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And, while we're at it, have a Eurypterid, fierce waterborn scorpions of the Paleozoic; some species grew to truly immense sizes.
And, of course, the truly frightening Arthropleura, an 8-foot millipede.
Oh shit. With things like that running around, how the fuck did humans evolve?
A lot of megafauna may have gone extinct because man evolved. Intelligent monkey comes along that starts making weapons and then BAM megafauna starts to disappear.
Premier kakos on
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
And, while we're at it, have a Eurypterid, fierce waterborn scorpions of the Paleozoic; some species grew to truly immense sizes.
And, of course, the truly frightening Arthropleura, an 8-foot millipede.
Oh shit. With things like that running around, how the fuck did humans evolve?
A lot of megafauna may have gone extinct because man evolved. Intelligent monkey comes along that starts making weapons and then BAM megafauna starts to disappear.
It was sort of a rhetorical question. Still, I have a hard time believing that Monkey with Crude Spear trumps Giant Salivating Millipede
There's also the fact that all those animals lived hundreds of millions of years before the first human ancestors.
Not to say that there wasn't some scary shit running around in the pleistocene, but honestly I can't think of anything that compares with some of the terrifying creatures that existed back in the paleozoic.
And, while we're at it, have a Eurypterid, fierce waterborn scorpions of the Paleozoic; some species grew to truly immense sizes.
And, of course, the truly frightening Arthropleura, an 8-foot millipede.
Oh shit. With things like that running around, how the fuck did humans evolve?
A lot of megafauna may have gone extinct because man evolved. Intelligent monkey comes along that starts making weapons and then BAM megafauna starts to disappear.
It was sort of a rhetorical question. Still, I have a hard time believing that Monkey with Crude Spear trumps Giant Salivating Millipede
A crude spear is a pretty dangerous weapon. It's long, it can easily penetrate most hides, and it's pretty fatal. Now, take that one monkey with one crude spear and then add his friends. Now you have five monkeys with crude spears. But they don't just use crude spears by charging forth blindly to attack it. No, they're smart about it. Likely, one monkey will move forward from the group, chuck the spear at the target and piss it off, getting it to chase them. He'll then run back past a line that his buddy monkeys with crude spears have formed. Once he passes, they all lift their crude spears from the ground, creating a crude wall of crude spears. The target then promptly impales itself on the crude spears.... crudely.
When I was a kid I used to wish one day I'd have a pet tiger that I could ride, and telepathically talk to and would seriously fuck up anyone I wanted it to.
And, while we're at it, have a Eurypterid, fierce waterborn scorpions of the Paleozoic; some species grew to truly immense sizes.
And, of course, the truly frightening Arthropleura, an 8-foot millipede.
Oh shit. With things like that running around, how the fuck did humans evolve?
A lot of megafauna may have gone extinct because man evolved. Intelligent monkey comes along that starts making weapons and then BAM megafauna starts to disappear.
It was sort of a rhetorical question. Still, I have a hard time believing that Monkey with Crude Spear trumps Giant Salivating Millipede
A crude spear is a pretty dangerous weapon. It's long, it can easily penetrate most hides, and it's pretty fatal. Now, take that one monkey with one crude spear and then add his friends. Now you have five monkeys with crude spears. But they don't just use crude spears by charging forth blindly to attack it. No, they're smart about it. Likely, one monkey will move forward from the group, chuck the spear at the target and piss it off, getting it to chase them. He'll then run back past a line that his buddy monkeys with crude spears have formed. Once he passes, they all lift their crude spears from the ground, creating a crude wall of crude spears. The target then promptly impales itself on the crude spears.... crudely.
You are taking all the fun out of my fantasy, in which giant talking millipedes in trilbies rule the world.
When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
It was a terrifying animals thread when we were talking about crows. Yeah, they're smart, but just think. How close are they to developing the technology to take over our civilisation? Maybe they already have. Maybe their first experiment with automated labour using robots ended in failure, so they scrapped the whole project and started covertly feeding us knowledge so that we'd evolve in to a civlisation and they could hang at the edge of "our" civlisation and they just eat food that we throw away.
