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.
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Blame is the playing of children and is given to many like a gift that cannot be returned. Acceptance is the tool of the mature that is rarely loaned out.
Keep in mind that technological developments are correlated to megafaunal extinctions. For instance, the extinction of many african megafaunal species is directly linked to the development of better arrowheads in the Pleistocene.
Maybe Chendytes managed to survive with native americans for the longest time until something akin to the Clovis revolution happened. Maybe better boats?
"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too."
Sudden idea: an alternative history project in which one tribe in that region domesticated the species (I recall reading that some evidence had been found that the native tribes of the region hunted them on occasion, so it's not super out-of-the-question) and formed a successful civilization as a result. They might start out spreading along the Californian coast before making inroads inland once other agricultural practices developed (and/or strains of domestic seaduck that were less reliant upon purely oceanic forms of sustenance). What do you think?
I'd post another obscure taxon, but I'm on my phone at the moment (until sometime tomorrow, we're seeing some family). I'll drop off some names, though:
-Adzebills: Enigmatic flightless rails endemic to pre-Maori New Zealand. May have been at least partially carnivorous.
-Claudiosaurus, a genus of marine Permian amniote (can't remember if synapsid or diapsid). Propelled by its tail and large, webbed hind feet.
-A species of orthopteran known informally as the Koola Monster (maybe? Read it in a book on arthropods several years ago, the exact name evades me) native to Australia with some related species found on surrounding islands. Flightless, fossorial, and entirely carnivorous; known rather poorly. Sorry for the lack of specifics, I only just remembered them.
-Paddlefish: Relatives of sturgeons, restricted to freshwater in modern times. Currently represented by a freshwater filter-feeder from North America and a hypercarnivorous Chinese species that's most likely now extinct.
Sorry for lack of specifics; if anybody would like to make any of these a full-fledged post, go right ahead.
We have a Discord server! If you would like to join, simply message myself, Flisch, or Icthyander.Some of my ideas (nothing real yet, but soon): Refugium: A last chance for collapsing ecosystems and their inhabitants. Pansauria: A terraforming project featuring the evolution of exactly one animal - the marine iguana. Mars Renewed: An insight into the life of Mars thirty million years after its terraforming by humankind. Microcosm: An exceedingly small environment. Alcyon: A planet colonized by species remodeled into new niches by genetic engineering. Oddballs: Aberrant representatives of various biological groups compete and coexist. ..and probably some other stuff at some point (perhaps a no K-T project). Stay tuned!
Blame is the playing of children and is given to many like a gift that cannot be returned. Acceptance is the tool of the mature that is rarely loaned out.
Sphenodon
Dec 24 2016, 03:50 PM
-Claudiosaurus, a genus of marine Permian amniote (can't remember if synapsid or diapsid). Propelled by its tail and large, webbed hind feet.
It's currently thought to be a diapsid, yes. Perhaps even a basal sauropterygian.
An interesting idea. A Californian civilization in general would be interesting, the central valley is perfect for agriculture, the only problem is that they didn't get maize before Europeans arrived.
Sea ducks might be tricky to domesticate, since they need mussels to live, though you can farm them too. From what I know eider "farming" is just giving them a nice safe place to nest and collecting the down.
A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
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There is a phylum composed of only one species, Limnognathia maerski. This oddity is related to rotifers and gnathostomulids. It is called micrognathozoa.
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
"Arthropod respiratory systems aren't really "inefficient", they're just better suited to their body size. It would be quite inefficient for a tiny creature that can easily get all the oxygen it needs through passive diffusion to have a respiratory system that wastes energy on muscles that pump air into sacs. (Hence why lungless salamanders, uniquely miniscule and hyperabundant tetrapods, have ditched their lungs in favor of breathing with their skin and buccal mucous membranes.) But large, active insects already use muscles to pump air in and out of their spiracles, and I don't see why their tracheae couldn't develop pseudo- lungs if other conditions pressured them to grow larger."-HangingTheif
"Considering the lifespans of modern non- insect arthropods (decade-old old millipedes, 50 year old tarantulas, 100+ year old lobsters) I wouldn't be surprised if Arthropleura had a lifespan exceeding that of a large testudine"-HangingTheif
"Humans have a tribal mindset and it's not alien for tribes to war on each other. I mean, look at the atrocities chimpanzee tribes do to each other. Most of people's groupings and big conflicts in history are directly or obliquely manifestations of this tribal mindset."-Sceynyos-yis
"He's the leader of the bunch You know his Coconut Gun is finally back to fire in spurts. His Coconut Gun Can make you smile If he shoots ya it's firing in spurts. His Coconut Gun Is bigger, faster, stronger too! He's the gun member of the Coconut Crew! HUH!
