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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 (26,880 Views)
DroidSyber
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What would be plausible survivors from a K-Pg event that killed off all mammals? I currently have turtles, amphibians, (maybe) crocodiles and/or choristoderes, sharks, and fish (not considering insects in that, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it(
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Strychnos
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DroidSyber
Mar 1 2018, 05:29 PM
What would be plausible survivors from a K-Pg event that killed off all mammals? I currently have turtles, amphibians, (maybe) crocodiles and/or choristoderes, sharks, and fish (not considering insects in that, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it
I guess it would depend on what your K-Pg event was. If it's still caused by an asteroid, it's unlikely that all mammals would die out because of their small size. You'd have to specifically tailor your alternate K-Pg event to kill off small creatures relying on insects and aquatic plants for their diet.

Maybe your K-Pg even in this scenario could be more similar to the Permian extinction, with drastic climate change in addition to the meteor impact? You'd have to come up with a reason that the climate became harsh enough to kill all mammals, but you'd probably end up with hardy opportunists in the wake of this extinction event. In general the more prolific the taxa, the more likely it would make it through a large extinction.
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ZoologicalBotanist
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Does anyone have a good size estimate for the rattleback from the future is wild? Are there official sizes for the other cannon species as well?


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GreatAuk
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ZoologicalBotanist
Mar 2 2018, 10:32 AM
Does anyone have a good size estimate for the rattleback from the future is wild? Are there official sizes for the other cannon species as well?
The Wiki just states them as 'relatively large'. I would say Carakillers would be about 1 or 2 meters tall. Babookari are probably Baboon sized.
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Sceynyos-yos
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Quote:
 
When our solar systems rises in the galactic plane and we get toward the edge, there's usually a corresponding extinction event every 30 million years.
Any bit of truth to this?
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hotpotato!
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Presumably these are Earth years you are talking about?

I mean they could be Mars years.

If you are talking about earth years, I had always assumed it was every 27 mil years.
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Setaceous Cetacean
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How much weight could thousands of hydraulic bristles/tube feet, like those of echniderms, support in a terrestrial environment? I’m thinking of a massive, tree-like organism that shuffles along on its base.

Could it still be relatively tall or would it be forced to assume a flat, pancake shape so as to distribute weight more efficiently?

Should the tube feet not be enough, I was thinking of having it rest upon a skid and the tube feet push along the sides like oars or, if that doesn’t work, it could use a massive, snail-like foot, though I worry that this would waste too much water. If all else fails, could its ventral surface be similar to the underbelly of a snake?

Again, these trees are in no hurry. They exist primarily in a state of hibernation and only begin moving when they run out of water or have overgrazed the nearby vegetation (they’re mixotrophs).
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Tartarus
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Sceynyos-yos
Mar 3 2018, 11:32 AM
Quote:
 
When our solar systems rises in the galactic plane and we get toward the edge, there's usually a corresponding extinction event every 30 million years.
Any bit of truth to this?
Nope. The whole idea that extinction events correlated with Earth moving through some specific parts of the galaxy was based on data supposedly showing an extinction event happening roughly every 26 million years or so and the assumption that all extinction events were caused by asteroid or comet impacts. There are two big problems with the idea though:
Firstly, it isn't always 26 million years between extinction events. The intervals have been shown to often be considerably more or less than this.
Secondly, extinction events are not just caused by asteroids or comets. In fact most aren't. For example, out of the "big five" major extinction events, only the K-Pg extinction has been confidentially connected to an extraterrestrial impact and even in that case it seems to have been more of a contributing factor rather than the sole cause. Far more often though, extinction events will be caused by Earth-based disasters such as flood basalt eruptions and volcanic super plumes.
Edited by Tartarus, Mar 3 2018, 07:56 PM.
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Sceynyos-yos
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Tartarus
Mar 3 2018, 07:55 PM
Sceynyos-yos
Mar 3 2018, 11:32 AM
Quote:
 
