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Obscure Taxa; For interesting or obscure organisms you'd like to share.
Topic Started: Dec 14 2016, 09:46 PM (48,919 Views)
Terraraptor411
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Troodontid
 *  *  *  *  *
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulbasaurus

May I present the Dicynodont Bulbasaurus. Its pretty basic, but has unique nose growths that might have been used in display, digging, or male dominance. The discoverors maintain it wasn't named after the Pokémon, despite its species name meaning "leaf razor". I wish I could say more, but unfortunately the species is poorly known and other than its namesake, is a generic Diictodont.
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Chuditch
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Dasyurid
 *  *  *  *  *  *
This is Hulitherium tomasetti‭, a Pleistocene zygomaturine from New Guinea. It is believed to be the marsupial equivalent of a giant panda, and may have even fed on bamboo.

Posted Image

This is one of New Guinea's largest known mammals with a height of 1 m and a length of 2 m. The skeleton suggest that the limbs were highly mobile relative to other diprodontids and that it was a browser. It seems to be most closely related to Maokopia, also from New Guinea. Little else is known about this creature.
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Sayornis
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Neotenous
 *  *  *  *  *  *
The black-headed duck, also known as the cuckoo duck, is the only waterfowl that is an obligate brood parasite. (Both intraspecific and interspecific brood parasitism are known in other duck species, including the Redhead, but they will sometimes raise their own young.) It uses a variety of birds for its hosts, including gulls as seen here. Since the ducklings are precocial and leave the nest within hours of hatching, they are harmless to the host parents.
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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Terraraptor411
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Troodontid
 *  *  *  *  *
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerodactylus

In the second (and unfortunately last, to the best of my knowledge) entry in the Extinct animals named after Pokémon is Aerodactylus, a single species and genus of small, Germanic pterosaurs from the late Jurassic. They were originally considered a species of Pterodactylus but have been reclassified. It had a wingspan of roughly 1 foot/0.3 meters, though this was a juvenile and may not reflect the adult size. Otherwise it closely resembled Pterodactylus.
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Ultimate Pangea

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Future of the North Star: TBD

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LittleLazyLass
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Proud quilt in a bag

Off the top of my head, the validity of the taxon has been controversial. Not sure if things have changed since, but here's Mark Witton's thoughts from back in 2015.
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.
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Vorsa
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Mysterious tundra-dwelling humanoid
 *  *  *  *  *  *
The pycnodontiformes are a fairly well known group and probably quite well known here too. However, there were some really weird fish in this group. And I mean really weird. The amazingly talented Hyrotrioskjan is currently doing a series on these bizarre fish so I thought I'd share some here. (Other images by avancna)

Pycnodontiform fishes are by far the largest marine halecostome fossil lineage, that range in time from the Late Triassic to the Middle Eocene and have an almost worldwide distribution, often being found in marine and more rarely in brackish or freshwater deposits. Most of them possess a deep and laterally compressed body. But among this seemingly normal group of fish lies the bizarre superfamily known as Coccodontoidea - pycnodonts found in modern day Lebanon during the Cenomanian period of the late Cretaceous that are split into 3 families. These very weird fish are characterized by a series of obvious characteristics, including thick and well-ossified cranial bones supporting horns and spines and a hypertrophied pectoral girdle (the set of bones in the appendicular skeleton which connects to the arm on each side) sutured to the skull forming a sort of cephalo-torax (suture = rigid joint between hard parts of animals).

Gladiopycnodontidae:
Characterised by lengthened rostrums and spines where there were once pectoral fins.
Great paper on this bizarre family

Posted Image
Rostropycnodus gayeti
This species bears a number of features shared with other members of its family, namely a snout elongated into a rostrum, formed by the enlarged prefrontal and the toothless premaxilla. Their pectoral fin is replaced by a strong spine articulated with the cleithrum (a membrane bone which first appears as part of the skeleton in primitive bony fish). Other than these though, they're fairly normal fish by pycnodont standards.

Posted Image
Gladiopycnodus sp: G. byrnei, G. karami
Considerably weirder with a long rostrum, equally long anal spines and an overall armored body. As Hyro put it, this is a fish disguised as a spaceship.

Fossil


Posted Image
Stenoprotome hamata
I don't even know where to begin with this one. It looks like an unholy mixture of elephant, ceratopsian, placoderm and cichlid. There doesn't seem to be much information about this bizarre animal but by the looks of it, the fin-spine has developed into 2 spines and the rostrum is even more lengthened than in other species.

Gebrayelichthyidae:
3 very weird species that, instead of being armored, have pretty small scales. However, they more than make up for this apparent loss of weirdness with their giant keels and spines that are partly modified fin rays. They are highly modified in appearance from other coccodontids, having their bodies compressed and vertebrae elongated. The body height of Gebrayelichthys was 1.8 to 2 times the body length and the head and fuselage each made up half the total length. The bizarre shape of this species suggests that they were pelagic fish feeding on plankton and other small animals.

