>evolution explains everything
>"uhhh what about crocodiles?"
>nooooo they're different!!!
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>evolution explains everything. >"uhhh what about crocodiles?". >nooooo they're different!!!
>hasn't changed much
That looks like it would be so easy to snap in half
All the crocs we lost that should still exist today, i will never not be mad.
They couldn’t pull their weight and got got. Sad
How did climate change help kill them
> How did climate change help kill them
Turned most of the continent into a giant desert, destroyed forests and killed many large prey items (Australia used to have wombats the size of small hippos and kangaroos much larger than any around today).
> wombats the size of small hippos
Wait I was wrong. Looking into it Diprotodons were actually larger than Hippos by a factor of two, not smaller
The largest specimen is about the size of an African forest elephant
but it was abbos who did that, by cutting and burning every vegetation they could see
This is what I heard too. Hell, there are even reforestation efforts being blocked and stopped by the government because “it’z dey land!!!” or something
With all the insane predators that used to exist in Australia its really a wonder the first about survived as long as they did to "settle" the continent.
I'm guessing the smartest abo decided to kill it with fire and didn't stop until the entire thing looked like Mordor for a few decades.
That would make sense, it would also explain why their numbers were so low to begin with, can’t do much to expand if your borderline moronic kid abbos keep wandering off and getting snatched up by the giant birds/lizards/etc.
>it would also explain why their numbers were so low to begin with
I think that has more to do with the british doing what the british do best
Abbos were never plentiful even before the British arrived
Sure but they definitely did a number on them. It was also 50k years after all the big lizards died out when the brits arrived so they couldn’t have been the cause of it
I guess, but even without the megafauna, Australia is to this day filled with lethal animals, not a stretch to think they played a part in keeping abbo numbers in check
>niche hasn’t changed
>why aren’t crocodiles changing
If there is no evolutionary pressure to change why would we expect it? Changes are probably present but likely not noticeable
What's the alternative explanation?
>another evo thread
>it’s just OP getting instantly brfo again
Why do you do this? Your last thread about flytraps didn’t get any traction huh
That’s pretty cool, didn’t know there were salamanders adapted to the croc method, kinda strange it isn’t more common.
I'd say it's a mixture of the croc family has been at it a ridiculously long time and exist in some form or another on every continent + amphibians are just much more prone to toxins and changes in the water they inhabit even without human involvement granted various amphibians have evolved into predators similar to crocs multiple times over.
Really the thing that makes then so successful is just how hardy a species the entire line is.
>fairly resistant to cold
>thrive well in everything but the most extreme heat
>just needs some body of water to live in since water supplies them with food
>can travel fairly lengthy distances across land when needed
>can adapt to live in cave systems
>don't need to eat daily or multiple times daily like mammals
>fairly good parents, guarding their eggs and protecting their young
>The Caves of Abanda are known to host an endemic population of orange-colored cave-dwelling dwarf crocodiles.
>These crocodiles live in complete darkness, they feed mostly on bats and cave crickets and swim in liquid bat guano.
That is amazing. I love the idea of those ginger fricks living in liquid shit their whole lives.
What an world we live in...
Maybe paying taxes isn't so bad.
Absolutely fascinating. How do they survive without sunning themselves? Do Dwarf Crocs simply not need it?
without googling i bet the shit is warm enough for them to maintain temperature even without sunning.
Gators in america have the ability to survive brief freezing temperatures, it could be that these guys just adapted to the cooler environment. Caves are nice in the sense that they're generally always roughly the same temperature no matter the season, so they don't really need to worry about it getting TOO cold.
Also if we make a few assumptions on their lifestyle, we can say that they probably spend a lot of time in a low energy state already, as food really only comes in the form of a fallen bat or large cave cricket, both hardly requiring much energy to dispatch.
As they evolve I'd imagine they would lose their color all together, get more sensitive snouts to be able to detect vibrations in the shit slurry, probably weaker jaws considering their food source, and even slower metabolisms.
I forgot their name and won't bother even looking it up now, but there were crocodile look alikes even before crocodiles adapted this life style. For them to be completely replaced by them it's because crocodiles must be doing something incredibly well.
don't forget about triops and horseshoe crab chads
Except the ancestors of modern crocodiles only evolved during the later stages of the Cretaceous.
Hiding your "i'm gonna pretend to be a moron for (You)s" thread regardless.
>CROCS/SHARKS HAVEN'T CHANGED IN A QUINTILLION YEARS!!
This shit will always be objectively wrong no matter how many times they repeat it
Crocodiles expand to outside the semi-aquatic ambush predator niche every time they have an opening
We use to have this absolute unite running around and ruling over eocene Europe, arboreal croc in new caledonia a few thousand years ago(maybe even a few hundreds) and the cuban croc is already in it's way to become more of a terrestrial predator
It's not just the Cuban croc. The Australian freshwater crocodile, the dwarf caiman are also adapted to a more terrestrial life style.
The later even climbs trees, it's probably going to become arboreal within a few million years, like the mesosuchidae of the Polynesian islands.
