Thread 5040573

Weird Money Edition

Previous Thread >>4983981

WHAT IS SPECULATIVE EVOLUTION?
Speculative evolution is the exploration and imagining of how life might evolve in the future or could have evolved in alternate pasts. It's a multimedia sci-fi genre that harnesses scientific principles to create detailed and plausible hypothetical creatures, ecosystems, and evolutionary histories.

RESOURCES:
https://speculativeevolution.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Tutorial
>One-stop shop for relevant background information for starting a project

http://planetfuraha.blogspot.com/
>Fantastic blog covering all sorts of spec evo topics in-depth

https://specevo.jcink.net/
>The Speculative Evolution forums, full of resources and ongoing projects


RECOMMENDED PROJECTS:
https://pastebin.com/zhBbaNTB
>Link to a PDF of Wayne Barlowe’s “Expedition”, a seminal work of speculative evolution full of incredible paintings and illustrations


https://youtu.be/Rbi8Jgx1CNE [Embed] [Embed]
>”The Future is Wild”, a CGI documentary following the evolution of life on Earth in the far future

https://pastebin.com/esdFrSEZ
>Dougal Dixon, arguably the father of speculative evolution. These are links to PDF’s of his books “After Man”, “The New Dinosaurs”, and “Man After Man”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egzZv8tqT_k&list=PL6xPxnYMQpquNuaEffJzjGjMsr6VktCYl&ab_channel=Biblaridion [Embed] [Embed]

https://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/

https://sunriseonilion.wordpress.com/

http://www.cmkosemen.com/snaiad_web/snduterus.html

https://www.deviantart.com/sanrou/gallery/56844005/nau

http://www.planetfuraha.nl/

https://multituberculateearth.wordpress.com/

https://sites.google.com/view/lokiworldofrats/home

https://specevo.jcink.net/index.php?showtopic=4578&st=15

https://www.deviantart.com/bicyclefrog

https://hardeshur.blogspot.com/p/main-page.html

https://rylmadolisland.blogspot.com/p/main-page.html?zx=bba41f9d602b6b9a

https://lemuriaspeculative.wordpress.com

RECOMMENDED READING LIST ON EVOLUTION:
> The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
> The Extended Phenotype - Richard Dawkins
> The Revolutionary Phenotype - J.F. Gariepy
> Evolution and the Theory of Games - John Maynard Smith
> Animal Signals - John Maynard Smith
> The Red Queen - Matt Ridley
> Mendel's Principles of Heredity - Bateson & Mendel
> Population Genetics: A Concise Guide - John H. Guillespie
> The Largest Avian Radiation: The Evolution of Perching Birds, or the Order Passeriformes by Jon Fjeldså, Les Christidis, and Per G. P. Ericson
>The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity by Douglas Erwin
>Carboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction: The Late Paleozoic Ice Age World by George McGhee Jr.
>Triassic Life on Land: The Great Transition by Hans-Dieter Sues
>On the Prowl: In Search of Big Cat Origins by Mark Hallett and John Harris

I like seed worlds and speculative ecologies. Imagining how species interact and form novel ecosystems is fun.

>>5040573 (OP)
why are people incapable of fixing the OP?

>>5040573 (OP)

Ay, thanks for putting an image of my project

what about a bird but with bat wings?

>>5041366
It kinda happened already.

>>5041366

The problem is that bird wing fingers are locked tightly together, the opposite of a bat wing.

>>5041368

This, but apparently they weren't good fliers/gliders

>>5041155
it's a tradition at this point

>>5041368
Why would birds evolve in this direction when their wings are much more efficient than bat wings?

>>5041464

They're not as efficient though. One feather too less and they're flightless, while bats can operate with 20% of their wing membranes gone.

Further, bird wings are mostly dead tissue, while bat wings are living tissue all the way and can flex and bend, adding more agility

>>5041464
They didn't evolve in that direction. Scansoriopterygids are well outside of Avialae and represent a totally independent evolution of flight in dinosaurs. And they're a lineage that was probably outcompeted by birds given that there's no evidence of them outside of the Jurassic

>>5041464
no, bird wings are really inefficient, theyre only good at soaring, not so much with tight turns, also bird are kinda badly "designed" at flying, because you have legs, which do nothing to aid with flying, only landing.
and think about the amount things that a species to go through to achieve feathers, its like intelligence, theres a much easier path that have existed and worked, pterosaurs were extremely successful, lizards and squirrels have developed skin flaps, by all accounts feathers are a fluke that really shouldnt exist

>>5040574
Largest Avian Radiation: The Evolution of Perching Bird

Where can I get a free PDF of this? It's not on libgen

>>5042244
I don't think anyone has scanned it. It's not on Zlibrary either and it seems to only be available in hardcopy. I haven't found any digital copies for sale.

>>5040573 (OP)

bumpu

>>5042231
Pterosaurs were even worse at tight turns and such than birds, there's a reason birds outcompeted pterosaurs at every small niche

>>5043396

Not true, there were small pterosaurs in the Late Cretaceous like Piksi. There simply are not enough sites with high degree of preservation.

Pterosaur wings were pretty efficient, more so than bird wings but perhaps not as much as bat wings

>>5043396
yes, but pterosaurs got fucking hueg, 10 meters across and as heavy as 500 lbs, the heaviest bird was 7 meters across at 270lbs, and wasnt some bitchass scavenger, it was a predator through and through because it didnt waste its time on legs, it put all its effort into wings
the only reason why birds are successful is because pterosaurs arent around, and even then, the moment they suffer a setback, bats are waiting to take over the diurnal timeslot

>>5043588
there were some small ones remaining but given that pterosaurs went extinct while multiple separate bird lineages made it through, that's a fairly good indicator that the smaller niches were dominated by birds

birds absolutely had several advantages in several niches over pterosaurs, as evidenced by them managing to establish themselves while pterosaurs were already widespread, same thing with bats having advantages in several niches over birds

>>5043591
Bats can't soar, so any aerial niche that requires it is pretty safe for birds, now that does leave them possibly vulnerable to getting pterosaur'd but bats have been around for a while and haven't really managed to intrude on the passerines in any way

>>5043628
>multiple separate bird lineages made it through
not multiple, only three and barely

>>5043628
bruh, soaring is literally just holding your arms out, its not rocket science
and again, moving into a niche while its occupants are still there is extremely difficult, and bats have only existed for 50 million years and have taken over the entire nocturnal timeslot, birds have been around for 140 million and all they got is owls

>>5043689
three is multiple, the fact three made it through and 0 pterosaurs is not just purely through luck, birds were represented significantly better in niches that would let them survive the K-Pg event

>>5043690
And bats can't do it, their specific form of flight and their wing structure simply can't give them controlled soaring unless it is completely restructured, and none of the niches bats occupy really give them evolutionary pressure to evolving it, since it would likely come at a cost of their maneuverability which leads to momentary fitness decrease

And I already mentioned that bats are better at several niches, just a couple in particular that they're unsuited to taking from birds

there's also nightingales, nightjars both of which have large distribution

>>5043628
>that's a fairly good indicator that the smaller niches were dominated by birds
no it isn't
the three lineages of birds that survived were all ground nesting semi-terrestrial animals, the more arboreal enantiornithes which were the dominant clade of birds at the time that you'd be arguing out competed pterosaurs all died out as well.

>>5043725
>>5043690
>>5043628
>>5043628

Fruit bats are known to soar