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| The Tower Forests; The forests of 500 million years in the future | |
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| Topic Started: Dec 16 2016, 08:05 PM (3,338 Views) | |
| Salpfish | Dec 16 2016, 08:05 PM Post #1 |
Zygote
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After a great extinction event 300 million years in the future, all forests are completely wiped out, with any exposed plants being fried by a gamma ray burst. These bursts have passed many times through our solar system, but they never really did any damage until now, when one passed right through Earth. All terrestrial animals were killed. This meant that the only chordates to survive would be bats, living in sealed caves and only getting out into the open many million years later. Meanwhile, as there were no chordates, a descendant of brittlestars crawled onto land and took over around half of the niches by 500 million years in the future. The rest of the niches were taken by mostly insects and mollusks. Now, at 500 million years in the future, life is more diverse than ever. Fungi are common, and a new type of lichen has emerged: a symbiosis of fungi and plants instead of with fungi and algae. These new lichens have now grown into towering trees, often 150m tall. All algae-fungus lichens died in the gamma ray burst, as they grow only on places exposed to the sun. http://salpfish1.deviantart.com/art/Tower-Forests-637460849 Among the lichen tree's canopy lives a descendant of the ant lasius claviger, which now looks more like a centipede than anything alive today. It is called orthoformica isomera, and spins many giant sheet webs between the lichen trees. The lichen trees started taking advantage of these webs, using them to support their branches. Now, the canopies of these forests are completely supported by their webs. Sometimes, there can be up to 7 layers of canopy. The top one is always thin, as there are few trees to support them. The one underneath is the main canopy, which has the support to bear lots of weight, while accessing large amounts of light from the sun. Underneath is a moss canopy, a thick layer which is not penetrable by light and is covered with mossy plants and broadleaved plant-lichens. Anything beneath this is considered a fungus canopy, as only fungi can grow there. These contain extremely rich soil as a product of the decomposition above. http://salpfish1.deviantart.com/art/Orthoformica-isomera-638623121 There is a diverse ecosystem in these canopies, full of echinoderms, mollusks, insects, and chordates. There are even some motile plants, a result of the fierce competition between individuals for light. Some near-sapient echinoderms have also emerged from these canopies, capable of making basic tools like snares and pointed sticks. http://salpfish1.deviantart.com/art/Stitchsnake-648037211 Motile plant: http://salpfish1.deviantart.com/art/Squidseed-645491607 Bat descendant: http://salpfish1.deviantart.com/art/Dactylopoda-638814619 |
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| HangingThief | Jan 3 2017, 07:46 PM Post #16 |
ghoulish
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Ah, it sounded like they just laid eggs on kite plants to keep them out of reach for predators. |
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| Hybrid | Jan 3 2017, 08:55 PM Post #17 |
May Specula Grant you Bountiful Spec!
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How did an insect evolve such an extremely different bodyplan? @Dactylopoda
This is just incorrect for several reasons. They're adapted to nesting and living in them yes, but they're not adapted to permanently living in caves. To eat, they must leave as the cave itself isn't a prosperous environment. The first major issue is that bats are small, endothermic creatures and due to that they need a lot of food, and if the cave is sealed off it wouldn't have nearly as much energy in it (since energy would only enter in the cavre ecosystem due to chemosynthesis or some other process, and that doesn't produce nearly as much usable energy as photosynthesis does) and that would kill of the bats. It's not like they would slowly get used to it, they'd just die off, as due to their high metabolism they starve. The true creatures that survive in caves are ones that don't require as much energy, and even then they often make dramatic sacrifices in order flourish in their environment. Fish, salamanders, insects, myriopods, arachnids, and other creatures are examples of this. To focus in on salamanders, they don't even metamorphose into their adults morphs because it would be too expensive and would shorten their life extremely; they also lost their pigment in their skin and had to atrophy their eyes. To add to this, bats aren't just the everyday small mammal, they also fly; which makes their metabolism even higher and require more food. While they can hibernate, they can't do that forever. That ultimately makes them awful true troglifauna. If they for some reason they did survive, they would have to dramatically change in order to do live in caves. Now the other claim here is that their small population wouldn't "allow" large mutations. That's just plain wrong, in small populations new genes (or alleles) that appear spread through the population faster than in large ones; that's basic genetic drift. I don't see how the size of the population would dictate the mutations that would occur: those happen randomly and would happen regardless if the population is small or large.