It doesn't say they haven't changed, it says they haven't changed MUCH. Learn to fricking read.
Crocodiles achieved their evolutionary peak, they don't need to evolve anymore as there is nothing to adapt to.
the niche of "large carnivore that ambushes from shallow water" has existed since animals started living on land and will continue to exist as long as wetlands and slow rivers do (ie forever)
How come no amphibians tried it? They should be even better at it since they can breathe underwater
>How come no amphibians tried it?
They did, temnospondyls did produce quite few crocodile like lineages.
they did, but if you know anything about amphibians, the ability to breathe through your skin is not that helpful, just look at why the chemicals turned the frogs gay, they cant not breathe the chemicals
There used to be some like that in the Mesozoic like Koolasuchus but they went extinct due to a mixture of climate change and competition with Crocodilians.
They were literally the first ones to do it. Crocodylomorphs replaced them, in fact.
Easy. in a million years they become even more aquatic and less amphibious.
Already happened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalattosuchia
Once you reach max level, you stop leveling.
this, can't improve on perfection
then why aren't they crustacean?
Evolution isn't "everything must change all the time". Evolution is "random mutations are constantly occurring, but they are not selected for because they rock the boat too much until they get lucky during certain circumstances where they are beneficial."
In crocodiles, they have already achieved perfection. Why rock the boat?
That's the dumbest summarization of evolution I've read. You need to repeat the 3rd grade again..
You're welcome to try explaining it better but you won't because you know he's right.
Evolution is a israelite made "science" that cannot be proven without the israelites making up more "science" to prove it. Which is funny, because the israelites don't even believe in evolution, but they sure as shit want everyone else to believe in it.
You worship the israeli God and his israeli prophet
"I'm a racist imbecile solely interested in being seen as edgy" Thank you for admitting concession, you will now be ignored.
Not the anon but evolution is not just mutations. It's what adapts better to the surroundings and can reproduce more. For example, women like men height, so the next generation will be taller in general due to high men reproducing more and short men reproducing less, which would give us a new "average" thats higher than the previous one. That's the reason why hundreds of yesrs ago men were shorter in general.
To put another example, the higher a Giraffe neck is, the higher fruit it can get. The mlre they can eat, the more can thet survive and reproduce, thats why their neck is so big, but it started as very small in their origins.
>why arent all animals giant then?
They were but the ice age came and killed all the dinosaurs. Then the new meta was to be small, because if you are small you require less food to eat, since moving a largest body consumes more energies.
How do you think something gets taller than usual?
Well there is an average of height of species.Men can go from 160 cm to 200 cm. So, the taller ones reproduce more. Those are not weird mutations, its just the genetics we currently have.
Yes, but how do you think that threshold is increased?
I hope you don't believe all our ancestors down to single celled organisms could grow to be that tall if fed our current diet
I said it in my first comment. What is tall and what is short is defined by an average of height. When the taller guys reproduce more than the short guys, then that means that the next generation of humans will be taller. And the "average" that determines if someone is short or tall also increases. That's the reason of our ancestors being smaller than us.
Humans didn't start being able to grow to that tall at all in the first place, what is tall and shor doesn't matter, a 170cm homosexual sapiens sapiens is by all means taller than a very tall australopithecus, and the reason the threshold increased is because of mutations, 200 years isn't an evolutionary timescale, that picture doesn't denote evolution just adaptation to nutrients+medical care, much like plants that recieve more sunlight grow taller
When did I said that people could grow taller from the start? I never said that but you brought it up like 3 times. I'm saying that the average is increasing, that means that people are able to be more taller and less shorter, but they are not the same as their ancestors.
Evolution has three kinds:
1- Mutations
2- Gene flow (intersexual generations, which in this case it might be possibly the reason)
3- Sexual recombination
4- Epigenetic
four kinds*
interracial generations*
frick
>In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA.
Because everything stems from mutations, thats what we are discussing, It doesn't matter if it happened 10k or 1 billion years ago
>2- Gene flow
Meaningles unless there is a mutation(see definition of mutation) to show for it
>3- Sexual recombination
Meaningles unless there is a mutation(see definition of mutation) to show for it
>4- Epigenetic
A Mutated characteristic, not present in the earliest life forms, 2&3 are too btw
It's like saying the sophistication of tools is a separate evolutionary type instead of being a subgroup of the advance of rational thinking (wich stems from body/brain ratio which in turn came to be because of mutations on the already existing brain (which only exist because of mutations as well))
bump
Forgot pic
You're so close to getting it
Crocodiles are pretty easy actually. All that needs to be said is that there used to lots of different kinds of crocs but they all died in the K-pg leaving us with our current boring ones.
Well, not quite, there have been a few interesting ones since like the hooved croc or the australian land croc but again they're all gone now. It unfortunately comes down to the fact that any croc which moves away from riverine ambush predator niche seems to suffer extinction.
>It unfortunately comes down to the fact that any croc which moves away from riverine ambush predator niche seems to suffer extinction.