This is turning into the "terrifying animals" thread
Something to reassure you:
You know when those things come out of the water they suck air into their inflation bladder, and have a hard time getting it back out? Poor fish is gonna have trouble later...
bluefoxicy on
People call me Wood Man, 'cause I always got wood.
Oh shit. With things like that running around, how the fuck did humans evolve?
A lot of megafauna may have gone extinct because man evolved. Intelligent monkey comes along that starts making weapons and then BAM megafauna starts to disappear.
It was sort of a rhetorical question. Still, I have a hard time believing that Monkey with Crude Spear trumps Giant Salivating Millipede
A crude spear is a pretty dangerous weapon. It's long, it can easily penetrate most hides, and it's pretty fatal. Now, take that one monkey with one crude spear and then add his friends. Now you have five monkeys with crude spears. But they don't just use crude spears by charging forth blindly to attack it. No, they're smart about it. Likely, one monkey will move forward from the group, chuck the spear at the target and piss it off, getting it to chase them. He'll then run back past a line that his buddy monkeys with crude spears have formed. Once he passes, they all lift their crude spears from the ground, creating a crude wall of crude spears. The target then promptly impales itself on the crude spears.... crudely.
You know I have to ask. In school they told us insects couldn't get much bigger than a palm-sized beetle because the carapace would collapse under the weight, cracking like a peanut shell and spilling the innards all over the damn place. Granted, this could be solved by the insect forming a rigid internal skeletal structure or some sort of connection through the carapace (i.e. belly connected to back at various points by hard chitin shafts), but... what the fuck, 8 foot bugs?!
Also, you can teach chimpanzees to recognize language. An ape can learn to communicate by typing out sentences. They can effectively learn to read and write. Think about this for a second.
You could teach a chimpanzee to write letters in the sand. To form words, or crude pictures, heiroglyphics. You could free it in the wild. Chimpanzees are social. The knowledge would pass. Written language is the basis of technology, it allows knowledge to be passed from generation to generation and allows more complex collaboration through idea sharing, leading to incremental technological improvements.
bluefoxicy on
People call me Wood Man, 'cause I always got wood.
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Psychotic OneThe Lord of No PantsParts UnknownRegistered Userregular
edited April 2009
Looking at that coconut crab reminded me. I need to buy a shot gun....NOW!
You know I have to ask. In school they told us insects couldn't get much bigger than a palm-sized beetle because the carapace would collapse under the weight, cracking like a peanut shell and spilling the innards all over the damn place. Granted, this could be solved by the insect forming a rigid internal skeletal structure or some sort of connection through the carapace (i.e. belly connected to back at various points by hard chitin shafts), but... what the fuck, 8 foot bugs?!
Something to do with the composition of ancient Earth's air, if I recall correctly. It was denser and more oxygen rich.
Oh shit. With things like that running around, how the fuck did humans evolve?
A lot of megafauna may have gone extinct because man evolved. Intelligent monkey comes along that starts making weapons and then BAM megafauna starts to disappear.
It was sort of a rhetorical question. Still, I have a hard time believing that Monkey with Crude Spear trumps Giant Salivating Millipede
A crude spear is a pretty dangerous weapon. It's long, it can easily penetrate most hides, and it's pretty fatal. Now, take that one monkey with one crude spear and then add his friends. Now you have five monkeys with crude spears. But they don't just use crude spears by charging forth blindly to attack it. No, they're smart about it. Likely, one monkey will move forward from the group, chuck the spear at the target and piss it off, getting it to chase them. He'll then run back past a line that his buddy monkeys with crude spears have formed. Once he passes, they all lift their crude spears from the ground, creating a crude wall of crude spears. The target then promptly impales itself on the crude spears.... crudely.
You know I have to ask. In school they told us insects couldn't get much bigger than a palm-sized beetle because the carapace would collapse under the weight, cracking like a peanut shell and spilling the innards all over the damn place. Granted, this could be solved by the insect forming a rigid internal skeletal structure or some sort of connection through the carapace (i.e. belly connected to back at various points by hard chitin shafts), but... what the fuck, 8 foot bugs?!
