region in 1996, he was looking for gorillas, but instead discovered a skull that had dimensions like that of a chimpanzee, but with a prominent crest like that of a gorilla. Ammann purchased a photograph, taken by a motion-detecting camera, from poachers that captured an image of what looked like immense chimpanzees. Ammann also measured a fecal dropping three times as big as chimp dung and footprints as large as or larger than a gorilla's. In 2000, Ammann returned to the area described by the bushmeat hunter with a group of ape researchers. Although they did not find a live Bili ape, they did find several well-worn ground nests, characteristic of gorillas rather than chimpanzees, in swampy river beds. In 2001, an international team of scientists, including George Schaller of the Wildlife Conservation Society and Mike Belliveau of Harvard University were recruited by Karl Ammann to search for the elusive Bili ape, but the venture came up empty. After a five-year-long civil war ended in 2003, it was easier for scientists to conduct field research in the Congo. The first scientist to see the Bili apes, and also recruited by Ammann, was Shelly Williams, PhD, a specialist in primate behavior. Williams reported on her close and chilling encounter with Bili apes, "We could hear them in the trees, about 10 m away, and four suddenly came rushing through the brush towards me. If this had been a mock charge they would have been screaming to intimidate us. These guys were quiet, and they were huge. They were coming in for the kill – but as soon as they saw my face they stopped and disappeared." "The unique characteristics they exhibit just don't fit into the other groups of apes", says Williams. The apes, she argues, could be a new species unknown to science, a new subspecies of chimpanzee, or a hybrid of the gorilla and the chimp. "At the very least, we have a unique, isolated chimp culture that's unlike any that's been studied", she says. Scientists believe they are dealing with a very inbred population, in which even a large number of animals could share identical or near identical haplotypes. Bili ape reports have also been investigated by Esteban Sarmiento, who has said "I would think there is a strong possibility that south of Bili on the other side of the Uele River there may be gorillas, and this would seem an important area to turn our attention to." Scientists working within these forests south of the Uele, however, have found no such evidence, nor heard any such reports from local communities. It remains an important region, however, based on the discovered presence of other flagship species, like chimpanzees and elephants. In June 2006, British Science Weekly reported that Cleve Hicks and colleagues from the University of Amsterdam had completed a year-long hunt for these apes during which they were able to observe the creatures a total of 20 full hours. Hicks reported,"I see nothing gorilla about them. The females definitely have a chimp's sex swellings, they pant-hoot and tree-drum, and so on." DNA samples recovered from feces also reaffirmed the classification of these apes in the chimp subspecies Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii. Hicks encountered a large community of the apes to the northwest of Bili that displayed interest in him and his colleagues reminiscent of previous reports (this was misreported in the New Scientist as being 18 km from Bili, but it was actually considerably farther from the village. This was the first group of Bili apes to be encountered where the adult males did not flee immediately upon seeing the humans). The apes, including adult males, would surround their human visitors and show curiosity towards them, but would not attack or become threatening. Hicks has emphasized that there is little evidence suggesting that they are any more aggressive than other chimpanzees (predatory behavior being the norm for the species). However, he has been misquoted in the press about this. Further study was undertaken by Hicks between July 2006 and February 2007, accompanied by Jeroen Swinkels of the University of Amsterdam. A new base camp was established in the Gangu Forest. In some ways, the apes behave more like gorillas than chimpanzees. For example, they build ground nests as gorillas do, using interwoven branches and/or saplings, bent down into a central bowl. However, they frequently nest in the trees as well. Often ground nests will be found beneath or in proximity to tree nests. Their diet is decidedly chimpanzee-like, consisting mainly of fruits (fruiting trees such as strangler figs are visited often). The Bili apes pant-hoot and tree-drum like other chimpanzees, and do not howl at the