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.

The Metazoic World

Map of the world in the Metazoic. The colors indicate the climate of that area.
The world changes. That is one of the first things we learn in Geography. 600 Million years ago, there was only one continent. Then about 300 million years ago, that continent broke up and became two big masses. Today, there are 7 major continents constantly shifting their latitude. Each one moves at a rate of an inch per year. Some move less, some more, depending mostly on the ocean currents that surround that continent. Where they move also depends on the ocean current. Australia, for example, is moving northward, and in the future will collide with Asia, most likely taking the islands in between with it. These are usually very violent periods in the Earth's history, filled with earthquakes and tidal waves. South America is moving southward and the southernmost tip will be in Antarctic waters, making for very cold winters for the creatures living in that particular area.

With the so-called "Continental drift" also came diversity among species. Animals could evolve in all kinds of directions to adapt to their surroundings. Animals of Africa, a tropical area, adapted well to the 100+ degree heat, where animals found in Alaska, a cold, polar habitat, would not survive for long. These animals live their lives in their habitat they way they were programmed to. Each continent has their own assortment of predators and prey. Wolves and bears keep deer and pronghorn in check in the temperate regions of the World, while jackals, wild dogs and hyenas keep zebra and gazelle numbers to a minimum on the African savannah, and the same is played out all over the World.

What is the point to all this? The answer is adaptation. Animals adapt to their surroundings. Africa has more large predators, the largest being the Nile Crocodile, because it has more large herbivore species than anywhere else on Earth. Those that cannot adapt die off. It's the way Nature intended. Herbivorous animals tend to multiply faster than carnivorous animals, therefore evolve faster and more species. This also explains why carnivore families unfortunately do not last very long, geologically speaking. The Tyrannosaur family was actually only on Earth for no more than 2 million years, so it's believed. The dog family has been here for about 10 million years, and are considered the greatest adapted carnivores of all. Felines (cats) evolved about the same time as humans, but started off big, due to evolving from hyenas, and evolved smaller. So the cat on your lap is actually descended from lions, rather than the other way around. Saber-tooths were not true cats, but right in between cats and hyenas.

The world of the Metazoic is a very different world than what we are used to seeing today. If you will notice there are quite a few changes made to this "new world" as opposed to the old world that we know today. South America has become an island and drifted southward towards Antarctica. The southernmost tip of the island continent gets very cold, dark winters, much like some of northern Canada does today. North America has lost it's western end. Constant earthquakes in California, up to Washington State, east to Idaho, have forced this whole 400-mile wide area to become an island, dubbed "San Diego Island". North America it's self has moved somewhat northward, causing all of Canada to become totally polar. Greenland is at the very top of the world, literally. What was once the Amazon jungle is now brushland and almost temperate rainforest.

Africa too has split up and moved northward. Where the Nile River once was is now a 500-mile wide channel separating Continental Africa with the new island, Lemuria. Madagascar is now 1800 miles away from the nearest land, it still owns it's own cargo of animals though. Between Africa and Europe is the Afro-European Mountains. These mountains separate Africa from Europe, just as the Mediterranean sea did, which is gone in the Metazoic. The Sahara Desert is also more or less gone, turned into bushland, with sparse vegetation and open grasslands. Southern Africa is now desert. Europe is mostly also bushland, with some scattered forests. If we were able to go forward in time to view this land via satellite, what we would see is large areas of jungle and grasslands, few desert lands, though they still exist for the most part, but mostly just tropical jungle and grasslands.

Australia has collided with Asia in this world and is now a part of the Asian continent. Though Australia and it's inhabitants are still pretty well protected from most placental animals by the mountains that shot up, which include such modern islands as New Guinea, Sulawesi, Sumatra, Borneo and the whole Philippine archipelago. All these islands grouped together to create the so-called "Great Barrier Mountains", which have several mountains that are much taller in altitude than Mt. Everest. Few creatures inhabit the peaks of these mountains, but mammals are very resilient in the Metazoic, and have even managed to make their homes in these high mountain peaks, where it is snowing all year round and literally few creatures abound. The lower levels and valleys however, are teaming with animals of all shapes and sizes, marsupial and non-marsupial mammals.

