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.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Long Time, No Hear From!

I just wanted to fill my viewers here on what I have been up to lately. I've been working on one of the biggest projects of my career. A book about dogs of the World. It's my passion. I know this has nothing to do with Metazoica, but I just wanted to let you all know what has been taking up my time. For the past week, I have been up all day and all night just trying to get this book done. It's been like when you are running in a race and you are aiming as hard as you can for that goal line, and you want to make it there as fast as you can and yet still run a good race. That is what this past week has been like.

Well, yesterday the tired finally caught up with me and I slept all day long. Then I woke up to a message on my answering machine saying that my ma's best friend's husband finally died. Don't feel bad! He was not good for her anyway! When I first met that jerk there was something about him that bothered me. And then this friend told me that he wanted to marry her, and they'd only known each other for 3 weeks! That scared me, for her sake! He never did anything for her, unless she paid him, and he made her pay half the bill any time he took her out on a date. That should have told her something right there. But this friend is like a newborn baby, her instincts are lousy!! She's too trusting and I know better than anyone that when you are too trusting, you're gonna get burned! My instincts are sharp, and I sensed this man was no good from the beginning. I tried to urge this friend not to marry that man until she got to know him better. But she didn't listen. She married him anyway. Less than 2 months after meeting him for the first time. I knew there would be disaster. Sure enough, he always insulted her, never took her side on anything, made her pay for everything, and tried to kill her twice during the course of this "marriage".

Well, he's dead now, thank goodness! He's been going downhill in his battle against liver cancer for the past 3 years, and it finally caught up with him this past week after spreading to his intestines, his stomach, kidneys and finally his spine. I say Good riddance! And my ma's friend is a free woman! She's going to go to nursing school to become a CNA. I'm so happy for her now!! I hope she learned something, but chances are she didn't. She's one of those types that thinks she cannot live without a man, and so she marries the first man who woos her, whether he is a scum bag or not. So MANY red flags went up with this man, and my ma's friend just let them slide off and laughed them away. He wasn't even good-looking!! He looked like a cross between a shaved chimpanzee and a donkey!! I didn't know what this friend saw in him. I could look past his looks if only he had treated her nicely. But he didn't. Not even close!!

As for me, well, I am still at work on this book. I'm on the hounds section now, and that is the longest and toughest section! There is a breed of hound out there for every country, city and village in all of Europe!! And I've got them all in this book. I actually began this book in 2000, and almost completed it then. But since then, some changes have been made. For example, AKC's list of recognized breeds has grown, so I have to update it. I would just go with the original that I typed out back in 2000, but the disk that I had stored this book on somehow got corrupted. So I have to do the whole darned thing over again!!! Oh well. The original book came to more than 500 pages. I'm going to see if I can do this one with less pages. So far, it's looking good. There is no real reason why I am doing this book, I don't think I will be putting it up on our UMG site, I don't have my supervisor's OK on this book. It's just a personal triumph. Something that I have deep in my bones, and I want to complete the book this time, and get it bound. It's probably going to be too expensive to put up on the UMG site, it's in color and already there are about 200 pages, just in breed descriptions alone. So, it's going to be a book I just print once, and then no more. And just for me. I even devoted this book and my work to my Groucho, I am doing it for her. So, I have to get this done. hehe!

Today has been a long and dull day! But it'll get better. Because today, I get the biggest, bestest birthday present ever! I'm getting a beautiful easy chair! It's called "the cuddler" and as far as I know, it's only available in one store. It's my birthday present to myself, though my sisses did help chip in a little, I couldn't say no when they offered. But mostly it's to me and from me. Here it is though, after 5:00 and I am still waiting! I'm getting tired of waiting!!!! But they called a couple hours ago and said they are on their way. So I have to wait. But it sucks when I want to leave the house and can't cuz I have to wait for the delivery men to come!!! I can't even go out for a walk!

Well anyway, that's what's been going on for the past couple weeks. Sorry I have not been around much.

Friday, June 5, 2009

The Squamozoic Era

Sixty-five million years ago, the world was struck by the worst catastrophe since the end of the Permian. Often referred to as the K-T event by scientists, the extinction was powerful enough to wipe out nearly two thirds of all life on Earth. Victims of this extinction ranged from the massive azdarchid pterosaurs and mosasaurs, to more unassuming creatures like enantiornith birds and polyglyphanodont lizards. The worst of these casualties were the non-avian dinosaurs, which up until that point had been the dominant land organisms on the planet. In our world it was the mammals, and to a lesser extent the birds, who inherited and conquered the world after the K-T. But in this world, something different happened. While crocodilians, turtles, and amphibians continued on as normal after the extinction, it was squamates, lizards, snakes, and their kin, who would come to dominate the post-Mesozoic biosphere.