C.G.! Coconut Gun! C.G.! Co-Coconut Gun! Shoot yourself with a Coconut Gun! HUH!"-Kamineigh
"RIP, rest in Peytoia."-Little
"In Summary: Piss on Lovecraft's racist grave by making lewds of Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep.
Then eat arby's and embrace the void."-Kamineigh
"Dougal Dixon rule 34."-Sayornis
Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups
Rostroconchia, molluscs that lasted the entire paleozoic. I call them taco clams, because they look like clams in a taco, possibly with a bit of the foot dangling out the back. They have no hinge- instead, they have to break open the bases of their shells whenever they grow, much like moulting requires splitting open the cuticle first.
A noxious pest of livestock and stored grain products.
Gender:
Chitinous
Sphenodon
Dec 24 2016, 03:50 PM
-A species of orthopteran known informally as the Koola Monster (maybe? Read it in a book on arthropods several years ago, the exact name evades me) native to Australia with some related species found on surrounding islands. Flightless, fossorial, and entirely carnivorous; known rather poorly. Sorry for the lack of specifics, I only just remembered them.
The Cooloola Monster. Basically a fat jerusalem cricket.
The cyprus dwarf hippo was a tiny relatively terrestrial hippo, about four feet long, that lived on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, after their ancestors colonized it during the early to mid pleistocene. It is really self-explanatory. Lower sea levels meant more of the island was dry, and also meant that Syria was about 18 miles away, a relatively easy swim. It had no natural predators. But then humans came to Cyprus, about 10,500 years ago. Needless to say, they all died. The hippos, not the people. Also a tiny hippo graveyard was discovered on the island, with many bones curiously crushed. This meant that more hippos may have returned there, possibly for shelter. Then they died. Bad shelter guys, sorry.
"Too many people have opinions on things they know nothing about. And the more ignorant they are, the more opinions they have." - Thomas Hildern, Fallout: New Vegas
Also known as:
The Sea Dumpling
DINOCARID
Dec 24 2016, 09:49 PM
The cyprus dwarf hippo was a tiny relatively terrestrial hippo, about four feet long, that lived on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, after their ancestors colonized it during the early to mid pleistocene. It is really self-explanatory. Lower sea levels meant more of the island was dry, and also meant that Syria was about 18 miles away, a relatively easy swim. It had no natural predators. But then humans came to Cyprus, about 10,500 years ago. Needless to say, they all died. The hippos, not the people. Also a tiny hippo graveyard was discovered on the island, with many bones curiously crushed. This meant that more hippos may have returned there, possibly for shelter. Then they died. Bad shelter guys, sorry.
Forum user Uncanny Gemstar drew what is supposed to be a me. Thanks!
Spoiler: click to toggle
As they walk in, they're greeted by a small, poorly kept pathway leading to a poorly constructed Japanese-style gate. Behind this, a small field made up of corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, among other plants is contrasted by large piles of books, as well as a few rather out of place looking laptops. Off in the corner, a small woman, with long, striped, and strikingly colorful socks, no shoes, unremarkable denim shorts, a large, fancy black coat, arm warmers, glasses, a tuque, and somewhat unkempt, mid-length blue-and-pink-streaked red hair, is rummaging through a trash bin, located behind a sign saying "employees only". She continues this for a while (walking behind a wall to change her outfit now and then), until one of her visitors coughs. Startled, she looks up, apologizes, and grabs a handful of textbooks and novels before daintily running off to join them.
What, you want me to tell you what these mean?
