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Cetioforma
Topic Started: Sep 18 2013, 06:20 AM (257 Views)
Citrakayah
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So, I'm transplanting some of the stuff from Future of The World here, to be discussed and talked about. Firstly, Cetioforma, since it is still technically under construction. This needs:

1. More genuses and species. Status: Not done.
2. Peer review for plausibility. Status: Done by me. More detailed review would be appreciated.
3. Grammatical corrections. Status: Mostly done.

It starts under the dashed line, and can be found in the current version, with formatting, here.

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The order of Cetioforma, comes from the two Latin words, Cetio meaning whale and forma meaning form, this makes the order's name in English be "Whale form" , named due to it's very whale like shape. This vast order is probably descended from otters and if not, is descended from the adaptable, common and similarly shaped weasels of the family Mustelidae. It still had its carnivore-like teeth; some scientists who have traveled back to earth for expeditions believe that it is better considered a family as opposed to an order. Many common marine mammals are from this order like the highly advanced and common smoochers, the fearsome bone crushing sea-hyenas and the giant whale like whale-ducks.

History

Cetioforms are descended from otters. The history of the order proper traces back to the most primitive species of this order, from the family of the smoochers, Phillip's smoocher (Africanocetiomorpha africanus). Phillip's smoocher is so called because of its unusually well musculed lips, which were used to feel around in the sediment of the coasts in which it lived. This allowed the smoocher to find fish and crabs that were buried beneath the sand. Due to the Phillip's smoocher's slightly venomous saliva, prey brushed by the lips would be substantially slowed. Later the Cetiomorphs would evolve more venomous saliva, as well as a delivery mechanism--sharp teeth. This would make them one of the few mammals to evolve venom, along with solenodons, some species of shrew, a species of mole, and the platypus.

Over time, Ceitoforms become more and more aquatic, until finally they spent almost all their time in the water. An intermediary step in this process is pictured below at left.

It is easily seen that the evolution of Cetioforma parallels that of whales. However, Ceitioforms never lost their amphibious abilities, with only a precious few exceptions. While many did not go on land under normal circumstances, all were nonetheless capable of doing so, if they wished or circumstances demanded it. Indeed, a significant percentage (about 30%) were forced to go onto land in order to give birth, and to sleep.

In large part this is because Cetioforms were, for the most part, not pelagic. They hugged the shorelines. With cetaceans and pinnipeds taking the open oceans, they took many of the coasts.

Eocetioformiadae

The crotters are one of the most distinctive families, diverging from early smoochers from the start of the era. Only a few in Africa are left and as well as in the rivers of the grasslands of South America. Most of these strange creatures are rather semi-aquatic and freshwater, but a few are fully aquatic and live in oceans and estuaries. The most primitive features that it has are its feet: Most cetiomorphs don't have feet with distinct toes, but flippers.

Neocetiomys

All the few species that still exist, like the freshwater crotter (which resembles the extinct Ambulocetus), are classified into this genus. The fully aquatic species have annual breeding grounds. The semi-aquatic species, like the African crotter, resemble Amubulocetus.

Hyenadontiadae

The hyena-dogs almost became extinct at the start of the ice age, two million years from now. Now, all the representatives are restricted to the warmer parts of the globe. There are many reasons why the hyena-dogs declined. The two primary reasons are the advance of other semi-aquatic predators into their range and several extremely virulent diseases that ravaged their populations at the worst possible time, ecologically.

Sarkastongathus

The two species of living hyena-dogs and the one remaining species of wolf seal come from this genus. This genus includes the smaller tropical hyena-dog and the largest of the living hyena-dogs, the African giant hyena-dog. The genus is very ancient, it's one of the first genuses in the hyena-dog family. Due to it's longevity, it has lots of species, ranging from the extinct Weasel hyena-dog to the also extinct Joe's giant hyena-dog. All the species of this genus has a more robust built than it's more common relative, the wolf hyena-dog.

Aquaticanis

The loner of this family, the genus of Aquaticanis is less robust and more slimmer than it's bone-crushing relative. The genus appears to have many representatives, all but one became extinct, the remaining species (Aquaticanis borealis) evolved to the wolf seal.

It resembles a seal equivalent of a plesiosaur, with a long neck, though it has a shorter neck and a slimmer head with smaller and fewer teeth. It has a lifestyle of the still existing wolves, living in vast packs, sometimes to thirty strong. With it's more larger brain and more social behavior, the species thrived while the others are beginning to decrease their population.

Gigalibiadae


The members of this vast and abundant family have extremely large and muscular lips, used to feel for crustaceans and fish in the sand in smaller members of the genus. Larger members of the genus use the lips to swallow large swarms of fish and krill, which are then strained from the water using the thin (but deep) creases in the lips, and then eaten. The lips also serve to help keep the animal from swallowing saltwater; members of Gigalibiadae usually live in places with frequent rainfaill, and get their water that way, and by hauling themselves onto land, where they find water fairly easily. The exception is a few pelagic species that have evolved the ability to cope with the high salt levels.