Spoiler: click to toggle


Coccodontidae
A family composed of five genera that are distinguished by their massive, curved spines.

Spoiler: click to toggle

Coccodus insignis
Characterised by a pair of massive, curved spines emanating from the lower sides of the head, and one curved spine on the top of its head. Unlike most pycnodontids which tend to have short, marine butterflyfish-like bodies, the 2 Coccodus species had comparatively long bodies like some sort of scaly rat fish.

Posted Image
Trewavasia carinata

Posted Image
Hensodon spinosus
Male above, female below

The cowfish of the family, these 2 species are easily distinguished by their massive heads and large, forward-pointing horn-like spines. Oddly, Hensodon exhibited sexual dimorphism with the male and female fish having different spine shapes, the male looking like a ceratopsian, the female looking like some sort of fish-rhino hybrid. These are basically fish desperately trying to be badass land animals.

Posted Image
Corusichthys megacephalus
Known from a 34 mm long fossil, this animal had plates arranged around its head like some sort of helmet, as well as having a massive, triangular spine on its dorsal side. It was closely related to the two species above.
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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peashyjah
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Bydo
 *  *  *  *  *  *
Vorsa
Dec 4 2017, 04:56 PM
The pycnodontiformes are a fairly well known group and probably quite well known here too. However, there were some really weird fish in this group. And I mean really weird. The amazingly talented Hyrotrioskjan is currently doing a series on these bizarre fish so I thought I'd share some here. (Other images by avancna)

Pycnodontiform fishes are by far the largest marine halecostome fossil lineage, that range in time from the Late Triassic to the Middle Eocene and have an almost worldwide distribution, often being found in marine and more rarely in brackish or freshwater deposits. Most of them possess a deep and laterally compressed body. But among this seemingly normal group of fish lies the bizarre superfamily known as Coccodontoidea - pycnodonts found in modern day Lebanon during the Cenomanian period of the late Cretaceous that are split into 3 families. These very weird fish are characterized by a series of obvious characteristics, including thick and well-ossified cranial bones supporting horns and spines and a hypertrophied pectoral girdle (the set of bones in the appendicular skeleton which connects to the arm on each side) sutured to the skull forming a sort of cephalo-torax (suture = rigid joint between hard parts of animals).

Gladiopycnodontidae:
Characterised by lengthened rostrums and spines where there were once pectoral fins.
Great paper on this bizarre family

Posted Image
Rostropycnodus gayeti
This species bears a number of features shared with other members of its family, namely a snout elongated into a rostrum, formed by the enlarged prefrontal and the toothless premaxilla. Their pectoral fin is replaced by a strong spine articulated with the cleithrum (a membrane bone which first appears as part of the skeleton in primitive bony fish). Other than these though, they're fairly normal fish by pycnodont standards.

Posted Image
Gladiopycnodus sp: G. byrnei, G. karami
Considerably weirder with a long rostrum, equally long anal spines and an overall armored body. As Hyro put it, this is a fish disguised as a spaceship.

Fossil


Posted Image
Stenoprotome hamata
I don't even know where to begin with this one. It looks like an unholy mixture of elephant, ceratopsian, placoderm and cichlid. There doesn't seem to be much information about this bizarre animal but by the looks of it, the fin-spine has developed into 2 spines and the rostrum is even more lengthened than in other species.

Gebrayelichthyidae:
3 very weird species that, instead of being armored, have pretty small scales. However, they more than make up for this apparent loss of weirdness with their giant keels and spines that are partly modified fin rays. They are highly modified in appearance from other coccodontids, having their bodies compressed and vertebrae elongated. The body height of Gebrayelichthys was 1.8 to 2 times the body length and the head and fuselage each made up half the total length. The bizarre shape of this species suggests that they were pelagic fish feeding on plankton and other small animals.

Spoiler: click to toggle


Coccodontidae
A family composed of five genera that are distinguished by their massive, curved spines.

Spoiler: click to toggle

Coccodus insignis
Characterised by a pair of massive, curved spines emanating from the lower sides of the head, and one curved spine on the top of its head. Unlike most pycnodontids which tend to have short, marine butterflyfish-like bodies, the 2 Coccodus species had comparatively long bodies like some sort of scaly rat fish.

Posted Image
Trewavasia carinata

Posted Image
Hensodon spinosus
Male above, female below

The cowfish of the family, these 2 species are easily distinguished by their massive heads and large, forward-pointing horn-like spines. Oddly, Hensodon exhibited sexual dimorphism with the male and female fish having different spine shapes, the male looking like a ceratopsian, the female looking like some sort of fish-rhino hybrid. These are basically fish desperately trying to be badass land animals.

