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Obscure Taxa; For interesting or obscure organisms you'd like to share.
Topic Started: Dec 14 2016, 09:46 PM (48,903 Views)
citrakayah
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Seems odd, that a burrowing creature should be so fat.
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HangingThief
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citrakayah
Jun 17 2018, 06:14 PM
Seems odd, that a burrowing creature should be so fat.
Well there's different ways to be a burrowing creature.

squirmy n wormy


stocky n blocky
Hey.


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LittleLazyLass
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Proud quilt in a bag

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What's this one?
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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What, you want me to tell you what these mean?
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Scrublord
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Another creature worthy of an entry in this list, a sandgroper. Despite sometimes being called "pygmy mole crickets", sandgropers are actually highly modified grasshoppers. They are unique to Australia, where they have a significant impact on the local subterranean ecology. Incidentally, the common name for these insects may be less obscure than the insects themselves. Western Australians have been known colloquially as "sandgropers" since the 1890s, and the epithet became well known enough that a Perth-based TV station had a puppet mascot named "Sandy the Sandgroper". Few of the people who were exposed to the character, however, were probably aware that it was meant to represent a real animal.
Little is known about the feeding and mating habits of sandgropers, but they have been blamed for crop losses by farmers. They are generally agreed to be herbivores, although some specimens have the remains of smaller insects preserved in their guts. Despite their other common name of "pygmy mole cricket", they are actually quite large insects, growing up to three inches long.
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Tartarus
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LittleBirthdayGirl!
Jun 17 2018, 07:13 PM
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What's this one?
Looks like a mole cricket.
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Archeoraptor
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Scrublord
Jun 17 2018, 09:03 PM
Another creature worthy of an entry in this list, a sandgroper.
this is what hangign pic was
Astarte an alt eocene world,now on long hiatus but you never know
Fanauraa; The rebirth of Aotearoa future evo set in new zealand after a mass extinction
coming soon......a world that was seeded with earth´s weridest
and who knows what is coming next...........

" I have to know what the world will be looking throw a future beyond us
I have to know what could have been if fate acted in another way
I have to know what lies on the unknown universe
I have to know that the laws of thee universe can be broken
throw The Spec I gain strength to the inner peace
the is not good of evil only nature and change,the evolution of all livings beings"
"
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Chuditch
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Australia is home to many species of birds of prey. Most arrived quite recently in the last 5 million years or so, but one group has a more ancient history. The Black-breasted Buzzard, Square-tailed Kite and Red Goshawk may all look dissimilar (as you can tell by their names), but they are actually all part of a group of raptors known as the Australian Old Endemics. The ancestor of these three species arrived on the continent long ago and over time diverged into forms convergent with buzzards, kites and goshawks which were absent at the time, and these three species have survived even though true goshawks and kites have now arrived. All are the only species in each of their genera, and endemic to Australia.

First up is the Black-breasted Buzzard (Hamirostra melanosternon), the only one I have seen in the wild. Unlike the other species of this group, which have their lookalikes present on the continent, there are no true buzzards in Australia, excluding the honey-buzzards found in New Guinea. It is found across much of mainland Australia, although it is rare or absent in most parts of the east and south. It fills in a role between the larger Wedge-tailed Eagle and the smaller Little Eagle.

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They are versatile feeders, and have become well-known for their ability to use rocks to break emu eggs. The only other bird to do this is the Egyptian Vulture, which does a similar thing to ostrich eggs. Another example of convergent evolution. The ability is instinctive, not learnt. The video below is a good example (I saw this behaviour for myself in the Alice Springs Desert Park).



They have been shown to be slowly declining like many raptor species in the country, even dissapearing from parts of their former range, but they remain common in many areas and are still classed as Least Concern.

Next is the Square-tailed Kite (Lophoictinia isura). It is a colourful raptor found across most of Australia but is absent from the central south. It is found in a variety of habitats, but it is a rare and sparsely distributed bird. They can be confused with a range of other similar sized kites and raptors. The white face and shape of the tail, as well as the overall size of the bird, are considered diagnostic features in such cases.

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The Square-tailed Kite is a canopy-dwelling predator, seldom seen on the ground. They search for prey by soaring slowly above or through the tree canopy or skimming over grass. Prey includes birds, small mammals, reptiles, insects and snails. Many birds migrate annually, but the timing and locations of these migrations are dependent on the home territory of each individual bird, with some birds not migrating at all.

The rarest of these birds is the legendary Red Goshawk (Erythrotriorchis radiatus), Australia's rarest raptor. Once thought to be a giant unique accipitrine that seemed to have a mix of goshawk and harrier features, it is of course now known to be most closely related to the previous two species, although it looks quite different. They inhabit open forests and woodlands (especially savannah woodland), especially along watercourses. They take a broad range of live prey, but prefer birds.