I don't think it's a mechanical problem so much as a chemical one. The oxygen level in the atmosphere is currently too low to support very large insects (which have very inefficient circulatory and respiratory systems compared to mammals). It was higher in the past.
Also, you can teach chimpanzees to recognize language. An ape can learn to communicate by typing out sentences. They can effectively learn to read and write. Think about this for a second.
You could teach a chimpanzee to write letters in the sand. To form words, or crude pictures, heiroglyphics. You could free it in the wild. Chimpanzees are social. The knowledge would pass. Written language is the basis of technology, it allows knowledge to be passed from generation to generation and allows more complex collaboration through idea sharing, leading to incremental technological improvements.
I've often wondered just what it is that moves an intelligent species down the road to technology and civilization. Humanity has been around for two hundred thousand years. What were we doing for the first 150,000? And what snapped us out of it?
Wow, that mole rat is even more disgusting than the ones in fallout.
Like, they actually toned it down.
Naked mole rats are horrible things. Incestuous freaks. Also, their teeth grow through their lips so they can dig and not get dirt in their mouths. Bleh.
Wow, that mole rat is even more disgusting than the ones in fallout.
Like, they actually toned it down.
Naked mole rats are horrible things. Incestuous freaks. Also, their teeth grow through their lips so they can dig and not get dirt in their mouths. Bleh.
They do not feel pain from acid and live in huge colonies like many insects do.
Wow, that mole rat is even more disgusting than the ones in fallout.
Like, they actually toned it down.
Naked mole rats are horrible things. Incestuous freaks. Also, their teeth grow through their lips so they can dig and not get dirt in their mouths. Bleh.
They do not feel pain from acid and live in huge colonies like many insects do.
Yeah, I forgot to mention they were also really cool. They can also travel backwards as comfortably and quickly as they do forwards.
You know I have to ask. In school they told us insects couldn't get much bigger than a palm-sized beetle because the carapace would collapse under the weight, cracking like a peanut shell and spilling the innards all over the damn place. Granted, this could be solved by the insect forming a rigid internal skeletal structure or some sort of connection through the carapace (i.e. belly connected to back at various points by hard chitin shafts), but... what the fuck, 8 foot bugs?!
Something to do with the composition of ancient Earth's air, if I recall correctly. It was denser and more oxygen rich.
Well insects don't actually have lungs, they've got basically a series of tubes transporting air to individual cells from pores on the surface. That being the case, the larger the insect the further oxygen would have to diffuse through the body to reach the innermost cells. It follows that there's a critical size, such that a bigger insect would not have oxygen reaching the inntermost cells because the diffusion distance is too great. If O2 concentrations were higher in ancient times that critical size could be much bigger than it is now.
I think. This is extrapolating from what I've had lectures on. I should know, the exam's in a month or so, so if I'm wrong I better study.
If an animal were scaled up by a considerable amount, its muscular strength would be severely reduced since the cross section of its muscles would increase by the square of the scaling factor while their mass would increase by the cube of the scaling factor. As a result of this, cardiovascular functions would be severely limited. In the case of flying animals, their wing loading would be increased if they were scaled up, and they would therefore have to fly faster to gain the same amount of lift. This would be difficult considering that muscular strength was reduced. This also helps explain how a bumblebee can have a large body relative to its wings, which would not be possible for a larger flying animal. Air resistance per unit mass is also higher for smaller animals, which is why a small animal like an ant cannot die by falling from any height.
Because of this, the giant insects, spiders and other animals seen in horror movies are unrealistic, as their sheer size would force them to collapse. The exceptions are giant aquatic animals, as water can support such enlarged creatures.
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A lot of megafauna may have gone extinct because man evolved. Intelligent monkey comes along that starts making weapons and then BAM megafauna starts to disappear.
It was sort of a rhetorical question. Still, I have a hard time believing that Monkey with Crude Spear trumps Giant Salivating Millipede
Better adaptability. We may not be giant millipedes, but we can survive Ice Ages.
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Not to say that there wasn't some scary shit running around in the pleistocene, but honestly I can't think of anything that compares with some of the terrifying creatures that existed back in the paleozoic.