moon. Behavior toward humans has baffled and intrigued scientists. There is little to no aggression, yet no fear, either. "Gorilla males will always charge when they encounter a hunter, but there were no stories like that" about the Bili apes, according to Ammann. Instead, they would come face-to-face with their human cousins, stare intently in half-recognition, then slide away quietly. Hicks's group later confirmed and somewhat expanded those observations, saying that when they encountered a large group of Bili apes in the deep forests (far from the roads and villages), they not only approached the humans, but also would actually surround them with intent curiosity. Hicks clarifies the issue as follows: the apes within 20 km or so of the roads flee humans almost without exception. The adult males show the greatest fear. Further from the roads, however, the chimpanzees become progressively "naive". The Bili ape has been reported to walk upright, bipedally 5 to 5 feet 6 inches tall, with the looks of a giant chimpanzee. Their footprints, which range from 28 to 34 centimeters, are longer than the largest common chimp and gorilla footprints, which average 26 cm and 29 cm, respectively. According to Williams, "They have a very flat face, a wide muzzle and their brow-ridge runs straight across and overhangs. They seem to turn grey very early in life, but instead of turning grey-black like a gorilla, they turn grey all over." They develop uniform grey fur independently of age and sex, which suggests that greying takes place early in life (whereas in all known gorilla species, only males gray as they age and graying is restricted to their backs). Bili ape skulls have the prominent brow ridge and may sometimes have a sagittal crest similar to that of a gorilla, but other morphological measurements are more like those of chimpanzees. Only one of the many skulls found at Bili had a sagittal crest, thus it cannot yet be considered typical for the population. Chimpanzee skulls are 190 to 210 millimeters long, but four out of five Bili ape skulls measured more than 220 millimeters, well beyond the end of the normal chimpanzee range. Female Bili apes have genital swellings similar to other chimpanzees. The Bili Forest lies in the Congo's far north, about 200 kilometers east of the Ebola River, where deep tropical rainforests are broken by patches of savanna. Dense jungles, civil war, and other barriers to human encroachment have left the region relatively pristine. Credits to Harry The Fox a.k.a Harry Wilson DA Link is up there. |
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I like oranges I also like a wide variety of Abantu abathandekayo, Happy Birthday! Is anyone truly sane? Is anybody truly insane? Does Appa have diabetes? Is Appa the avatar? Do I look like Ajit Pai? My friends have been asking me why I removed net neutrality. Am I even real. Existential Crisis in progress, DO NOT DISTURB. | |
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| LittleLazyLass | Sep 17 2017, 12:41 PM Post #595 |
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Proud quilt in a bag
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Immediately upon reading the title of your entry, I was sure this must've been the things described here, but upon checking I was incorrect. That said, there is discussion in a tetzoo comment section here. Interesting stuff in both articles, by the way. |
totally not British, b-baka! You like me (Unlike)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 Words Maybe | |
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| IIGSY | Sep 17 2017, 03:56 PM Post #596 |
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A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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This, my intellectual comrades, is the largest single celled organism on earth. Bubble algae grows through out tidal zones in tropical regions of the world's oceans. They are attached to substrate via a set of 'roots' called rhizoids. Like most similar to it, it reproduces via division. It has been use extensively in research of some areas, including transport of water across membranes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valonia_ventricosa |
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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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| lerzid | Sep 17 2017, 04:33 PM Post #597 |
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Adolescent
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Caulerpa Taxifolia and Syringammina Fragilissima grow to pretty similiar sizes and are single celled.
Edited by lerzid, Sep 17 2017, 04:33 PM.
