I changed accounts.
I am offended. 
Well, I guess I'm just going to have to drop by here every 25 posts or so and see if there's something down to my level for me to comment on...
I am now known as Flyboy.
Christmas Sheep
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Oh come on, there's gotta be 50 questions up there! You have to know at least one!
EDIT: 80 is higher than I thought it was.
EDIT 2: Electric Boogaloo: There's 49. I counted. JUST FOR YOU.
edited 26th Aug '11 11:44:47 PM by TheEarthSheep
Still Sheepin'
I changed accounts.
Well... I think most pack predators have pretty good "tactics," though it's mostly instinct. Normally you see them hunt in numbers between 4-12, though I'm just going by Animal Planet here. I suppose it also depends, too.
I think it's only mammals that travel in herds, for herbivores. I've never seen any other type of animal... well... I guess if you count birds and butterflies.
Generally, only mammal herbivores would travel in herds, I think. ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Most insects oxygenate through their exoskeleton, if I recall correctly. It's part of the reason they don't scale up well: they lack the complex oxygen-processing systems to deal with it on a larger scale...
Blood is red because of hemoglobin, which is an iron-based oxygen-filter...
edited 26th Aug '11 11:51:19 PM by USAF713
I am now known as Flyboy.
Christmas Sheep
I'm not looking for answers like this. I'm looking for why those answers are true. Why do only mammals have hemoglobin? Why aren't there herds of lizards? Why do insects oxygenate through their exoskeleton?
What evolutionary advantage/disadvantage comes from these things?
Still Sheepin'
I changed accounts.
Oh... this is going to involve a lot of mind-fuckingly difficult math again, isn't it?
Well, I know that hemoglobin is the most effective oxygen-carrying substance that occurs biologically. I think the next-most efficient substance is like a third as effective, or something.
Ugh, it's 2AM, I'm coming back... later today, if not tomorrow...
Weren't there herds of dinosaurs? And what do you exactly mean by herd. Just a group of animals or something else?
- In all the BBC specials, the fish just kinda hang out next to the sharks. This strikes me as incredibly stupid. Why don't they swim away? Are they just incredibly stupid?
- How do sharks eat, anyway? It seems like it would be really hard to maneuver in the water, and fish can dart like nobody's business. How do sharks manage to coax a fish into their mouth?
- There's a lot of crazy shit going down at the bottom of the ocean, when I get that far with my world building can I pretty much just make crap up, and have it make as much sense as half the things down there?
- Do fish need oxygen? If no, why not? If yes, how do they get it?
- How improbable is it to have giant sea monsters? This runs into the same problem as the previous 'big herbivores' thing, why are all the big whales and stuff so gentle? Is there any reason there isn't something much... nastier?
- How do fish live with the immense pressure bearing down on them forever? I mean, just going a thousand feet down has to put incredible strain on a body, and there is life on the ocean floor, several miles down!
Well I'm no biology expert, but I'll try to answer a few.
I'm... not even going to try with the blockquotes so bear with me. Some of these have been answered to a degree, but I've got some different answers that are a little column A/column B type stuff.
- Quick General Question: Do all living things have the same spectrum of sight as humans? I have heard that snakes can seen ultraviolet and infrared light, but I'm not sure if that is true. If it is, what advantage does that give them, what is different about their eyes, and are there any other things that can see on a different/larger/smaller spectrum than us?
- No. As you mentioned some reptiles can see into the infra-red and at least some birds can see further into the ultraviolet than us because the fruit they feed on is highly reflective and thus really shiny in UV. Wider spectrum can bypass possible camouflage while smaller can help in low light conditions (more of the eye dedicated to sensing light rather than distinguishing colours)
- Why are all of the big animals primary consumers? Elephants, giraffes, hippos, whales, it goes on. It seems like the only things that could take a lion in a fight are just interested in the grass, and it's boring. Is there any evolutionary reason for this?
- Energy costs. Large predators need more or larger prey to feed on which means more available land. Herbivores need less area per individual so the same amount of land can support more or larger herbivores than predators. The large herbivores evolved that way as a defence mechanism against predators by simply being to large to mess with.
- Do all or most herbivores live with herds? I know that all of the ones I can think of (and know whether they live in herds or not) do. Are there any that don't? If yes, which?
- Many do, but not all. Bull Elephants travel alone as do bears, whether they're primarily herbivorous or carnivorous.
