Bipedalism, the Benefits Outweigh the Risks

Well, life goes on, and my life is NOT the SE forum!! Anyway, this is something I got in an e-mail tonight it's about the benefits mammals could have by developing bipedalism. Most of this stuff I knew all along, which is why I made the mammals of the future becoming bipeds. Basically it is bipedal animals that take over the World. And this is what I wanted in the Metazoic, I wanted a world dominated by mammals. Not man. Anyway, these were the benefits listed in that e-mail.
  1. Bipedal animals are more energy efficient than quadrupedal ones.
  2. Being bipedal frees up the hands for a myriad of uses, whether it be for catching fish, striking prey, or climbing trees.
  3. History has proven that animals, once bipedal, tend to be adaptable...just look at dinosaurs, macropod kangaroos, leptictids, pseudorhynco...whatevers, and hominids
  4. Bipedal animals can rear up and browse on vegetation out of reach of their same sized but quadrupedal contemporaries
  5. Bipedal animals can look over underbrush or tall grass and spot predators and/or prey
I say, looking at all these, that it is not too far-fetched for mammals to become bipeds, and this explains why.

Speaking of my early bipeds, I completed another size-chart, the therapeds. Go to our site's Size-Chart page and click on the Therapedidae. It's 2 pages long.

Comments

  1. MetalraptorJanuary 26, 2009 at 5:12 PM

    There are even more benefits than I mentioned here, and in fact there are benefits to adopting a theropod-like stance vs. a hominid-like one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dee TimmyHutchFanJanuary 28, 2009 at 6:00 PM

    If you ever get the time, list them.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Making of Lemuria?

 I admit, I cannot take credit for naming the island of Lemuria. That was Dougal Dixon's idea I believe. But it was a good enough name that I decided to use it in my Metazoic project. After all, Metazoica is kind of an extension of the After Man project. It was inspired by it, and I just built on it. I really liked Dixon's ideas and agreed with most of them at the time. Besides, I don't believe his ideas were too far off. For example, the island of Lemuria. Now, I don't really know if that's what it'll be called. But I do know, and there have been studies, that the island, made up of most of the eastern side of Africa, will emerge. I found an article that describes how it is believed this area will form. It is a very seismically active area even today. So, the plates will obviously separate. Scientists now believe that could happen within the next 10 million years (approximately). I picture at first, it will become a channel, which in my book, I call the Nile Ch...
Read more

New Changes to Old Names

Image
 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...
Read more

How Cities Affect Evolution

 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).
Read more