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| Happy as a clam; How advanced could they get? | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 16 2017, 10:41 PM (464 Views) | |
| Tommy Wiseau | Aug 16 2017, 10:41 PM Post #1 |
Fetus
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I was thinking about the potential for lifeforms typically considered unimpressive and primitive to evolve drastically into radical new forms, with the end result being organisms that appear completely alien and unrelated to nearly anything else on earth. I find it interesting to speculate on the possibility of bivalves accomplishing this. They indeed seem very simple organisms, lacking a brain and being for the most part sessile, but if you give them say, 500 million years, and substantially ease niche competition from other animal classes could they potentially evolve a nervous system, become more mobile, and evolve to occupy many habitats and niches? If they could, what would they look like? I speculate their foot may grow larger, splitting into various "tentacles" which could aid in locomotion, with what remains of their shell acting as a "helmet" shielding their more sensitive organs, and with many eye stalks peering out of the shell, though perhaps I am being to conservative. |
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| kusanagi | Aug 29 2017, 11:03 AM Post #2 |
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Adolescent
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There are carnivorous bivalves (evolved at least three times), bivalves with larvae parasitic on fishes, bivalves with zooxanthellae, boring shipworms - is there more they could accomplish? Abolish the shell of an elongate bivalve and its a simple worm. What can simplified worms ever achieve? 
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| Rodlox | Aug 29 2017, 01:57 PM Post #3 |
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Superhuman
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Pikea would like a word. |
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.---------------------------------------------. Parts of the Cluster Worlds: "Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP) | |
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| kusanagi | Aug 29 2017, 03:17 PM Post #4 |
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Adolescent
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Pikaia? Probably related to Myoscolex. But in principle yes, give the shell-less bivalve a flattened tail and its a mid water swimmer. Stiffen the body with a notochord-type structure and what then? A parachordate. Or add lobopods like a cave leech (itself a trochozoan) first to respire by and then to walk upon. The world's its oyster, or at least, its bivalve of some kind.
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| Tommy Wiseau | Aug 29 2017, 04:35 PM Post #5 |
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Fetus
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Interesting, as they say sometimes you need to go backward to look forward. I am curious however about the potential of retaining the shell, or at least part of it, might it not provide armor or some sort, rather similar to early jawless fish like Pteraspis? Secondly I believe they eyes of a scallop are located not within their foot but on their shell, might it not be easier to repurpose these as opposed to evolving them again on the foot? Also I'm gonna go out on limb here but could the materials responsible for the creation of pearls be repurposed somehow? To create, I don't know, armor plating? |
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11:55 AM Jul 13