Posted Image
Corusichthys megacephalus
Known from a 34 mm long fossil, this animal had plates arranged around its head like some sort of helmet, as well as having a massive, triangular spine on its dorsal side. It was closely related to the two species above.
Weird and fascinating indeed!
Discontinued projects:
The New Ostracoderms (i might continue with this project again someday)
The Americas (where in 58 million years from now in the future North and South America has both become isolated island continents)



All Expansions (my attempt at expanding the universe of All Tomorrows by Nemo Ramjet aka C.M. Kosemen, started June 6, 2018)
Anthropozoic (my attempt at expanding the universe of Man After Man and also a re-imagining of it, coming 2019 or 2020)
New Cenozoica (my attempt at expanding the universe of The New Dinosaurs and also a re-imagining of it, also coming 2019 or 2020)
All Alternatives or All Changes (a re-telling of All Tomorrows but with some minor and major "changes", coming June 10, 2018)
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Vorsa
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Mysterious tundra-dwelling humanoid
 *  *  *  *  *  *
Pls don't quote whole thing when you're right underneath the post. :P But thanks anyway. Fish are the best vertebrates imo - they're just so weird sometimes.
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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Terraraptor411
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Troodontid
 *  *  *  *  *
LittleDrummerGirl
Dec 4 2017, 02:57 PM
Off the top of my head, the validity of the taxon has been controversial. Not sure if things have changed since, but here's Mark Witton's thoughts from back in 2015.
Well, it was nice having Aerodactyl while it lasted XD. In all honesty he makes a good point, Pterodactylus taxonomy is hectic. Personally I hope Aerodactylus remains a unique species but its also possible it doesn't.

Meet Motty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motty

Not sure if hybrids count as obscure taxa, but as the only known hybrid of African and Asian elephants, Motty deserves his time in the limelight. His father was an African and his mother Asian, Motty was born at the Chester Zoo. His ears and legs more closely resembled the African bodyplan, but his toe count and single "fingered" trunk were Asian. He died only 12 days after birth due to infection.
Current Projects:
Alien Earth
Ultimate Pangea

Potential Future Projects
Future of the North Star: TBD

My DA Page: https://terraraptor.deviantart.com/
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LittleLazyLass
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Proud quilt in a bag

For the lazy:
Posted Image
Posted Image
totally not British, b-baka!
Posted Image 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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Flisch
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Superhuman
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Vorsa
Dec 4 2017, 04:56 PM
Huh, someone posted that on the discord and without context I simply assumed it was one of those things by ThomasTapir.

But here I am learning that it's actually real.

Go home nature, you're drunk.
We have a discord. If you want to join, simply message me, Icthyander or Sphenodon.
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LλmbdaExplosion
Member Avatar
Vieja Argentea the oscar cichlid
 *  *  *  *  *  *
Vorsa
Dec 4 2017, 04:56 PM
The pycnodontiformes are a fairly well known group and probably quite well known here too. However, there were some really weird fish in this group. And I mean really weird. The amazingly talented Hyrotrioskjan is currently doing a series on these bizarre fish so I thought I'd share some here. (Other images by avancna)

Pycnodontiform fishes are by far the largest marine halecostome fossil lineage, that range in time from the Late Triassic to the Middle Eocene and have an almost worldwide distribution, often being found in marine and more rarely in brackish or freshwater deposits. Most of them possess a deep and laterally compressed body. But among this seemingly normal group of fish lies the bizarre superfamily known as Coccodontoidea - pycnodonts found in modern day Lebanon during the Cenomanian period of the late Cretaceous that are split into 3 families. These very weird fish are characterized by a series of obvious characteristics, including thick and well-ossified cranial bones supporting horns and spines and a hypertrophied pectoral girdle (the set of bones in the appendicular skeleton which connects to the arm on each side) sutured to the skull forming a sort of cephalo-torax (suture = rigid joint between hard parts of animals).

Gladiopycnodontidae:
Characterised by lengthened rostrums and spines where there were once pectoral fins.
Great paper on this bizarre family

Posted Image
Rostropycnodus gayeti
This species bears a number of features shared with other members of its family, namely a snout elongated into a rostrum, formed by the enlarged prefrontal and the toothless premaxilla. Their pectoral fin is replaced by a strong spine articulated with the cleithrum (a membrane bone which first appears as part of the skeleton in primitive bony fish). Other than these though, they're fairly normal fish by pycnodont standards.

Posted Image
Gladiopycnodus sp: G. byrnei, G. karami
Considerably weirder with a long rostrum, equally long anal spines and an overall armored body. As Hyro put it, this is a fish disguised as a spaceship.

