Metazoica back-up

 I saw this video tonight and thought it was interesting enough to talk about here. This film focuses on anole lizards in Puerto Rico that live in forests and now are becoming specially adapted to urban life. This herpetologist has looked at these city anoles and noticed some adaptations they have as opposed to their forest living relatives. Since this is a site where we hope to learn about evolution, I thought it was important to learn about how cities affect the process of evolution. This can also help any upcoming speculative biologists understand how evolution goes. Actually, evolution can go any way. It all depends on a lot of things. This just happens to talk about animals that evolved to live in big city environments. And it's not just in Puerto Rico this can happen. It can happen in ANY city in the world. Courtesy of PBS Terra (YouTube).

This was an interesting article I found, and something to think about in a speculative biology project. How dogs survived so long and reproduced in an infected area, like Chernobyl. The dogs did not die of the radiation. In fact, it's quite the opposite. They have survived and thrived, and still do today. Although you won't want one of these dogs in your home, unless you have a death wish. But they offer some great examples of how animals can live in an area infected with radiation. It could even give some insight to how animals can survive cataclysms that might end humanity. So I thought this was a good subject to post here. To view the article, you can go here  https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/pets/chernobyl-s-feral-dogs-offer-clues-to-radiation-s-role-in-evolution/ar-AA1v0yOb?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=ACTS&cvid=4d41b9f4b3fd4e1d98192c329b8cac1f&ei=17 Chernobyl's Feral Dogs Offer Clues to Radiation's Role in Evolution Story by Angela Park Have you ever thought of...

 The same object that is said to have wiped out life throughout history may also have been the one event that brought life to this planet. Of course, that has been a theory for quite some time now. I used to hear about it back in the 90s. When I was a kid, my ma used to threaten me when she couldn't handle me with "I brought you into this world, and I'll take you out!" This theory brings a whole new meaning to that phrase. This article I found this morning believes that an asteroid is responsible for bringing life to Earth. That would mean that we are not originally earthlings. Also that there must be other forms of life out there living their lives on another planet. Maybe more advanced than we are? Who knows? What could these other forms look like? Could they be creatures with 9 legs and tentacles growing out of their head? Are 9 legs possible in any life form anywhere? I guess that would depend on it's surroundings. The reason we retained the formula of having ...

 I found this article very interesting. Apparently, taxonomic names can be used more than once. So, a few of the names I had to change before, I changed back. For example, Dolichotragus is back to being called Juncus . It's the name of a reed, but I am also using it for a slender therapedid on my list. It's actually a name I gave the animal back when I first created it in the 1980s. So, I think I should continue using it. Now that I have read this article, I know that it is OK. I'm posting the article here, as I thought this might help anyone creating their own futuristic project. If you want to read the full article, you can also view these rules at this link . Rules for assigning scientific names have become well codified in order to keep the names internationally unambiguous and understandable. The full set of rules is rather involved, but the most important parts are fairly simple: Rules for ZoologyBinomens - A genus name is one word. A species name is binomial -- the ...

 Well, I kinda got a burst of inspiration from working on the Australian bush foxes yesterday. So, I've been working on my checklist for Metazoica. I thought it was proper to add the other foxes to the canine family in the Metazoic, because to be honest with you, I don't believe foxes are going anywhere. There's a slight difference. There are 4 genera of foxes, instead of simply using the one that is classified today. I divided the genus Vulpes into 4 separate genera. I'm using not only Vulpes (northern forest foxes), but also Fennecus (for old world desert foxes), Neocyon (for American prairie foxes) and Alopex for the arctic and corsac foxes. Then, of course I added Urocyon , which is a genus currently in use today for the gray foxes. I also added a few species of my own to these genera. For example, the silver and "cross fox" are separate species in the genus Vulpes . Today, they are simply mutations of the red fox ( Vulpes vulpes ). But, I figure by t...

 I was surfing the internet yesterday. I was looking for a picture of a particular animal for a project I'd like to somehow work on that has NOTHING to do with Metazoica or speculative biology. I was looking for a picture of a numbat. A numbat, in case you didn't know, is a small marsupial, said to be related to the extinct Tasmanian tiger. It's one of Australia's most beautiful animals, IMO. Well, I've known about numbats long enough to know one when I see one. But what I found was definitely not numbats! Eventually I did find a pic of a numbat, but these pics I found caught my eye and captured my heart and imagination. Apparently, they are AI generated. The coloring was almost reminiscent of a numbat, but the structure of the body and head were very different. The appearance was more like that of a cross between a mongoose and a fox. With a little bit of a squirrel thrown in there. Well, this gave me a new idea. I do need some more entries for my checklist to fina...