Why would they use their ears as a net to catch insects? Why not just hunt normally?
There's a real question here, at what point does a designed organism that's intended to have evolved under natural conditions become just creature design without much care into the science of it? The line is incredibly blurry, and subjective. That's a discussion for another thread and time, but I do think is should be mentioned due to these comments. Back to the topic. Through out many of your replies you seem to make the point of "nature just evolves it" as an explanation rather than explaining why the thing or feature evolved or was selected for, and the reason why is as you say here; because you like the concept and find the design interesting. All of this points to the fact that this project isn't supposed to be realistic, but yet it's speculative evolution and trying to explain this world. Due to this, if you don't want me criticizing the science and plausibility since the project wasn't intended to be serious with those, you can just tell me to stop and not reply to my questions and comments. I completely understand if you feel that way, I don't want to waste either of our time.
How does that work, and how did that evolve?
Well, echinoderms don't even have kidneys to develop from so they would have to start from the bare basics. And from there I would ask the same questions above.
How did they evolve spinnerets?
I don't understand this proposed explanation on how or why these traits would evolve, to be honest it's pretty nonsensical. As Zorc mentioned previously, this sounds like just "making it different for the sake of being different and trying to explain that" rather than something that would actually evolve. You know technically the ears already connect to the pharynx through the eustachian tubes, but that's besides the point. These are just criticisms though, I do enjoy the creativity in the project and the art in it. I want to stress that, as I'm not criticizing to bash this project; I just want to either understand why some of the things evolve and for it to improve. |
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If I sound rude while critiquing, I apologize in hindsight! "To those like the misguided; look at the story of Man, and come to your senses! It is not the destination, but the trip that matters. What you do today influences tomorrow, not the other way around. Love Today, and seize All Tomorrows!" - Nemo Ramjet ﾉ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ヽ 
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| Salpfish | Jan 4 2017, 08:27 PM Post #18 |
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Zygote
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"How did an insect evolve such an extremely different bodyplan? " It could happen over 500 million years, pikaia evolved into humans in that amount of time. "This is just incorrect for several reasons. They're adapted to nesting and living in them yes, but they're not adapted to permanently living in caves. To eat, they must leave as the cave itself isn't a prosperous environment. The first major issue is that bats are small, endothermic creatures and due to that they need a lot of food, and if the cave is sealed off it wouldn't have nearly as much energy in it (since energy would only enter in the cavre ecosystem due to chemosynthesis or some other process, and that doesn't produce nearly as much usable energy as photosynthesis does) and that would kill of the bats. It's not like they would slowly get used to it, they'd just die off, as due to their high metabolism they starve. The true creatures that survive in caves are ones that don't require as much energy, and even then they often make dramatic sacrifices in order flourish in their environment. Fish, salamanders, insects, myriopods, arachnids, and other creatures are examples of this. To focus in on salamanders, they don't even metamorphose into their adults morphs because it would be too expensive and would shorten their life extremely; they also lost their pigment in their skin and had to atrophy their eyes." The bats get sealed off 295 million years in the future, so they could adapt to a slower metabolism and a different diet. Right now, there are bats which can go cold blooded while hibernating, and this could become a permanent adaptation allowing them to survive. "To add to this, bats aren't just the everyday small mammal, they also fly; which makes their metabolism even higher and require more food. While they can hibernate, they can't do that forever. That ultimately makes them awful true troglifauna. If they for some reason they did survive, they would have to dramatically change in order to do live in caves." Okay, they could just as easily make great changes allowing them to live in caves. This adaptation to walking on their fingers would work in the caves, making it so that they couldn't fly. "Now the other claim here is that their small population wouldn't "allow" large mutations. That's just plain wrong, in small populations new genes (or alleles) that appear spread through the population faster than in large ones; that's basic genetic drift. I don't see how the size of the population would dictate the mutations that would occur: those happen randomly and would happen regardless if the population is small or large. " Well it definitely makes mutations slower, look at cheetahs. They are pretty much clones of each other because they were nearly hunted to extinction. With the bats, I was thinking that they could have a small enough population to slow their evolutionary pace without completely atrophying their evolutionary capability. However, as you mentioned, they would need to make huge changes to live in a troglodytic environment, so a larger population would be better. "Why would they use