Predenterra The (Lost) Lost World The Standing World
Read First
Clarifications on my sex and gender Sorry if I come off as rude, I don't put much thought into word choice sometimes. I'm also super prone to editing my posts, sometimes multiple times, in the minutes following posting. For the love of god, take my posts from my earlier days on the forum with a grain of salt. I was not particularly knowledgeable or mature back then. Some of them are so cringe-worthy I can't even bring myself to look at them.
Words Maybe
Great Words
Words To Spec By
It would have to be something extremely alien, pushing the limits of our imagination. But those are always my favorite kinds of life. ~~The Words of The Xenologist
Words To Live By
Ignorance is never insulting if you're willing to learn, we're all ignorant about most things. ~~The Words of Lamna
Words I Live By
Yeah, and even if you don't agree with creationists on that concept, that doesn't mean they can't be decent people. I have friends who are creationist (possibly even young earth) that I get along with fine in general life. I don't think they're right of course, but that doesn't make them intellectual degenerates. ~~The Words of forbidden3
Member Quotes
jman123
Ass-breathing fish-lizards? Sounds like a punk rock band
Sheather
"Holy fucking shit a toilet paper roll! Our favorite thing!"
Urufumarukai
Tyrannosaurus aquastronka
Kamineigh
Myo, if you don't stop reading the YouTube comments...
Lamna
Are you saying what I think you're saying?
Sheather bathes in cum?
Cephylus
And last night I dreamed I was blowing up a Kindergarten with a grenade launcher for no particular reason...
revin
Oh, and of course more people get killed by selfies than by sharks. Of course.
The smell of rotting flesh really kills my appetite, surprising, but the visual appearance of corpses makes me hungry. Is that weird?
Ebervalius
I mean, let us say I'm a genderfluid blurflux demi-romantic woman who is sexually attracted to men, but only if they are Melanesian and have a voice like that of Nicholas Cage. Okay, so what?
trex841
When I first saw that picture, I thought you were dissecting a condom.
Mr Mysterio
All hail Robo-Stalin.
Peashyjah
Seems like everything in this project is now dead.
Stealth Rock
Seagulls are pretty much trees, right?
Watcher
We all must finish chapters of our lives to go on to the next. Sometime this means leaving behind versions of ourselves that don't want to die.
Yiqi15
For April fool's, we had to make an orgasm that resembled a human foot.
Flisch
im the black market
CaledonianWarrior96
He was a skater birb, she said tweet you later birb
Most People at Some Point
Quotes
Some dude called plucas1 from Youtube comments
Funny, isn't it, that our world needs Clark Kent a lot more than Superman.
Xenoblade Chronicles
Even though he is our creator, that does not afford him the right to take our lives on a whim. But that is the thinking of a homs. He is a god. Such morals cannot apply to gods. So you think we should just shut up and die?! If that is the fate decided by a god. You are mistaken if you think we will simply accept such a fate and wait to die. We'll never stop fighting. Not till the end. To Zanza, the outcome is the same. Thus your logic is flawed.
Hades - Kid Icarus Uprising
When freaky aliens give you lemons, make freaky alien lemonade.
Kid Icarus Uprising
But Souls are delicious. They're like bacon - they taste good on anything. But if you eat them, you completely remove them from existence! They can't move on or... or be reincarnated! Huh. I never really gave it much thought. Besides, what do you mean by reincarnation anyway? You know, being reborn as someone or something else. Which means different body, different memories, different experiences, yes? So isn't being reborn as "something else" the same as being "removed from existence"? I... I... eating souls isn't right! That depends on your definition of "right". All living things survive by eating other living things. So what? You're a god. You should be above all that! Gods are above living things, which doesn't necessarily mean we care about them.
"Too many people have opinions on things they know nothing about. And the more ignorant they are, the more opinions they have." - Thomas Hildern, Fallout: New Vegas
Also known as:
The Sea Dumpling
Alright, I've got some taxa to show you guys...