When our solar systems rises in the galactic plane and we get toward the edge, there's usually a corresponding extinction event every 30 million years.
Any bit of truth to this?
Nope. The whole idea that extinction events correlated with Earth moving through some specific parts of the galaxy was based on data supposedly showing an extinction event happening roughly every 26 million years or so and the assumption that all extinction events were caused by asteroid or comet impacts. There are two big problems with the idea though:
Firstly, it isn't always 26 million years between extinction events. The intervals have been shown to often be considerably more or less than this.
Secondly, extinction events are not just caused by asteroids or comets. In fact most aren't. For example, out of the "big five" major extinction events, only the K-Pg extinction has been confidentially connected to an extraterrestrial impact and even in that case it seems to have been more of a contributing factor rather than the sole cause. Far more often though, extinction events will be caused by Earth-based disasters such as flood basalt eruptions and volcanic super plumes.
So neither elevation in galactic plane, nor closeness to galactic center has effect to planetary habitability? I've heard that at least the latter is a factor, as supernovae and whatnot are more frequent near the center.
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Archeoraptor
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I liek that idea cetacean, not sure about its plausibility main problem with echidoerns is their hydroskeleton so the fact the ycan move or not on is not that important for these
I would say small things could do it for sure, and you say they are slow moving I guess it could work but not sure about teh biomechanics
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HangingThief
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Mar 3 2018, 06:26 PM
How much weight could thousands of hydraulic bristles/tube feet, like those of echniderms, support in a terrestrial environment? I’m thinking of a massive, tree-like organism that shuffles along on its base.

Could it still be relatively tall or would it be forced to assume a flat, pancake shape so as to distribute weight more efficiently?

Should the tube feet not be enough, I was thinking of having it rest upon a skid and the tube feet push along the sides like oars or, if that doesn’t work, it could use a massive, snail-like foot, though I worry that this would waste too much water. If all else fails, could its ventral surface be similar to the underbelly of a snake?

Again, these trees are in no hurry. They exist primarily in a state of hibernation and only begin moving when they run out of water or have overgrazed the nearby vegetation (they’re mixotrophs).
Maybe it would work well if the feet were flat and interlocking, and instead of the 'feet' themselves being inflated they're hard structures that are pushed out by hydraulic pressure deeper within the organism's body.

Basalt columns to give you an idea of the sort of structure i'm talking about
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memebird
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Do projects involving terraformed planets where the life is descended from earth's life go in the habitable zone or evolutionary continuum?
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Tartarus
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Sceynyos-yos
Mar 4 2018, 04:11 AM
So neither elevation in galactic plane, nor closeness to galactic center has effect to planetary habitability? I've heard that at least the latter is a factor, as supernovae and whatnot are more frequent near the center.
Indeed, there doesn't really seem to be any correlation between habitability and closeness to the galactic centre. On the whole supernovae thing, the idea that supernovae would be more frequent near the galactic centre does have some truth to it, if only for the reason that that region has more stars in general and thus more stars becoming supernovae. But the issue is just how frequent are we talking here? Say for example, if we were to make a very rough guess that worlds out in our region get blasted by supernovae radiation every several hundred million years or so and worlds near the galactic centre get blasted every few tens of millions of years or so. We'd still be talking about long intervals without any supernovae-related disasters. And if some happen every now and then, its not as if life couldn't recover from the resulting extinction events.
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lamna
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Does anyone know why Bison is still a valid genus? Bison are obviously very close to Bos cattle, even capable of producing fertile hybrids. But I don't see anyone going over to Bos bonasus or Bos bison.
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CaledonianWarrior96
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memebird
Mar 5 2018, 01:09 AM
Do projects involving terraformed planets where the life is descended from earth's life go in the habitable zone or evolutionary continuum?
If your project takes place after today and the organisms are descended from modern species then evo cont. Usually hab zone is for worlds with alien life and how they differ from Earth life (there's nothing stopping you from putting your project in hab zone).
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