their ears as a net to catch insects? Why not just hunt normally?" The ears would be used like a net at first, la bit like that bird from After Man which uses bristles around its beak to make the surface area of its beak larger so that it can catch more insects. These net-like ears would become more like jaws, while the original ones would become nearly useless. "There's a real question here, at what point does a designed organism that's intended to have evolved under natural conditions become just creature design without much care into the science of it? The line is incredibly blurry, and subjective. That's a discussion for another thread and time, but I do think is should be mentioned due to these comments. Back to the topic. Through out many of your replies you seem to make the point of "nature just evolves it" as an explanation rather than explaining why the thing or feature evolved or was selected for, and the reason why is as you say here; because you like the concept and find the design interesting. All of this points to the fact that this project isn't supposed to be realistic, but yet it's speculative evolution and trying to explain this world. Due to this, if you don't want me criticizing the science and plausibility since the project wasn't intended to be serious with those, you can just tell me to stop and not reply to my questions and comments. I completely understand if you feel that way, I don't want to waste either of our time." Yeah you're right. I could have applied my ideas in a more realistic way. "How does that work, and how did that evolve?" The stone canal is used like a lung, a modified madreporite being the nostril. The rest of the system becomes sealed off, so water can't come out. "Well, echinoderms don't even have kidneys to develop from so they would have to start from the bare basics. And from there I would ask the same questions above." They could have kidney-like organs in their skin, directing the waste from the pores that they use today to excrete it at larger pores on the sides of their body. "How did they evolve spinnerets?" However anything else like a caterpillar or some species of ant larvae evolved spinnerets. "These are just criticisms though, I do enjoy the creativity in the project and the art in it. I want to stress that, as I'm not criticizing to bash this project; I just want to either understand why some of the things evolve and for it to improve." Don't worry about it, I appreciate the criticism. |
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| HangingThief | Jan 4 2017, 10:46 PM Post #19 |
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ghoulish
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It's not that weird. I just see a maggot- like creature with plates extending from its tergites. |
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| Hybrid | Jan 4 2017, 11:50 PM Post #20 |
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May Specula Grant you Bountiful Spec!
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That doesn't answer my question, you're just saying "nature evolved it". Although from what it seems, I may have misread it? Can you explain its anatomy since a lot of it is obscured?
Wait, if the bats get sealed off 295 million years in the future, why were the bats basically like modern ones? Besides that point, I've already mentioned that they wouldn't get the chance to adapt to a slower metabolism; they would starve. Sure, bats can enter a state of torpor or hibernation, but they can't do that forever (and it's triggered by temperature). Like I said, once trapped in the cave they would starve after a while.
That suggests they would survive the first few generations.
Why would they walk on their wing fingers? Already existing terrestrial bats don't do that, they curl their wing fingers away while walking in order to protect them. If they did become flightless, they would reduce or even lose those wing fingers entirely.
No it doesn't, again, mutations are a random process. A large population size may increase the likeliness of a mutation to appear, but doesn't just stop or slow down in smaller populations.
They're not "pretty much clones", they're just inbred. That's due to genetic drift, to be specific, the bottleneck effect. That doesn't mean mutation rates slow down in them. It just means there's less genetic diversity in the population.
It would do the opposite in the harsh environment of the cave; you would see rapid evolution due to the extreme selection pressures of the cave environment.
The difference there is that in After Man the bristles are more just an extension of the mouth, here you're suggesting that organs that have no use in directly handling prey be suddenly used to catch prey. How does that happen? Bats don't do that, so there's no original trait to work with. That would be like saying a bat started to use its tongue to fly.
How did they readapt their stone canal into a lung-like structure? From what I'm reading it's covered in calcareous deposits and isn't vascularized (and they don't have a closed circulatory system, so there's that issue too).
The issue is that I think sea stars excrete out of where they breath and don't have any real specialized areas. Kidneys are apart of the circulatory system and aid in controlling salt. If they don't have a structure anything like that, then they can't move into freshwater and ultimately is one of the factors that present them from going on land. It's why there's no living freshwater echinoderm.
So it's a neotenic feature? Although with webspinners having them on their forearms and not much studies done on the evolution on the structures, you have a free pass on having "nature evolving it". Curse you entomologists and evolutionary biologists for not looking more into the evolution of the organs.