Talenkauen santacrucensis
Talenkauen (Aonikenk for "small head") is a primitive iguanodont from the mid cretaceous of Santa Cruz, Argentina. They're part of an iguanodont clade call Elasmaria, which includes Morrosaurus, Trinisaura, Macrogryphosaurus and others. They where 13ft (4 meters) long Dryosaurus-like herbivores, except with a longer neck and arms, and stockier legs. Its holotype was found to have thin plates lining its ribcage. These where originally thought to be bony armor, but it's now believe that they where designed to aid the animal's breathing.
the holotype is actually from the Pari Aike Formation, which also holds Puertasaurus, one of the largest known titanosaurs (as well as megaraptors, turtles and crocodiles). Though paleoart of it very uncommon, it's usually depicted in paleoart as generic theropod-fodder alongside Carnotaurus, even though they lived 24.2 million years apart.
The West African Crocodile, also called the Desert Crocodile, resides in parts of western and northwestern Africa, from the lower Congo Basin, into the Sahara. They are closely related to, and very often confused with, Nile Crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus). This is to be expected, as the anatomical differences between Nile and Desert Crocodiles is not outwardly obvious to most people, and Desert crocs were even considered Nile crocs for a time. It was only with recent genetic/skeletal analysis that they were found to be a truly distinct species. They're also normally smaller in size, and more docile towards humans than Nile crocs.
Image by Marco Schmidt on Wikimedia
This crocodile was actually considered sacred by the Egyptians. Being smaller and more docile than other contemporary crocodile species, they're often easier to catch and tame. There are ancient Egyptian records that describe them being fed and raised as pampered pets. They also have a close association with the Crocodile god Sobek. Sobek is an Egyptian deity associated with Pharaonic power, fertility, and military prowess, and is often depicted as a man with a crocodile's head. Desert Crocodiles where either hunted or worshiped for their association with him, but this depended on the dynasty. Numerous mummified desert crocodiles and eggs were found in Egyptian tombs as well. This was usually done either for religious reasons, or to honor them when they died.
Polypodium hydriforme
Polypodium hydriforme is the only species in it's genus, family, and class. It's a freshwater parasite, that attacks the oocytes (immature egg cells) of acipenseriform fishes (Sturgeon and Paddlefish). This makes it one of the few known metazoan species that live inside the cells of other animals. P.hydriforme is traditionally classified as a primitive cnidarian. However, genetic analysis suggests it actually has closer ties to bilaterians.
A free living P. hydriforme stolon, taken by Ekaterina V. Raikova
Also:
Spoiler: click to toggle
MERRYCHRISTMASEVERYONE!!!!
PLEASE NOTE: If I come off as harsh or demanding whilst talking to you, please tell me. I apologize in advance.....
"That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse."
Gender:
Kin-kin
A bunch of sea (and one freshwater) creatures...
Remipedia
Remipedes are another type of crustacean which greatly resemble aquatic centipedes (which are also sort of a thing), even down to having venom injected by mandibles near the mouth. They swim on their backs by flapping their little legs. They're not that big though, only reaching up to four centimetres in length. They were actually first discovered only in 1981, probably because they only live in sea caves and aquifers.
Speleonectes tanumekes
Remipedes have a very simple body-plan of an eyeless head followed by 15-42 body segments, which resulted them in them being previously classified as basal crustaceans. However, several more recent studies (particularly surrounding their relatively large and well-developed brains) suggest they're one of the most advanced "crustaceans", being one of the groups most closely related to insects (yes, Crustacea is a paraphyletic group).
Godzillius fuchsi (A. dorsal view B. ventral view)
Remipedes lack pigment and are hermaphrodites, and as they have no eyes, hunt mainly by smell. With their venomous bite and raptorial pincers, they can capture and kill comparatively large prey, although they also seem to be able to filter-feed.
Pleomothra fragilis (ventral view, showing front claws)
they look pretty interesting as larvae too
Appendicularia
Larvaceans are a subgroup of tunicates which retain their tadpole-like state into adulthood through neoteny. They're very small and most don't get more a few millimetres, with the largest at only two or three inches. But even though larvaceans are tiny planktonic organisms that may only live a few weeks, they contribute greatly to the oceanic carbon cycle and deep sea ecosystems.
Oikoplerua labradoriensis
Larvaceans like other tunicates are able to construct a tunic shell of protein fibres and cellulose around them, however, they are unique in that they are able to move freely in and out of their shell. They use these "houses" as nets to trap and filter even smaller planktonic organisms into their mouth, swishing their tail to generate water currents to funnel the food towards them. These generally get clogged with detritus and abandoned every few hours, after which the former occupant makes a new one. These then sink to the ocean floor carrying trapped organic particles as marine snow.
larvacean house
Larvaceans are probably similar to what the earliest vertebrates were like. Species of the genus Oikopleura also have the smallest genome of any known animal, with only 75 million base-pairs.