- Why were domesticated animals domesticated in the first place? Specifically, I'm looking for traits that are desirable among: Cattle, Horses, Sheep, Cats, and Dogs. Following on this, were these creatures easily recognizable for these traits before they were bred for them? How hard is it to domesticate a usable number of these? How long does it take?
- Cattle and horses: Food and carrying/pulling loads larger than a human can handle. Sheep and Goats: Food and Fibre (wool). Cats and dogs are a bit more complex because it is believed that they sort of started the domestication process themselves. Wild dogs started hanging around human settlements because even their scraps made good eating and they sort of started getting along. Cats is something similar but more they hunted pests like mice and rats and so people started encouraging them to hang around.
- What makes animal blood red? I know that insects have different colors, and I'm not sure about fish. Why is it that way?
- They use an iron based compound as the oxygen carrying compound in their blood.
- Why are seeds the primary (and only, if I remember correctly) way to reproduce among plants? And regarding the means with which seeds are spread, how much does that affect the plant?
- Some plants reproduce by spores (ferns and the like) and other can reproduce by budding.
- Can plants get sick, meaning do bacteria or viruses ever infect them? If no, why? If yes, what are some typical effects on the plant?
- There are plant diseases, but other than some fungi, I don't know what causes them.
- Why is green the color of most plants? Is there any specific reason for it, or is it just because? If there is a specific reason, how do plants like red lettuce or wheat (I can't think of any other differently colored plants) survive?
- There are chemicals other than chlorophyll that produce the same effect but aren't as efficient under a yellow sun.
- In line with the animal domestication questions above, why were the plants that were domesticated originally sought after? Specific plants I want to know about are: Wheat, Rice, Alfalfa, Cotton, Corn, and Spices in general. Were those immediately recognizable as food by native man? What traits of them led man to breed them? How much did genetic engineering by man change them, i.e. could I recognize them 30, 000 years ago?
- Food, food, food, fibre, food, hey that tastes good!. Wheat and rise still have wild relatives still around and they're not recognisable as being related to the lay person. Scientists aren't even sure what what wild relative corn evolved from.
Insects:
- Why are insects always so small? I've heard that they were much bigger in the time of the dinosaurs, what changed?
- Oxygen content was much higher back then. Also there are physical limits to how large you can make a creature with an exoskeleton.
- What percentage of insects have the capacity to fly? Does this vary by region?
- Most I think. Even those that don't have vestigal wings.
- Do other insects aside from butterflies have 'staged' lifespans, meaning multiple unrecognizably different creatures, that are all just different times of life for one individual?
- Off the top of my head, cicada at the very least.
- Why are ants so damned civilized? What makes them special, so they can have rudimentary societies, and not other insects? How much control does the Queen actually have over individuals?
- Bees and wasps (also the closest relatives to ants) are also colonial insects. How much the queen controls them is a subject of ongoing reason.
- How do insects like the Mosquito, which have a proboscis, oxygenate? Do other insects just have mouths/nostrils and lungs like we do?
- Insects breath through holes in their abdomens and the oxygen is absorbed directly into the bloodstream, no lungs needed.
- What is the advantage for being cold-blooded?
- Need to eat less at the expense of having to sun yourself to warm up.
- What's with the tongue thing?
- To catch insects without getting so close they spook
- Same question as with insects, why are most reptiles so small? Aside from the komodo dragon and some snakes, I can't think of any that are bigger than my arm. Do I just not know anything about reptiles?
- Galapagos Tortoises are huge. But mostly because mammals usurped the role of large land animals after the Mesozoic era
- What do most reptiles actually eat? I have never in my life seen a reptile doing anything other than sitting his ass down on a rock. Is that also just because I don't know anything about reptiles?
- Insects, fruit, vegetables, meat. Depends on the species.
- Why haven't any reptiles ever been domesticated? What traits do they not have that other animals (which were domesticated) have?
- No useful traits that aren't provided by other animals that are easier to domesticate.
- I know that amphibians always start their lives in the water. Is that always fresh water, or can they be hatched in salt water as well? If they can only live in fresh water, why can't they live in salt?
- Theoretically I can't think why they shouldn't be able to. The earliest amphibians were probably ocean going.
- Again, we hit the problem of size. There are certainly some big birds out there, California condor has a wingspan somewhere around 6 ft, but the vast majority are the size of a mouse. Why is that?
