American Bamboo Discussion Thread

Mathuen

Banned
Cuvieronius might be better alternative to mastodon as we dated youngest subfossil to +- 6000 bc in northern south america

Yes, I'm also reading now that many remains that were at first thought to belong to mastodons were apparently cuvieronius. By the end of the ice age the northern limit for the cuvieronius was in Mexico which works perfectly here and means that they could survive in the Central Settled Area well into the arrival of humans and the development of civilization.
 
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I guess south america would have noticeably more surviving animals as well. Brazilian grasslands might have still horses, llamas or glyptodons. In otl far south there is even some evidence of keeping some groundsloth species in pen. I will look for info once I return from school.
 

Mathuen

Banned
I guess south america would have noticeably more surviving animals as well. Brazilian grasslands might have still horses, llamas or glyptodons. In otl far south there is even some evidence of keeping some groundsloth species in pen. I will look for info once I return from school.

It is possible that the glyptodons were depopulated by humans and then died at the end of the ice age. Since humans will have been held back from going into South America for a while it is possible they could survive.

I'm still not all that big on keeping horses in the Americas though.
 
I'm still not all that big on keeping horses in the Americas though.

You don't have to, given that horses will be in competition with other (more efficient) grazers at the end of the Ice Age that could drive them to extinction even if the environment becomes more favorable for them.

You should be thinking about biomass, though. We've seen that plant biomass is going to shift to bamboo and plants that can co-exist with bamboo: before asking how humans are affected, we need to think about how that's going to shift the animal biomass.
 

Mathuen

Banned
You don't have to, given that horses will be in competition with other (more efficient) grazers at the end of the Ice Age that could drive them to extinction even if the environment becomes more favorable for them.

You should be thinking about biomass, though. We've seen that plant biomass is going to shift to bamboo and plants that can co-exist with bamboo: before asking how humans are affected, we need to think about how that's going to shift the animal biomass.

Well of course, we need to establish what the area is like before we can start on how humans will deal wth it. The alteration in plant biomass and the climate is the big thing right now. Since you've already done an alternate american timeline do you have any ideas/preferences on how this would affect the animals that are already there and haven't been adressed?
 
I'm always pro-domesticate, just because I like the idea of Native Americans resisting colonization. Pronghorns are not likely to be suitable, though. Too prone to flight, and not a lot of meat on a body built for speed. It would be cool to have more of them around, though.

Just some thoughts: You might see the Marsh Deer and the South American tapir go extinct, as they like wet habitat and the bamboo seems to dry things up. White-lipped peccaries, which like moist forests, might also see a dramatic reduction in numbers.

So the question really is, what can thrive in a dryer environment? Grasslands would be great habitat for pronghorns and any animal that eats grass and course vegetation. The Flat-headed peccary would also benefit from the increased dry habitat. Browsing animals could also benefit from more open forests, which gives them more room, lets them spot predators more easily, so shrub oxes and Hemiauchenia macrocephala (the large-headed llama) could survive in North America's southeast.

Slower-moving, larger animals will still lose out with pressure from human hunters, so I think ground sloths and pampatheres may lose out-though the Pampathere's ability to eat coarse vegetation would help them survive in the the larger open grasslands of South America.
 

Mathuen

Banned
From what I can tell the habitat of the Peccaries would be pushed upwards by climate change. That leads to an interesting middling region ecology. We have an overlap of peccaries, prongohrns, camelops, cuvieronius and cheetas (and llamas possibly in the far eastern middling region), with the balance changing as one goes to different parts of the middling region. Like I said earlier, eventually I think bamboo eating hutia will spread everywhere, but that won't happen until after human civilization comes into play.

The ecology will normalize into what we are familiar with in OTL when we get to the tips of the continents, but two big areas are still left without enough fleshing out. Those would be South America and Eastern North America.

Time to do some more research. Anywho, I want to say thanks for all the help all of you have given so far and thank you for all the help you have yet to give.

:D
 
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Mathuen

Banned
An idea for South America. The giant anteaters of South America inhabit both grasslands and the flood forests of the amazon, in fact they generally live on the borders of these areas and spend the daytime in the grasslands and the night time in the forests. This is due to the fact that the grasslands are warmer in the day and the forests are warmer in the night. It is also because grassland termites and forest ants/beetles are easier to hunt during those times respectively. The idea is this, during the climate change which alters the grasslands and forests some anteaters move further into the grassland area and other move further into the forest area. The expansion of the grasslands makes consistent termite eating easier and the growth of bamboo, which becomes a home to beetle populations makes consistent beetle eating easier. These two groups start developing along different lines.

