About: Spec Mammalia: Cancridontia   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

The fauna of Specworld seems to revel in creations that exceed or contradict the expectations of human explorers. During the Mesozoic Era, the mammals had never achieved a body-mass of above a few kilograms, nor had they made any inroads into marine habitats. It was thus reasonable to assume that, in the absence of a K-T mass extinction event, large marine mammals ought not to exist on Spec, at all. So, when the beach-washed carcasses of multi-ton mammals were discovered in the first year of spexploration, there were gasps aplenty. It soon became clear that the carcasses belonged giant ocean-going monotremes, distant marine cousins of the platypus and echidna. As more and more species were discovered in the oceans of Spec, they were placed within a newly formed grouping, the Cancridontia o

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rdfs:label
  • Spec Mammalia: Cancridontia
rdfs:comment
  • The fauna of Specworld seems to revel in creations that exceed or contradict the expectations of human explorers. During the Mesozoic Era, the mammals had never achieved a body-mass of above a few kilograms, nor had they made any inroads into marine habitats. It was thus reasonable to assume that, in the absence of a K-T mass extinction event, large marine mammals ought not to exist on Spec, at all. So, when the beach-washed carcasses of multi-ton mammals were discovered in the first year of spexploration, there were gasps aplenty. It soon became clear that the carcasses belonged giant ocean-going monotremes, distant marine cousins of the platypus and echidna. As more and more species were discovered in the oceans of Spec, they were placed within a newly formed grouping, the Cancridontia o
dcterms:subject
abstract
  • The fauna of Specworld seems to revel in creations that exceed or contradict the expectations of human explorers. During the Mesozoic Era, the mammals had never achieved a body-mass of above a few kilograms, nor had they made any inroads into marine habitats. It was thus reasonable to assume that, in the absence of a K-T mass extinction event, large marine mammals ought not to exist on Spec, at all. So, when the beach-washed carcasses of multi-ton mammals were discovered in the first year of spexploration, there were gasps aplenty. It soon became clear that the carcasses belonged giant ocean-going monotremes, distant marine cousins of the platypus and echidna. As more and more species were discovered in the oceans of Spec, they were placed within a newly formed grouping, the Cancridontia or "crab-toothed" animals. Clade Cancridontia contains of over 30 species of large sea-mammals, ranging in size from less than a kilogram to over 7 tonnes. They are divided into 3 subgroups, the terrestrial and enigmatic rekes (Rekeidae), the smooches (Labiotherioidea) which come ashore to breed, and the giant walducks (Anatocetacea), which spend their entire lives at sea. Notable cancridont features include a reduced pelvic girdle (including the loss of the epipubic bone), a flattened paddle or fluke-like tail in the marine species, and a pair of venomous spurs on the hindquarters that can pivot into slots in the flesh when not in use. The leathery monotreme-bill is packed with electrosensors that provide a similar function to a shark's ampullae of Lorenzini, allowing the mammal to detect the minute electrical nerve-impulses of both their predators and prey. As with other monotremes, the distal end of the digestive, reproductory and excretory systems all converge at a single cloacal vent. It is their bizarre dentition that truly sets them apart from other mammals. Walducks and their relatives have three sets of bunodont molars on each jaw, with each tooth bearing a single, longitudinal row of 2-4 rounded cusps that give the tooth the appearance of the inner surface of a large crab-claw. The males of some species also possess a pair of tusk-like lower teeth that are believed to be premolars.
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