The Late Rodentocene: 20 Million Years Post-establishment

The Late Rodentocene: 20 million years post-establishment

Lake It or Leave It: The Great Lakes of Nodera

It is early morning on the continent of Nodera. The twin suns bathe the landscape in a warm orange glow, as they rise together side-by-side on the eastern horizon, closer together in the sky than any other time of the year: midwinter.

The morning light casts its glow upon a tranquil scene near the shores of an enormous aquatic landscape: the Great Lakes of Nodera. The largest inland body of water on the surface of HP-02017, the Great Lakes connect to the sea by a river system opening out to the Centralic Ocean, and is comprised of a system of several interconnnected bodies of water, gouged into the landscape by the shifting tectonics of Nodera and filled up with water by the action of erosion and precipitation ofver the course of countless millenia.

In this tranquil lanlocked lake several signs of life begin to stir in the cool morning breeze, as the residents of the water's edge awaken to begin their day. On the grassy banks, a large, beaver-sized rodent begins to amble about in search of food, its bold stripes serving as a warning to potential predators of its potent defense mechanism, while up above in the sky, soar several winged figures: ones that from a distance one would suppose to be birds -- until they remembered that on this planet, there were no birds at all.

It has been another 10 million years since we last explored the diversity of this planet's evolution, and from those humble creatures of the Middle Rodentocene strange new forms have emerged. Strange new forms that on a surface view uncannily resemble the familiarity of Earth's fauna, but upon a closer look are revealed to be an entirely different creature, molded from their ancestors by the forces of evolution in an ever-changing world.

The Great Lakes of Nodera have been filled by a diverse ecosystem of aquatic life, such as forests of water plants which become home to freshwater shrish: descendants of krill that have become analogues of the fish on Earth and now have colonized this inland body of water as well. Some of them migrated upriver to spawn, found the lakes, and ultimately came to permanently settle there, becoming a part of the local ecosystem-- and a veritable food source for the descendants of the planet's first aquatic hamster, the pondrats (Aquacricetus spp.)

Ten million years have done wonders on the humble pondrat, as it comes to dominate aquatic niches throughout the lake systems. One of the more basal and populous of these are the smellcastors (Castorocricetus spp.), a group of amphibious omnivores that forage for shrish, mollusks and water plants. They are roughly the size of Earth beavers and quite closely resemble them too, save for one conspicuous feature: lacking the beaver's paddle-like tail, or indeed any tail at all, they instead propel themselves through the water with webbed, flipper-like hind feet. Smellcastors are so called for their defensive tactic of spraying an overpowering scent from modified anal musk glands that can seriously irritate a predator's sensitive nose: their bold markings are warnings of their ability, and many predators quickly learn to leave them alone.

Other descendants of the pondrat that make a living in these waters include the lutrons (Lutracricetus spp.), which are smaller and more slender than their striped and smelly cousin and spend far more time in the water, pursuing shrish with grace and agility and seldom emerging onto dry land, where their flippered hind feet make them awkward and clumsy waddlers. Another relative is the pug-billed ratypus (Brachycephalomys platypoides), a bottom-feeding pondrat with a distinctive squashed-in face and wide, sagging lips and cheeks. Long whiskers help probe for small invertebrates in the muddy pond bottom, which the ratypus slurps into its mouth and stores in its cheeks while it swims, surfacing every few minutes to breathe, chew and swallow.

And the life on the lake system isn't limited to just pondrats: in the resource-rich environments of the Great Lakes other lineages have thrived as well. The hamtelopes, specifically the long-legged ratzelles (Cervicricetus spp.), have put their elongated limbs to good use to take advantage of soft water plants growing in the shallows, becoming lanky waders that spend much of their time in knee-high water feasting on the abundance of water plants. Meanwhile, on a higher rung of the food chain lurk the searets (Lutrodiromys spp.): large aquatic ferrats that hunt like crocodiles, ambushing prey like wading hamtelopes and pondrats while swimming half-submerged, with the help of powerful crushing jaws that can drag prey underwater to drown.

