| 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 (48,905 Views) | |
| Tartarus | May 30 2018, 07:42 PM Post #871 |
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Prime Specimen
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Sharovipteryx was not really an archosaur, though it was an archosauromorph. Basically, it was closely related to archosaurs but not a true archosaur itself. |
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| Fazaner | May 31 2018, 02:46 PM Post #872 |
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Шашава птичурина
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Oh, thanks for correcting, I will update my post to avoid confusion. |
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Projects (they are not dead, just updated realy slowly, feel free to comment): -World after plague After a horrible plague unleashed by man nature slowly recovers. Now 36 million years later we take a look at this weird and wonderful world. -Galaxy on fire. They have left their home to get out of war. They had no idea what awaits them. My Deviant art profile, if you're curious. Before you get offended or butthurt read this | |
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| Sceynyos-yos | Jun 4 2018, 12:47 AM Post #873 |
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dheubewes wedor
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Alsomitra macrocarpa takes gliding seeds to the next level. You probably know your regular gliding seeds tree species, but odds are they're nothing in comparison with alsomitra. It's a gourd-bearing liana, belonging to the pumpkin family from the tropical Asian forests of the Malay Archipelago and the Indonesian islands. Its seeds straight out resemble an aircraft or a deltaplane and move through the air like a butterfly in flight — it gains height, stalls, dips and accelerates, once again producing lift, a process termed phugoid oscillation. |
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| Chuditch | Jun 4 2018, 05:30 AM Post #874 |
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Dasyurid
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Pebble-mound Mice are distinct members of the widespread Australian rodent genus Pseudomys. There are four complementarily distributed species of pebble-mound mice, believed to have dispersed in the early Pleistocene across areas now inhospitable to the mice. These are the Western Pebble-mound Mouse (P. chapmani), Central Pebble-mound Mouse (P. johnsoni), Eastern Pebble-mound Mouse (P. calabyi) and the Eastern Pebble-mound Mouse (P. patrius). There may be a fifth species, the Kimberley Pebble-mound Mouse (P. laborifex?), but it is currently considered conspecific with the Central species. They live in dry, stony habitats.![]() Eastern Pebble-mound Mouse As their name suggests, they build mounds of pebbles around their burrows. They are the only mammals known to do this. These play an important role in their social life, and may also help protect the mice from predators. ![]() ![]() Western Pebble-mound Mouse building its pebble-mound ![]() Western Pebble-mound Mouse mound Fortunately, none of them are endangered, although the Western, Eastern and Kakadu Pebble-mound Mice are beginning to decline. Scientists should definitely look into what is causing their decline (probably feral-related) and how they can stop it. |
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My wildlife YouTube channel Projects
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| beingsneaky | Jun 4 2018, 07:56 AM Post #875 |
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Adolescent
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hawaiian caterpillars eat meat and here is a video for proof https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5qijI--v9E |
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user quotes: "pee is stored in the balls" - Ebervalius "Young ciliaurrg grow on the rear of the parent and look like small slurrg." - ZoologicalBotanist active projects: R.T.K.L(Rotifer Tardigrade Kinorhyncha Loriciferans) | |
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| Fazaner | Jun 5 2018, 09:47 AM Post #876 |
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Шашава птичурина
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This reminds me of old-school sci-fi for some reason. |
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Projects (they are not dead, just updated realy slowly, feel free to comment): -World after plague After a horrible plague unleashed by man nature slowly recovers. Now 36 million years later we take a look at this weird and wonderful world. -Galaxy on fire. They have left their home to get out of war. They had no idea what awaits them. My Deviant art profile, if you're curious. Before you get offended or butthurt read this | |
