Megafauna working group

[Shawn Endresen]

I would think two predators - one ambush and one attrition - would be an upper limit. As already stated, human settlements do not play well with predators.

I would reject either sort of wolf as still too similar to the old world. For the ambush predator, I would nominate the vampire cat - ridiculously specialized, but I've always had a soft spot for them For the attrition predator, I'd go with the North American or long-legged hyena (Chasmaporthetes ossifragus) or Borophagus diversidens. I can sea a vampire cat/hyena ecology working out on the great plains fairly well.

The glyptodont wins on cool points. I'd like to see a mammoth-based ecology in the north, simply because it would be alien; the extinction of the mammoth caused the extinction or reassignment of every other species in what we now call the tundra. Mastodons seem promising for domestication; agree that horse is too easy. Eremotherium (panamerican ground sloth) would be interesting but perhaps implausible. Peccaries and/or tapirs or capybaras seem appropriate for domesticates. And I'd like a terror bird (Teratornis merriami).

I realize that's 9 or 10 suggestions, but I hope you like some of them.

I like the suggestion that in order to cushion the shock of Homo sapiens, perhaps the North American ecology should be inoculated with exposure to Homo erectus first. This is not a vote for keeping erectus around, just a bit of background.

I just noticed that the term "vampire cat" gets you nothing but anime on the genral web (should have guessed), so I mean the genus Barbourofelis.

 

[yourworstnightmare]

Also, Yourworstnightmare, how do you feel about my machairodont/lion suggestion?

Saber tooths and Scimitar Tooths are more cool than lions. Especially since lions still lives elsewhere. However for the grazer specialized predators such as Dire Wolfs, Cats etc. we need large herds of wild grazers.

 

[NothingNow]

I would think two predators - one ambush and one attrition - would be an upper limit. As already stated, human settlements do not play well with predators.

You can work more in. But for alpha predators that is probably the limit. Tigers, Leopards and the like did well with humans nearby, while Wolves are nearly universal in folklore for a good reason.

I would reject either sort of wolf as still too similar to the old world. For the ambush predator, I would nominate the vampire cat - ridiculously specialized, but I've always had a soft spot for them For the attrition predator, I'd go with the North American or long-legged hyena (Chasmaporthetes ossifragus) or Borophagus diversidens. I can sea a vampire cat/hyena ecology working out on the great plains fairly well.

The thing is though, Wolves are everywhere, and are highly adaptable. They're sort of guaranteed. Like Coyotes. An ecosystem with Barbourofelis and an Attrition predator (like Homotherium) in the alpha slots would be cool. C. ossifragus and B. diversidens both died out too early to really fall into the time period in question. I'd bet you'd still see Jaguars, Cougars and the Jaguarundi ITTL, just becuase everything was still there.

The glyptodont wins on cool points. I'd like to see a mammoth-based ecology in the north, simply because it would be alien; the extinction of the mammoth caused the extinction or reassignment of every other species in what we now call the tundra. Mastodons seem promising for domestication; agree that horse is too easy. Eremotherium (panamerican ground sloth) would be interesting but perhaps implausible. Peccaries and/or tapirs or capybaras seem appropriate for domesticates.

Honestly, I'd rather see Xenarthans like Pampatheres (Holmesina occidentalis for one,) instead of Peccaries and tapirs. The whole of Xenartha seem to be the perpetual oddballs in natural selection, being oddly competitive and having pretty valid survival strategies. Presumably that magic would rub off on the folks trying to herd them. As for Capybaras, Guinea pigs were IOTL domesticated in the Andes for their meat, so they might be easily domesticated.

And I'd like a terror bird (Teratornis merriami).

What you want is Titanis walleri. Teratornis was a giant Condor.

We've discussed the Survival of Titanis before. Said discussion was Lulzy.

 

[NothingNow]

I'm open to discussion on the matter, but I recommend we only keep about a dozen species alive, just to keep the variables and butterflies down to a manageable number.

Agreed. Although after we figure out the environment we'll still have to figure out how the hell the societies and the like would develop. This far back and a single butterfly still means that the only recognizable languages on the planet will be Basque.

I assumed that we would just be altering the New World fauna, and leaving the Old World intact. That seems to be what most people try to do with megafauna timelines, so why don't we just work with that, and leave Australia and New Zealand for another thread?

Agreed. That'd just complicate things.

Saber tooths and Scimitar Tooths are more cool than lions. Especially since lions still lives elsewhere. However for the grazer specialized predators such as Dire Wolfs, Cats etc. we need large herds of wild grazers.