Fossil


Posted Image
Stenoprotome hamata
I don't even know where to begin with this one. It looks like an unholy mixture of elephant, ceratopsian, placoderm and cichlid. There doesn't seem to be much information about this bizarre animal but by the looks of it, the fin-spine has developed into 2 spines and the rostrum is even more lengthened than in other species.

Gebrayelichthyidae:
3 very weird species that, instead of being armored, have pretty small scales. However, they more than make up for this apparent loss of weirdness with their giant keels and spines that are partly modified fin rays. They are highly modified in appearance from other coccodontids, having their bodies compressed and vertebrae elongated. The body height of Gebrayelichthys was 1.8 to 2 times the body length and the head and fuselage each made up half the total length. The bizarre shape of this species suggests that they were pelagic fish feeding on plankton and other small animals.

Spoiler: click to toggle


Coccodontidae
A family composed of five genera that are distinguished by their massive, curved spines.

Spoiler: click to toggle

Coccodus insignis
Characterised by a pair of massive, curved spines emanating from the lower sides of the head, and one curved spine on the top of its head. Unlike most pycnodontids which tend to have short, marine butterflyfish-like bodies, the 2 Coccodus species had comparatively long bodies like some sort of scaly rat fish.

Posted Image
Trewavasia carinata

Posted Image
Hensodon spinosus
Male above, female below

The cowfish of the family, these 2 species are easily distinguished by their massive heads and large, forward-pointing horn-like spines. Oddly, Hensodon exhibited sexual dimorphism with the male and female fish having different spine shapes, the male looking like a ceratopsian, the female looking like some sort of fish-rhino hybrid. These are basically fish desperately trying to be badass land animals.

Posted Image
Corusichthys megacephalus
Known from a 34 mm long fossil, this animal had plates arranged around its head like some sort of helmet, as well as having a massive, triangular spine on its dorsal side. It was closely related to the two species above.
Jesus Christ,these are the most weirdest fish i ever seen.I'm a fishkeeper myself and i feel bad for not being able to keep these guys in my reef or planted tank because they are extinct. :'S
When life give you lemons.............Don't make lemonade!Make life to take the lemons back!Get mad and than.........Yell,demand and burn down their homes.




Prepare for unforeseen consequences,Mr. Freeman!
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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
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Terraraptor411
Dec 5 2017, 06:43 PM
LittleDrummerGirl
Dec 4 2017, 02:57 PM
Off the top of my head, the validity of the taxon has been controversial. Not sure if things have changed since, but here's Mark Witton's thoughts from back in 2015.
Well, it was nice having Aerodactyl while it lasted XD. In all honesty he makes a good point, Pterodactylus taxonomy is hectic. Personally I hope Aerodactylus remains a unique species but its also possible it doesn't.

Meet Motty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motty

Not sure if hybrids count as obscure taxa, but as the only known hybrid of African and Asian elephants, Motty deserves his time in the limelight. His father was an African and his mother Asian, Motty was born at the Chester Zoo. His ears and legs more closely resembled the African bodyplan, but his toe count and single "fingered" trunk were Asian. He died only 12 days after birth due to infection.
What caused the infection?
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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CoolKuy
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A Nonintelligent Pinniped
 *  *  *
If you want something that is completely independent of the sun but still uses photosynthesis from another source but aren't sure it's possible... it's so possible that it even exists. There's a deep sea bacterial anaerobe that lives near hydrothermal vents, completely independent from the sun.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1166624/

Edited by CoolKuy, Dec 6 2017, 08:44 PM.
Projects:
PNF-404 (Pikmin as an Alternate Evolution project.)
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Terraraptor411
Member Avatar
Troodontid
 *  *  *  *  *
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Dec 6 2017, 04:25 PM
Terraraptor411
Dec 5 2017, 06:43 PM
LittleDrummerGirl
Dec 4 2017, 02:57 PM
Off the top of my head, the validity of the taxon has been controversial. Not sure if things have changed since, but here's Mark Witton's thoughts from back in 2015.
Well, it was nice having Aerodactyl while it lasted XD. In all honesty he makes a good point, Pterodactylus taxonomy is hectic. Personally I hope Aerodactylus remains a unique species but its also possible it doesn't.

Meet Motty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motty

Not sure if hybrids count as obscure taxa, but as the only known hybrid of African and Asian elephants, Motty deserves his time in the limelight. His father was an African and his mother Asian, Motty was born at the Chester Zoo. His ears and legs more closely resembled the African bodyplan, but his toe count and single "fingered" trunk were Asian. He died only 12 days after birth due to infection.
What caused the infection?
According to Wikipedia, it was an umbilical cord infection.
Current Projects:
Alien Earth
Ultimate Pangea

Potential Future Projects
Future of the North Star: TBD

My DA Page: https://terraraptor.deviantart.com/
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