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It has always been rare but has had significant declines recently, and has all but disappeared from the southern part of its range, now mostly confined to the northern savannahs. Even here it is very rare and sparsely distributed. Strongholds include Lilyvale in far north Queensland, Kakadu Savannah and the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory, and Mornington Sanctuary in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The species is highly sought after by birders, understandably because of its uniqueness and rarity.

Who would have known that these birds were each other's closest relatives? Australia always seems to be full of surprises, even for someone like me (I only found out about this relationship recently).
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lamna
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Risso's dolphin (Grampus griseus) is a large species of dolphin that can be found in all of of the worlds oceans, preferring deep water ear coastlines. They have a large melon and very little protruding beak, they are close relatives of pilot whales, melon-headed whales, false killer whales and pygmy killer whales, all of which belong to the subfamily of Globicephalinae. While all are technically dolphins, the Risso's dolphin is the only one generally called a dolphin.

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They are near exclusive molluscivores, feeding mainly on squid and octopus, diving deep to catch them. Like many oceanic dolphins they live in large pods. Typically they will live in groups of 10-50, at times merging with other pods to form superpods of over a thousand animals. Within these groups Risso's dolphins tend to have a smaller cliques, typically of the same sex that "hang out" together.

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A pretty neat dolphin, but the reason I highlighted it was to bring attention to something that ought to be considered, both in paleoart and in creating your own creatures. Risso's dolphins are a dark grey colour...but they almost never look this way. They are almost always covered in swirling white stripes, some of them being almost wholly white. Those white stripes are scars.

Risso's dolphins don't need teeth for feeding, they slurp down their soft-bodies prey. But they haven't lost all their teeth, on their lower-jaw they have few very large teeth, these are used in social interactions. Play, courtship and combat. Over time they scratch and cut one another, until older animals are nearly white.

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The reason I bring this up, is that there is no way to know that this is the life appearance of these animals, beyond having a living or perfectly preserved specimen. Even from a complete skeleton with perfect DNA we would have no idea they looked like these. Even if we were to clone an individual, they would not develop these scars without access to another animal to do it to them.
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34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur.
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Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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Datura
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Might I introduce you to a crab that has been accidentally selected for the appearance of an angry samurai, by humans?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heikegani

Even Carl Sagan talks about them.

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Uncanny Gemstar
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Thats actually false, as the markings on the crabs shell are muscle attachment points, and other related species have similar protrusions on their shells.

ie: this relative
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IIGSY
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Forget about the markings, is no one going to notice those weird leg proportions? Why two normal legs and then 2 super tiny legs?
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lamna
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People say Australian wildlife is weird, but I don't think it's that odd.

What's so strange about geckos, a group of lizards with highly developed feet able to climb in seemingly impossible ways, losing all their limbs?

I'm talking about Pygopodidae, the flap-footed lizards. These lizards can be found in Australia and New New Guinea, and have totally lost their forelimbs and retain only vestigial hindlimbs. Some of them look extremely snake-like, just snakes and most other geckos they lack eyelids.

A gecko eating another gecko.
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Because obviously, Australia has no native snakes, so geckos had to fill that niche...wait I'm mixing up Australia and Ireland. Australia has 140 native snakes. Nature is crazy and niches have no meaning.
Edited by lamna, Jun 25 2018, 11:35 AM.
Living Fossils

Fósseis Vibos: Reserva Natural


34 MYH, 4 tonne dinosaur.
T.Neo
 
Are nipples or genitals necessary, lamna?
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Sceynyos-yos
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IIGSY
Jun 24 2018, 05:29 PM
Forget about the markings, is no one going to notice those weird leg proportions? Why two normal legs and then 2 super tiny legs?
Yes, what's up with that? You don't see crabs like that every day. That's the obscure thing about it.
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Archeoraptor
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quadruped crab
Astarte an alt eocene world,now on long hiatus but you never know
Fanauraa; The rebirth of Aotearoa future evo set in new zealand after a mass extinction
coming soon......a world that was seeded with earth´s weridest
and who knows what is coming next...........

" I have to know what the world will be looking throw a future beyond us
I have to know what could have been if fate acted in another way
I have to know what lies on the unknown universe
I have to know that the laws of thee universe can be broken
throw The Spec I gain strength to the inner peace
the is not good of evil only nature and change,the evolution of all livings beings"
"
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Scrublord
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lamna
Jun 25 2018, 11:33 AM


Because obviously, Australia has no native snakes, so geckos had to fill that niche...wait I'm mixing up Australia and Ireland. Australia has 140 native snakes. Nature is crazy and niches have no meaning.
Actually, you're onto something. Australia does have over 140 species of snakes. . . but most of them are either pythons or elapids. Small, non-venomous colubrids are very rare in Australia, and the flap-footed lizards have filled many of their niches.
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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