Yeah that's what it could to be. I may have possibly misread the parts of it having 8 spinnerets and assumed that it had 8 legs to host them. |
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If I sound rude while critiquing, I apologize in hindsight! "To those like the misguided; look at the story of Man, and come to your senses! It is not the destination, but the trip that matters. What you do today influences tomorrow, not the other way around. Love Today, and seize All Tomorrows!" - Nemo Ramjet ﾉ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ヽ
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| Zorcuspine | Jan 5 2017, 12:09 AM Post #21 |
Enjoying our azure blue world
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Given the absolutely insane morphological diversity among arthropods, I don't see how Orthroformica is implausible, especially given the massive time span it has to evolve. The others I remain skeptical about, the bat desperately needs a redesign, and still think the terrestrial echinoderms should be replaced with something else entirely (there are so many fascinating phylums of invertebrates out there, I'm sure you can replace the echinoderms with something with a less specialized respiratory system without ruining the uniqueness of your group). |
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| peashyjah | Jan 5 2017, 05:26 PM Post #22 |
Bydo
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It seems like most of the animals that lived in these forests mostly likely inhabited underground. |
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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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| Dakka! | Jan 5 2017, 05:39 PM Post #23 |
Prime Specimen
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Awesome concept! I can see a contender for Settlers of the Deep. |
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"I was a Psychiatrist in Florida! For 3 weeks! Have you ever been to Florida?" Some project ideas The Future is Right Ediacaran Explosion Great Old Ones Skinkworld Unrelated:The Final Spec:What Could Have Been, And Still Can | |
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| Salpfish | Jan 5 2017, 08:35 PM Post #24 |
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Zygote
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The segments would become nearly equal in size because it suits their lifestyle better. I just thought of a more realistic scenario: The ants stay as larvae for their entire lives, capable of reproduction.
Maybe they could adapt to caves long before they get sealed off, so they wouldn't starve or anything. The idea of them being similar to today's bats 295 million years in the future probably wouldn't work, so they could spend that time adapting.
Maybe the the bats in the caves could start landing on the tips of their fingers to eat the bugs in the guano while touching it with at little area as possible. They would soon adapt to move around on the floor using the tips of their fingers, which is where they would start using their ears to catch flying insects.
Yes, I should definitely do that.
Yes. However, the ears could be arranged differently on the head by the time they started doing this.
The echinoderms are vastly different by the time they start coming onto land. For example, the madreporite would simply be a hole, so there wouldn't be anything blocking the stone canal. The ones with blood vessels near the skin would be able to absorb more oxygen, and it would become more lunglike. It could also be the ring canal that becomes like a lung, that would be simpler.
If they use a lung for breathing, then the gills could serve the function as kidneys because they are used in waste excretion.
It's true, the ant larva could end up like this and stay a larva for its entire life. |
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| Salpfish | Jan 5 2017, 08:36 PM Post #25 |
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Zygote
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Yes, or deep in the ocean. |
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| Hybrid | Jan 8 2017, 07:52 PM Post #26 |
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May Specula Grant you Bountiful Spec!
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I think that's at least a much more easier explanation that works.
That begs the question though; why would they switch to feed on the more sparse cave fauna than more abundant prey on the outside?
I think that would require some planning and conception on what bats did in the meantime, and their diversity.
But if a bat landed on the tips of its wings, it would be a rather unnatural action for them to begin with. Even in species of bats that are poorly adapted to terrestrial locomotion, they still mainly rely on walking on their thumb and hand section of the wing. If they tried using their more delicate membraned fingers they would be even more awkward and put themselves at risk of injury. I'm not even sure those fingers would be strong enough to hold them up, but instead bending. They would walk on their hand portion because that's the most strongest point in it. Another thing to consider is that the vast sections of guano in caves would most likely disappear, since that's mostly due to the bats getting their food from the outside and dropping their waste inside the cave. If they were trapped in the cave, the bat population would be extremely reduced due to the less amount of food in the caves. That overall means that guano wouldn't nearly be a common, so it being a threat to bats enough for them to walk on their fingers doesn't sound like a very good reason.
Why would it be arranged like that to begin with, and how still would they become used in food capturing to start?
The madreporite is already basically a hole, so the stone canal isn't blocked to begin with. But the thing is that I don't think echinoderms have blood vessels, but instead the canals. Respiration goes on in the dermal branchae or papulae in starfish to be specific. That's the biggest issue; the evolution of a closed circulatory system. You have not explained how that evolved in a lineage that doesn't even have a circulatory systems like arthropods or non-cephalopod mollusks, theirs is directly connected to the outside sea water. As for the ring canal, that still goes with the issues above, as well as the fact that the ring canal is the center and important area where fluid is moved through the body.