- Energy again. I takes a lot of energy to get airborne and the bigger you are the more you have to eat. All the record holders for size in birds are flightless like the emu and ostrich.
- Is there any particular fashion the feathers are arranged in, or is it more the fact that there are feathers that helps them glide, rather than the placement?
- A little bit of both. The structure of the feathers aid in flight and different types of feathers go in different places for maximum efficiency.
- On the breast/head of a bird, what is that stuff? It's not feather, it's not fur (or is it?), what's going on there?
- They're feathers. Just not long feathers.
- What advantage does a nest give, and what are ideal qualities of nests?
- Keeps predators out and eggs/hatchlings in. Also helps keep chicks warm until they grow their own feathers.
- What's the difference between an owl and any other bird, how are they evolved differently?
- Nocturnal ambush predator as opposed to high flying, high speed attack predators like the raptors.
- Why do raptors screech when they dive? It seems like a blanket warning to all of the mice in the field that they should run. Do they actually screech, or is that just a Hollywood myth?
- That's only the red-tailed hawk that has that particular call. Others have their own. And some animals instinctively freeze when they hear a predators call.
- Again, domestication. But not to as great an extent this time, birds aren't really domesticated, besides Chickens. What's the deal with domestic Chickens?
- Geese and ducks have also been domesticated. But the main problem... they can fly. Its harder to keep then contained, especially on a large scale.
- Relatedly, why do the Mongolians hunt with falcons? Why do the falcons allow themselves to be tools of the nomads? What do they get out of it? What are the advantages to both sides?
- I feel I should start by pointing out that this is not a uniquely Mongolian thing. Falconry had a long, proud tradition in Medieval Europe. And two the falcons get fed, often a share of the prey, or something else to eat and a warm place to stay in the winter.
- In all the BBC specials, the fish just kinda hang out next to the sharks. This strikes me as incredibly stupid. Why don't they swim away? Are they just incredibly stupid?
- Depends on the shark. Some species aren't that aggressive and so its not so dangerous to swim near them.
- How do sharks eat, anyway? It seems like it would be really hard to maneuver in the water, and fish can dart like nobody's business. How do sharks manage to coax a fish into their mouth?
- Some sharks have strategies for attacking fish, others just sort of grab it but most, if not all do have one thing in common. When they open their mouths really wide it creates a suction that helps draw their prey in.
- Do fish need oxygen? If no, why not? If yes, how do they get it?
- Yes they need oxygen and they get it by extracting O2 dissolved in seawater with their gills.
- How improbable is it to have giant sea monsters? This runs into the same problem as the previous 'big herbivores' thing, why are all the big whales and stuff so gentle? Is there any reason there isn't something much... nastier?
- Animals can get larger in the water because the water helps support their weight. And has been pointed out, whales aren't fish and while the fairly gentle blue whale is the largest, sperm whales are pretty big and can get pretty aggressive. Also there are some squid than can give a sperm whale a run for their money, we just don't see them often because they live in the abyssal deeps.
- How do fish live with the immense pressure bearing down on them forever? I mean, just going a thousand feet down has to put incredible strain on a body, and there is life on the ocean floor, several miles down!
- Because they evolved to live at those depths. There are some fish from Lake Baikal in Russia, the world's deepest freshwater lake who's bodies dissolve when brought to the surface because they evolved to live at immense depths.
EDIT: NM, somebody got 'em all.
edited 27th Aug '11 4:47:37 AM by RTaco
Since some of the questions have already been answered:
- Is there a common number of unique species among each trophic level? i.e. you have ten different kinds of plants, supporting five kinds of primary consumers, supporting three secondary, etc., or is it random?
- It's random. Though I'm not sure I understood your question correctly.
- I hear that about 10% of energy is passed up through trophic levels, after a consumer consumes something. Does this translate to each trophic level having 10% of the biomass as the last?
- Nope. In the oceans it's possible that the higher you go through the trophic levels the larger the biomass is (think whales and plankton).
- When predators hunt in packs, how good are their tactics, usually?
- Oh, pretty good, I'd say. If an animal evolved to move in packs then you'd expect them to have a considerable degree of coordination and teamwork. Just holler if you want me to elaborate. It'd also help if you say what type of predator you're thinking of specifically.
- How do insects like the Mosquito, which have a proboscis, oxygenate? Do other insects just have mouths/nostrils and lungs like we do?
- No, they're small enough that they can get by taking oxygen in via their exoskeleton.