Because of competition. Not much in nature competes with crocodiles or alligators as riverine ambush predators. Different niches have their own long-established, well-adapted species to exploit them, and any upstart species is going to have a tough time establishing itself against said competition.
The Australian Land Croc was likely killed off by a mix of aboriginal arrival as well as sudden and severe climate change.
Australia used to have a whole bunch of large predators, even just a few tens of Millenia ago. Venomous monitor lizards as large as crocodiles, land crocodiles, marsupial lions, multiple species of Tasmanian tiger and devil (they used to live on the mainland), whatever.
Now all that’s left are Saltwater crocs and Dingos (which came after all the previous went extinct).
Komodo Dragons were also originally Australian, and lived in Auz as of 50k years ago
Reptiles can't beat placental mammals in 1v1 niche competition.
Warm-blood OP.
But, no large mammals compete with crocodiles in the fresh water ambush predator role, so they've stuck around.
Any crocodiles that spread out from that lose out to placental mammals and are driven to extinction.
>Reptiles can't beat placental mammals in 1v1 niche competition.
Not true. Being cold blooded means slower metabolism, which means less food requirement and the ability to go into torpor when food is not available. If your niche is "wait around a watering hole which may dry up several months out of the year" then cold blood is to your advantage.
>the ability to go into torpor when food is not available
Mammals can do this too though.
no they cant
>but muh bears
bears have to gorge themselves and have to have a bunch of special adaptions to not poison themselves through ketosis, they can only do this because food is plentiful before winter, they cant just hibernate whenever they want, they have to do a lot of prep work
Not as efficiently or for as long a period. The idea that warm blooded mammals are just automatically superior to cold blooded reptiles is an opinion from the 1920's. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
that is all well and good, but the fact of the matter is, mammals occupy the top spot in practically every single food chain on earth, and crocodiles are pretty much the only semi-exception to that rule.
>reptiles can’t beat placental mammals in a 1v1 niche competition
>1 group of reptiles beats mammals at securing a niche hundreds of times
>t-that doesn’t count!
Not even getting into others like snakes or sea turtles (lmao at sirenians)
A worthless subjective observation. There are numerous ecosystems where fish, birds, or even reptiles are apex predators - with river environments in Africa and Asia being one example. Saying "gee, now that all the dinosaurs are dead, mammals sure are superior!" is something out of the 1920's.
Crocodilians do evolve quite a bit, though it’s mostly snout shape nowadays. You see the same broad snouted and blunt toothed, narrow snouted and sharp toothed, semi broad and semi blunt, etc. evolve again and again and switch around in different lineages of crocodilians, because they’ve basically got the rest figured out. The recent terrestrial ones aren’t around or continuing that trend due to man (Mekosuchus, C. rhombifer), but crocs will probably give it another go when things warm up. Hardcore marine crocs idk, feels like whales should steal their lunch but you’ve got that extinct marine gavialoid from Holocene New Guinea so who knows.
A large part of what makes crocs so effective is the fact that they’re ectotherms. Being able to sit still for such a long time and still explode out of the water to snag a deer is something that an endotherm is simply incapable of due to lactic acid buildup. Mammals need to fidget too much to be crocodiles, and that’s a large part of why crocodilians have been uncontested in the large semi aquatic ambush predator niche in the Neogene.
>Hardcore marine crocs idk, feels like whales should steal their lunch but you’ve got that extinct marine gavialoid from Holocene New Guinea so who knows.
Salties are much more coastal than any toothed whale I can think of, they also have the massive advantage of being able to maneuver riparian areas without worrying about getting beached by the outgoing tide. I'm an idiot and I think you're probably talking about historically oceanic crocs, not modern ones.
Yeah I'm talking about older lineages of dedicated marine crocs, not brackish/coastal ones like salties and American crocs. They're just flirting with the idea of being seafarers, they don't spend their entire adult lives at sea.
The crocodilians we see today, much like the sharks that exist today, are the survivors of a once diverse and adaptive lineage that once lived alongside the dinosaurs and reigned as apex predators across much of the post-K-Pg world.
Not only is this statement false, but crocodylomorphs have put mammals in their place more than once. The only causes of extinction they've suffered are that of environmental change and that of humans.
A pack of wolves would mogg that dude into oblivion.
Warm blood OP
Those crocs weigh over two tonnes anon, Barinasuchus was the biggest terrestrial predator to exist after the dinosaurs. A wolf couldn't make a dent
Brown bears regularly scare off wolves, you think wolves would frick with something like this?
Why is that guy dressed like a pastor
Is that its natural predator
That's Richard Owen
Pseudosuchians are weak to radiant damage.
It took this Tiger 13 hours and breaking two canines to kill this fully grown and dehydrated mugger crocodile. A pack of wolves would get fricking obliterated by a Sebecid.
The only actual reason why land crocodylomorphs go extinct is due to climate change. Competition was nearly 100% of the time a non-issue otherwise.
Mammals are the definition of "live fast die fast" you can't expect one to spontaneously appear(because naturally evolving would make it get outcompeted by crocs really fast) that's better at staying still for months waiting for food to walk into their mouths