Sagan 4 Forum [Menu]

How do I undo notifications on a forrum topic? I keep getting notifications from this topic and I don't know how to undo it.

QUOTE (Future Tyrannosaurus @ Mar 7 2023, 09:00 PM)

How do I undo notifications on a forrum topic? I keep getting notifications from this topic and I don't know how to undo it.

Go to the link “My Controls” at the top of the page, on the right of "Logged in as: [Username]" On the left will be a menu with links to its various parts. One of the sections is “Subscriptions”. Click “View Topics”. Select the topics you want to unsubscribe from, and then click the unsubscribe button.
I have never actually used this function and instead used an auto-checker browser extension, but it didn’t take too long to figure out.

Leaping gremlin (Inopinasterus nulladens [no toothed unexpected star])
Creator: Oofle
Ancestor: Crystal goblin
Habitat: Darwin Tropical Rainforest, Darwin Monsoon Forest, Darwin Tropical Savanna, Darwin Subtropical Woodland, East Darwin Chaparral
Size: 15 centimeters long
Support: Endoskeleton (bone)
Diet: Carnivore (Rolyknights, Shed Knightworms, Spardiflies, Darwinian Crestgills, Flopleaves, Nightworms, Nimblemites, Paneltopedes, Plentmowers, Wortopedes, Prongleg Scaleworms)
Thermoregulation: mesothermic
Respiration: active (lungs)
Reproduction: sexual (male and female, live birth)

In Darwin, a strange beast lurks. It has the body of a rivet, but the mind of a crystal goblin. What could it possibly be? None other than the leaping gremlin! But how did such a strange beast come to be? To find that out, we must go far, far back, to the birth of a very strange crystal goblin, or rather, a few. A mutation in the genes controlling the hormonal system of the neotenous spardis unleashed something that had been hidden away for a long, long time; their adult form. Genetically, this imago was not entirely intact, even these initial mutants were missing a lot of features from their time as neotenous ground-dwellers, they had small, useless fluttering membranes, and their lateral mandibles never developed their teeth, remaining soft and flabby and small. Though they were physically very abnormal, their behaviors were unaffected by the change in form, and so while they were mostly built like an arboreal and actively hunting fluttering spardi, they continued to hide amongst low-growing crystals and ambush small prey.

There was an issue with this life regardless, the rivet was a major competitor and even possible predator, and though they partitioned their niche fairly well, they were still forced to grow smaller, and headed inland to drier climates where rivets were less common. Leaping gremlins still hide amongst crystals like their ancestors, which helps them somewhat with avoiding dehydration in the dry parts of its range, as well as providing protection from predators. Leaping gremlins are particularly fond of neurocrystal colonies, as they are often quite extensive, both in the wetter parts of their range and drier parts, attracting plenty of prey for the gremlin to eat. However, these do not provide complete safety, and as such the leaping gremlin has reused what were once fluttering muscles in a familiar way: it hops along the ground, like a frog. The leaping gremlin can use this ability both to quickly escape from predators and also to make rather acrobatic attempts to snatch flying prey mid-air, the powerful limbs can also allow it to lunge rather quickly at prey after it creeps close enough for an ambush.

Leaping gremlins are not particularly socially complex, though they do express some aggression in crowded or harsh environments, so long as there is sufficient space and prey they do not tend to get into scuffles. Leaping gremlins do not tend to coordinate their breeding, and in the warm and humid parts of their range will often produce small, radial larvae that resemble their ancestor the crystal goblin year-round. In the more seasonal parts of their range, however, they tend to prefer mating whenever it is more humid, as desiccation is more threatening to the larvae than low temperatures. Like in their ancestors, the larvae are precocial and able to take care of themselves, though tend to hunt more actively than the adults, chasing smaller prey that they spot rather than waiting for it to come to them.

This post has been edited by Oofle: Mar 14 2023, 02:40 PM

Grammar time!

As with some of your stuff in other spec projects, I noticed some sentences with more than one independent clause.

QUOTE

In Darwin, a strange beast lurks, it has the body of a rivet, but the mind of a crystal goblin, what could it possibly be?

QUOTE

There was an issue for this life, the rivet was a major competitor and even possible predator, though they partitioned their niche somewhat, they were still forced to grow smaller, and headed inland to drier climates where rivets were less common.

QUOTE

Genetically, it was not entirely intact, even these initial mutants were missing a lot, they had small, useless fluttering membranes, and their lateral mandibles never developed their teeth, remaining soft and flabby and small.