- What is the advantage for snakes not to have legs?
- Without any appendages, it's easy for snakes to squeeze into narrow spaces, like in holes or in between rocks, perfect for hunting rodents and the like. And evolutionarily speaking, their legless design simply has not failed them, so they have no reason to get legs. And besides, they're fast enough.
- What is the advantage for being cold-blooded?
- Cold-blooded animals need less energy since they don't have to spend energy on an internal energy regulation mechanism.
- Birds can see a lot farther than any of us can. How does that work? If they're looking at a mouse running along the plain a hundred yards away, does it appear bigger to them, or just more detailed?
- More detailed, but maybe not in the way you think. Basically, they can see movement far better than humans can. As an example, did you know that light bulbs flicker? You probably don't, 'cause we see the flickering as one continuous emanation of light. Birds can see that flicker. They can also see the sun and stars move across the sky, something that we can't perceive because it's too slow for us.
- I assume Fish are cold blooded, how does that work? They can't chill in the sun like a lizard can, where do they get heat? Do they even need heat?
- In the oceans, warm water tends to stay above cold water. So fish regulate their temperature by changing the depth in which they swim.
*hrrrrrk*
Plants can get bacteria and viruses.
Not sure about fish, but plenty of sharks go after larger prey like sea turtles, seals, whales, dolphins.
Also, fish can get pretty damn big. Giant sea bass, tuna, sunfish weigh several hundred pounds.
edited 27th Aug '11 3:32:11 PM by Merlo
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am...
Seriously, if you number your questions, I'll answer those that I can. Either edit your first post to number them, or else start over in a new thread. Or preferably start a number of threads, like one thread about mammals, one about plants, one about fish...
Without the ability to auto-quote Usenet-style, it's far too much trouble to answer a metric assload of un-numbered questions. Sorry.
Lord high Xecutioner
And many of the questions have been answered already. List the unanswered questions and the one where people have given different answers.
Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!
I can't imagine that amphibians would live in saltwater. Their skin is porous, which is how they take in water. This means that they have very sensitive skin-even being picked up by a human will burn, because of the human hands' natural oils. They would prefer fresh water because saltwater would burn their skin.
Short Hair
Just wasting some time. Disregard these answers, they are wrong. Also I haven't bothered to see which were already answered.
Depends on the ecosystem, its size, and how many resources are available.
Hemoglobin contains iron. Combine it with oxygen, you get rust red.
Plants can get all kinds of diseases. Obviously they don't have heart attacks and so forth, but they have veins, and the pressure in them can be too high or too low. Low pressure means droopy stems.
Cold blooded advantage: you don't waste energy keeping your temperature constant. Disadvantage: in extreme temperatures, things start to shut down. The tongue detects odors.
Very small feathers.
They have an equivalent pressure inside, just as we do. If you bring up a fish too quickly, it explodes.
Whales eat plankton, which normally don't put up much of a fight.
Under World. It rocks!
Some of the answers I would have given differ in substance from the ones others have given.
Far out! This is a lot of questions!
I think I can help you out with some of them. We'll go one heading at a time.
Animals
1 - Is there a common number of unique species among each trophic level? i.e. you have ten different kinds of plants, supporting five kinds of primary consumers, supporting three secondary, etc., or is it random?
I don't believe so. Ecology is all about niches. The more niches you have, the more species pop up to fill them. Environments with high redundancy, that is, 2 or three species per niche rather than one are much more stable and difficult to disturb.
2 - Why are all of the big animals primary consumers? Elephants, giraffes, hippos, whales, it goes on. It seems like the only things that could take a lion in a fight are just interested in the grass, and it's boring. Is there any evolutionary reason for this?
The process by which grass is turned to energy is much more efficient the few steps it has to go through. Sun -> Grass -> Tissue is much more efficient than Sun -> Grass -> Tissue -> More tissue.
3 - I hear that about 10% of energy is passed up through trophic levels, after a consumer consumes something. Does this translate to each trophic level having 10% of the biomass as the last?
Roughly speaking, yes. That's probably part of the answer to question 2.
4 - Do all or most herbivores live with herds? I know that all of the ones I can think of (and know whether they live in herds or not) do. Are there any that don't? If yes, which?
No, not all. Plenty of herbivorous birds live alone, and then there are your rodents and things. They can live in small family groups, too.