But of greater interest are the vaguely-avian flyers that congregate in the skies above the Great Lakes: the ratbats (family Nyctocricetidae). Descended from the flittering jazzhand of ten million years prior, they have webbed wings of skin like bats, and fly in the daytime like birds, but are neither: like all other vertebrates in this planet, they are hamsters, albeit ones that through eons of evolution now barely resemble the familiar chubby rodent that comes to mind with this name.

The clapping, insect-seizing motions of the jazzhand have given rise to active powered flight in the ratbats, with their webbed hands merging with their patagia and becoming a true, functional wing. Two of their fingers have lengthened into supports for their wings, while the other two fingers bear large claws and toe pads, and are used for walking quadrupedally on the ground, with the wing fingers flexible enough to fold out of the way when walking and keeping them from dragging their delicate wings on the ground.

One of the most common ratbats seen in the skies around the Great Lakes is the squift (Nyctocricetus spp.), an agile insectivore that specialized to feast on the abundance of flying insects that breed and nest in water. Swarms of them congregate above the lake's surface during the breeding season, and the squifts are never far behind, darting acrobatically through the swarm to snatch up insects midair. Its close cousin, the duskflapper (Pteromys spp.) has a similar lifestyle, but instead emerges at dawn, dusk and Beta-twilight, feeding on the buffet of flying insects active at this time, and thus avoiding competition with its diurnal relative.

Ratbats have reached a massive amount of diversity since they first achieved powered flight, and among the hundreds of species living in this time are a wide array of different niches: their ranks including not only insectivores but also seed-eaters, nectar-feeders, and even predators of small ground rodents. But most notable are the shrishers (Piscivenatomys spp.), large plunge-divers with wingspans of almost six feet, and are the biggest flyers of the Late Rodentocene. They specialize on feeding on shrish, and thus have long snouts and multi-cusped molars, allowing them a good hold of their slippery prey, and not content to snatch them from the surface, dive in the water like gannets to seize their prey underwater before bursting back into the skies with their meal in tow. Specialized oil glands on their skin keep their fur water repellant, and so shrishers are commonly seen vainly preening themselves constantly, to keep their fur all greased up and resistant to sogginess when diving after their aquatic prey.

The Great Lakes of Nodera, like many isolated ecosystems, has become a sanctuary for unique and endemic lifeforms, and the unusual hamsters that have adapted to live in an aquatic environment. But their isolation is not to last: as East Nodera gradually breaks away from West Nodera with the drifting tectonics, the Great Lakes will soon be opened up to the sea- and with it, the aquatic hamsters, in the distant future, soon find themselves in a vast new body of water ripe for the taking: the Centralic Ocean itself.

▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪

More Posts from Enbylvania65000 and Others

enbylvania65000

2 years ago

Some handy keyboard shortcuts for Windows:

[win] + [arrow key] : snap the current window (left or right snaps the window to the corresponding half of the screen, up maximizes the window, down un-maximizes or minimizes the window; if a window is already snapped right or left, up or down will make take up the higher or lower quarter of that side of the screen)

[win] + [;] : bring up an emoji picker

[ctrl] + [shift] + [escape] : bring up the Task Manager (this used to be [Ctrl] + [alt] + [delete], but in recent versions of Windows that combination brings up several possible actions, like locking the screen or switching users, in addition to launching the Task Manager

[win] + [L] : lock the screen (so you'll need to enter the password to unlock it)

[win] + [D] : show or hide the desktop (minimizes all windows so you just see the desktop, or brings all windows back up)

[win] + [E] : launches a File Explorer window

[win] + [I] : opens Settings

[alt] + [tab] : brings up all windows and let's you cycle through them by repeatedly hitting [tab]

[win] + [shift] + [S] : take a screenshot of part off your screen

[win] + [U] : opens accessibility settings

Also in general, [tab] will cycle between selected things (eg fields on a web site or Excel cells) and [alt] will activate the menu.