Platyctenida
Platyctenids are a type of ctenophore, although they don't really resemble comb jellies because they're bilaterally symmetrical and don't have the characteristic ciliated ridges. They're the only benthic comb jellies and look a bit like flatworms, sea-slugs or giant amoebas.
Coeloplana sp.
Platyctenids move by everting their pharynx and then slowly pulling themselves forward, but usually just live as sedentary ectosymbionts of other marine invertebrates like echinoderms and coral, often even having colour patterns that match that of their hosts. They still have long feathery stinging tentacles which they use to capture plankton and stuff though.
They're able to reproduce both sexually and asexually and therefore are able to spread their numbers very quickly. They do not release sperm or eggs in the water and are fertilized internally, then retaining the embryos in brood pouches. They reproduce asexually by splitting in two.
Here's a nice video of one feeding.
†Euthycarcinoidea
Euthycarcinoids were a group of arthropods (seemingly related to the group that comprises crustaceans, insects, and myriapods) that existed from the Early Cambrian down into the Mid Triassic and may have been the first animals to ever walk on dry land. Also unusual was their transition from ocean habitats to freshwater environments, with the earliest fossils known from marine deposits and species from after the Cambrian known only from inland formations.
Some intertidal species that lived in shallow water during the Cambrian may have scuttled up into the open air to consume biofilm and algae that accumulated on the shores, or they may have come up to mate and spawn, there's evidence to suggest either way.
Heterocrania rhyniensis (scale bar = 2mm)
Apankura machu (scale bar = 5mm)
...and one slightly more normal group.
Galericinae
Gymnures! I'm not actually sure they're that obscure, but no one ever seems to talk about them (at least from what I've seen). But there'll probably be at least one person that reads this and is educated in some way. Gymnures (or moonrats) are part of the family Erinaceidae as the subfamily Galericinae, so they're basically just spineless hedgehogs.
Hylomys suillus (short-tailed gymnure)
Neotetracus sinensis (shrew gymnure)
They resemble opossums or rats, and mainly eat small invertebrates, although they're pretty generalist and may consume fruits and fungi. There are only eight species and they all live in jungles of southeast Asia.
Echinosorex gymnura (moonrat)
You may have heard of their slightly better known extinct representative, Deinogalerix, which was a giant gymnure native to Gargano (Italy), which at the time during the Late Miocene was an island. Deinogalerix koenigswaldi, is the largest known species of gymnure by far, with a body length of sixty centimetres, an example of insular gigantism. They were still probably hunted by giant barn owls though.
A. (D. masinii, which may have had herbivorous tendencies) B. (D. koenigswaldi)
Deinogalerix koenigswaldi
...and that's all the animal groups that I know something about that I'd consider "obscure"!
This one might not be super obscure (especially since Planet Earth 2 featured them) but I've always been a fan of these birds:
Sandgrouse Sandgrouse (Pteroclididae) are a group of old world ground birds, mainly found in Africa. They look kind of like pigeons combined with game birds, and live in arid flat places- deserts, scrublands, and grasslands, for the most part. They feed primarily on seeds and other plant foods like shoots and berries, though sometimes they will also take ants or other ground insects. There are 16 species of pteroclidids, the primarily Asian species being in the genus Syrrhaptes and the others being in the genus Pterocles. Sexual dimorphism is exhibited- males are usually larger and more strikingly colored.
A strikingly colored Double-Banded Sandgrouse
Sandgrouse live in arid climates and have to visit watering holes often in order to, well, not die of thirst. Hundreds of sandgrouse will converge on a single watering hole (providing protection from predators by having large numbers) and are able to drink enough water to last 24 hours in only a few seconds. One species of sandgrouse often fly 100 miles a day to get water! The coolest thing about sandgrouse is that adults have specialized feathers on their chests that can wick up water and store it- males will fill their breast feathers with water and then fly back to their nests, where chicks can drink water from the breast feathers of their father.
