zompist bboard

This is in response to Zompist's blog post on the same topic. The idea is that there will be one continent (no more no less) with megafauna, and that's where the Uesti came from.

But there are plenty of ways around that. One possibility is that humans migrated out of their origin while still incompetent at hunting. This is unlikely without land bridges, but it's not impossible. Another possibility is that humans were isolated to one small part of a continent until after they developed good technology, and only then expanded to the rest of the continent and other continents. Over time, migrations of humans and animals would make the area of original habitation impossible to distinguish.

If you want to get really crazy with it, you could even say the original homeland of humans was destroyed in the Iliu-Ktuvok wars.

Sure, there are many ways around it; I just wish I'd heard about it earlier. It's possible that hominids spread around the world early, for instance-- it's not just humans we have to worry about here.

My working hypothesis is that due to the iliu-ktuvok wars, we aren't that sure what the original continents of the megafauna were either, especially without being able to dig up fossils.

brandrinn wrote:This is in response to Zompist's blog post on the same topic. The idea is that there will be one continent (no more no less) with megafauna, and that's where the Uesti came from.

But there are plenty of ways around that. One possibility is that humans migrated out of their origin while still incompetent at hunting. This is unlikely without land bridges, but it's not impossible. Another possibility is that humans were isolated to one small part of a continent until after they developed good technology, and only then expanded to the rest of the continent and other continents. Over time, migrations of humans and animals would make the area of original habitation impossible to distinguish.

If you want to get really crazy with it, you could even say the original homeland of humans was destroyed in the Iliu-Ktuvok wars.

I don't think the theory is strong enough to provide problems afterall. After all, we know that mass-extinction of most megafauna occurred long before we came along (animal sizes have generally been declining for tens of millions of years), and in the case of the few megafauns that survived long enough to meet us, our role in their extinction is extremely debateable - we played a role, most likely, but climate change and other factors also have to be taken into account. We're only clearly responsible in the case of island extinctions. Even the person Zomp's quoting has to partially exclude Eurasia - i.e. most of the land in question, relegating us basically to 'why aren't there megafauna in australia and the americas?'

A further problem with this is that there ARE megafauna in australia and the americas. Kangeroos are megafauna. Bison are megafauna. Elk, cougars, bears, red deer, jaguars... there's plenty of megafauna around. Large male wood bison weigh over 2000lbs. That's larger than a female giraffe.
Just looking at animals that can reach over 700lbs, outside africa, you've got bison, grizzly bears, polar bears, two species of asian buffalo, gaur, indian rhino, javan rhino, sumatran rhino, asian elephants, maybe ten species of crocodile and two of alligator, siberian tigers, four species of tapir, wapiti, elk, reindeer, sambar, banteng, anoa, kouprey, gayal, cattle, wisent, muskoxen, yak, takin, horse, etc etc.

Indeed, apparently 5 out of the 10 largest land animals are non-African.

The real pattern is the near total absence of large animals from south america - but a large part of that is simply that the biggest group of seriously big animals are the bovids, and bovids never reached south america (only a few species even reaching north america). When people talk about the big animals in africa, you've basically just got a lot of bovids, and the giraffe. Plus some other things (rhino, elephants, crocodiles) that you find in Asia too. The corresponding bovids didn't get killed off everywhere else, it's just that they never existed.

--

So, while I think it's fair to say that humans are good at killing things, and that this might lead you to want to put more big animals where the humans evolved than where they migrated to (with later and later migrations becoming more and more dangerous), it's a long way from 'megafauna will only be found on that continent'.

Salmoneus wrote:The real pattern is the near total absence of large animals from south america - but a large part of that is simply that the biggest group of seriously big animals are the bovids, and bovids never reached south america (only a few species even reaching north america). When people talk about the big animals in africa, you've basically just got a lot of bovids, and the giraffe. Plus some other things (rhino, elephants, crocodiles) that you find in Asia too. The corresponding bovids didn't get killed off everywhere else, it's just that they never existed.

You're half right - sure the bovids never made it to South America, but the biggest culprit is the fact that South America is no longer an island continent. Once the Central American land bridge was established, North American fauna spread and wiped out the native marsupial megafauna, not to mention the phorusrhacids (though problematically one of their number made it into North America :s ).

This is partially true, although that was long enough ago that there could still have been south american megafauna beyond jaguars. And indeed there were a couple - glyptodons, macrauchenia, and megatheria all went extinct with human implication.

But yes, the real damage had been done long before. Machrauchenia, for instance, was one of only a handful of south american ungulate genera to survive the great exchange, and the only one to survive long enough to encounter humans.

Do animals that can scavenge generally adapt better to a human invasion, or are bears, opossums (S. Amer. marsupial), etc just coincidental?

