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| Possibility of fully armless bipedal Mammals? | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 3 2017, 09:59 AM (1,699 Views) | |
| Dazzle | Aug 3 2017, 09:59 AM Post #1 |
Fetus
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In Dougal Dixon's After Man book, one concept I'm surprised never got as popular(er, became a trope like Flightless Bats, Whale Birds, ect) is the Wakka http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/speculativeevolution/images/9/9c/Wakka.png/revision/latest?cb=20130327230925 The book implies that South America once again became an isolated continent 25 million years from now. Given how strange island fauna can get, could something like the Wakka ever evolve? A fully bipedal therapod-like mammal with no arms. It just seems too strange, well, most things in After Man are too strange to be true. At least in the way they are presented. |
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| kusanagi | Aug 8 2017, 11:38 PM Post #46 |
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Adolescent
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That question cannot be answered without making assumptions who was on each side of the split within clade Sauria, else outside of it altogether. Ichthyopterygia is likely outside the split but the other three "big" diapsid groups - Sauropterygia, Testudines and Choristodera - could be on either side of it. The total group of testudines was present by the Capitanian; this is the minimum time depth for Archosauromorpha but only if you reckon testudines as saurian. |
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| Mao | Aug 25 2017, 08:20 AM Post #47 |
Homo Erection
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I don't see why this would not be implausible, but it really depends on the animal's bodyshape. |
| As of my gender, I have every gender imaginable, some even inconceivable to your minds. I have every gender in the gender spectrum, as well as ones you cannot envision. | |
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| kusanagi | Aug 25 2017, 03:48 PM Post #48 |
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Adolescent
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There was a pathological goat born without forelimbs that survived a while and was described: though even cloven hooves are of some use in browsing (deer) so such a gene is likely to catch on only in the absence of predators or competitors. Worth mentioning for completeness, though, that one single(?) mutation can do this and either developmental plasticity or pleiotropy affects other parts of an animal's anatomy. |
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