Dire Wolves seemed to be more specialized towards Scavenging then purely hunting large grazers. Of course, they'd probably also be pack animals so there isn't an upper limit on the size of the critters they can hunt. That said, unlike the Grey Wolf, they aren't as good generalists. Now, something like Homotherium might be ideal as a specialized predator of megafauna while still being adaptable enough to take what ever we throw at it. As for the Grazers, with Buffalo, and the like surviving IOTL, and what ever we throw in ITTL, like Doedicurus clavicaudatus, Megatherium, Eremotherium eomigrans, and Holmesina occidentalis, there will probably be enough Biomass to support a healthy population of predators.

Incidentally, if we could figure out some way of saving Titanis (although it may be outside the purview of this discussion,) along with Ornimegalonyx, and the whole of the Pleistocene Cuban ecosystem, it would be awesome. Seriously, an Island where giant flightless owls (Ornimegalonyx) hunting Dwarf Ground Sloths, with the largest of the sloths on the island only reaching 90kg (that'd be Megalocnus rodens.) Oh, and there were terror birds.

 

[yourworstnightmare]

Dire Wolves seemed to be more specialized towards Scavenging then purely hunting large grazers. Of course, they'd probably also be pack animals so there isn't an upper limit on the size of the critters they can hunt. That said, unlike the Grey Wolf, they aren't as good generalists.

Acctually it seems Dire Wolves usually ate horses, bisons and camels, which mean they were specialized in hunting grazers. And yes, the reason they went extinct is probably the demise of the grazers, something a specialized hunter can't overcome. While the generalist gray wolf easily could adapt to eating other food. But in this TL the grazers survive, and that mean the predators who lived on hunting them will survive too (or at least some of them will).

 

[NothingNow]

Acctually it seems Dire Wolves usually ate horses, bisons and camels, which mean they were specialized in hunting grazers. And yes, the reason they went extinct is probably the demise of the grazers, something a specialized hunter can't overcome. While the generalist gray wolf easily could adapt to eating other food. But in this TL the grazers survive, and that mean the predators who lived on hunting them will survive too (or at least some of them will).

Dire Wolves could probably adapt as well, but yeah, that probably won't be an issue ITTL, although figuring out how the hell this all happens will be a nightmare.

 

[yourworstnightmare]

Dire Wolves could probably adapt as well, but yeah, that probably won't be an issue ITTL, although figuring out how the hell this all happens will be a nightmare.

Yes, it won't be an issue TTL. But the reason predators go extinct are usually:
a) they are too specialized and thus out competed by a new predator that hunt the same food.
b) they are too specialized and can't survive the demise of their main food source.

Conclusion: specialized predators goes extinct more easily than generalist predators.

 

[Domoviye]

Agreed. I think we should avoid making all the megafauna domesticable: some should be simply left as wild animals.

Best plan, and don't have all of them survive either.

I'm actually opposed to New World horses (in case you couldn't tell from my behavior on Argo's thread): it's not unique enough, in my opinion. I'd prefer to axe the horses and let the camel fill that niche. Plus, Argo is apparently going to take the horse route, so it might be good for us to go a different way. I wouldn't be opposed to keeping them as wild game animals.

Fair enough. If you want them as wild game, make them more closely related to onagers or zebras. Those are too ornery to be properly domesticated and its quite possible that they were like this.

Also, with llamas, are we talking giant llamas or regular-sized llamas?

The North American llama's were generally larger than the South American ones. You have some as big as camels and a few that were about the size of horses.

Finally, with bison and musk ox, do you want the extant species from OTL plus some of the extinct ones, or do you want to replace the extant ones with other species?

Well the modern bison is nearly impossible to truly domesticate, and the Musk Ox is a bit better but still bloody hard, so I'd go with the extinct species.
The Bison occidentalis seems the best possible one. It was only slightly bigger than the surviving Bison, and apparently died out 5000 years ago.
For Musk Ox, Harlens Musk Ox lived as far south as California, was smaller and leaner than our Musk Ox, and were killed off 11,000 years ago. For best effect i'd go with this one.

I was actually considering the mountain goat as a llama-analogue pack animal for another timeline. It's kind of freaky how you and I are thinking alike like this.

I'm not going to put these on the list, since those survived in OTL, but I like the ideas. Let's hear some thoughts from the "committee": do we want to domesticate mountain goats and/or elk?

If you look at some of my old TL's and my more recent one, I've thought about this stuff a lot. So I'm not surprised we've had similar thoughts.

Maybe not Mountain Goat (Oreamnos americanus) but an extinct species Harrington's Mountain Goat (Oreamnos harringtoni) who lived in the southwest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreamnos_harringtoni

This sounds like a good choice. I say we put this on the list as a possbile domestic.

 

[Sven]

Great discussion so far!

Here are some of my thoughts on predators:

I agree that two top megafauna predators seems like a good number. My votes would be for Smilodon and the dire wolf. Smilodon is unique, and the lion is not particularly unique. I would also be okay with keeping both wolves, if that's the popular opinion.

