History Trivia / AfterManAZoologyOfTheFuture

*** It indicates the reason why the age of reptiles came to an end is unknown, although implying sudden climate change as the explanation. It's now widely agreed upon that a huge celestial body (either comet or asteroid) colliding with the Earth at the end of the Late Cretaceous was the principle, if not sole, cause.

** Felids — and carnivorans as a whole — cannot brachiate due to the lack of a collarbone, making the Striger implausible. Not that it really seems that necessary, since, as many cat owners can easily attest, cats are already great climbers and have no problem hunting in trees.

** As an aside, the Porpin and Vortex are shown with flexible spines, and swim by undulating their tail flukes, modified from their feet. Realistically, birds have fused rigid vertebrae, making this unlikely: a more plausible way would be to turn both wings and feet into four paddling flippers, similar to the porporants from ''Website/{{Serina}}''.

** In the page regarding South American forests, Dixon relates how during the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Interchange Great American interchange]], placental mammals invaded South America and wiped out most of the less well adapted marsupial life (a hypothesis which Dixon would repeat in at least one non-fiction text). Subsequent research suggests something more complicated happened, with most marsupial predators having died out before the interchange even occurred, and the native ungulates also having declined in diversity prior to this event.
** On the same page, the gurrath is a predator said to be evolved from mongooses of the genus ''Herpestes'', which were introduced to the Caribbean in human times and became invasive. The species that was introduced, the small Indian mongoose, has been reclassified in the genus ''Urva''.

** The raboon is a giant, carnivorous descendant of the baboon which lives entirely off of scavenging. It is clearly based off of ''Tyrannosaurus'', with a theropod-like stance, bone-crushing teeth, and was inspired by the then emerging idea that ''Tyrannosaurus'' was not an active hunter, but a lowly scavenger (which Dixon would use again for the gourmand in ''The New Dinosaurs''). This idea has been thoroughly discredited, and the notion that any large, flightless land animal could subsist ''solely'' off of scavenging questioned (especially since there's no such animal which exists today).

** In the page regarding South American forests, Dixon relates how during the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Interchange Great American interchange]]], placental mammals invaded South America and wiped out most of the less well adapted marsupial life (a hypothesis which Dixon would repeat in at least one non-fiction text). Subsequent research suggests something more complicated happened, with most marsupial predators having died out before the interchange even occurred, with the native ungulates also having declined in diversity prior to this event.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: According to WordOfGod, ''After Man'' was optioned for a possible film adaptation in the 1990s, and the rights were sat on some twenty years before the Hollywood executives eventually gave up on the idea and the rights reverted.

** As an aside, the Porpin and Vortex are shown with flexible spines, and swim by undulating their tail flukes, modified from their feet. Realistically, birds have fused rigid vertebrae, making this unlikely: a more plausible way would be to turn both wings and feet into four paddling flippers, similar to the porporants from ''WebOriginal/{{Serina}}''.

** Due to requiring calcium for their eggshells, it's very unlikely birds such as penguins can develop viviparity. That said, the metriorhynchid crocodylomorphs from the Jurassic appear to have been viviparous (due to the lack of signs of terrestrial locomotion), implying that viviparity in archosaurs might not be as unlikely as we think.

** Despite mostly using echolocation, bats are NOT blind (contrary to popular belief), and are unlikely to lose their eyes.
** Felids — and carnivorans as a whole — cannot brachiate due to the lack of a collarbone, making the Striger implausible.
** One creature is the tusked mole, a very poorly-suited idea for a digging mammal.

** A large portion of mammals in the book are stated to have descended from Insectivora, a group which is now considered a wastebasket taxon (a dumping ground of superficially similar but not closely related animals; in this case, small insect-eating placental mammals).

** Flightless bats, with the Future Predator of ''Primeval'' being one of the more famous examples. The Night Stalker in particular inspired a whole array of fictious creatures that walk with their front limbs and grasp with their hind, such as the Dugs from the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe.