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I like oranges I also like a wide variety of Abantu abathandekayo, Happy Birthday! Is anyone truly sane? Is anybody truly insane? Does Appa have diabetes? Is Appa the avatar? Do I look like Ajit Pai? My friends have been asking me why I removed net neutrality. Am I even real. Existential Crisis in progress, DO NOT DISTURB. | |
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| Chuditch | Sep 18 2017, 05:02 AM Post #598 |
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Dasyurid
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Kultarr Antechinomys laniger ![]() Also known as the Jerboa-marsupial, Jerboa Pouched-mouse or Jerboa Marsupial Mouse (but those names are terrible), this is one of Australia's many dasyurids (dasyuromorphs) and one with unique morphological features. Like many native mammals, they are almost exclusively nocturnal, feeding on invertebrates such as spider, crickets and cockroaches, although they occasionally prey on other mammals. It is pretty distinctive among it's dasyurid kin, but it can be confused with hopping mice. It is an exclusive inhabitant of the arid inland, occurring in arid or semi-arid areas. One of the features that make it so distinctive is it's elongated hind limbs, having four toes similar to that of macropods. These long legs help them move at great speed. Details of its life cycle are difficult to obtain. Populations fluctuate with good rains. Threats to the Kultarr include habitat destruction, predation by ferals, flooding and insecticides. Although some populations of Kultarr are in trouble, the species is stable as a whole. |
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My wildlife YouTube channel Projects
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| lerzid | Sep 18 2017, 06:58 AM Post #599 |
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Adolescent
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Living Stone/Lithops Lithops is a genus of succulent plants in the ice plant family, Aizoaceae. Members of the genus are native to southern Africa. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek words λίθος (lithos), meaning "stone," and ὄψ (ops), meaning "face," referring to the stone-like appearance of the plants. They avoid being eaten by blending in with surrounding rocks and are often known as pebble plants or living stones. The formation of the name from the Greek "-ops" means that even a single plant is called a Lithops. Individual Lithops plants consist of one or more pairs of bulbous, almost fused leaves opposite to each other and hardly any stem. The slit between the leaves contains the meristem and produces flowers and new leaves. The leaves of Lithops are mostly buried below the surface of the soil, with a partially or completely translucent top surface known as a leaf window which allows light to enter the interior of the leaves for photosynthesis. During winter a new leaf pair, or occasionally more than one, grows inside the existing fused leaf pair. In spring the old leaf pair parts to reveal the new leaves and the old leaves will then dry up. Lithops leaves may shrink and disappear below ground level during drought. Lithops in habitat almost never have more than one leaf pair per head, presumably as an adaptation to the arid environment. Yellow or white flowers emerge from the fissure between the leaves after the new leaf pair has fully matured, one per leaf pair. This is usually in autumn, but can be before the summer solstice in L. pseudotruncatella and after the winter solstice in L. optica. The flowers are often sweetly scented. The most startling adaptation of Lithops is the colouring of the leaves. The leaves are fenestrated, and the epidermal windows are patterned in various shades of cream, grey, and brown, with darker windowed areas, dots, and red lines, according to species and local conditions. The markings function as remarkable camouflage for the plant in its typical stone-like environment. As is typical of a window plant, the green tissue lines the inside of the leaves and is covered with translucent tissue beneath the epidermal windows. Lithops are obligate outcrossers and require pollination from a separate plant. Like most mesembs, Lithops fruit is a dry capsule that opens when it becomes wet; some seeds may be ejected by falling raindrops, and the capsule re-closes when it dries out. Capsules may also sometimes detach and be distributed intact, or may disintegrate after several years. Lithops occur naturally across wide areas of Namibia and South Africa, as well as small bordering areas in Botswana and possibly Angola, from sea level to high mountains. Nearly a thousand individual populations are documented, each covering just a small area of dry grassland, veld, or bare rocky ground. Different Lithops species are preferentially found in particular environments, usually restricted to a particular type of rock. Lithops have not naturalised outside this region. Rainfall in Lithops habitats ranges from approximately 700 mm/year to near zero. Rainfall patterns range from exclusively summer rain to exclusively winter rain, with a