That falls under the assumption that a lung can evolve. Again, this hinges on the fact that they need a closed circulatory system. |
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If I sound rude while critiquing, I apologize in hindsight! "To those like the misguided; look at the story of Man, and come to your senses! It is not the destination, but the trip that matters. What you do today influences tomorrow, not the other way around. Love Today, and seize All Tomorrows!" - Nemo Ramjet ﾉ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ヽ
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| Salpfish | Jan 9 2017, 04:03 PM Post #27 |
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Zygote
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Because at first, there would be giant piles of guano on the cave floor, and these attract insects. As the bats became terrestrial, they would sometimes end up in areas farther back in the caves, where they would have to adapt. It's kind of like camels. They ended up in an undesirable environment and had to adapt, they don't just leave the desert.
Maybe their ears could end up on the sides of their head for better sonar. They could start being used like jaws if, as they started needing to become more successful in catching insects when the number of prey decreased, they closed their ears in on their prey so that they could be able to sense them more easily. The ears could also develop electrically sensitive hairs at first, so a position like that would help them to determine their prey's precise location.
The madreporite is a porous ossicle right now, so hardly any water goes through it right now. I was thinking that they could start producing some respiratory pigment so that the canals could be used like blood vessels, so that wouldn't be a problem. That's correct for starfish. These are descended from brittlestars, which have their gills in respiratory pouches between their arms and their central disk. These could maybe be used as lungs instead of the madreporite. Also, considering that closed circulatory systems had to evolve from something else in the past, I don't see why it is such a problem. |
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| Salpfish | Jan 26 2017, 11:55 AM Post #28 |
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Zygote
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http://salpfish1.deviantart.com/art/Fisherplant-659638036 In 500 million years, when plants aren't limited to just sessile creatures that have light as the most important factor in their growth, they can get remarkably complex. Now they can be motile, see using eyes more complex than ours, and even develop basic thoughts. This one is not motile, but it is incredibly complex compared to today's plants. They live in the tower forests as epiphytes, and develop 2 types of fruit: a fishhook and an edible form. The fishhook type looks exactly like the edible type, only it has a simple eye at the tip to determine the size of animals walking under it. This is because it is really a trap, with modified seeds that pop out from the sides of the fruit and stick in the throat of the animal that eats it. The plant pulls its prey up, out of reach for most of the animals that might eat it, and pumps it full of a poison that's toxic to animals. They need the eye to make sure that they don't catch a large animal, as they wouldn't be able to pull it up and the fruit's stem would probably snap when the animal tries to escape. If the animal is too large, the fruit will retract. The edible form is about 10 times more common than the fishhook form, making sure that the fruits aren't associated with being a trap. The edible type serves the same function as a regular fruit, dispersing its seeds. The fishhook type forms when the flower isn't fertilized, while the edible one forms when it is. They also have a type of leaf that functions like a telescopic eye, with 2 crystalline lenses which move back and forth to focus. To look for distant plants, they use their eyes like a telescope, increasing the size of the image they see. They grow towards other plants with their long roots, which fuse when they touch and transmit information on their environment. This forms a sort of network through the forest, a hive mind that allows plants to find holes in the upper canopy. They send longer roots through the ant webs that form the canopy, while shorter ones are sent through the air. If the plants are next to each other on the same trunk, they send a few smaller roots. The leaves, like the fruit, have 2 forms: an eye and a photosynthetic leaf. These can both emerge from a "stem leaf", the bud that changes into the photosynthetic type in good light and into an eye in dim light. The photosynthetic one has a simple eye in the middle, but this is used only to point it towards the light. |
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| Archosaurus | Feb 12 2017, 01:35 PM Post #29 |
Basal Archosauriform
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I love the uniqueness of this project! The ideas are very clever. Definite take heed of the critiques though! |
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| kopout | Mar 15 2017, 09:34 PM Post #30 |
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Adolescent
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On the subject of terrestrial echinoderms, internalizing the water vascular system is possible sea cucumbers do it .
As I understand it echinoderms use their water vascular system for all the things we use a circulatory system for, so this gives them a (more) normal kind of circulatory system. Mind you, you still have a ways to go before you have fully terrestrial forms but its a start and gets you over one of the biggest hurdles. |
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