Based on my reading, they would have only been slightly more intelligent than a chimpanzee, so it wouldn't be as intense as we think, but it's rather the "uncanny valley" effect that causes issues. They are clearly, at a glance, very human-like. The common name I went with is "Ogopuru", which I believe comes from an East African language and refers to a grassland spirit. This is, of course, for Paranthropus aethiopicus. I don't know how exploitable they would have been - certainly we might have seen that if fellow members of our own genus (Homo erectus or Homo neanderthalensis) had survived, which is in itself a fascinating and somewhat terrifying can of worms to think about - but they would definitely be a critically endangered species due to their specialised diet.
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- Thread starter Villanelle
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Yeah my sister got me a few Schleich figures for Christmas last year (African bush elephant, Indian rhino, giant panda, gorilla) and then my partner/toddler got me a spinosaurus for Father's Day, and they all look pretty good (the spino I was actually impressed by; it's by no means perfect but it actually reflects most modern interpretations of what they looked like) but then I see, like, the snow leopard, and I compare these to Collecta, and I kind of wish I'd started with Collecta insead of Schleich.
I thought there was two seasons. Isn't there a Prehistoric Planet 2?
Yeah sort off. From what i heard it was supposed to be only one season, but they ran into time issues and just split it in half, could be wrong tho. Its more Prehistoric Planet Season 1 part 1 and Season 1 part 2
Would love there two be more season, focusing on different time periods.
But there is Walking with Dinosaurs "revival" (?) coming in 2025, so thats also really exciting
For my next post I want to talk about my experience of holding a koala. I'm sure that most of you have dreamed about holding this creature and I can't blame you. They're cute, but I never expected them to have such long nails (more on that later). My last visit to australia was in 2022, and it was a month and a half, and all I can say is that I will miss visiting australia. It's defently one of my top places, because I enjoy seeing the wildlife there and spending with frames. Ho wouldn't like to see a sunset in their porch while seeing kangaroos hop through the meadow? I would go more times if I could, but I want to dedicate more time to my family and friends, and so I don't think I will ever see dangerous spiders at my house. Sigh. I remember holding a koala named Stuffy, and I was scared at first when seeing the nails it had, but it was a terrific experience!
Source:https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/bajka-jak-sel-koala-s-kani-a-srsni-hledat-ztracene-iluze-133354
Source:https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/bajka-jak-sel-koala-s-kani-a-srsni-hledat-ztracene-iluze-133354
Yeah I meant to watch the next part, typo I never saw
Gorgeous! It looks like the softest thing imaginable, aside from those claws. How did you actually get to hold it - I thought that wasn't allowed at most places? I must say I'm happy to just look, not touch, when it comes to wildlife. I tend to distrust wildlife experiences that encourage or allow direct contact...it's usually not in the animal's best interest. I don't know the context here though - would you recommend the place you visited?
I've never been to Australia but my brother in law and his family are there so hopefully we'll go and visit at some point. I've always wanted to see Australian wildlife...in spite of the giant spiders! There was a movie called Dot and the Kangaroo I loved as a kid...did anyone else see this? Gives my age away as an 80s kid
(well kinda, born in '89). I watched this on repeat...I loved the way it blended filmed footage backgrounds with cartoon animals and lots of repetitive but catchy songs. The bunyip bit used to terrify me. I longed to ride in a kangaroo pouch.
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haha yay! Love the shout out to the Zoolypmic Games!
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️️ anyone could win - its an open contest, very chill, come join us! Next round will be announced tomorrow and will have a winter theme 
Gonna do 1 round per month from now on as long as I can...so check in at the end of the month to see what the vibe is for the next round and have your own say on the theme
My contact with koalas was made long ago in my first ever visit to Australia. A friend of mine and I went and held one at Cohunu Koala Park, Perth. And I know that holding a koala is a dream come true, but I would recommend that people should look for institutions that take good care of the koalas (and can prove it), as they're very sensitive creatures.Gorgeous! It looks like the softest thing imaginable, aside from those claws. How did you actually get to hold it - I thought that wasn't allowed at most places? I must say I'm happy to just look, not touch, when it comes to wildlife. I tend to distrust wildlife experiences that encourage or allow direct contact...it's usually not in the animal's best interest. I don't know the context here though - would you recommend the place you visited?
I've never been to Australia but my brother in law and his family are there so hopefully we'll go and visit at some point. I've always wanted to see Australian wildlife...in spite of the giant spiders! There was a movie called Dot and the Kangaroo I loved as a kid...did anyone else see this? Gives my age away as an 80s kid
Source: https://youtu.be/kTg3wV3DnGY?feature=shared
I might join in with the fun but I'll have to see how my schedule will be before december (I like to have things finished before the holidays). But thanks for inviting me!haha yay! Love the shout out to the Zoolypmic Games!