few species relying almost entirely on dew formation for moisture. Temperatures are usually hot in summer and cool to cold in winter, but one species is found right at the coast with very moderate temperatures year round. Lithops are popular novelty house plants and many specialist succulent growers maintain collections. Seeds and plants are widely available in shops and over the Internet. They are relatively easy to grow if given sufficient sun and a suitable well-drained soil. Normal treatment in mild temperate climates is to keep them completely dry during winter, watering only when the old leaves have dried up and been replaced by a new leaf pair. Watering continues through autumn when the plants flower and then stopped for winter. The best results are obtained with additional heat such as a greenhouse. In hotter climates Lithops will have a summer dormancy when they should be kept mostly dry, and they may require some water in winter. In tropical climates, Lithops can be grown primarily in winter with a long summer dormancy. In all conditions, Lithops will be most active and need most water during autumn and each species will flower at approximately the same time. Lithops thrive best in a coarse, well-drained substrate. Any soil that retains too much water will cause the plants to burst their skins as they over-expand. Plants grown in strong light will develop hard strongly coloured skins which are resistant to damage and rot, although persistent overwatering will still be fatal. Excessive heat will kill potted plants as they cannot cool themselves by transpiration and rely on staying buried in cool soil below the surface. Propagation of Lithops is by seed or cuttings. Cuttings can only be used to produce new plants after a plant has naturally divided to form multiple heads, so most propagation is by seed. Lithops can readily be pollinated by hand if two separate clones of a species flower at the same time, and seed will be ripe about 9 months later. Seed is easy to germinate, but the seedlings are small and vulnerable for the first year or two, and will not flower until at least two or three years old. The first scientific description of a Lithops was made by botanist and artist William John Burchell, explorer of South Africa, although he called it Mesembryanthemum turbiniforme. In 1811 he accidentally found a specimen when picking up from the ground a "curiously shaped pebble".[2] Unfortunately his description is not detailed enough to be sure which Lithops he had discovered and the name Lithops turbiniformis is no longer used, although for many years it was applied to what is now known as Lithops hookeri. Several more Lithops were published as Mesembryanthemum species until in 1922 N E Brown started to split up the overly large genus on the basis of the capsules. The genus Lithops was created and dozens more species were published in the following decades. Brown, Gustav Schwantes, Kurt Dinter, Gert Nel, and Louisa Bolus continued to document Lithops from across southern Africa, but there was little consensus on the relationships between them, or even which populations should be grouped as species. As recently as the 1950s, the genus was little known in cultivation and not well understood taxonomically. In the 1950s, Desmond and Naureen Cole began to study Lithops. They eventually visited nearly all habitat populations and collected samples from approximately 400, identifying them with the Cole numbers which have been used ever since and distributing Cole numbered seed around the world. They studied and revised the genus, in 1988 publishing a definitive book (Lithops: Flowering Stones) describing the species, subspecies, and varieties which have been accepted ever since. Because their camouflage is so effective, new species continue to be discovered, sometimes in remote regions of Namibia and South Africa, and sometimes in well-populated areas where they simply had been overlooked for generations. Recent discoveries include L. coleorum in 1994, L. hermetica in 2000, and L. amicorum in 2006. ![]() ![]() Edit Wish me luck for first CA of the year, Math. Edited by lerzid, Sep 18 2017, 06:59 AM.
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I like oranges I also like a wide variety of Abantu abathandekayo, Happy Birthday! Is anyone truly sane? Is anybody truly insane? Does Appa have diabetes? Is Appa the avatar? Do I look like Ajit Pai? My friends have been asking me why I removed net neutrality. Am I even real. Existential Crisis in progress, DO NOT DISTURB. | |
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| Scrublord | Sep 18 2017, 03:38 PM Post #600 |
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Father Pellegrini
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Impressive. Any plans to add to that as more entries are made? |
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My Projects: The Neozoic Redux Valhalla--Take Three! The Big One Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado. --Heteromorph | |
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You like me 
Credits to Harry The Fox a.k.a Harry Wilson DA Link is up there.





7:22 PM Jul 10