Alternate Extinctions

[oshron]

oh yeah, i forgot that thylacines lived on the australian mainland, too. if they didnt go extinct then, i wonder how the introduction of dingos would go in that ATL? would they (the dogs) even be able to survive? or would it be the other way around with the thylacines being less efficient than the dingos?

another one i wonder about is the quagga. iirc, they were kind of used as watchdogs by settlers, so what if they truly emphasized that purpose and protected the quagga?

 

[Max Sinister]

Huh? Is there another animal called quagga, except for the zebra?

 

[oshron]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagga

 

[cerebus]

that would riquire a change in climate

Not at all, if they were alive when humans reached the island then like the dodo a delayed discovery might be enough to save the species.

 

[cerebus]

I'm afraid the Wrangel Island mammoths died in the 17th century BC.

These creatures probably stayed alive until the 15th or 16th centuries...

Damn, the Cerebus memory effect strikes again

 

[pa_dutch]

I wish the Carolina parakeet had survived... It doesn't seem like it would be that unlikely. It would probably be pretty huge in the exotic pet trade as an endangered species.

 

[wolf_brother]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_extinctions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinct_in_the_Wild

Depending on where your POD is some of the latter could be saved, while some of the former could be wiped out. For example, to take a common scenario, a 'Failed American Revolution' timeline could easily have a surviving Great Auk or Atlas Bear, while potentially the Barbary Lion or Seychelles Giant Tortoise could be pushed over the brink.

 

[Tocomocho]

There were quite a few species that nearly went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene but didn't because of some random miracle - the wisent, the cheetah - and a lot more suffered some kind of bottleneck at some point - the lion, the cougar, the bison or the spotted hyena just to name a few. So you can cut it both ways, get rid of some species that didn't go extinct then, or have some species that went not.