I'm not sure exactly how you want the other sentences to turn out, but I'll put here where I think the commas could be replaced on the first one:

In Darwin, a strange beast lurks. It has the body of a rivet, but the mind of a crystal goblin. What could it possibly be?

----------

Some other things I noticed and wanted to mention, criticize, or ask about:

- The edges on some of the crystals look very highly curved. The inner lines on the deep green phyte on the right should converge below the upper tip instead of curving upwards to meet it. The eroder phytes also look too thin; the tip should be less narrow and all the side faces should be the same width as the front face. They're meant to look thicker and stouter, after all.

- With all that out of the way about oddly-depicted neurocrystals, there's a good attention to scale here. Everything seems to be correctly sized to a tee.

- I'm curious as to why the lateral jaws would be toothless and flabby.

- What's in the gremlin's mouth?

QUOTE (Cube67 @ Mar 14 2023, 03:34 PM)

Grammar time! As with some of your stuff in other spec projects, I noticed some sentences with more than one independent clause. QUOTE In Darwin, a strange beast lurks, it has the body of a rivet, but the mind of a crystal goblin, what could it possibly be? QUOTE There was an issue for this life, the rivet was a major competitor and even possible predator, though they partitioned their niche somewhat, they were still forced to grow smaller, and headed inland to drier climates where rivets were less common. QUOTE Genetically, it was not entirely intact, even these initial mutants were missing a lot, they had small, useless fluttering membranes, and their lateral mandibles never developed their teeth, remaining soft and flabby and small. I'm not sure exactly how you want the other sentences to turn out, but I'll put here where I think the commas could be replaced on the first one: In Darwin, a strange beast lurks. It has the body of a rivet, but the mind of a crystal goblin. What could it possibly be? ---------- Some other things I noticed and wanted to mention, criticize, or ask about: - The edges on some of the crystals look very highly curved. The inner lines on the deep green phyte on the right should converge below the upper tip instead of curving upwards to meet it. The eroder phytes also look too thin; the tip should be less narrow and all the side faces should be the same width as the front face. They're meant to look thicker and stouter, after all. - With all that out of the way about oddly-depicted neurocrystals, there's a good attention to scale here. Everything seems to be correctly sized to a tee. - I'm curious as to why the lateral jaws would be toothless and flabby. - What's in the gremlin's mouth?

Aside from the grammatical stuff, I can answer most of those questions!

Yeah I suppose that it went a bit weird there, I’ll try to fix that sooner rather than later, it’ll probably be more of a patch over than a complete fix though.

The lateral jaws are toothless because they lost the genes to necessitate the growth of the lateral jaw tooth, so instead of developing into the ‘mandibles’ seen in most other stinzerstars they retain the pedomorphic state seen in its ancestor and most larvae.

A nimblemite.

I had forgotten that nimblemites got to Darwin. Ovi, too, for that matter... makes me kind of want to make a replacement genus for the ones on Wright. Maybe B22.

QUOTE (Oofle @ Mar 14 2023, 04:39 AM)

