Welcome to my Metazoic site! This site discusses the existence of the creatures to come along after humans will be extinct. I first became interested in a world after man when I acquired my first copy of Dougal Dixon's After Man: A Zoology of the Future in 1992. However, I unwittingly created creatures that did not exist from the time I was about 8 years old. But it was after I obtained a copy of that book (now a collector's item) that I decided to take these same creatures I created as a child and make them more realistic in an evolutionary sense. Though it may be hard for a lot of us to grasp, humans will soon become extinct. One of the biggest factors of how this will happen is the current overpopulation rate. Which is why I don't contribute to the population. I created this world with little more than mammals fulfilling all ecological niches with the help of some friends. I even gave the era of the age after man a name, I called it the Metazoic, derived from the words for "After-era" (Meta, meaning after, and zoic meaning era). We are now in the Cenozoic era. To view all the animals I have created since I began this project, you can go to the "Meet the Mammals" section of this site. To discuss your own ideas about what you think will happen in the future world, and share your ideas with others, please feel free to leave a comment.
One more thing, some of you may find this site quite offensive, and you have a right to your own opinion. But please respect my right to have an opinion too. I'm not saying there is no GOD, I believe it was HIM who got the ball rolling. But I believe after that, evolution took over. There is so much more evidence of evolution than there is of creation. Even that going on right under our noses. Other than that, enjoy yourself and visit our many links.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

2 Interesting Articles!

I found 2 new and interesting articles today from Discovery.com. This first one is about an ancient whale species that gave birth on land. I knew it was likely that these animals had their young on land, as they still had feet, and hadn't taken to the oceans yet. This species is called Maiacetus, and is described as resembling a cross between a cow, a shark, an alligator and a sea lion. Must have been a nasty animal!! But apparently is was a good mom.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/04/whale-fossil.html

Ancient Whale Gave Birth on Land
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Feb. 4, 2009 -- A rare fossil of an ancient whale with a fetus still inside reveals that its species -- an ancestor to modern whales -- gave birth on land 47.5 million years ago, according to a paper published in the online journal PLoS.

The discovery, along with prior fossil finds, suggests the first whale ancestors were full-time land dwellers that might have been related to the early relatives of hoofed animals, such as sheep and cattle.

Maiacetus inuus, meaning "mother whale," represents an intermediate evolutionary stage. It lived at the land-sea interface and often moved back and forth between the two environments in what is Pakistan today.

It looked like an improbable cross between a cow, whale, shark, alligator and sea lion.

"Maiacetus was a long-snouted, short-haired mammal with short limbs, webbed hands and feet retaining small hooves on some fingers and toes, and it had a thick, long tail," lead author Philip Gingerich told Discovery News.

Gingerich, a University of Michigan paleontologist, added that the whale "was a foot-powered swimmer and probably lived like a sea lion, spending part of the day or night resting on land and part of the day or night searching for food in the sea."

The fetus was positioned for a "head-first" delivery like land animals, but unlike modern whales. This provides the biggest clue that the species gave birth on land.

The fetus also had a well-developed set of teeth, suggesting it "would be able to get up and move shortly after birth, probably having to keep up with its mother, learning to feed and escape predators," Gingerich said, adding that it would've had to defend itself against very large sharks.

He and his colleagues were stunned to find such a rare fossil, the first ever of its kind.

"To be honest, I never expected to be able to find a whale about to give birth," he said. They also found an 8.5-foot male of the same species at the site.

Since the male whale was only moderately larger than the female, the researchers suspect males of this species didn't control territories or command harems.

Ewan Fordyce, head of the Department of Geology at the University of Osago in New Zealand, told Discovery News, "The convincing presence of a fetus makes this a most important find."

"Fetuses are rarely reported for fossil land mammals," he explained, "and as far as I know, this is the first such case for a whale or, for that matter, any fossil marine mammal."

Fordyce added that the findings are timely, given the forthcoming 200th anniversary of British naturalist Charles Darwin's birth, which occurred on February 12, 1809.

"Darwin would have reveled in such evidence for a major shift in the fossil record," Fordyce explained, referring to the whale's dramatic transition from land to
sea.

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