Also, if you hold [shift] while pressing the arrow keys in a text field, it'll select text in the direction you press. It'll go letter by letter if you just hold [shift], but adding in [ctrl] will make it select word by word. These, combined with [home] (go to start of line) and [end] (go to end of line) let you do a lot of text manipulation without ever needing to touch the mouse or touchpad!

Tags

useful important

792 notes View Post

enbylvania65000

2 years ago

The Happy Litter 1. Henriëtte Ronner-Knip (1821-1909)

via

Tags

art

3K notes View Post

enbylvania65000

2 years ago

a few days ago a coworker asked me to explain Hanukkah and I asked her if she knew what a menorah was. She said, “like the Northern Lights?”

I’m simultaneously haunted by and wild about this concept now. instead of aurora borealis, menorah borealis. menorah borealis

55K notes View Post

enbylvania65000

4 years ago

The Early Therocene: 30 million years post-establishment

Bouncing Bipeds: The Boingos and the Oingos

From the tiny, hopping jerryboas of the Rodentocene would arise the most widespread and dominant of all the herbivores on the planet: the boingos. Descended from the greater skipperroo of the Middle Rodentocene, these bipedal bounders would come to dominate the open plains, grasslands, and savannahs all across Nodera, Westerna, Easaterra and Ecatoria, crossing tthe land bridges of the Late Rodentocene and quickly expanding all across the primary continents.

Today the boingos have become one of the most diverse clades of HP-02017, spanning nearly a hundred species as of the Early Therocene. The largest species, the spotted boingo (Macropodomys giganteus) stands six feet in height and can weigh up to 190 pounds, while its other relatives are smaller, but still far larger than the tiny jerryboas they descended from.

Various species of boingos of this age have since diverged into a wide variety of forms with unique adaptations and lifestyles that set them apart from their relatives. Easily one of the most remarkable species is the streaky zibba (Saltozebroides melanoleuca), sporting bold black-and-white stripes and traveling in large herds numbering in the hundreds. When attacked by a predator, the entire herd scatters and starts bouncing away in all directions, and their erratic movements and dizzying coloration makes it difficult for a predator to zero in on a single target. Others, such as the dusky boingo (Tenuipodomys cinereus) prefer to fight than flee, sporting large claws on their hind legs that can deliver devastating kicks to an enemy.

Some of the boingos have started spreading out from the grassy plains and into other biomes as well. The twinstripe tattoroo (Gracilosaltomys lineaurum) lives in marshy wetlands, where its broad webbed feet keep it from sinking in soft ground and also makes it a surprisingly good swimmer, propelling itself with powerful kicks of its hind limbs. The desert jackaroo (Gymnocaudamys heremus), on the other hand, makes a living in a far drier clime, where its large ears, hairless tail and feet, and light-colored coat help it in losing heat in the arid climates of northern Easaterra.

Meanwhile in the continent of Easaterra lives another, smaller lineage of jerryboas descended from the prairie roobit of the Middle Rodentocene, and closely related to the boingos: the oingos. These smaller cousins of the boingos are endemic to Easaterra, where the only hamtelopes present are towering high browsers: as such, they fill the niche of low-browser and small-scale grazer that are filled by smaller hamtelopes elsewhere.

Various biomes are prevalent in Easaterra, and the oingos have adapted to thrive in a wide variety of them. Scrubland oingos (Minimosaltomys lagoides) thrive in lands dominated by low-lying bushes and shrubs, while the forest oingos (Australosaltomys longuscolli) make a living in tropical forests where they use their longer necks to reach for low-lying branges and bushes in the understory of their jungle home. And in the southernmost region of Easaterra, predominantly icy tundra and permafrost, lives the arctic oingo (Frigorimys glacies), insulated with thick white fur that it sheds in summer and regrows in winter, as well as broad, fluffy feet that prevent it from sinking in the snow.

The tremendous success of the boingos and the oingos revolve around their unique anatomy, namely their growing molars and hopping locomotion. While most herbivorous hamsters have molars with no definite roots and thus can grow constantly like their incisors, the molars of boingos and oingos grow relatively quickly and thus can better handle daily abrasion from the tough stems and sheaths of plains grasses, their favorite food.