** Flightless bats, with the Future Predator of ''Primeval'' being one of the more famous examples. The Night Stalker in particular inspired a whole array of fictious creatures that walk with their front limbs and grasp with their hind, such as the Dugs from the ''Star Wars'' universe.

*** As an aside, the Porpin and Vortex are shown with flexible spines, and swim by undulating their tail flukes, modified from their feet. Realistically, birds have fused rigid vertebrae, making this unlikely: a more plausible way would be to turn both wings and feet into four paddling flippers, similar to the porporants from ''WebOriginal/{{Serina}}''.

** Carnivorous baboons being apex predators of the plains, with some examples being based on manticores or werewolves.

* AccidentallyCorrectWriting: Some of the ideas in the book are not actually as absurd as they seem:
** The Common Pine Chuck has insectivore females and seed-eating males. The idea of male and female birds evolving different diets is not unheard of: the now extinct huia bird of New Zealand had males with short crow-like beaks used to eat seeds and insects, while the female had a thin, curved beak to probe for nectar or wood-boring grubs.
** While unlikely to evolve into forms like the horrane and raboon, monkeys and apes do hunt large prey on occasion and have a significant amount of meat in their diet, particularly chimps which are known to hunt and eat smaller species of monkeys.

** As rodent teeth grow constantly, it's unlikely they'd maintain the two sharp points of the Predator Rats incisors, let alone form functional saber teeth as with the female bardelot (not to mention the implausibility of such extreme sexual dimorphism in a mammalian carnivore in the first place that would force them into separate niches).

** The hornheads are a lineage of boreal gigantelopes with a horny plate that grows over their upper jaw to assist in chewing up plant matter. The logic behind these creatures comes from the idea that since bovids lack upper incisors, instead having a horny pad, they would have difficulty dealing with the tough conifer branches of the north. This ignores the fact that cervids also lack upper incisors, and yet moose can deal with conifer branches just fine.

** One creature is the tusked mole, a very poorly-suited idea for a digging mammal.

** Marsupials being diverse and abundant even after Australia collides with the Asian mainland and is filled by placentals. Time and time again, marsupials have proven incapable of retaining megafauna status in the presence of placental competitors: large marsupials died out in South America once the placentals of North America arrived, and even today invasive species like feral cats and foxes have quickly driven many marsupials to the brink of extinction. The only marsupials likely to survive in the future scenario would be small, possum-like forms, as the oppossum of today which is the only marsupial in the placental-dominated North America.

** Marsupials being diverse and abundant even after Australia collides with the Asian mainland and is filled by placentals. Time and time again, marsupials have proven incapable of retaining megafauna status in the presence of placental competitors: marsupials died out in South America once the placentals of North America arrived, and even today invasive species like feral cats and foxes have quickly driven many marsupials to the brink. The only marsupials likely to survive in the future scenario would be small, possum-like forms, as the oppossum of today which is the only marsupial in the placental-dominated North America.

** As rodent teeth grow constantly, it's unlikely they'd maintain the two sharp points of the Predator Rats incisors, let alone form functional saber teeth as with the female bardelot (not to mention the implausibility of such extreme sexual dimorphism jn a mammalian carnivore in the first place that would force them into separate niches).

** Felids — and carnivorans as a whole — cannot brachiate due to the lack of a collarbone, making the Striger implausible.

** Felids--and carnivorans as a whole-- cannot brachiate due to the lack of a collarbone, making the Striger implausible.

** Due to requiring calcium for their eggshells, it's very unlikely birds such as penguins can develop viviparity.[note]That said, the thalattosuchian crocodylomorphs from the Jurassic appear to have been viviparous (due to the lack of signs of terrestrial locomotion), implying that viviparity in archosaurs might not be as unlikely as we think.[/note]

** Felids cannot brachiate due to the lack of a collarbone, making the Striger implausible.

* ScienceMarchesOn: A lot of the science was already shaky in the 80s and thirty years of scientific advancement haven't done it any favors.