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| Holben | Jun 12 2018, 02:54 PM Post #877 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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![]() This is a turtle-headed sea snake, Emydocephalus annulatus. They have a spotty range in the western Pacific, with populations around the Great Barrier Reef, the Philippines, and New Caledonia. Physically, they are not particularly large, sometimes reaching a metre but that's about it. They vary in colour, many having white or yellow bands, but some being pure black. Most sea snakes have adapted to use very potent, fast-acting neurotoxins to immobilise fish, which have another dimension to escape in than prey on the land. These snakes do not. Their venom is massively less potent than that of their relatives, and they are not considered to be a dangerous snake. They are very timid behaviourally, seeking crevices and holes to hide it when challenged. Their diet consists solely of fish eggs, such as those of blennies, gobies, and damselfish, and their foraging method is quite unusual for snakes, which mostly use either sit-and-wait (or float-and-wait) strategies to encounter prey items. Emydocephalus move slowly and continually, moseying around rocks and corals to search for eggs (detecting them by scent) in a pattern more reminiscent of a grazing mammal than other snakes. They have very few teeth, retaining a small but seemingly unused fang and the pterygoid teeth, similarly to terrestrial genera like Dasypeltis, an African egg-eating genus that also lacks teeth. The way they actually get the eggs into their gullet was unknown for some time, but there was a clue in that they were often found with sand in their digestive tracts. They actually have a muscle that constricts their throat lining to produce suction, in a similar but apparently analogous way to blind snakes, which suck up insect larvae. This might be related to their 'turtle-headedness', as the hard beak (composed of only a few rigid scales) can keep the lips rigid while using suction. ![]() Males have a rostral spike that looks pretty cool. It might help dig fish eggs out of sand, but the restriction to males suggests its role is mainly sexual. The combination of their small size, lack of any real offensive capacity, and timidity means that if the parents of the eggs turn up, the snake is likely to be chased off. Coloration in these snakes has been found to be linked to some interesting things. Darker, more uniform snakes pick up a higher load of algae on their scales, which can reduce their speed by a fifth through drag. But the proportion of very dark snakes varies by location. It turns out snakes living in areas more exposed to industrial pollution tend to be darker, and that the shed skins of darker snakes tended to contain more heavy metals. In fact, banded skins showed the darker rings to be enriched in metals, suggesting it is related to the melanin itself binding toxic metals. I think removing pollutants through shedding skin is a pretty interesting trait. ![]() Pretty adorable, no? |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| Chuditch | Jun 13 2018, 05:49 AM Post #878 |
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Dasyurid
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Owlet-nightjars (Aegothelidae) are a family of small nocturnal birds entirely endemic to Australasia. As their name suggests, they look like a mix between an owl and a nightjar, but their classification is a little uncertain (more on this later). The earliest fossils are known from the early to middle Miocene of Australia and New Zealand. Barred Owlet-nightjar There are 11 living species of owlet-nightjar, the majority of them from New Guinea. Species endemic to New Guinea include the Feline Owlet-nightjar (Aegotheles insignis), Starry Owlet-nightjar (A. tatei), Vogelkop Owlet-nightjar (A. affinis), Barred Owlet-nightjar (A. bennettii), Wallace's Owlet-nightjar (A. wallacii), Archbold's Owlet-nightjar (A. archboldi), Allied Owlet-nightjar (A. affinis) and the Mountain Owlet-nightjar (A. albertisi). Outside of New Guinea, there is the Australian Owlet-nightjar (A. cristatus), Molluccan Owlet-nightjar (A. crinifrons) and the very rare New Caledonian Owlet-nightjar (A. savesi), where each occurs is pretty self explanatory. The Australian Owlet-nightjar, which I have seen, is also found in southern New Guinea. It is the most common nocturnal bird in Australia and colloquially known as the moth-owl. It is also the most well-known of the owlet-nightjars. ![]() An Australian Owlet-nightjar I photographed in mallee woodland after I accidentally flushed it from its hollow. By far my best photo of a nocturnal bird. A very interesting but sadly extinct species is the New Zealand Owlet-nightjar (A. novazelandiae), believed to have gone extinct around 1200 AD due to the introduction of the Pacific Rat. It was the largest species of owlet-nightjar, and was either flightless or a very poor flyer. Originally thought to be a subfamily of frogmouths, they were soon put into their own family allied with the frogmouths and nightjars. However, new research may indicate that they aren't close relatives of either groups, and are actually most closely related to swifts and hummingbirds. Nowadays they are usually either classed under the Apodiformes or in their own order. Alternatively, in phylogenetics they rest in the clade Daedalornithes with the apodiformes, which itself is part of the Strisores clade which also includes the frogmouths, nightjars and relatives. Outside Daedalornithes, their closest relatives are indeed frogmouths. ![]() The Feline Owlet-nightjar, one of the most beautiful species. |
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My wildlife YouTube channel Projects
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| beingsneaky | Jun 13 2018, 12:29 PM Post #879 |
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Adolescent
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i want to pet one of those owlet-nightjars
Edited by beingsneaky, Jun 13 2018, 12:30 PM.