Their bounding gaits are also incredibly efficient for traversing the open plains, with spring-like tendons in their hind legs that store energy with each landing and use it to power the next hop, allowing them to bound long distances across the grassland with scarcely any effort at all. This gait also compresses and expands their body with each hop, aiding in their breathing during strenuous activity. With more efficient dentition and locomotion, the boingos have the upper hand in the plains over the hamtelopes, which instead evolve into strange new niches to avoid their competition, such as browsers and small soft-grass grazers, and only on the continents of Borealia and Peninsulaustra, where boingos and oingos are absent, do the hamtelopes get a shot at grassland domination.

But though they look like kangaroos, move like kangaroos and hop like kangaroos due to convergent evolution, the boingos and the oingos are still placental mammals, and thus lack pouches to carry their young. Instead, much like hares and guinea pigs, they give birth to small but well-developed young that are fully-furred and open-eyed upon being born, and within an hour of their birth can already hop about and are able to follow their mother about at only one day old. Boingos and oingos typically give birth to a litter of about three to four, but sometimes as many as eight, and the sight of a mother boingo hopping along followed by her bouncing young ones in single file is a common spectacle across the plains throughout their native continents.

▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪

52 notes View Post

enbylvania65000

4 years ago

Context: they were in a bar that can give you any liquid in the world

My friend: I take a bottle, not looking at the label and drink it.

Me: okay, roll a d100 for the drink

*rolls a 10*

Me, with the evilest smile: that’s f*cking vinegar, mate.

829 notes View Post

enbylvania65000

4 years ago

Gritty on Twitter

“Can’t talk rn, I’m doing hot girl S%*t https://t.co/GxP9faabDg”

Why Gritty Why

Tags

why

0 notes View Post

enbylvania65000

2 years ago

The Long Tailed Silky-flycatcher Is A Thrush-sized Passerine Bird Found Only In The Mountains Of Costa

the long tailed silky-flycatcher is a thrush-sized passerine bird found only in the mountains of costa rica and western panama. females are duller in coloration than males and lack the signature long tail feathers. this species primarily feeds on insects, as their name suggests, but also takes fruit, with a preference for mistletoe. these birds lay only two eggs in a clutch, which are placed in a delicate nest made of lichen.

Tags

bird birb

1K notes View Post

enbylvania65000

2 years ago

hmmm

45K notes View Post

enbylvania65000

4 years ago

If you look state by state you’ll see that both parties are guilty of gerrymandering.

Also an electoral college where each state’s vote is proportional is better than the Maine/Nebraska system, which is in turn better than how most states are just winner take all for the whole vote. And just abolishing the electoral college is even better than all of those options.

2020 presidential election if all states divided votes by congressional district like Maine & Nebraska.

260 notes View Post

enbylvania65000

1 year ago

I think something that is at the top of my of list for things that frustrate and upset it about all of this how Jewish victimhood is talked about and treated in non-Jewish spaces.

There is this very nasty and insidious way that Jewish victimhood gets talked about in both Left and Right spaces. And it categorized and spoken about as victimhood and "victimhood"

Where as in Jewish spaces is treated and spoken as Jewish survival and Jewish trauma. One that we more and more recognizing that we don't fully understand the full scope of said trauma and a trauma we know we have never had a chance to fully work through because of the many traumas that been built over each other.

We are fully aware we have not worked through our trauma from the Holocaust and we know that we never gotten a chance to work multiple other traumas.

We also know that we will never get anything close being able to have something like restorative justice because that involves the offenders participating and taking responsibility and that just doesn't happen.

Rather the Left and the Right claim that we like to be "perpetual victims" as a get out of jail free card and/or to score brownie points.

Just ask consistently online Jewish person if the have heard "eternal Jewish victimhood" "perpetual victims" "always a victims" etc and they will ask you which side's comments are looking for, the Right or the Left because they've got for both.

This sadly has only gotten worse after Oct. 7

297 notes View Post