5 - Why were domesticated animals domesticated in the first place? Specifically, I'm looking for traits that are desirable among: Cattle, Horses, Sheep, Cats, and Dogs. Following on this, were these creatures easily recognizable for these traits before they were bred for them? How hard is it to domesticate a usable number of these? How long does it take?
Ahah, I know this one! Desirable traits for domestic animals include:
- Tolerate human contact
- Do not mate for life. This makes breeding them difficult.
- Fairly promiscuous, for the same reason. You don't want your breeding females getting fussy and selective
- A group structure, which helps with the first point
- Raise their young to some extent.
I'm not sure about the rest, but I'll think about it.
6 - Is there any reason that animals don't have chlorophyll, besides that they don't? It seems like a much more efficient means of attaining energy than grazing.
It's just an evolutionary path. Plant ancestors got chlorophyll by eating smaller organisms that had it; animal ancestors just didn't.
7 - What makes animal blood red? I know that insects have different colors, and I'm not sure about fish. Why is it that way?
Blood is red due to haemoglobin, the substance that carries oxygen. Haemogoblin happens to use iron to hold onto the oxygens, and oxygenated iron is reddish - like rust. I know that octopodes and their relatives have blue blood, and they use cyanoglobulin, I think. It uses copper instead of iron - and corroded copper goes bluish-green, doesn't it?
Arthropods, like insects, don't have blood as we know it. They have something called hemolymph. The main difference between the two is that blood is held in blood vessels, while hemolymph just fills the entire body cavity, unenclosed.
edited 29th Aug '11 6:08:09 PM by LoniJay
Be not afraid...
Insects
1 - Why are insects always so small? I've heard that they were much bigger in the time of the dinosaurs, what changed?
I know one reason, but there may be others. As I'll talk about later, they have much simpler methods of getting air inside their body. The bigger they get, the more inefficent these systems become. I think the air composition was different in the time of the dinosaurs.
2 - Do other insects aside from butterflies have 'staged' lifespans, meaning multiple unrecognizably different creatures, that are all just different times of life for one individual?
Indeed. The common ladybug starts life as an ugly fuzzy larvae thing. Antlions are immature lacewings.
3 - On predators, do they more often trap their prey (like web-making spiders) or hunt their prey (like non web-making spiders)? Do they usually use poison to stop their prey from fleeing, or just to kill them faster? When they kill something, do they take it back to their lair, eat it right then and there, or does it vary by species?
There is an unbelievable amount of variation. I don't think you can really answer this question.
4 - EDIT QUESTION: How do insects like the Mosquito, which have a proboscis, oxygenate? Do other insects just have mouths/nostrils and lungs like we do?
Insects do not have lungs. They have a whole bunch of basically holes in their body, called 'spiracles'. These let air inside, where it's stored in little tiny bladders and taken up there. These holes occur all along the body segments, so air never has to travel very far to get to where it's needed.
edited 29th Aug '11 6:07:37 PM by LoniJay
Be not afraid...
Birds
Again, we hit the problem of size. There are certainly some big birds out there, California condor has a wingspan somewhere around 6 ft, but the vast majority are the size of a mouse. Why is that?
I guess it's due to the weight and the square cube law. As birds get bigger, the size of wing necessary needed to lift them increases disproportionately. After a while I suppose there's just no benefit to being bigger.
2 - Is there any particular fashion the feathers are arranged in, or is it more the fact that there are feathers that helps them glide, rather than the placement?
They're arranged to be as aerodynamic as possible - they make a smooth surface. If they're sticking out it interrupts airflow.
I notice someone said that hollow bones are weak; weirdly enough this isn't true. Hollow bones are actually stronger than a solid bone of the same size.
3 - What's the difference between an owl and any other bird, how are they evolved differently?
Some, but not all, differences include: different feathers with a ragged edge that make them fly silently, massive eyes to see in the dark, incredible hearing.
Fish - do fish need oxygen and how do they get it?
Yes, they do. They get it through their gills, which need to have a constant flow of water past them. They achieve that by either pumping it through themselves, or constantly swimming.
Blood runs really close to the surface in the gill, and there is a huge surface area. This makes it easy for stuff to pass from the water into the blood and vice-versa. There's a nifty thing called counter current exchange that helps this out.
edited 29th Aug '11 8:35:04 PM by LoniJay
Be not afraid...
Christmas Sheep
Alright, thanks for all the responses!
Some of the questions weren't answered as well as I would've liked, and I have a few more questions about Bacteria and diseases, but I'm pretty tired right now, I'll post those tomorrow.