I love the idea of the hunting hyena, but I prefer to avoid reaching way back to 500,000 years ago or more to save it. Same for terror birds. Barbourofelis went extinct in the Miocene, so I'm very against that one. I would also prefer to change as little as possible in the Old World, just so we have a comparison between the traditional history of domestication/societal development and our alternate one.

I also agree with NothingNow that pampatheres and other xenarthrans would be more interesting to keep than peccaries or tapirs (though both of the latter will still survive in Central and South America, either way).

I was fully expecting mammoths and ground sloths to be among the first animals suggested, so I'm surprised that they didn't make it onto the first page. Now that they're here, I'm going to throw my support in for the woolly mammoth surviving in the tundra of northern Canada (that should also be a relatively good place for sabertooths to persist, away from the bulk of human civilization).

I also like NothingNow's other suggestion concerning Cuba. The island could be a completely isolated system, so it should be relatively easy to contain the butterflies, and it might be interesting to have a distinct island ecosystem and a distinct Cuban culture group emerge from it. It might be interesting to explore island endemism throughout the Caribbean. But, let's not get carried away with it: perhaps let's just focus on the continent now, and people who are interested in island fauna can make a subgroup later to flesh out the island systems and their endemic cultures.

I want to also add two more nominations. Macrauchenia patachonicus was just too interesting to not receive consideration. Wikipedia says it died out around 20,000 years ago, which might make it a bit out-of-range here, but I wanted to throw it out there anyway, to see what other people thought. Also, someone mentioned the giant teratorn (by mistake), but, since we don't have any birds yet, I'm going to officially throw it out there, as well.

So, here's the list of nominations so far (excluding ones that are too old, as well as the possible island faunas, which can be discussed later):

camel
glyptodont
saber-toothed cat
scimitar-toothed cat
dire wolf
saiga
horse
llama
mastodon
giant bison
Harlan's muskox
Harrington's mountain goat
woolly mammoth
ground sloth
giant beaver
peccary
capybara
tapir
pampathere
macrauchenia
teratorn
​

I think the best way to do this is to have everybody make a list of their twelve choices, using the master list above (though write-ins are welcome, and I'm sure discussion will continue). This will give us an idea about which are the most popular.

Is it possible to do this by poll? If so, can somebody explain to me how to do it, or volunteer to do it themselves?

This is the list I would vote for so far:

camel
glyptodont
mastodon
mammoth
saiga
pampathere
mountain goat
macrauchenia
ground sloth (bear-size Nothrotheriops, instead of the elephant-sized ones)
muskox
saber-toothed cat
dire wolf
​

My list seems a bit heavy on giants (no pun intended), and doesn't seem very promising for domestication (the camel and the muskox are probably the only good candidates, though the mountain goat, mastodon and saiga are also possible candidates). Of course, there are always the OTL domesticates --- turkeys, dogs, Guinea pigs, Muscovy ducks and llamas --- that can be added in there, and I think the camel and muskox round out the barnyard nicely.

 

[chr92]

If the list is going to include animals which didn't go extinct, may I point out the ocelot makes an affectionate pet OTL (so do some of the other small tropical felines) They could easily spread north - or south - of where they could naturally survive, with a little human shelter, and would be very useful to any agricultural society.

Any of the weasels could be used, but I think ocelots/margays/etc are easier.

Also, perhaps an earlier/more thorough domestication of the turkey, to produce an egg laying breed?

And there's fish farming...

 

[Shawn Endresen]

Polls have a maximum of 20 options, and there are 21 on your list. Although we could exclude horse

Are you suggesting macrauchenia as a domesticate, or wild? Actually, I suppose it would be better to table the question until we know if it's coexisting with camels.

Thorough domestication of the turkey would seem an obvious thing to try for a North American civilization.

I note that no one attempted to save the manatee and its relatives. But perhaps they can be in the Caribbean outlier.

My 12:

teratorn
capybara (the big one, Neochoerus pinckneyi)
peccary
tapir
woolly mammoth
mastodon
glyptodont
Harrington's mountain goat
pampathere
macrauchenia
smilodon
dire wolf

Since you appear to be sticking with things Clovis wiped out

Gives you a culture with nothing that's practical as a riding animal, unless macrauchenia is more versatile than I expect, but plenty of meat/wool/milk and mastadons for heavy draft animals. I expect the mastadon would be revered since the village depends on one or two of them for a lot of work.

Of course, folks will probably save the camel just to keep a riding animal in the mix. So be it

 

[Sven]

Polls have a maximum of 20 options, and there are 21 on your list. Although we could exclude horse

Can I make a poll that allows a single voter to select more than 1 option?
And, can I set it so voters have to choose exactly 12?

Incidentally, I'm fine with the horse, if others want it: I would just like to try our hand at something a bit more unique.