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user quotes: "pee is stored in the balls" - Ebervalius "Young ciliaurrg grow on the rear of the parent and look like small slurrg." - ZoologicalBotanist active projects: R.T.K.L(Rotifer Tardigrade Kinorhyncha Loriciferans) | |
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| Caesio16 | Jun 13 2018, 12:46 PM Post #880 |
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the sweet jingle-jangle of the coral triangle
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Chuditch here is a question I have always wanted to ask you, why are you so dann obsessed with Australasian wildlife |
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Spoiler: click to toggle Spoiler: click to toggle Spoiler: click to toggle GENERATION 28: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment. Wkhuh duh rqob wzr jhqghuv | |
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| lamna | Jun 13 2018, 01:44 PM Post #881 |
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1. He comes from the land down under. 2. Where women glow and men plunder 3. Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder? 4. You better run, you better take cover After that, I had better add an animal. Introducing the Vangas. They are a group of passerine birds from Madagascar, part of Corvoidea. The name vanga is the Malagasy name for the Hook-billed vanga, but it was expanded to covered several other medium sized, shrike like birds, though in the 21st century several Madagascan warblers, bulbuls, flycatchers and babblers are actually vangas. The group is restricted to Madagascar and the Comoros. This is the hook-billed vanga. It's pretty typical vanga, but it had a slightly longer beak than most. Its your standard shrike-like bird. Interestingly a recent paper concluding that its skull was very similar to the ancestral neornithes. Pretty interesting to think that everything from penguins to hummingbirds came from something not so very different to these. Speaking of which, not all vangas look like this. The sickle-billed vanga is pretty closely related, but a lot can happen in a million years. It has developed a long curved bill, which is uses to help probe intro trees. Aye-Ayes are not the only Madagascan animal exploiting niches left open by absent woodpeckers. Lastly, my favourite the Helmet vanga. What a beak! Another example of rapid evolution, they split off from a rather "normal" looking vanga only 800,000 thousand years ago.
Edited by lamna, Jun 14 2018, 01:48 AM.
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Living Fossils Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural 34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur. [flash=500,450] Video Magic! [/flash] | |
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| beingsneaky | Jun 13 2018, 02:05 PM Post #882 |
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Adolescent
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birds weren't even around 800,000 million years ago |
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user quotes: "pee is stored in the balls" - Ebervalius "Young ciliaurrg grow on the rear of the parent and look like small slurrg." - ZoologicalBotanist active projects: R.T.K.L(Rotifer Tardigrade Kinorhyncha Loriciferans) | |
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| Sayornis | Jun 13 2018, 02:21 PM Post #883 |
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Neotenous
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For content, some interesting facts about Brown-Headed Cowbirds: They may use their eggs as weapons to crack the host bird's eggs. They have a vocalization that serves as a neurological password to set juveniles' brains into "learning mode." This allows cowbirds to recognize their own species and learn the correct behaviors even when they're raised by another species. However, it's not totally foolproof: cowbirds sometimes imprint on starlings. |
The Library is open. (Now under new management!)
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| Chuditch | Jun 13 2018, 06:51 PM Post #884 |
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Dasyurid
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I don't really know to be honest, I've just always found the wildlife more interesting here than in the rest of the world. The natural landscapes are stunning, and the wildlife is so unique and interesting. Plus, as Lamna said, I come from the land down under, so I get to see these things and grew up around it. Also just to clarify I'm obsessed with Australian wildlife (which includes New Guinea), not Australasian. While I'm here I guess I'll make a quick post about the Wyulda, more commonly known as the Scaly-tailed Possum (Wyulda squamicaudata). It is endemic to the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia, and is a specialised inhabitant of sandstone-based woodlands, requiring lots of rock piles and fissures for shelter. It is a solitary nocturnal forager that feeds on leaves, flowers and fruit. ![]() What's even more interesting is that this phalangerid is somewhat of a missing link between cuscus and brushtail possums (the other members of the Phalangeridae), and is therefore of great interest to evolutionary biologists. There's also another unrelated possum that looks quite similar, the Rock-haunting Ringtail Possum (Petropseudes dahli). It is a pseudocheirid (ringtail possum) instead of a phalangerid. ![]() They not only look similar, but inhabit pretty much the same habitat, distribution (but the ringtail also extends into the Top End) and eat a similar diet. Nature is stupid, but I'm glad it is, because now we've got two rock-dwelling possums rather than one. EDIT: It should also be noted that both are the only members of their genus (monotypic genera). |
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My wildlife YouTube channel Projects
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| LittleLazyLass | Jun 13 2018, 06:53 PM Post #885 |
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Proud quilt in a bag
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Is there a story behind the name? |
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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