Still Sheepin'
World Ends Oct 21, 2011
If you want to a starting place for information about amphibians, I would suggest learning a bit about the major groups of amphibians.
You got order Anura for your frogs and toads. They're probably what you tend to think of when you think of amphibians. A good many of them produce toxins. Some of the others produce something else. Heck, the crucifix toad makes a sort of glue.
There's also Caudata for the salamanders. From what little I know about them, they seem like something inbetween frog and lizard. Regeneration seems to be common in them.
And lastly, there's Gymnophiona. They look like earthworms... I'll just let you research them yourself.
Oh, and it might be worthwhile to look into just how amphibians breathe. I think you'll find a more complicated answer than "gills change into lungs".
One just might
Why are all of the big animals primary consumers? Elephants, giraffes, hippos, whales, it goes on. It seems like the only things that could take a lion in a fight are just interested in the grass, and it's boring. Is there any evolutionary reason for this?
Vegetation are more numerous than prey animals. The largest animals are baleen whales which are really secondary or even tertiary consumers (krills are animals too). Animals normally doesn't fight without any reasons, it is a waste of energy and could cause injury.
Do all or most herbivores live with herds? I know that all of the ones I can think of (and know whether they live in herds or not) do. Are there any that don't? If yes, which?
The rhinoceroses and tapirs are the ones that come to my mind.
Is there any reason that animals don't have chlorophyll, besides that they don't? It seems like a much more efficient means of attaining energy than grazing.
Photosynthesis could not supply enough energy to sustain the more active lifestyle of higher animals. Some lower animals like hydras have symbiotic algae that photosynthesise for them.
What makes animal blood red? I know that insects have different colors, and I'm not sure about fish. Why is it that way?
The haemoglobin contains iron ions which gives it the red colour. Fish have red blood too.
Why are seeds the primary (and only, if I remember correctly) way to reproduce among plants? And regarding the means with which seeds are spread, how much does that affect the plant?
Seeds are the only way a plant can reproduce sexually. Plants can reproduce asexually in a number of ways. It could affect where the plants grow. E.g. coconuts could grow at a lot of places but they are most often seen growing at the water's edge because that their seeds are spread by the water.
Can plants get sick, meaning do bacteria or viruses ever infect them? If no, why? If yes, what are some typical effects on the plant?
Sure, fungus and viruses infect plants all the time. The effect can range from a minor loss in vigour to death.
Why is green the color of most plants? Is there any specific reason for it, or is it just because? If there is a specific reason, how do plants like red lettuce or wheat (I can't think of any other differently colored plants) survive?
The chlorophyll reflects green and absorbs the rest for energy. Even in plants with variegated foliages, chlorophyll is still present at least in some regions even if it is not that visible.
Why are insects always so small? I've heard that they were much bigger in the time of the dinosaurs, what changed?
Their respiratory and support systems, while great at their size, is bad when scaled to a larger size. They achieved larger size in the past because of the higher oxygen concentration in the air at that time raise the limitation for their respiratory system.
Do other insects aside from butterflies have 'staged' lifespans, meaning multiple unrecognizably different creatures, that are all just different times of life for one individual?
All members of the four largest orders of insects, Coleoptera (beetles), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps) and Diptera (flies, gnats and mosquitoes) undergo complete metamorphosis. Many other smaller orders have that too.
Why are so many (especially tropical) insects brightly colored, when it would make more sense for them to be green, to blend in with their surroundings?
Tropical regions have brightly coloured vegetation. Also, it could be a warning colouration.
On predators, do they more often trap their prey (like web-making spiders) or hunt their prey (like non web-making spiders)? Do they usually use poison to stop their prey from fleeing, or just to kill them faster? When they kill something, do they take it back to their lair, eat it right then and there, or does it vary by species?
Some physically catch an overpower their prey while others use venoms. I know only two types that use web, some caddisfly larvae and fungus gnat larvae. Social insects like wasps and ants take it to their nests. Others just eat them right there, unless they have other plans for the catch like courtship of feeding their young.
On prey, do they ever have effective means of self-defense? Shooting poison out of their eyes or something?
Some hide, some bite, some sting and some simply stink.
Why are ants so damned civilized? What makes them special, so they can have rudimentary societies, and not other insects? How much control does the Queen actually have over individuals?
They function instinctively. The workers serve the queen because she emits pheromones and they act accordingly.
