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Questions that don't need their own topics vol.2; New and fresh
Topic Started: Jan 4 2018, 11:18 AM (26,889 Views)
HangingThief
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Lowry
Jan 18 2018, 04:03 PM
How much does everyone know about venom and their glands, more importantly the relocation or replication of venom glands...

Do lionfish have individual venom glands for each spine?

Would a venom gland be a benign enough replication without causing too much issues in the body, I know this is why simple duplication of limbs isn't possible but would venomous spurs be replicate-able over time?
Something interesting that's related to this... some types of large centipedes have sharp- tipped legs and can apparently ooze irritating fluids from their leg joints so they flow down the leg and into the tiny puncture wounds they create when stabbing or even just walking on skin. Seems like they aren't far from potentially having every leg modified to inject venom.

Consider also the venomous spines found on caterpillars. Those are certainly...extensive.

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Rebirth
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CaledonianWarrior96
Jan 22 2018, 06:04 PM
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Jan 20 2018, 05:26 PM
Rodlox
Jan 20 2018, 01:57 AM
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Jan 19 2018, 10:37 PM
How big could a quadrupedal reptilian predator get on Earth?
sprawling or upright? if the former, look at Megalania and the croc family. if the latter, look anywhere in the Triassic or Permian.
Upright. I guess a 20 meter long varanid isn't possible then? What circumstances could make such a lizard physically possible?

EDIT: I suppose pneumatic bones would help. The supposed bird-like breathing of savannah monitors might help too?
A fully marine varanid (not unlike the Mosasaurs) would be capable of reaching that size. In fact the highest plausible estimates of giant mosasaur size is 59 feet (18 metres) so in way they've already happened. I'm not sure about land dwelling lizards but pneumatic bones would help due to the tensile strength of the bone structure. I don't know if it's possible but maybe air sacs could develop that are embedded in their skeleton or placed around the body. That was one way sauropods were able to reach such incredible sizes, as well as non-avian theropods.

So a 20 metre long varanid would be possible if it's anatomy and physiology were altered so they could achieve such sizes.

Rodlox
 
20 meters is fine...how much is tail?


One thing I'll say here is that body form will be a factor in tail length. Both sauropods and monitors have impressively long tails but I feel like a modern monitor's body plan wouldn't be effective and this would affect the tail. I'll skip the erect legs and other body changes and say a monitor tail could still be long but would likely be more stiffened so it doesn't drag on the ground. It's fine for monitors now because most of them are small and they don't have heavy tails that would slow them down, but the larger an animal reaches the more problematic issues like a dragging tail become.

So yeah what I'm saying is be mindful of considering tail length and what your super sized monitor looks like. If it will maintain the modern design then a short tail would be easier, or at least a much thinner and lighter one.
So I guess my 20 meter varanid would look a bit like a squamatified rauisuchian? That's good to know.
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Setaceous Cetacean
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Would orbiting around a binary star system produce any noticeable effects for a planet other than an increased habitable zone radius? Would seasons exist as the stars eclipse each other? Assume both stars are similar to our sun and a circumbinary orbit.
If you like balloons, the color red, or mixotrophic plants derived from photosynthetic vertebrate-analogues, then check out my xenobiology project Solais

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Rodlox
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Jan 22 2018, 09:58 PM
Would orbiting around a binary star system produce any noticeable effects for a planet other than an increased habitable zone radius? Would seasons exist as the stars eclipse each other? Assume both stars are similar to our sun and a circumbinary orbit.
if the stars are far enough that they aren't sharing any atmosphere with each other (there was a double-star episode on last week's how the universe works), then probably, yeah, a brief chilly period as the planet goes from one to the other...unless its an elliptical orbit anyway, so it'd be a little chilly as it makes a wide arc around one star and heads for a slingshot-zipping past the other star?
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opeFool
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Say, were there any apes in north america, specifically in what today would be western United States during the Miocene?
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GreatAuk
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How old is Easter island and how long will it last? How long will the moai last?
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Ivan_The_Inedible
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opeFool
Jan 23 2018, 12:26 PM
Say, were there any apes in north america, specifically in what today would be western United States during the Miocene?
While apes did evolve in the Miocene, if that info helps in some fashion, until Homo sapiens came along there were no apes native to the Americas.

More info in case your're planning on making what I think you might be.
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Setaceous Cetacean
Jan 22 2018, 09:58 PM
Would orbiting around a binary star system produce any noticeable effects for a planet other than an increased habitable zone radius? Would seasons exist as the stars eclipse each other? Assume both stars are similar to our sun and a circumbinary orbit.
There's a danger for instability in a circumbinary system. A planet would need to establish a stable orbit around two suns, which is not impossible, but also not simple. One could imagine the ellipse of the planet's orbit being shaped such that each parent star is centered on one of the ellipse's foci, but that only works if the stars are stationary. For two stars to be close enough that a planet can orbit them both and be in a habitable zone, then they would be orbiting each other quite quickly, and not just be "sitting still" at the foci for the planet to handily orbit. These three bodies would constantly be shifting in relation to each other, and a nice, predictable orbit of any shape is unlikely (unless you've got the math to back up that spirograph of a system...)