At first, the early part of this world's Cenozoic would look a lot like our own. But to a discerning eye, one could already see the changes starting to take place that would lead to a world ruled by squamates. Big komodo dragon-like monitors stalked pantodonts and “condylarths”, large iguanids related to Pristiguana spread all over the New World, and gigantic Titanoboa-like snakes swam in the waters. By the time the Early Eocene rolled around, the squamates had gained near-total control of the Earth. The advances that mammals and birds had made up until that time had been merely fleeting. Throughout the rest of the Eocene and Oligocene, squamates were the dominant land animals on Earth. But there were not the active, warm-blooded, erect-gaited squamates of today. Rather these were huge sprawling or semi-erect animals, making this part of the Cenozoic look rather like a neo-Permian or Triassic. But all of this would change in the Miocene. The giant sprawlers and semi-erect squamates that dominated the Oligocene weren’t alone. At the same time, they shared their world with early forms of erect-gaited, warm-blooded squamates, many of these ancestral to modern day groups. In the Early-Middle Miocene, these groups took over, their advanced gaits and metabolisms competing most of the big sprawlers and other primitive squamate groups to extinction. Eventually further environmental changes such as the ice ages would further cement these advanced squamates hold on the planet, making them the dominant group of animals on Earth

The dominant herbivores of the Old World are erect-gaited agamids, who come in a wide variety of forms, ranging from small, arboreal drepanosaur-like creatures to gigantic elephant-sized animals reminiscent of the extinct pareiasaurs; the largest land animals on Earth. The main tall, giraffe-like browsers of this world are the giganatids, anseriform birds slightly resembling the dromornids of our world. Giant armour-plated herbivorous and omnivorous cordylid skinks related to girdled lizards and sungazers take the place of ankylosaurs and glyptodonts, inhabiting scrublands, deserts and uplands across the Old World. Preying on these animals are endothermic, erect-gaited monitors, who act in many cases like wolves, hyenas, and saber-toothed cats, and predatory geckos, which are pantherine-like ambush predators. Other predators include the more primitive predatory monitors, the therolacertids, who act like the weasels, badgers, and other small carnivores in this world. In the Old World, giant predatory short-skulled amphisbaenians prey on large surface-dwelling animals like giant subterranean worms or crocodiles. Across both the Old and New Worlds, lacertids and skinks evolve unparalleled diversity, with small insectivores and mid-sized generalists occurring across all environments, from forest floors to tree tops. And of course, completely bucking the curve, Madagascar becomes dominated by hooved “murder crocs”, huge numbers of arboreal chameleons, arctocyonid condylarths, and oplurid iguanas.

While many different lineages of squamates have evolved endothermy and erect gait, fewer have evolved integumentary structures, and thus are poorly-equipped to withstand the cold. Therefore, the differences between the Old and New World is more marked than in our world. However, several lineages of squamates on both sides of the planet have managed to make the crossing, and establish themselves on the other side. A group of agamids, mountain-dwelling species similar in appearance to Scutellosaurus, came to the New World in the Pliocene, and subsequently took the place of bighorn sheep and mountain goats. At the same time, gracilisaurs and sauroraptors have managed to make the crossing in the other direction, the former becoming established as deer-like herbivores in Eurasia while the latter have taken a wide variety of small predator niches. Boreosaurids, the ferocious opportunists of the North, are found all around the Holarctic region, whether it be Old or New World.

Australia has always sort of been dominated by squamates in our world, and the same is true in this one. The dominant herbivores of Australia are the agamids, like in the rest of the Old World. However, these are not the familiar Laurasiagamids of Africa and Eurasia, but rather their own unique group, the Gondawanagamids. Gondawanagamids tend to have semi-erect gaits like a crocodile or a therapsid, rather than the erect gaits that charictarize Laurasiagamids. But in an odd twist, many lineages of Gondawanagamids have circumvented this by several lineages becoming bipedal, ranging from omnivorous opportunists to full-blown herbivores. Joining them on the plains as large herbivores are the odd placental tingamarrs, herbivorous birds thought to be distantly related to emus and cassowaries, and meolanid turtles, who are more diverse here than anywhere on the mainland. As can be expected, monitors are the dominant predators of Australia. However, compared to the predatory monitors of the mainland, these monitors seem very different in their adaptations, being more prone to bipedalism and other similar niches due to their harsh environment. The two Australias also have another trait in common; they both seem to be places where evolution has gone mad. While across most of the world monitors are terrestrial predators, and crocodilians are mostly restricted to aquatic habitats, the situation is reversed in Australia, where predatory mekosuchines compete with geckos for the cat niche, while aquatic monitors take the place of crocodilians alongside native crocs in the water.