A crude spear is a pretty dangerous weapon. It's long, it can easily penetrate most hides, and it's pretty fatal. Now, take that one monkey with one crude spear and then add his friends. Now you have five monkeys with crude spears. But they don't just use crude spears by charging forth blindly to attack it. No, they're smart about it. Likely, one monkey will move forward from the group, chuck the spear at the target and piss it off, getting it to chase them. He'll then run back past a line that his buddy monkeys with crude spears have formed. Once he passes, they all lift their crude spears from the ground, creating a crude wall of crude spears. The target then promptly impales itself on the crude spears.... crudely.
Nothing's really changed. Telepathic tigers fucking rule.
Not a dinosaur, but easily as awesome, the mighty hagfish:
It just wants to be loved.
Honestly, I don't get all the ocean hate.
You are taking all the fun out of my fantasy, in which giant talking millipedes in trilbies rule the world.
Something to reassure you:
That dinosaur probably gives the BEST hugs.
They are adorably poisonous with the right diet.
The frogfish. So named because it bounces along the sea floor.
Steam - Minty D. Vision!
Origin/BF3 - MintyDVision
You know when those things come out of the water they suck air into their inflation bladder, and have a hard time getting it back out? Poor fish is gonna have trouble later...
Gaze ye upon the mighty coconut crab, and despair.
Dumbo octopus!
Queen naked mole rat.
Closeup of a vampire squid.
Reconstruction of Helicoprion, an extinct shark.
Like, they actually toned it down.
You know I have to ask. In school they told us insects couldn't get much bigger than a palm-sized beetle because the carapace would collapse under the weight, cracking like a peanut shell and spilling the innards all over the damn place. Granted, this could be solved by the insect forming a rigid internal skeletal structure or some sort of connection through the carapace (i.e. belly connected to back at various points by hard chitin shafts), but... what the fuck, 8 foot bugs?!
Also, you can teach chimpanzees to recognize language. An ape can learn to communicate by typing out sentences. They can effectively learn to read and write. Think about this for a second.
You could teach a chimpanzee to write letters in the sand. To form words, or crude pictures, heiroglyphics. You could free it in the wild. Chimpanzees are social. The knowledge would pass. Written language is the basis of technology, it allows knowledge to be passed from generation to generation and allows more complex collaboration through idea sharing, leading to incremental technological improvements.
Something to do with the composition of ancient Earth's air, if I recall correctly. It was denser and more oxygen rich.
I've often wondered just what it is that moves an intelligent species down the road to technology and civilization. Humanity has been around for two hundred thousand years. What were we doing for the first 150,000? And what snapped us out of it?
Naked mole rats are horrible things. Incestuous freaks. Also, their teeth grow through their lips so they can dig and not get dirt in their mouths. Bleh.
It's a "queen" mole rat. She's pregnant with lots of baby mole rats.
Hey did you know there are hairy mole rats?
http://www.at-sea.org/missions/maineevent4/images/stauro_big.jpg
They do not feel pain from acid and live in huge colonies like many insects do.
That's not as bad as male babirusa pigs, whose tusks can end up growing into their brain.
Yeah, I forgot to mention they were also really cool. They can also travel backwards as comfortably and quickly as they do forwards.
Well insects don't actually have lungs, they've got basically a series of tubes transporting air to individual cells from pores on the surface. That being the case, the larger the insect the further oxygen would have to diffuse through the body to reach the innermost cells. It follows that there's a critical size, such that a bigger insect would not have oxygen reaching the inntermost cells because the diffusion distance is too great. If O2 concentrations were higher in ancient times that critical size could be much bigger than it is now.
I think. This is extrapolating from what I've had lectures on. I should know, the exam's in a month or so, so if I'm wrong I better study.
That crab totally has a hamburger tail thingy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law#Biomechanics
They're about the size of small dogs.
And they look like the pokeymans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_panda
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=red+panda&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
Plus, that dopey look they do when they stick their tongue out is soo cute.
Gotta catch em all!
Intelligent design my ass.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
The flounder.
Imagining hitting puberty and your eye starts sliding.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
What the fuck is that thing? It looks like a fucking drop ship from Half-Life 2!
Those tusks have to be an adaptation for something, though. What purpose do tusks that give you a lobotomy have?