A male Namaqua Sandgrouse loading up on water for the long flight home
I do art sometimes.
"if you want green eat a salad"
Projects: Amammalia: A strange place where mammals didn't make it and the land is, once again, dominated by archosaurs.
Oceanus: An endless sea dotted with islands, reefs, and black holes. Literally endless, literal black holes.
A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
Posts:
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Group:
Members
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Area of expertise:
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Favorite Quote:
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Also known as:
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Gender:
male
Troll Man
Dec 25 2016, 12:35 AM
A bunch of sea (and one freshwater) creatures...
Remipedia
Remipedes are another type of crustacean which greatly resemble aquatic centipedes (which are also sort of a thing), even down to having venom injected by mandibles near the mouth. They swim on their backs by flapping their little legs. They're not that big though, only reaching up to four centimetres in length. They were actually first discovered only in 1981, probably because they only live in sea caves and aquifers.
Speleonectes tanumekes
Remipedes have a very simple body-plan of an eyeless head followed by 15-42 body segments, which resulted them in them being previously classified as basal crustaceans. However, several more recent studies (particularly surrounding their relatively large and well-developed brains) suggest they're one of the most advanced "crustaceans", being one of the groups most closely related to insects (yes, Crustacea is a paraphyletic group).
Godzillius fuchsi (A. dorsal view B. ventral view)
Remipedes lack pigment and are hermaphrodites, and as they have no eyes, hunt mainly by smell. With their venomous bite and raptorial pincers, they can capture and kill comparatively large prey, although they also seem to be able to filter-feed.
Pleomothra fragilis (ventral view, showing front claws)
they look pretty interesting as larvae too
Appendicularia
Larvaceans are a subgroup of tunicates which retain their tadpole-like state into adulthood through neoteny. They're very small and most don't get more a few millimetres, with the largest at only two or three inches. But even though larvaceans are tiny planktonic organisms that may only live a few weeks, they contribute greatly to the oceanic carbon cycle and deep sea ecosystems.
Oikoplerua labradoriensis
Larvaceans like other tunicates are able to construct a tunic shell of protein fibres and cellulose around them, however, they are unique in that they are able to move freely in and out of their shell. They use these "houses" as nets to trap and filter even smaller planktonic organisms into their mouth, swishing their tail to generate water currents to funnel the food towards them. These generally get clogged with detritus and abandoned every few hours, after which the former occupant makes a new one. These then sink to the ocean floor carrying trapped organic particles as marine snow.
larvacean house
Larvaceans are probably similar to what the earliest vertebrates were like. Species of the genus Oikopleura also have the smallest genome of any known animal, with only 75 million base-pairs.
Platyctenida
Platyctenids are a type of ctenophore, although they don't really resemble comb jellies because they're bilaterally symmetrical and don't have the characteristic ciliated ridges. They're the only benthic comb jellies and look a bit like flatworms, sea-slugs or giant amoebas.
Coeloplana sp.
Platyctenids move by everting their pharynx and then slowly pulling themselves forward, but usually just live as sedentary ectosymbionts of other marine invertebrates like echinoderms and coral, often even having colour patterns that match that of their hosts. They still have long feathery stinging tentacles which they use to capture plankton and stuff though.
They're able to reproduce both sexually and asexually and therefore are able to spread their numbers very quickly. They do not release sperm or eggs in the water and are fertilized internally, then retaining the embryos in brood pouches. They reproduce asexually by splitting in two.
Here's a nice video of one feeding.
†Euthycarcinoidea
Euthycarcinoids were a group of arthropods (seemingly related to the group that comprises crustaceans, insects, and myriapods) that existed from the Early Cambrian down into the Mid Triassic and may have been the first animals to ever walk on dry land. Also unusual was their transition from ocean habitats to freshwater environments, with the earliest fossils known from marine deposits and species from after the Cambrian known only from inland formations.
Some intertidal species that lived in shallow water during the Cambrian may have scuttled up into the open air to consume biofilm and algae that accumulated on the shores, or they may have come up to mate and spawn, there's evidence to suggest either way.
Heterocrania rhyniensis (scale bar = 2mm)
Apankura machu (scale bar = 5mm)
...and one slightly more normal group.