Due to the family's high level of intelligence, which is close to that of dolphins, it has driven the hyena-dogs to a bone-crushing lifestyle. The family ranges from the African river smoocher, which is only five feet long, to the large James's smoocher, which is as large as a modern minke whale.

Gigantocetiomorpha

The members of this genus range from as large as a killer whale to as large as the minke whale. It includes the second largest animal of this future world, the James's smoocher, which is forty tons, still the largest animals of all time is the blue whale, which weighed a staggering two hundred and five tons.

The killer smoocher is the most common member of this genus. As the closest relative of the James's smoocher, they both are included in the subgenus Gigantocetiomorpha. While neither species are known to kill humans, they are often seen feeding on the smaller, but even more intelligent, common smoocher.

The largest brain on the planet is the brain of the blunt snouted smoocher, which resembles the sperm whale more than anything else. It's not the smartest animal on this planet though.

Note: This cladogram is only for the species shown above

,=Eocetioformiadae=Neocetiomys=Neocetiomys africanus (African crotter)
|
|=Gigalibiadae=Gigantocetiomorpha=|=Gigantocetiomorpha james (James's smoocher)
| |
| |
| `=Gigantocetiomorpha carnifex (killer smoocher)
|
|=Hyenadontiadae=|=Sarkastognathus|=Sarkastognathus africanus (African hyena-dog)
| |
| `=Sarkastognathus hyle (tropical hyena-dog) |
`=Aquaticanis=Aquaticanis caniformes (wolf seal)
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Heliosphoros
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Sounds good so far. My only advice is that you should do away with taxonomy and use cladistics; debates on what something counts as a "family" or "order" are pretty much meaningless to modern vertebrate studies.
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Citrakayah
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Really? Didn't know that; I used it because that's what I keep seeing being used. I did create a cladogram recently; it is the attached image.
Attached to this post:
Attachments: Cetioforma.png (62.74 KB)
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Heliosphoros
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Yes, cladistics has pretty much replaced taxonomy in the scientific community. It's still used in textbooks and Wikipedia, for the sake of convenience, and even in the latter there's a pressure to stop the use of Linnean Taxonomy.

Lovely cladogram.
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Citrakayah
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Looking into the matter, PhyloCode allows the use of ranked clades.
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Zirojtan
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Ok, well, there were a few spelling errors that I spotted, such as "musculed" (*muscled), and then Sarkastongathus (I assume you wanted Sarkastognathus?


Here is a resource that I use quite a bit for my own binomial nomenclature:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_and_Greek_words_commonly_used_in_systematic_names


I have also found that Google Translate for Latin and Greek are very useful.


I'm also interested in knowing how far in the future we're talking? It seems like we just start talking about the "smoochers" right off the bat without knowing much at all about our setting. I think that at least knowing how far in the future we are would be helpful here, don't you?


I think the concept of venomous mustelid descendents is interesting, however, I think it begs some justification. Is this evolved from toxic saliva? And mustelids also already generally have sharp teeth, as Carnivorans, so I think that once you have the venomous/toxic saliva in play, then the bite won't be much of a problem.


And what exactly is a "hyena-dog"? Is this some sort of a derived, aquatic hyena? I'm a little bit confused. The descriptions here are somewhat vague.


Forgive me if I sound pessimistic, I'm just trying to help out :)
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Citrakayah
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Oh no, your critique is welcome and appreciated.

Spelling mistakes: I'll fix them. As far as the Latin name problems, I honestly don't know, since I'm not the one who originally created it--I just heavily edited it to improve it. You'll have to ask Jagger; it's a community project.

Temporal distance: About five million years for most of the species listed. Venomous animals may take a bit longer to develop, depending on how long people think it would take.

Venom: Yes, it evolved from toxic saliva. It actually is just toxic saliva; the teeth are just especially well suited for delivering the venom--we aren't talking hypodermic needles, we're talking about a groove in the back that can deliver venom. If you have an idea on how to improve it, I'm all ears.

Setting: See here.

Hyena-dogs: Don't know. I would assume that they are semiaquatic predators with an extremely strong bite.
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Citrakayah
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Anyone have more feedback, or ideas on new species, genera, or subdivisions? This is a community project, so people are encouraged to submit their own ideas.
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JaggerTheDog
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Hyena-dogs are indeed semi-aquatic predators with an amazing bite.
I also meant gnathus, thanks for the correction. As far as I know, I use my knowledge and this page: http://speculativeevolution.wikia.com/wiki/Guide_to_naming
to actually name my creatures. Also I would rather like to use both, but I use taxonomy much more often. It takes longer to make a cladogram.
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