Post Aw6qDoToPhqTi4Spw8 by BashStKid@mastodon.online
(DIR) More posts by BashStKid@mastodon.online
(DIR) Post #Aw6nmIIJlotuA4q0o4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-14T01:30:36Z
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Imagine a world where there were no arthropods. There are plants and fungi, and these would still make it on to land. In the sea you have bivalves and mollusks, and vertebrates. Naturally the mollusks still make it on to land no problem. And perhaps we see The Age of the Snail.However, would vertebrates ever bother with just the buffet of plans, fungi and snails to entice them? No insects, no spiders, no crabs in the sand. Maybe, without the arthropods the snails take over I think.
(DIR) Post #Aw6osa9APNLjDn7UMy by Moss@beige.party
2025-07-14T01:42:54Z
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@futurebird I’m imagining the development of snail technology. What their tools and vehicles look like.
(DIR) Post #Aw6ouGgliw1TS7dnBQ by detondev@social.linux.pizza
2025-07-14T01:43:13Z
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@futurebird *tearfully* Imagine a world where there were no arthropods
(DIR) Post #Aw6p5e0JNXYOwtCr1U by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-14T01:45:19Z
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@detondev Not much of a world at all really. Although I do like thinking about the mollusk people. They would be smart like octopuses, but probably need to do more with the shell to survive on land if they wanted to be large.
(DIR) Post #Aw6pJvDMBgqANd7Gj2 by detondev@social.linux.pizza
2025-07-14T01:47:50Z
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@futurebird could we get shells that do some photosynthesis type shit
(DIR) Post #Aw6ptZ9tfTDSOsUi9o by joelvanderwerf@mastodon.social
2025-07-14T01:54:17Z
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@futurebird Maybe land octopuses? I wonder why that hasn't happened in our world.
(DIR) Post #Aw6qDoToPhqTi4Spw8 by BashStKid@mastodon.online
2025-07-14T01:57:57Z
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@futurebird I suppose the only way to overcome the unsupported size on land problem would be either modify the mantle to produce internal calcification (a pseudo-vertebrate) or to modify it to produce external jointed plates (a pseudo-arthropod)?
(DIR) Post #Aw6rrxqp5iD4JMw8Xo by trevorthetuba@mastodon.social
2025-07-14T02:16:24Z
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@futurebird your statement that without arthropods snails woild take over is true. The lab Im interning for is doing an experiment looking at how insecticides can actually increase crop damage if they kill ground beetles, letting the slugs run rampant. Arthropods are the only thing stopping mollusks from taking over the world
(DIR) Post #Aw6vqLuv2iDaBkL6lk by ubi@ecoevo.social
2025-07-14T03:00:55Z
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@futurebird Without arthropods, would lobopods and Onychophora take over?Imagine a wonderful world dominated by velvet worms. Where they diversify to fill in niches that arthropods don't occupy. Velvet worm crabs, Velvet worm ants and Velvet worm butterflies.
(DIR) Post #Aw6vwmk4DlcH7dKZkW by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-07-14T03:02:06Z
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@ubi This is only tangentially related but I think you will enjoy if you didn't see it yet:https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/111319648896717157
(DIR) Post #Aw7ieLefqxej415Gjo by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-07-14T09:51:57Z
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@ubi @futurebird great idea for a spec evo universe, but I have found snails living in small streams that were otherwise surrounded by desert, and I don't think that's terribly unusual. Velvet worms, on the other hand, I've never seen outside of pictures, but from what little I know , they don't seem to be able to spread like snails do. But, without arthropods, maybe they would have evolved the ability. (And maybe they evolved it in the past, but we just don't know due to poor preservation)
(DIR) Post #Aw7ieMhXxlY2JDR4r2 by ubi@ecoevo.social
2025-07-14T10:46:52Z
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@llewelly @futurebird Fossil Onychophora were marine, so there is the possibility of multiple land invasions if given enough time. But one of the questions is if Velvet worms are a flexible enough body plan to supply the variation to adapt to various niches. They've been a around since the Cambrian, but they extant species still pretty much look the same and occupy very narrow niches.
(DIR) Post #Aw7jm8uDEs73nEdHCC by patrickhadfield@mastodon.scot
2025-07-14T04:03:15Z
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@futurebird maybe the selection pressures that resulted in arthropods way back when would instead produce - other kind of arthropods?!It's too long since I studied evolution. But you've got me thinking now!
(DIR) Post #Aw7jveudbj1LfPMwls by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2025-07-14T10:26:43Z
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@futurebird not big on escargot but fungi and molluscs can be pretty tasty
(DIR) Post #Aw7jvoiFAf343reBqC by mattmcirvin@mathstodon.xyz
2025-07-14T11:02:37Z
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@futurebird (I say this but the "zuppa di pesce" I had yesterday was also full of arthropods)
(DIR) Post #Aw7oofzrg36mm1Ithw by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-07-14T07:19:13Z
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@futurebird there are plenty of vertebrates that eat snails. And most fossil lungfish have the teeth for eating some kind of hard-shelled muck-dwelling prey. South American lungfish eat snails, among many other things. Maybe some of the others do as well, I don't know. Lungfish are the nearest living relatives to land vertebrates that aren't ancestrally land living. So in the absence of arthropods, snails could have been a food that provided an advantage to early tetrapods that came onto land.
(DIR) Post #Aw7qlQRLGD8bZ3jXqy by WhisperingHek@mastodon.social
2025-07-14T13:38:43Z
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@futurebird https://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/
(DIR) Post #Aw7rCA4IEpr6bhhY7E by llewelly@sauropods.win
2025-07-14T07:34:15Z
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@joelvanderwerf @futurebird I find it puzzling there are no land-dwelling cephalopods. Several species of octopus make occasional late night trips onto land. And terrestrial gastropods (snails and slugs) have evolved many times independently. It didn't just happen once. (I don't know if any of the terrestrial slugs were shell-less when they evolved terrestrial habits. As far as I know, a lineage of gastropods can evolve a shell or evolve it away relatively easily.)
(DIR) Post #Aw8YIQOkjUNV1JVK9g by patrickhadfield@mastodon.scot
2025-07-14T21:44:11Z
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@futurebird ... Which reminded me: I caught the end of this documentary recently, and meant to watch it all. You're most likely familiar with its contents, but it might be of interest!I saw it on BBC, but I *think* it's the same as available online. Mysterious Origins of Insects: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001zhxz via @bbciplayerhttps://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8yubyc