So over thousands and thousands of years we now get two giant anteaters, the giant grassland anteater and the giant forest anteater (though I doubt they will both be called anteaters now). My main interest is the forest anteater. Given that it is now consistently feeding on larger insects I think it's frontal cavity will expand slightly and it will also become more adept at dealing with consuming water while swimming. This I think will lead the forest anteaters to open up to also eating small fish and aquatic insects.

Also, just another thing. The small eared shrew will go extinct due to the climate change.
 
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Hnau

Banned
Very cool. We might have the beginning of another Lands of Red and Gold or Lands of Ice and Mice here. Great job, Mathuen. I will be following this. Good luck!
 

Mathuen

Banned
I never was a big fan of the overkill hypothesis myself, though I do find the evidence for a coincision between mega fauna die off and an extended dry period interesting. Interesting because although liking wet areas the spread of bamboo will lead to a drying of South America several thousand years before the drying period in 7000 BP. This might lead to a smaller but earlier die off of megafauna in South America with the OTL drying period possibly never happening due to thousands of years of climate divergence.

Now as I stated before human expansion into South America will be retarded which would put back any potential overkill anyways. Though I am not a fan of the overkill hypothesis I am also not one to just discard such an idea. After all who can deny that we humans have a tendency to fuck around with everything? So in order to move forward I need to take a stand on what caused the die off in OTL.

So I'm just going to say majority climate change then minority overkill with climate change happening first. Now in this ATL it would go the same way in majority-minority only even more so...... but the two are now spaced apart in time. Where in OTL human overkill would have happened merely a couple hundred to a thousand years max after climate change now it would have to happen THOUSANDS of years after climate change. This more or less makes human influence in this ATL die off null until the written TL begins anyways. So getting back to the extinction, since i'm going with the climate hypothesis anyways we can expect to see a mass die off ITTL as well. Given the nature of the climate change though the following question needs to be answered in order to find out what species will die off.

What species in pre-die-off South America would be most susceptible to an almost simultaneous rise in temperature and drop in humidity?
 

Mathuen

Banned
A rather interesting population shift in South American species to take into account. The rise in temperature and increase in humidity will lead to a decrease (and upward as well as eastward push) of various turtle species. It will also cause an explosion in the pit viper populations of South America.

That would make the southern continent a tad more dangerous to put it lightly.

A species that will be even more widespread thanks to the climate change will be the Coati. Though they can populate regions all across the world their two favorite kind of habitats, grasslands and middling forests will expand and their habitat will also move further north than OTL. Given their rather high intelligence and dimorphic social organization how they affect the places they will boom in will be interesting to say the least.
 
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yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
A bamboo forest will open the niche for an animal to become a bamboo eater. And bamboo eating animals can grow very large (pandas, gigantopithecus).
 

Mathuen

Banned
A bamboo forest will open the niche for an animal to become a bamboo eater. And bamboo eating animals can grow very large (pandas, gigantopithecus).

Well as I said the Hutia will indeed become bamboo eaters and I do expect and increase in size due to a change in diet and later on human breeding. As for other bamboo esters, you are right that where there is a niche there is a niche filler and since I don't expect the alt-hutia to fill that niche entirely there should be a couple more species to fit the bill.

I am thinking of some Coati (given their varied and adaptable diet) also becoming bamboo eaters. Though as always other suggestions are welcome.
 
spectacled bear have potentional to gave rise to some predominantly terrestrial and bamboo-eating subrace. I guess it would look like a kind of more black and less white panda with "smaller head"
 

Mathuen

Banned
spectacled bear have potentional to gave rise to some predominantly terrestrial and bamboo-eating subrace. I guess it would look like a kind of more black and less white panda with "smaller head"

Well it's head would probably change a bit, given that it's facial structure is indicative of a carnivorous ancestor. If some of them transition from an andean plant to an andean plant and bamboo diet (also the transitioned bears might move downwards and away from the mountains in this case) we would probably also see this new bear become larger around the stomach due to the extra dietary stress that comes with eating bamboo in most species.

I like it.
 

Mathuen

Banned
Very cool. We might have the beginning of another Lands of Red and Gold or Lands of Ice and Mice here. Great job, Mathuen. I will be following this. Good luck!

Heh, I really do hope that I will be able to put together something that would be able to stand with those. After all those timelines are partly where I partly got the idea to do a climate change timeline anyways.

Thank you.
 
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