Leaping gremlin (Inopinasterus nulladens [no toothed unexpected star]) Creator: Oofle Ancestor: Crystal goblin Habitat: Darwin Tropical Rainforest, Darwin Monsoon Forest, Darwin Tropical Savanna, Darwin Subtropical Woodland, East Darwin Chaparral Size: 15 centimeters long Support: Endoskeleton (bone) Diet: Carnivore (Rolyknights, Shed Knightworms, Spardiflies, Darwinian Crestgills, Flopleaves, Nightworms, Nimblemites, Paneltopedes, Plentmowers, Wortopedes, Prongleg Scaleworms) Thermoregulation: mesothermic Respiration: active (lungs) Reproduction: sexual (male and female, live birth) In Darwin, a strange beast lurks. It has the body of a rivet, but the mind of a crystal goblin. What could it possibly be? None other than the leaping gremlin! But how did such a strange beast come to be? To find that out, we must go far, far back, to the birth of a very strange crystal goblin, or rather, a few. A mutation in the genes controlling the hormonal system of the neotenous spardis unleashed something that had been hidden away for a long, long time; their adult form. Genetically, this imago was not entirely intact, even these initial mutants were missing a lot of features from their time as neotenous ground-dwellers, they had small, useless fluttering membranes, and their lateral mandibles never developed their teeth, remaining soft and flabby and small. Though they were physically very abnormal, their behaviors were unaffected by the change in form, and so while they were mostly built like an arboreal and actively hunting fluttering spardi, they continued to hide amongst low-growing crystals and ambush small prey. There was an issue with this life regardless, the rivet was a major competitor and even possible predator, and though they partitioned their niche fairly well, they were still forced to grow smaller, and headed inland to drier climates where rivets were less common. Leaping gremlins still hide amongst crystals like their ancestors, which helps them somewhat with avoiding dehydration in the dry parts of its range, as well as providing protection from predators. Leaping gremlins are particularly fond of neurocrystal colonies, as they are often quite extensive, both in the wetter parts of their range and drier parts, attracting plenty of prey for the gremlin to eat. However, these do not provide complete safety, and as such the leaping gremlin has reused what were once fluttering muscles in a familiar way: it hops along the ground, like a frog. The leaping gremlin can use this ability both to quickly escape from predators and also to make rather acrobatic attempts to snatch flying prey mid-air, the powerful limbs can also allow it to lunge rather quickly at prey after it creeps close enough for an ambush. Leaping gremlins are not particularly socially complex, though they do express some aggression in crowded or harsh environments, so long as there is sufficient space and prey they do not tend to get into scuffles. Leaping gremlins do not tend to coordinate their breeding, and in the warm and humid parts of their range will often produce small, radial larvae that resemble their ancestor the crystal goblin year-round. In the more seasonal parts of their range, however, they tend to prefer mating whenever it is more humid, as desiccation is more threatening to the larvae than low temperatures. Like in their ancestors, the larvae are precocial and able to take care of themselves, though tend to hunt more actively than the adults, chasing smaller prey that they spot rather than waiting for it to come to them.

The good news is that I believe you are applying atavism accurately.The bad news is that this comes into conflict with an inaccurate application of Dollo's law, which is unfortunately the way it is going to be applied here.

There's a semantic problem in conflating atavism and convergent evolution with one's own ancestors. The latter is itself somewhat vestigial as a concept, a leftover from when morphological differences were our only window into the past and we would have to define such phenomena in morphological terms. When applied to Sagan, this shouldn't require a special rule at all, things like whales going to the water or snakes losing their limbs to become better borrowers, or sauropods going back to all four, these are only atavistic in the vaguest sense of the term, as they are all new evolutions that have similarities with past ancestors, it's simply a matter of not being restricting evo's from doing things just because their ancestors once did, but in turn, doing it should also take all the time and effort of having to evolve it in the first place). I believe this was the context that Dollo's law addressed in 1893 and a perfectly reasonable criticism for how broadly the term was used at the time, a snake isn't a worm, a dolphin isn't a fish, and a chicken isn't a velociraptor, except that he wouldn't have gotten the last on, because it was 1893.

Today atavism is usually taken as more specifically meaning the triggering of dormant genetic traits and retaining those. People with tails or multiple nipples, birds with teeth, insects regaining lost segments, various animals regaining lost muscles, etc. these aren't re-evolving the genetic function, it's re-evolving the function call (), regaining the trigger for gene expression with genes that are already there, possibly with some syntax bugs and rusty codes that happened along the way, since healthy expression wasn’t selected for while it was dormant, but it is still the original trait, not a new development converging with it. If atavism is kept as a meaningful rule, then this is the type of atavism that should be accounted for.

Since the specific case of the crystal goblins was a state of larval neoteny, making it is reasonable to think that the developmental script was there but left untriggered, and we have examples of other neotenic species that can retrigger the dormant development stages like all too famous axolotl, I think that if we want our communal recreation of evolution to be able to account for that, we should be able to account for this case. Applying Dollo's law here is not only taking it out of its original context but also letting the non-neotenic axolotls and any other observable example of atavism count as a case against Dollo's law, thus bringing into question the merit of the law in the first place.

Ideally, this wouldn't fall on deaf ears, the more reasonable voices in all our minds would prevail, the competence to adapt think and learn would win the day, openness and willingness to apply the optimism to seek merits in works other than our own would be the guiding principle. Your submission would be accepted, we'd solve global warming, acknowledge and lock up all clowns for the terrifying abominations that they are, and bring about world peace. ...But we don't live in that ideal and nothing we'll say will change that, so you will need a new new member submission.

This post has been edited by Jarlaxle: Mar 25 2023, 10:20 PM

Coulsteph, Nergali or TSSL could approve it

The problem isn't dollo's law, the problem is pressure to regain primitive anatomy when it was clearly headed down a path where it wasn't useful. What pressure was this organism under that made going back to this form advantageous?