Galericinae
Gymnures! I'm not actually sure they're that obscure, but no one ever seems to talk about them (at least from what I've seen). But there'll probably be at least one person that reads this and is educated in some way. Gymnures (or moonrats) are part of the family Erinaceidae as the subfamily Galericinae, so they're basically just spineless hedgehogs.
Hylomys suillus (short-tailed gymnure)
Neotetracus sinensis (shrew gymnure)
They resemble opossums or rats, and mainly eat small invertebrates, although they're pretty generalist and may consume fruits and fungi. There are only eight species and they all live in jungles of southeast Asia.
Echinosorex gymnura (moonrat)
You may have heard of their slightly better known extinct representative, Deinogalerix, which was a giant gymnure native to Gargano (Italy), which at the time during the Late Miocene was an island. Deinogalerix koenigswaldi, is the largest known species of gymnure by far, with a body length of sixty centimetres, an example of insular gigantism. They were still probably hunted by giant barn owls though.
A. (D. masinii, which may have had herbivorous tendencies) B. (D. koenigswaldi)
Deinogalerix koenigswaldi
...and that's all the animal groups that I know something about that I'd consider "obscure"!
Beautiful
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
"Arthropod respiratory systems aren't really "inefficient", they're just better suited to their body size. It would be quite inefficient for a tiny creature that can easily get all the oxygen it needs through passive diffusion to have a respiratory system that wastes energy on muscles that pump air into sacs. (Hence why lungless salamanders, uniquely miniscule and hyperabundant tetrapods, have ditched their lungs in favor of breathing with their skin and buccal mucous membranes.) But large, active insects already use muscles to pump air in and out of their spiracles, and I don't see why their tracheae couldn't develop pseudo- lungs if other conditions pressured them to grow larger."-HangingTheif
"Considering the lifespans of modern non- insect arthropods (decade-old old millipedes, 50 year old tarantulas, 100+ year old lobsters) I wouldn't be surprised if Arthropleura had a lifespan exceeding that of a large testudine"-HangingTheif
"Humans have a tribal mindset and it's not alien for tribes to war on each other. I mean, look at the atrocities chimpanzee tribes do to each other. Most of people's groupings and big conflicts in history are directly or obliquely manifestations of this tribal mindset."-Sceynyos-yis
"He's the leader of the bunch You know his Coconut Gun is finally back to fire in spurts. His Coconut Gun Can make you smile If he shoots ya it's firing in spurts. His Coconut Gun Is bigger, faster, stronger too! He's the gun member of the Coconut Crew! HUH!
C.G.! Coconut Gun! C.G.! Co-Coconut Gun! Shoot yourself with a Coconut Gun! HUH!"-Kamineigh
"RIP, rest in Peytoia."-Little
"In Summary: Piss on Lovecraft's racist grave by making lewds of Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep.
Then eat arby's and embrace the void."-Kamineigh
"Dougal Dixon rule 34."-Sayornis
Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups
Italy (it's somewhere in the Virgo Supercluster, I think)
Also known as:
Concavenator
Stretching the boundaries of what counts as a "taxon"...
The 8th February 1951, the hospital of Baltimore took cervical cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman who would die because of that cancer in October. Despite the death of their original host, the cancer cells survived well enough in the lab, because of a genetical mutation that allowed them to replicate indefinitely. They're hypertriploid, reaching 76-80 chromosomes per cells, and they have absorbed viral genes from the papillomavirus. They were successfully cloned in 1955. Six decades later, those cells are still growing and reproducing. Known as HeLa cells, they're shipped around the world to be used in all kinds of experiments - cancer research, resistence to toxins and viruses, sensitivity to drugs or cosmetics, and so on. If you still count them as parts of Henrietta Lack's body, Mrs. Lacks weighs around 20 tons at 96 years. Because of their inhuman genome, Leigh Van Valen, whom you might remember for the Red Queen Hypothesis, proposed to classify HeLa cells in the new species Helacyton gartleri, named after Stanley Gartler, who had worked on their clonation and issues with contamination of other cultures. An alternative proposal would classify them as Homo sapiens gartleri. So here you have it - the first (kinda) official posthuman!