The Hawaiian island chain has also got bigger, and has drifted westward. The Big Island is still the largest. Introduced animals died off in a massive volcanic eruption. No sheep, no goats survived this eruption. The island was taken over by bats, which soon learned how to walk instead of fly. Several more islands have been born to the chain as well. Bats became the largest animals ever to walk on the Hawaiian Islands, in the Metazoic they became known as the "Batavian Islands". Some bats actually took the form of ungulates. Some took the form of monkeys. There is also a 6-foot tall descendant of the smaller, insectivorous bats that walks along on it's hands and preys on these docile creatures.

The oceans are inhabited by seals, and whale-like rodents that took to the seas when the greater whales died off. The oceans also have another surprise: monkeys that can swim! There are also many varieties of oceanic bats, all of them related to flying foxes, either flying over the waves or swimming under them. During the Metazoic, the Pacific Ocean got smaller, and the Atlantic Ocean expanded with the westward drifting of North America, and the separation of South America. Also, the Antarctic now has it's own ocean, the so-called "Southern Ocean". During this age the closest continent to the Antarctic is South America. But during this age the resilience of mammals is phenomenal. Antarctica has it's own resident mammals that stay there year round. In today's world, the only true Antarctic mammal is the Weddell Seal, and even this species gets away when the coldest months arrive. During the Metazoic however, there is actually a species of rat and a species of lemur that is stuck on Antarctica. They feed on the pups of oceanic bats that roost there during the spring and summer, on the carcasses of washed-up animals from the ocean, and on anything else they can find to feed on, and store up fat for winter. Thus they hibernate all winter, like modern bears. Then in the Spring, when all the other animals arrive once again, they wake up and begin their daily routine all over again.

Even the world today, no mammals have the resilience that can be seen in the Metazoic. This leads to the conclusion that this is actually not the Age of Mammals.

The above map gives an idea of what the world will look like during the Metazoic if we were to actually go there and view it via satellite. The white areas represent areas of ice, snow and permafrost. In other words, the polar areas. The light sea green areas on the map are dry grasslands or savannahs. The lime-green represents areas that are brushland, with some timber. The dark green represents forests, jungle, rainforest and the like. The deep gold represents drier arid lands, with some grass growth. The light beige areas represent desert.

1 comment:

It's In the House Somewhere said...

It's the way Nature intended. I think you have to be careful how you 'word' concepts. Nature intends nothing. It is not an entity. Organisms are born, reproduce(or don't) and die. Along the way they interact with each other and their environments. Those that best are able to pass their DNA along to the next generation have the "best" strategies for individual and group survival.
I know this is speculative work but it is best to keep in mind what we actually do know(to the best of our reasoning) about How organisms thrive and survive through generations and how they adapt, or do not in relation to the various pressures or stessors that shape them be it the physical world, and those within species and outside those species.
Sorry for the diatribe, given we are in the realm of speculation here...just indicating that if you keep the model scientific, using words, and paradigms that are already in use, it is possible to actually make some reasoned assumption and not fly off into fantasy wishfulness. Hence why I grumble about "as nature intended".
Intweresting site, and I'm impressed with the amount of work that has been done! just hoping you keep your "science" hats on so that the core concepts can be understood properly by those who may not have a very deep grasp of what evolution is, and how lifeforms manage to survive and adapt to a variety of situations...There are still far too many people who really do believe that there is a plan to life, and that there are ladders involved etc. Not all things are in constant flux either. Sponges have done well without any radical changes for 500 million years...they are well suited to their niches and will continue on as they are unless something changes those places they live in some way. Things like virus and bacteria are in constant flux because their circumstances are different. Humans are the only creatures that we can verify actually think about the far past, and the far future, and how they might be able to affect the future on a large scale, but that too may simply be the way humans are...and again has nothing to do with "Nature" having a blueprint, or set goals for further development.
Ok this horse is well beaten :) I step down from my soapbox and wish you all the best. Cheers!