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.

Friday, May 14, 2010

All Modern Life Derived From One

From Discovery News.

All Modern Life on Earth Derived from Common Ancestor
A single, primordial event likely yielded the array of organisms living today. Fri May 14, 2010 05:15 PM ET

Content provided by Tina Hesman Saey, Science News

One isn't such a lonely number. All life on Earth shares a single common ancestor, a new statistical analysis confirms.
The idea that life-forms share a common ancestor is "a central pillar of evolutionary theory," says Douglas Theobald, a biochemist at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. "But recently there has been some mumbling, especially from microbiologists, that it may not be so cut-and-dried."
Because microorganisms of different species often swap genes, some scientists have proposed that multiple primordial life forms could have tossed their genetic material into life's mix, creating a web, rather than a tree of life.


To determine which hypothesis is more likely correct, Theobald put various evolutionary ancestry models through rigorous statistical tests. The results, published in the May 13 Nature, come down overwhelmingly on the side of a single ancestor.

A universal common ancestor is at least 102,860 times more probable than having multiple ancestors, Theobald calculates.
No one has previously put this aspect of evolution through such a stringent test, says David Penny, a theoretical biologist and Allan Wilson Centre researcher at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand. "In one sense, we are not surprised at the answer, but we are very pleased that the unity of life passed a formal test," he says. He and Mike Steel of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, wrote a commentary on the study that appears in the same issue of Nature.
For his analysis, Theobald selected 23 proteins that are found across the taxonomic spectrum but have structures that differ from one species to another. He looked at those proteins in 12 species -- four each from the bacterial, archaeal and eukaryotic domains of life.
Then he performed computer simulations to evaluate how likely various evolutionary scenarios were to produce the observed array of proteins.

Theobald found that scenarios featuring a universal common ancestor won hands down against even the best-performing multi-ancestor models. "The universal common ancestor (models) didn't just explain the data better, they were also the simplest, so they won on both counts," Theobald says.
A model that had a single common ancestor and allowed for some gene swapping among species was even better than a simple tree of life. Such a scenario is 103,489 times more probable than the best multi-ancestor model, Theobald found. That's a 1 with 3,489 zeros after it.

Theobald's study does not address how many times life may have arisen on Earth. Life could have originated many times, but the study suggests that only one of those primordial events yielded the array of organisms living today. "It doesn't tell you where the deep ancestor was," Penny says. "But what it does say is that there was one common ancestor among all those little beasties."

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Just Delete And Get It Over With!

I got another announcement from the SE forum, and this note is to let the admin know that I don't want to go back. Apparently the mod is planning to delete some members who have been inactive. I got their first notice, and I haven't said anything because I don't want them to take it as I care. Well today I got their second notice, and they are giving a final warning. I say just delete me and get it over with! I don't want to go back. I have a few friends there and they know they can always find me here. But I have no business in that forum. A forum that embraces jackasses like JohnFaa, AKA Carlos Miguel Albuquerque, I don't belong in. But let me leave him with this final note, he is NOT a scientist, nor will he ever be. He's too closed-minded. And he does not run the show on Metazoica! The "fat whore" does! :)

I don't need that forum, I've been working on Metazoica for a long time by myself. Though don't think that I don't appreciate the help of people who are really scientists (like Dougal Dixon, Metalraptor and Paul Valkov). All of them were the first to make me see my ideas were wrong. I really owe them a lot for that. And it's not just that they did it, but it was the way they did it. There's a right way and a wrong way to speculate and to teach people. And that's why I really like Paul and Metalraptor. They say "this is wrong" and they add real reasons why. They don't just say "They're too specialized to survive" and leave it at that. That's why I prefer to stay here. My friends from the SE forum (If you want specific names, I don't mind listing them) you're always welcome here. Shoot! Even Faa can come in here! I don't like him and I just ignore him, but even he is welcome here. Which brings me to my next subject.

Someone signed my guestbook, and said they were blocked. I just want to say I never blocked anyone, ever! Believe me, if I never blocked JohnFaa, I won't block anyone! If that person tried to post and got a message that they were blocked, let me know! I'll see if I can fix it.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Family of the Week: The Nayzaer

The monotypic family Chaitharctidae, consists of a single species, Chaitharctos. This is the only species in this family around at the beginning of the Metazoic. These animals mostly inhabit the Arctic region. They are closely related to weasels, and evolved from the stoat. But this species is overrun by a host of larger, more powerful predators like Daspletarctos. During it's short life though, this animal ruled the Arctic. They are about the size of a wolverine, with long claws like a bear and a head that seems too big for it's body. Much like today's tasmanian devil. The legs are short, and the body is proportionately long. The tail is short and bulbous. The ears are small and triangular in shape. The eyes are somewhat large and round. They are loners, and rely mostly on their acute sense of smell to find food. Like modern stoats, these animals change colors with the seasons. During the winter they are a nice wintery white. But in the summer, they are a deep, rusty brown.

They are carnivorous animals, and feed on what ever source of meat they can find. Mostly fish, birds, bats, eggs, and especially seal pups. Though the Phocids are the last seal species to survive in the Metazoic. It is when they die off, that Chaitharctos dies off. Seal pups and fish make up a major part of their diet. After the last of the true seals die off, another descendant of weasels takes their place, the Paraphocids. But they are of no relation to Chaitharctos. This animal is active year-round. They hunt for seal pups born on the ice, and kill them with a crushing snap of their large, powerful jaws. This animal not only hunts very well, it is also an accomplished scavenger. They will often muscle in on other smaller predators, stealing their kills and chasing the rightful owner off. They battle using both their teeth and claws. The claws are not retractable, but are long, curved, and kept razor sharp.

These animals reproduce only once a year, and that is usually in the summer months. When winter rolls around, the mother often takes the babies out to show them how to hunt for their own food. Then by the following spring, they are usually out on their own. Predators are rather few, mostly the larger Daspletarctos is their worst threat. Though the tough nature of this animal makes them a difficult adversary, even a sprighty adult can be killed by the larger dog. Also among predators are Smilomys, the sabre-toothed predatory rat that inhabits the Arctic at the end of Chaitharctos's reign.

I myself have been a busy girl. I have been talking with my web designer about my animated banner for the new Metazoic site. He showed me some of the animals his animators have worked on and so far, they seem to look pretty good! They need a little more tweaking here and there, and then they will be superb! I almost cannot wait to have the new banner put up! It will be the very first time any Metazoic mammals will be seen in motion. Though it won't be the last if I have anything to say about it. By the time I am finished, the site will be a complete virtual zoo.