If you do want to establish some sort of "binary season" effect, then I would suggest having the planet orbit only one of the two stars, and the other star be close enough to make appreciable insolation on the planet at intervals. Don't forget that these stars have orbits around each other (or, rather, at their barycenter) and so their distance from each other isn't necessarily constant, and can fluctuate wildly from the perspective of the planet. As such, the "binary seasons" may only do so for a planetologically brief period, after which the effect may subside until the parent star's binary swings back around for the next go...
Take a look at my exobiology subforum of the planet Nereus!

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Setaceous Cetacean
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Jan 23 2018, 03:39 PM
Setaceous Cetacean
Jan 22 2018, 09:58 PM
Would orbiting around a binary star system produce any noticeable effects for a planet other than an increased habitable zone radius? Would seasons exist as the stars eclipse each other? Assume both stars are similar to our sun and a circumbinary orbit.
There's a danger for instability in a circumbinary system. A planet would need to establish a stable orbit around two suns, which is not impossible, but also not simple. One could imagine the ellipse of the planet's orbit being shaped such that each parent star is centered on one of the ellipse's foci, but that only works if the stars are stationary. For two stars to be close enough that a planet can orbit them both and be in a habitable zone, then they would be orbiting each other quite quickly, and not just be "sitting still" at the foci for the planet to handily orbit. These three bodies would constantly be shifting in relation to each other, and a nice, predictable orbit of any shape is unlikely (unless you've got the math to back up that spirograph of a system...)

If you do want to establish some sort of "binary season" effect, then I would suggest having the planet orbit only one of the two stars, and the other star be close enough to make appreciable insolation on the planet at intervals. Don't forget that these stars have orbits around each other (or, rather, at their barycenter) and so their distance from each other isn't necessarily constant, and can fluctuate wildly from the perspective of the planet. As such, the "binary seasons" may only do so for a planetologically brief period, after which the effect may subside until the parent star's binary swings back around for the next go...
Thanks for the help! Your project is one I particularly admire.

For the sake of simplicity (and not biting off more than I can chew for my first xenobiology project) I'll just have a single star, similar to our sun. In my project, though, the world in question is a moon orbiting a gas giant. Would it be possible for the gas giant to be in the habitable zone?
If you like balloons, the color red, or mixotrophic plants derived from photosynthetic vertebrate-analogues, then check out my xenobiology project Solais

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Rodlox
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Jan 23 2018, 04:17 PM
For the sake of simplicity (and not biting off more than I can chew for my first xenobiology project) I'll just have a single star, similar to our sun. In my project, though, the world in question is a moon orbiting a gas giant. Would it be possible for the gas giant to be in the habitable zone?
a great number of the recently discovered exoplanet gas giants and hot jupiters have been in the Habitable Zone.
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Yiqi15
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Nate River
Jan 23 2018, 01:53 PM
How old is Easter island and how long will it last? How long will the moai last?
Given the moai are made up of basalt, they may last a while (perhaps a millennium).

I remember reading that the volcano that forms Easter Island erupted in the Miocene.
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Setaceous Cetacean
Jan 23 2018, 04:17 PM
For the sake of simplicity (and not biting off more than I can chew for my first xenobiology project) I'll just have a single star, similar to our sun. In my project, though, the world in question is a moon orbiting a gas giant. Would it be possible for the gas giant to be in the habitable zone?
That's not a bad way to go. For Nereus, I really wanted it to be in a binary system, and it is, but the binary is far enough away that its effect on the planets of Achird A is rather minimal. It's never anything more than just a really bright star in the sky.

And after my explanation of just how tricky a circumbinary system can be, I was taking a look at the "Leaving the Cradle" project by Darth_Biomech. Here's an example of someone taking the time and math to make a circumbinary work right...

I've also noodled around with the idea of the moon of a gas giant orbiting a star in the habitable zone. I even gave it enough of an eccentric orbit that it experienced some rather wide fluctuation in planetary insolation, getting a "planetary season" on top of the angular ones... There's a lot of potential in such ideas. :)
Take a look at my exobiology subforum of the planet Nereus!

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opeFool
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Thanks for the response Ivan. Now for more questions.

How long will it take for east Africa to completely separate from the rest of the continent?

Are there any other bauplans which terrestrial birds can exhibit beyond a simple two-legged form?

Is there any reason for bat's habit of being mostly nocturnal?
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"There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars..."
"If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere."
"My opinions are formed from a perfect blend of science and morality and as such I am an unassailable bastion of absolute truth. All opinions are subjective but mine are objectively the least subjective."
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Rodlox
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opeFool
Jan 23 2018, 09:31 PM
Thanks for the response Ivan. Now for more questions.

How long will it take for east Africa to completely separate from the rest of the continent?

Are there any other bauplans which terrestrial birds can exhibit beyond a simple two-legged form?

Is there any reason for bat's habit of being mostly nocturnal?
depends on how long/often the Rift Valley keeps going quiet.

do birds need new bauplans?

other than niche partitioning and taking advantage of their echolocating, no. (if you have sonar, do you want your food to have a fair chance of escaping by seeing you coming?)
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opeFool
Jan 23 2018, 09:31 PM
Thanks for the response Ivan. Now for more questions.

How long will it take for east Africa to completely separate from the rest of the continent?

Are there any other bauplans which terrestrial birds can exhibit beyond a simple two-legged form?

Is there any reason for bat's habit of being mostly nocturnal?
In 5 million years the east part is ready to go.In 2005 or 2006 i think,a 60 km crack formed,and ever since,it's expanding.
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