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fin like dall s porpoise and the spinner dolphin sexual dimorphism resulting in other changes in fin shape and coloration and a shifting phylogenetic identity at any rate there s still going to be an extra finned cetacean in this final project and it may very well not be the strangest cetacean out there posted by cameron mccormick at 10 39 pm 1 comment labels cetacea whales dolphins porpoises mammalia wednesday february 9 2011 that is not dead which can eternal lie ais is far from dead just quiet it turns out that keeping up a steady stream of very in depth articles can t easily co exist with other obligations but it doesn t mean further conceptualization has ceased to clarify we re going to be re tooling this blog into a catalogue of our concept art there s no guarantee that the contents of this blog will closely resemble the hopefully published form however i d wager to say the overall spirit will be the same and now some old context free images i pulled off my hard drive posted by cameron mccormick at 8 53 pm 1 comment labels corvidae crows and cousins didelphidae possums emydidae pond marsh box turtles loricariidae armored suckermouth catfish mammalia sauropsida reptiles birds tuesday march 2 2010 great snapper gamerachelys monstrosus monstrous gamera turtle the specific name monstrosus is well deserved for gamerachelys as it is not only one of the largest turtles to have lived but an apex predator as well great snappers exhibit pronounced sexual size dimorphism females from ais have an average carapace length of 0 85 m total length of 2 55 m and weight of 145 kg their male counterparts have an average carapace length of 1 30 m total length of 3 9 m and weight of around 550 kg specimens from ais rarely exceed these sizes significantly however the largest male reportedly had a carapace length of 1 62 m total length of 4 89 m and weight of over a tonne mainland individuals are slightly larger on average and have a comparatively extreme range of body sizes fragmentary remains imply at least one individual had a 1 82 m carapace 5 5 m total length and implied weight of over 1 5 tonnes 1 8 m tall human with 0 85 m female 1 30 m male and 1 82 m male all measurements in strait carapace length while the great snapper overlaps in size with the anthropocene alligator snapping turtle macrochelys temminckii it is a direct descendant of the smaller common snapping turtle chelydra serpentina the latter species while not sympathetic to humans and hunted by them to a degree proved secretive and adaptable enough to thrive in altered and degraded environments when a macropredatory niche held by crocodilians recently became vacated it is likely a combination of aggression mobility adaptability and ability to handle armored prey such as loricariids and turtles gave the common snapper descendants the upper hand against pythons and alligator snapper competitors as the great snapper antecessor evolved larger body size it became immune to virtually all predation and forced the pythons into more specialized niches ais and or the adjacent mainland was likely the seat of the great snapper s evolution but the species has spread to all sufficient habitat on the mainland from the tropics to high temperature latitudes a sister species occurs on the continent to the south great snapper are capable of crossing considerable distances in the ocean at least 50 km and have colonized numerous isolated islands seas are not the normal habitat of the great snapper which is most commonly found in estuaries swamps lakes and streams large males leave the water only rarely but females are capable of crossing considerable distances over land to reach isolated bodies of water it appears that the smaller size of the females is due primarily because of their need to cross land and lay eggs great snappers look like scaled up versions of their ancestors but exhibit some significant differences their heads are proportionally longer and more robust with a prominent hook like beak jaw strength is disproportionately great which allows them to crush large armored prey and bones the eyes are more dorsally oriented than their ancestor and the nostrils are at the end of a snorkel like structure the neck is longer and thicker than that of the common snapper about 1 3 of the total length and is typically retracted only before striking prey the head and anterior portion of the neck cannot be drawn into the shell to protect the unarmored structure the neck is covered by pointed tubercles resembling denticles the carapace is proportionally long flat and narrow with strongly pronounced bosses and reliefs the shell is covered with algae which provides camouflage the limbs are highly developed and the primary source of underwater locomotion the shell is highly apomorphic it is approximately a third of the total length very thick and covered with three rows of serrated ridges it is capable of being folded several times and when held