What is the evolutionary reason for having small insects with enough poison to kill an adult human (Brown Recluse spider)? It doesn't seem like they'd ever need it, why would they have it?
Just because it can kill a human it doesn't means it can kill anything human-sized. It is likely that humans are too sensitive for the venom and reacts badly to it.
EDIT QUESTION: How do insects like the Mosquito, which have a proboscis, oxygenate? Do other insects just have mouths/nostrils and lungs like we do?
All insects breathe using a system of internal tubes and sacs through which gases either diffuse or are actively pumped, delivering oxygen directly to tissues that need it via their trachea. Air enters through spiracles, they never breathe through their mouths.
What is the advantage for snakes not to have legs?
They can fit into smaller holes because they have no shoulder or hip to get in the way.
What is the advantage for being cold-blooded?
They require less food and oxygen to sustain them for a given period of time because of their lower metabolism.
What's with the tongue thing?
They literally taste the air. The fork is for giving them directions for the source of the smell.
Same question as with insects, why are most reptiles so small? Aside from the komodo dragon and some snakes, I can't think of any that are bigger than my arm. Do I just not know anything about reptiles?
A lot of lizards and snakes are larger than a human arm. Then there are the crocodilians and the sea turtles. As exotherms, being small is advantageous because they can warm up and cool down more quickly, making it easier for them to maintain their body temperature within a tolerable limit.
What do most reptiles actually eat? I have never in my life seen a reptile doing anything other than sitting his ass down on a rock. Is that also just because I don't know anything about reptiles?
Depending on species. Most are predators in one way or the other however and all are predators when they are young.
I know that amphibians always start their lives in the water. Is that always fresh water, or can they be hatched in salt water as well? If they can only live in fresh water, why can't they live in salt?
For the same reason a saltwater fish cannot live in freswater and a freshwater water fish cannot live in saltwater, their osmoregulation are adapted only to a certain range of tonicity, thus limiting them to waters with the right range of salinity.
Again, we hit the problem of size. There are certainly some big birds out there, California condor has a wingspan somewhere around 6 ft, but the vast majority are the size of a mouse. Why is that?
Flying takes a lot of energy, the larger the size, the requirement increases along with it. That is why flightless birds could grow so large. If they couldn't find enough energy to sustain themselves, they become extinct.
Is there any particular fashion the feathers are arranged in, or is it more the fact that there are feathers that helps them glide, rather than the placement?
Feathers are placed precisely for efficiency.
On the breast/head of a bird, what is that stuff? It's not feather, it's not fur (or is it?), what's going on there?
It's a type of contour feathers that cover the bodies.
What advantage does a nest give, and what are ideal qualities of nests?
Better protection for the eggs.
Again, domestication. But not to as great an extent this time, birds aren't really domesticated, besides Chickens. What's the deal with domestic Chickens?
We have domesticated geese and ducks, a totally different order of birds from chickens.
edited 5th Sep '11 2:39:35 AM by Blurring
If a chicken crosses the road and nobody else is around to see it, does the road move beneath the chicken instead?
That's a crapload of questions and a bunch of them have been answered already, I'll try to stick to unanswered, or incorrectly or incompletely answered ones.
One thing to remember is that most birds, and reptiles, and mammals, and insects and so on seem small because humans are big. Most everything is going to be smaller than us, we just tend to not notice them as much for that very reason.
If you're looking for ideas and existing biodiversity isn't cutting it, be sure to check out extinct animals; most of all species that every existed are extinct, and especially in the Americas and Australia, a lot of big predators, and other megafauna, very recently. Not to make any insinuations, cough, cough, shortly after humans arrived, cough, but there isn't any real reason they or something similar couldn't fit nicely into a more 'modern' ecosystem.
The 10% of energy per trophic level is a pretty solid rule of thumb, and it usually translates into biomass, there are ocean environments where it isn't completely true but only under particularly productive circumstances and mostly involving microscopic organisms.
Mutualism is almost universal, if you count bacteria, and archea, but fairly common amongst macroorganisms as well. Parasitism is also nigh universal, and commensalism, where they just sort of live together to the advantage of only one or neither,is also pretty common. Its also not unusual for a species to slip from one role to another depending on circumstances. That's something to remember, the roles, and niches and such that we assign different species are categories humans designed to help them make sense of things, the animals don't have to stay in their boxes. Lions scavenge, vultures hunt, foxes eat fruit, and many herbivores aren't averse to slow moving snacks.