I have a hard time telling what thing was atavised as well

QUOTE (Disgustedorite @ Mar 26 2023, 02:45 PM)

The problem isn't dollo's law, the problem is pressure to regain primitive anatomy when it was clearly headed down a path where it wasn't useful. What pressure was this organism under that made going back to this form advantageous?

To add on--the leaping gremlin does not look or sound like a descendant of the crystal goblin at all. It looks like a descendant of the fluttering spardi twisted into being a goblin without explanation under the excuse of "atavism" while having a lifestyle completely discontinuitous with the goblin. Imagine if I tried to make an arsnoot-like descendant of the kugard; that's the level of evolutionary absurdity we're looking at here.

@Oofle

QUOTE (HethrJarrod @ Mar 26 2023, 09:26 PM)

I have a hard time telling what thing was atavised as well

Short answer: Puberty, specifically the development of legs that came with it.

Long answer:
Stinzerstars/Rivets/Flattering-Spardi have adapted their adult bodies to terrestrial life (and eventually gliding arboreal), but their larva remained radial.
Monkets became neotenic and lost the adult stage since their radial larval stage worked fine when gliding among the trees.
Goblins maintained the radial larval state despite going back to terrestrial living, crawling, and living the slow life as food traps waiting for the food to come to them.
As far as I can tell, Gremlins regained puberty with its adaptations to terrestrial life (legs), by triggering the dormant but existing genetic script (atavism), which allowed them to move faster on the ground and catch prey, shifting from pure food traps that wait for food to think they are crystals and crawl within arm reach, to ambush predators that hide among crystals and leap on prey within jump reach, so they went from spending less energy but having a very limited envelope of what they can capture to spending more energy and having a larger envelope of what they can capture.

This post has been edited by Jarlaxle: Mar 28 2023, 08:23 PM

Honestly I don't see the problem. Not only does the atavism fit by the rules but we also have real life examples of this kind of atavism (non-neonetic axalotals, and I think some other neonetic salamanders can do it as well). The result of the atavisimis longer, more leg like limbs, which would be selected for because it lets them lunge at, and later leap at, prey. The life style is different than the goblins but I wouldn't call it discontinuous.

Neotenous salamanders at least still have legs and move in ways that translate well when metamorphosis is induced. A goblin would not know what to do with the old leg style appearing out of nowhere.

QUOTE (Disgustedorite @ Mar 26 2023, 03:45 PM)

The problem isn't dollo's law, the problem is pressure to regain primitive anatomy when it was clearly headed down a path where it wasn't useful. What pressure was this organism under that made going back to this form advantageous?

Well, technically they were making do with a regular atavism, but I think a good point would have to be that the adult’s form allows for higher agility and thus the capture of quicker prey but also evasion of predators, which is important in more open environments like the ones the leaping gremlin’s ancestors settled in somewhat.

To address the other comment: I must ask if there was really anything else you’d expect from an atavistic leaping gremlin? Some previous comments you had made make this sound like the expected result of that frankly, and I must admit that its atavism does mean it basically evolved from a more fluttering spardi-like form. But it wouldn’t make sense for it to look like a crystal goblin descendant like it wouldn’t make sense for, as an example, a neotenous tadpole that atavises its adult stage back to look like a descendant of a neotenous tadpole as an adult. I did try to make it distinct from the fluttering spardi, but when you’re working with admittedly basically a fluttering spardi it’s inevitable that it’s gonna look a bit like a fluttering spardi no matter what you do. However, in my opinion, its lifestyle sure lines up way better with the crystal goblin than it does with the fluttering spardi, I think the main reason this seems so drastic is just because the ancestor is neotenous and so it evolving to have an adult again would obviously make it look extremely different, but if you have a different reason besides it not looking like and acting 100% like a crystal goblin I would be happy to hear it.

I will also bring up that there are species with perfectly functional but functionally unused adult forms like telephone pole beetles, and they don’t struggle to walk in the rare cases they do metamorphose. In my opinion it makes sense that the brain would probably develop the ‘knowledge’ on how to move its legs with metamorphosis, like how frogs don’t just flop about uselessly wiggling a tail that doesn’t exist anymore for a bit before they realize they’re not a tadpole anymore, and likewise don’t really start using their legs until they are fully ready, though I suppose I am ought to look more into that to see if it is linked to metamorphosis or not, but I don’t think most larvae know how to function as an imago until they actually do metamorphose.

This post has been edited by Oofle: Mar 30 2023, 12:05 PM