against substrate allows the turtle to spring a shocking distance towards prey out of the neck s reach such as those on land the distance covered is subequal to that of the extinct crocodilians possibly due to the recent specialization and sheer mass of the animal gamerachelys has a very wide range of prey items although they vary with the size of the snapper younger individuals consume invertebrates such as molluscs and insect larvae but start supplementing their diet with vertebrates as they grow larger there are few species of fish reptiles birds or mammals which can escape predation from gamerachelys however it is not certain what the outcome of a particularly large specimen meeting a nomad morph titan pleco would be other large loricariids are however on the menu for the great snapper any vertebrate in or near the water is potential prey although insufficiently small prey is ignored unless conditions become very poor while on land the great snapper will not hesitate to ambush any proximate animals carrion is also consumed which the turtles are capable of detecting with their formidable sense of smell plant material is taken on occasion most of which is fruit which had fallen into water adult great snapper have no predators to fear although fights between individuals of the strongly territorial species can result in fatalities and subsequent cannibalism hatchlings and immature individuals have numerous predators such as carnivorans monitors other turtles wading birds predatory fish and others mortality rates are extreme in the first months of life so enormous clutches compensate for this phenomenon behind the scenes while a primarily freshwater turtle capable of reaching similar sizes as the saltwater crocodile crocodylus porosus even larger turtles existed in the past stupendemys geographicus a sidenecked turtle from the late miocene early pliocene of northern south america reached at least a carapace length of 3 18 meters or 10 5 and may have been a bottom dwelling predator 1 the eocene softshell drazinderetes tethyensis had a 2 m total carapace length and is also likely one of the largest turtles ever 2 considering the number of recovered specimens it is likely such sizes are not abnormal plus it is strongly suggestive of great snapper sized being well within the realm of physical possibility the driving force behind the evolution of the great snapper is evolutionary relay a process in which similar characteristics are acquired in a similar environment at different times while crocodilians were reasonably successful in the region that was to become ais regional extinctions occurred due to competition with large introduced snakes and egg pilferers giving common snappers an opportunity to step into the recently vacated niche the convergence is not extreme to the degree for the great snapper to be considered an elvis taxa however references 1 bocquetin j and melo j 2006 stupendemys souzai sp nov pleurodira podocnemididae from the miocene pliocene of the solimoes formation brazil rev bras paleontol 9 2 187 192 2 head j et al 1999 drazinderetes tethyensis a new large trionychid reptilia testudines from the marine eocene drazinda formation of the sulaiman range punjab pakistan contribution from the museum of paleontology 30 7 199 214 posted by markus bühler at 12 00 am 4 comments labels chelydridae snapping turtles monday february 1 2010 longsnout copotone frendoconcha accipenserinus sturgeon like shell crusher this large anadromous catfish is a member of the clade loricariidae a group which can be readily distinguished by extensive armor and a suctorial mouth the longsnout copotone and relatives informally called the molluscivorous loricariid clade are descendants from one or more of the pterygoplichthys species which had a strong propensity for biological invasion that is the limit of what can be stated authoritatively about the evolution of the molluscivores as the pterygoplichthys radiation is recent and chaotic to the degree that long branch attraction homoplasies and unexpected gene transfers make every phylogenetic analysis highly divergent from the one before as the longsnout copotone inhabits sub tropical and temperate waters far beyond the ais archipelago this suggests that it may not be a part of the loricariid radiation indigenous to that region the aptly named titan pleco is similar to the molluscivorous loricariids as it also has an anadromous life cycle highly dexterous barbels and the facultative ability to crush molluscs however the adaptations for feeding on floating vegetation and unusual fin reductions modifications suggest it is a distant relative at best 1 75 m human with 1 25 m sl and 2 m sl specimens adult longsnout copotone exhibit no sexual size dimorphism and average 1 25 m sl 1 5 tl and 20 kg on ais specimens as large as 2 m sl likely 2 5 m tl 95 kg have been recorded in the open ocean adjacent to ais although it is likely that the individuals were transients beyond the carrying capacity of the