The way in which a plant spreads its seeds can have a huge impact on it. Many plants use the wind but many use various animal dispersal systems, that's what flowers and fruits are for. Well, flowers are for pollination. Nuts are something of mixed bag, eating the nut, which is what animals want to do, destroys the seed, which is why they have hard shells and poisons and so on, but leftovers can help disperse them too, I don't really see an acorn getting too far away without a squirrel coming along.
Most insects can fly, I think all beetles can and they account for some insane proportion of the Earth's biodiversity by themselves, and I believe all have life stages, some of them are much less dramatic, though. There are also a wide range of non-insect creepy crawlies,that you might lump in with the other 'bugs', like millipedes or pill bugs, those usually can't fly and probably have whole worlds of craziness that I don't really know too much about. There is a species of centipede that's a foot long and eats bats though.
I think reptiles are pretty well covered but one other reason they haven't been domesticated is that they grow slowly, they're cold blooded and grow throughout their lifetimes.
Onto birds, owls have better night vision, and special, sound muffling feathers. Raptors don't usually screech when they dive, in my rather limited experience anyway. Falconry is a very widespread sport, the raptors get fed mostly, they're usually captured, or bred, nowadays, I don't believe medieval falconers managed to breed them, and trained from a chick.
Fish, sharks are generally very fast and maneuverable as well, and they usually scale somewhat with their prey, small, agile sharks hunt small agile fish; while big, powerful sharks hunt bigger prey. Deep sea critters can be pretty crazy, but its not a total fairy land, they still have to make a living, often on very scarce resources. Deep sea monsters are pretty real actually, and paleontologically more so. But they don't attack people all that much, sperm whales and giant squid and such often stick to the deep sea, where humans rarely venture. But C. megalodon, the fifty foot great white, was around a 'mere' 1.5 million years ago, so there's definitely some room in the sea monster department. As someone else said, the same pressures that restrict large land predators, the high trophic level, leads to low density, the greater advantages of large herbivores, size greatly increases the size and efficiency of their guts, which doesn't benefit predators as much since their meals are already energy dense, digestible meat. Also as said, big herbivores don't need to catch anything, predators do. One that wasn't mentioned, but herbivores get big partially in order to escape predators, bigger predators would just make big herbivores still larger. However, in the ocean these restrictions are a little less constraining. There's more energy, it can support more trophic levels and it can be very concentrated, in the extraordinarily productive upwellings. And their bulk is supported by the water, making them more mobile.
One question for you would be, how detailed do you want to make these biomes? Because there is a tremendous level of richness on Earth, even after a few dozen thousand years of us mucking with it, and that would be a monumental task to try to replicate
As you may know, I've been working on a fairly intensive world-building project
, and I'm now turning my attention towards Biology * , and I came across a few questions. Some of these are pretty advanced, so I'm hoping someone with a degree or major or something in Biology will show up.
I'm not going to change anything about anatomy (or much, anyway), because I started to try to think of new organs an animal could use, but my brain started to hurt and my leg exploded. It wasn't pretty. But other than that, I'm going to try to rebuild at least 5 biomes from the bottom up. (How many biomes are there, even? I'll probably try to think of a new one, but it seems unlikely that I'll succeed) Anyway, questions: (If you can only answer one or a few of them, that's fine. I don't care how many people it takes to answer them all, I just want them answered.)
Organized by Kingdom, and then by... sub-kingdom...
Quick General Question: Do all living things have the same spectrum of sight as humans? I have heard that snakes can seen ultraviolet and infrared light, but I'm not sure if that is true. If it is, what advantage does that give them, what is different about their eyes, and are there any other things that can see on a different/larger/smaller spectrum than us?
Animals:
Plants:
Insects:
Reptiles:
Amphibians:
I don't know anything about amphibians at all. I only have one question:
I know that amphibians always start their lives in the water. Is that always fresh water, or can they be hatched in salt water as well? If they can only live in fresh water, why can't they live in salt?
But beyond that, if you know anything cool/special about amphibians, lay it on me.
Birds:
EDIT: I can't believe I forgot fish!
Whew. That was a lot. But if anyone can give me any help, it would be greatly appreciated. And even if you can't, you should still meander on over to my world building topic linked above, because I want more feedback.
edited 26th Aug '11 11:42:40 PM by TheEarthSheep
Still Sheepin'