The book is back at the library, but a few comments. The climate change explanation is not very convincing, as the planet has been bouncing back and forth between ice ages and interglacials for a few million years without the American megafauna disappearing. The elk and a few other species are believed to have come from Asia. And humans did have a role in exterminating Eurasian megafauna— most notably mammoths; but there used to be elephants in North Africa and lions in Greece.

I couldn't get all his details into a blog post, so really you'd have to go look at the book. He talks about wisents, for instance, but I don't recall his explanation for their survival.

Bob Johnson wrote:Do animals that can scavenge generally adapt better to a human invasion, or are bears, opossums (S. Amer. marsupial), etc just coincidental?

I'd say that in the case of bears it's not the scavenging that's the saving grace. I'd say it's the omnivorousness. Bears (and canines) are more able to adapt to the loss of major prey species because they are more diverse in their diets. Also, I don't think bears have preyed on the big herbivores for quite a long time.

Drydic Guy wrote:

Salmoneus wrote:The real pattern is the near total absence of large animals from south america - but a large part of that is simply that the biggest group of seriously big animals are the bovids, and bovids never reached south america (only a few species even reaching north america). When people talk about the big animals in africa, you've basically just got a lot of bovids, and the giraffe. Plus some other things (rhino, elephants, crocodiles) that you find in Asia too. The corresponding bovids didn't get killed off everywhere else, it's just that they never existed.

You're half right - sure the bovids never made it to South America, but the biggest culprit is the fact that South America is no longer an island continent. Once the Central American land bridge was established, North American fauna spread and wiped out the native marsupial megafauna, not to mention the phorusrhacids (though problematically one of their number made it into North America :s ).

Camelids, Tapirs, and deer made it to South America. Maybe central americas climate wasn't suited to Bison and Ovis. Did bison extend to North Mexico?

Turtlehead wrote:

Drydic Guy wrote:

Salmoneus wrote:The real pattern is the near total absence of large animals from south america - but a large part of that is simply that the biggest group of seriously big animals are the bovids, and bovids never reached south america (only a few species even reaching north america). When people talk about the big animals in africa, you've basically just got a lot of bovids, and the giraffe. Plus some other things (rhino, elephants, crocodiles) that you find in Asia too. The corresponding bovids didn't get killed off everywhere else, it's just that they never existed.

You're half right - sure the bovids never made it to South America, but the biggest culprit is the fact that South America is no longer an island continent. Once the Central American land bridge was established, North American fauna spread and wiped out the native marsupial megafauna, not to mention the phorusrhacids (though problematically one of their number made it into North America :s ).

Camelids, Tapirs, and deer made it to South America. Maybe central americas climate wasn't suited to Bison and Ovis. Did bison extend to North Mexico?

And?

according to Jared Diamond, he believes it's very likely that american megafauna went extinct directly because of humans

and re: camels/horses, etc....

they had originally evolved in south america and some went to asia over the landbridge....and continued to evolve there while the ones that stayed here died out

i have described a few fossil megafauna in a short story or two but not modern species in my project....

i want to....especially after what i saw in Avatar

Horses didn't evolve in South America...

Drydic Guy wrote:Horses didn't evolve in South America...

yes they did

Ambessalion wrote:

Drydic Guy wrote:Horses didn't evolve in South America...

yes they did

No, they didn't.

Drydic Guy wrote:

Ambessalion wrote:

Drydic Guy wrote:Horses didn't evolve in South America...

yes they did

No, they didn't.

Ambessalion probably referred to Hippidion which lived in South America - but migrated there from North America.

yea, i was

Well, you were wrong either way, so it doesn't matter.

North or South America, it still wasn't Asia as some 'experts' try to insist

Ambessalion wrote:North or South America, it still wasn't Asia as some 'experts' try to insist

Are you an "expert"?

Even better, he's the Best of the Public.

never claimed to be

Ambessalion wrote:never claimed to be

You claimed to be right, and were wrong.

lol if you insist

I hope this thread can still be salvaged...

As part of the project to bring Caln Elcarië (my Almean Dwarf Fortress mod) up to date with the current version, I've decided to pay more attention to the plants and animals to add some proper Almean flavour.
Is there any information available about the creatures mentioned in the Verdurian lexicon - the cececén, cirut, and silui birds, and the colep, pache, lomo, and cradh fishes? What are pergs, gue-gue, and goa-goa? And do you have any comments on the different species of tritonid and sea-monkey, or on other peculiarly Almean species?

While of course it's possible to make things up for the game, I enjoy the challenge of making it as close to canon as possible, at least within the limits of DF; and hopefully it'll get a few ZBBers interested in DF, and a few DF players interested in Almea

Cheers!