archipelago the size and armor of this species make it nearly immune to predation at even modest sizes although there is a tradeoff of reduced speed and agility as well as heavy parasitism parasite fauna mostly consists of species shared with the titan pleco and other molluscivorous loricariids although genetic analysis may reveal them to be cryptic species it has been theorized that a very large ambush predatory turtle and large carnivoran specializing on near shore prey may represent a threat to the longsnout copotone but predation events are probably very uncommon as the biomes inhabited by the predators are not frequented by the fish due to the relaxed predation healthy adults develop considerable and highly polymorphic carotenoid coloration usually consisting of orange yellow spots and stripes the longsnout copotone inhabits large rivers brackish waters and the open ocean so long is there is sufficient productivity adult f accipenserinus are specialized for feeding on moderate to large molluscs and crustaceans which are dug out if necessary handled by a suckermouth and highly dexterous barbels crushed with molar like teeth and picked apart before consumption although highly effective the suckermouth feeding strategy tightly constrains the size range of prey that can be taken for instance the similarly sized and closely related f setadon has a proportionally enormous suckermouth capable of tackling the prey that f accipenserinus can t the longsnout copotone is by no means limited to shelled prey and can also take benthic fishes including small loricariids plant matter and annelid worms juveniles incapable of digging out or handling such large prey feed on aquatic insects such as plecopterans and ephemeropterans before heading downstream predation pressure and competition from other benthic feeders is considerable at that early life stage with only a tiny fraction of juveniles making it anywhere near adult sizes geography of the main island of ais ais archipelago and adjacent mainland gti the main island is approximately the size of modern day flores biomes of ais note that numerous small streams and ponds exist below the scale that can be shown longsnout copotone endemic to ais along with the occasional transient migrate to large interior lakes in early spring to reproduce males briefly duel with outsized cheek spines to assert dominance fertilize the eggs of nearby females and both genders abandon the eggs to return to their feeding grounds shortly thereafter the large transients are often dominant in these arenas but it appears that phenotypic plasticity keeps their offspring at the average size hybrids with f setadon have been recorded although this bizarre looking progeny appears to have lower fitness than either parent species although rare on ais with perhaps 500 1000 individuals the longsnout copotone is in no risk of extinction on the archipelago due to consistent gene flow and the tendency of adult specimens to live and reproduce for decades behind the scenes while it is not uncommon for some speculative evolution projects to include animals which are likely the product of hey wouldn t it be neat if x evolved into x the evolution of the longsnout copotone is not as unreasonable as surface details may suggest loricariids already have roughly sturgeon like morphology and habitat and it is certainly worth noting that another clade of benthic armored fishes poachers agonidae have produced species that look and function essentially like small sturgeons e g podothecus accipenserinus no extant loricariids are known to occur in salt water but sailfin catfishes pterygoplichthys spp are exceptionally hardy and can tolerate brackish waters 1 fishbase lists pterygoplichthys disjunctivus as occurring in mangroves in addition to lakes and ponds suggesting brackish waters may be a regular habitat for that species a likely ancestor of most ais loricariids as the molluscivorous loricariid clade will have evolved saltwater tolerance quite recently in their history reproductive ties to freshwater are highly unlikely to break for some time if they ever do the longsnout copotone is considerably larger than any extant loricariid although it is notable that even the largest specimens are utterly dwarfed by the distantly related titan pleco several loricariid clades appear to reach or exceed 1 meter in total length 2 and introduced sailfin catfishes reach at least 50 cm tl with evidence for a maximum size exceeding 70 cm 3 catfishes have independently evolved gigantism in numerous clades such as bagarius yarrelli sisoridae silurus glanis siluridae pangasianodon gigas pangasiidae and others so it is certainly possible for this trend to extend to yet another group it is unknown what factors if any cause frequent gigantism in catfishes loricariids generally feed by scraping algae small invertebrates and organic sediments from substrates 3 although it does not appear that feeding ecology has been very well researched for loricariids and aqua...