As opposed to the Old World, which is dominated by predatory monitors and geckos, the New World is dominated by all manner of iguanines. Perhaps the epitome of this are the crotaphytids. While in our world crotaphytids are restricted to leopard and collared lizards, in this world crotaphytid iguanians are some of the most successful squamates of all time, evolving erect gaits and endothermy in the Americas and become long-legged giant cursorial predators. These animals, the sauroraptors, resembling the long-extinct non-avian theropods, and take up a variety of niches including those of small animal catchers and wolf analogues.. Some of the latter even spread across to the Old World, and are prevalent there. Anoles take the place of cats in the New World, evolving into big-game hunters, arboreal predators, and terrestrial stalkers. The New World is also home to parabirds, strange squamates descended from anoles that seem to converge a bit on the basal birds of the Mesozoic, but rather than becoming more advanced, they have taken their Archaeopteryx-like body plan and run with it. Strange basal iguanines have evolved into their own unique predator group, the paramonitors; sphenacodontian-like animals which hunt the deserts of the southwest. Most of the large herbivores of the New World are members of a special group of iguanid-derived iguanines, the ungulosaurs, which range from primitive trilophosaur-like species to huge prosauropod, and ground sloth-like animals. The phrynosomatids take part in this diversification too, becoming analogues of peccaries, bison, and the extinct ceratopsians. The anguids also become diverse, evolving into a variety of forms including prairie dog-like burrowers, raccoon analogues, ankylosaur analogues, nectar-eaters and ferocious northern predators. Helodermatids are also more diverse in this world, taking the place of saber-toothed cats and bear-dogs.

For the majority of the Cenozoic South America was an island continent, isolated from the rest of the world. Because of this it developed its own, unique fauna. Giant, sprawling megalania-like teiids, predatory bear-like iguanids, and sebecosuchian crocodiles stalked meiolanid turtles, sloth lizards, native ungulosaurs, and grazing corytophanids across the pampas and plains. But that all changed when North America came and linked to the continent by way of the Panamian land bridge. No longer isolated, South America was buffeted by an invasion of northerners. Gilas, sauroraptors, advanced ungulosaurs, terror owls, and many other adaptable northern groups spread south, muscling out many of the natives. Today, South America’s fauna is mostly made up of these northern invaders. However, some species proved to be adaptable and survive. One of these groups were the corytophanids, which took the place of the sauroraptors, herons, and even some grazers in the South. Their diversity has been severely cut, but they have survived. Teiids have also been heavily hit, formerly huge carnivores as big as Megalania, now they are reduced to smaller monitor lizard analogues. Meiolanid turtles have survived, though not as diverse as before, and have even managed to spread north into southernmost North America. Sebecosuchians too have mostly been able to hold their own, but are now found as smaller predators.

While squamates are the dominant land animals in this world, they are by no means its only inhabitants. Champsosaurs survived the K-T event, and subsequently take the place of gharial-like fish eaters all over the world, except Australia. Crocodiles are less diverse in this timeline, but more varied. Familiar crocs and alligators prowl the waterways of the world, except in Africa, where their niche is taken up by dyrosaurs. There are even several varieties of terrestrial crocodilians, including pristichampsid "murder crocs" and sebecosuchians. Aquatic turtles are more diverse than in our time, but terrestrial turtles are conspicuously absent. The exception to this are the meiolanid turtles, ankylosaur-like chelonians found across Australia with a few genera in the New World. Birds, the sole surviving group of dinosaurs, have been quite successful in this world, though not as much as in our own. There are many groups of birds unique to this world or who have had greater success here than in our world. Pseudodontornithes soar over the seas as albatross or sea bird analogues. Giant anseriformes browse from the trees, as presybyornids take the place of ducks and other aquatic waterfowl. Terror owls, small animal hunters the size of a troodont and related to modern day owls, hunt for prey in the undergrowth across every continent except Australia. Mammals, while far from dominant, have also managed to become somewhat diverse. Multituberculates take the place of rodents and in some cases larger herbivores, alongside condylarths and pantodonts. Bats have evolved in this timeline, swooping overhead as insectivores. Some mammals have even become predators; leptictids and miacids hunt small mammals, birds, and squamates in the undergrowth.

Because mammals never really diversify in this world, numerous lineages of squamates take to the sea and become aquatic. Arguably, the most successful of these are the snakes, who fill the sea with hundreds of species, ranging from small ones to giant species that put our modern sea snakes to shame. Monitors too have tried to become aquatic once again, and patrol the seas and bays like reptilian sharks or the odontocetes of our world in search of fish and marine squamates. Some are semi-terrestrial and come on land to rest like seals, while others are entirely marine. Carnivorous squamates are not the only squamates to try and go marine. The ungulosaurs too developed their own aquatic lineages, the clownguanas and the sirenosaurs. Pseudodontornithes soar over the ocean like albatrosses, while true gulls live much like gulls always have. Like in our world, the seas are filled with huge amounts of plankton. And also like in our world, there are filter feeders that have evolved to take advantage of this marine bounty. Overall, the filter feeders can be divided into three general size classes. The first of these are the presybyornids, who range in size from a small duck to a swan or a small seal. The next are the marine arctocyonids, which range from seal to dolphin-sized. The largest, and most abundant, filter feeders of this world are the sharks, which vaguely resemble the basking and whale sharks of our world.