Gonna do 1 round per month from now on as long as I can...so check in at the end of the month to see what the vibe is for the next round and have your own say on the theme
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All they need to do is remake the original but update the science and it would be absolutely killer. Anyway, I hope it's successful. Walking With Beasts was my jam, and I loved Walking With Monsters, too. I never got to see Walking With Cavemen, but I heard it was good.
Anyone here ever just like...wholesale invent new animals? I was given a box of a bunch of my old notebooks and sketchpads and remembered I used to do this as a kid. Some of them were actually pretty clever. Such as the rukgama, a Sri Lankan great ape. My childhood notes say it's related to orangutans but smaller. Basic stuff, but it made me kind of look at the evolutionary history of orangutans today and how they spread from Africa to Asia. I also had notes for a "Spanish wild horse", "British black bear", "painted cat" (including binomial on this one, Panthera picta), and "Manchurian elephant".
Yeah I used to do that quite a lot, I love speculative evolution and monsters so I would come up with some pretty wild stuff from time to time.
Yours sound more fun. Mine all look like they could fit seamlessly into the evolutionary history of the world. I was a massive nerd I think. I found another page on the "British black bear", and it came with the trinomial "Ursus arctos brittanicus", so little animal geek me even thought about how a British bear would likely still be a subspecies of the Eurasian bear, even if it's morphologically distinct (though I doubt I knew the words "morphologically distinct" back then).
When I was a teenager I got my mother to buy me a simulator for lynx/snowshoe hare population cycles, from a museum store. It consisted of large and small squares of cardboard, and some instructions. The small squares were hares, and the larger squares were lynx. You had to scatter the small squares on a surface and then try to capture food for the lynx by tossing the larger squares on top. The lynx who caught prey lived and reproduced. The hares who died, well, died. The other hares reproduced. The lynx who had no hares to catch also died. The game was of course only large enough to get the point across but I wanted more. So I kept a record of the results and did multiple tosses for each generation. The only surface large and clear enough in our apartment for this simulation was the living room floor. I had bad rug burns on my knees by the time I gave up several hours later. Without the limitation of space and rabbit food, the populations just kept getting larger and larger. Many years later, in graduate school, I learned how to run predator-prey simulations on a computer and they included bunny food and environmental space. It was a hobby, because I was learning to be a chemist.
I totally used to do this too, although my creations were not as well grounded in reality as yours @NZFanatic and definitely not as aptly named. More inspired by my books of monsters and mythological creatures like you @RightWhale, but I did try to conjure up creatures that could possibly exist today. Then I'd look at a giraffe and get exasperated thinking "damn, nature is just so much better at this than me". Like, how are they even a thing. How could you ever imagine something like a giraffe...and for it to even be possible.
Your creations sound amazing!
I used to "invent" fantasy creatures, not really trying to make them probable
You know, different species of Pegasus and the like.Sometimes also new horse breeds for example ice age woolly horses
I used to and still do come up with different variants of Pokemon based on their location and secondary typing 
Also, today my aunt's friend (museum field) is livid because a random professor came up to her and dropped of a bunch of cardboard gift boxes and went "oh these have been in my closet lol". They were thylacine fossils. Just shoved in a cardboard box
they're damaged
Also, today my aunt's friend (museum field) is livid because a random professor came up to her and dropped of a bunch of cardboard gift boxes and went "oh these have been in my closet lol". They were thylacine fossils. Just shoved in a cardboard box
they're damaged
Oh I had a sketchbook full of made up creatures from high school. I can remember three that really stand out:
- Imagine a fish that's as buoyant as a duck to the point where it can't dive. It just floats on the surface and uses its little fins to paddle around, feeding on surface algae.
- An ungulate with large horns/tusks/whatever protruding forward from its face for self-defense and asserting dominance. However, they prevent it from reaching the ground to graze, so it has a long tongue like a giraffe's to reach the grass.
- One of my favorites was really cute. It was some kind of small furry mammal. It had big, adorable eyes; stood upright; and waddled around on its short stubby legs like a penguin. It was also semi-aquatic, so it had webbed feet and fur like an otter's or beaver's. If it were real, I imagine it making a great pet.
These are great.
One of the only "out there" ones I had was basically a mammalian velociraptor. I guess conceptually it would be distantly related to canines due to pack hunting, but it had a long dog-like face with short ears, and it was bipedal like a raptor/bird. Very creatively, I called them 'raptors'. If I came up with the concept now, I'd probably call them "dromines" or something.