Are you suggesting macrauchenia as a domesticate, or wild? Actually, I suppose it would be better to table the question until we know if it's coexisting with camels.

I wasn't even thinking that far ahead yet. It would be interesting as a domesticate, but that seems a bit too absurdist: macrauchenia look like something Forest Elves or George Lucas aliens would ride.

I like the camel because it's unique, but it has precedence (i.e., we're not just pulling stuff out of our tail ends), and it's not so "out there."

I note that no one attempted to save the manatee and its relatives. But perhaps they can be in the Caribbean outlier.

You don't do anything mainstream, do you?

Since you appear to be sticking with things Clovis wiped out

Those Clovis jerks: I'll teach them to ruin OTL for me.

Gives you a culture with nothing that's practical as a riding animal, unless macrauchenia is more versatile than I expect, but plenty of meat/wool/milk and mastadons for heavy draft animals. I expect the mastadon would be revered since the village depends on one or two of them for a lot of work.

Actually, I'm a bit dubious on mastodon domestication: it seems like too much of a niche market that won't be able to compete with camels, muskox or llamas.

I'm recording the votes in a spreadsheet to see which animals are getting the most votes.

Of course, folks will probably save the camel just to keep a riding animal in the mix. So be it

You're welcome to nominate something else, if you want. This isn't supposed to be my timeline: I don't want to force people to choose exclusively from a list that I made.

 

[SouthernKing]

Of course, folks will probably save the camel just to keep a riding animal in the mix. So be it

You couldride a wooly mammoth.

 

[Kalvan]

Frankly, I would keep Lions in North America, and have Sabertooths in South America. That way, Latin America can have an "El Tigre" that won't be laughed at by Spaniards who have been to the Phillipines, and an "El Leon" that won't be laughed at by Spaniards who have been to Africa.

 

[Sven]

You couldride a wooly mammoth.

The mammoth's downward-sloping back might make it hard to see over the mammoth's head. A mastodon, with a level back, might be easier to ride. Or, you could use a howdah or something.

 

[Domoviye]

camel
glyptodont
saber-toothed cat
scimitar-toothed cat
dire wolf
saiga
horse
llama
mastodon
giant bison
Harlan's muskox
Harrington's mountain goat
woolly mammoth
ground sloth
giant beaver
peccary
capybara
tapir
pampathere
macrauchenia
teratorn
​

My choices.
Harlan's Musk Ox (Domesticated)
Harringtongs Mountain goat (Domesticated)
Sabre Tooth Cat (South/Central America only)
Dire Wolves
Wooly Mammoth
Tapir
Macrauchenia
Pampathere
Large-headed Llama (Domesticated)
Teratorn
Giant Bison
Peccary

Mixed with OTL domestics this would give the new world a nice farmyard collection. I'm not sure if the large headed llama could be ridden like a camel or not, but it would be a good pack animal, and may pull carts. The musk ox and goat could pull carts easily.
So we have llama's acting as wool producers and the main type of transport animal due to needing less food and being faster than a musk ox, and larger and stronger than a goat.
The Musk Ox is this TL's water buffalo or cow, it may also have some kind of useful wool as well. Also very effective for plowing and moving large items.
The goat would probably be the main source of food and the poor mans cart animal.
OTL llama would be primarily for wool and mountainous terrain.

 

[twovultures]

I vote:

camel
saber-toothed cat
dire wolf
llama
mastodon
Harlan's muskox
Mountain Goat
Tapir
macrauchenia
peccary
teratorn (what can I say, I just like the idea of ridiculously huge birds terrorizing early explorers)

 

[Sven]

I vote:

camel
saber-toothed cat
dire wolf
llama
mastodon
Harlan's muskox
Mountain Goat
Tapir
macrauchenia
peccary
teratorn (what can I say, I just like the idea of ridiculously huge birds terrorizing early explorers)

That's 11: just add my glyptodont and everyone will be happy.

 

[twovultures]

That's 11: just add my glyptodont and everyone will be happy.

I actually would be cool with that-if there's a slot left on my domesticate-heavy list, it should go to something based purely on weirdness, and Glyptodonts are just freaking weird.

 

[Shawn Endresen]

You know, I wouldn't expect true domestication of the mastadon either, any more than the elephant is truly domesticated. They're routinely tamed, which is not really the same thing at all.

And how many people get to ride a mastadon or woolly mammoth? It takes, what, half a dozen to 20 people to capture one, train it, care for it? Ordinary people will never be able to have one of their own, the economics won't work. So at first they'll be community property, until a fairly wealthy stable culture evolves, at which point the quite wealthy might be able to support them privately.

I actually suspect Panthera atrox was significantly different from African lions, and the term "American lion" is ill-chosen. But since we have to make up anew great cat in any case, I suppose it may as well be a smilodon.