my ass would NOT survive the carboniferous
>>83504972Your asshole specifically, as these giant centipedes would be crawling up it and eating you from inside
>>83505014Actually they were more closely related to modern millipedes and similarly to millipedes they were strictly herbivorous (or more specifically detritivorous)
>>83504972If the oxygen levels aren't that lethal then you would do great there. Giant insects and other land arthropods went extinct because of early tetrapods. You'd need to rely a lot more on meat though. If you go there, tell us what the hell the Tully Monster was too.
>>83505060Nigga I have a shellfish allergy, I'm cooked
>>83505060Isn't the tully monster just a weirdly shaped lamprey?
>>83505058No one really knows what they diet was, as far as I know, because their mouth parts have never been preserved. That's just to know for sure though. >>83505085There were lots of tetrapods and fish back then. You don't have to eat the bugs, in fact I wasn't even thinking about eating the bugs. Just murder the bugs and eat the fish and salamander-like monsters like the edopoids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edopoidea>>83505093Its been argued back and forth on being a vertebrate or not, but I think I remember some study coming out a few years ago arguing that it couldn't be because of how the one notochord-like structure goes beyond the eyes or something like that. Its been a while. It could very well be a relative to vertebrates but not a vertebrate itself though.
>>83505124If they were carnivorous their mouthparts would've fossilized since they needed to be somewhat robust to support a predatory lifestyle. Also plants and spores have been found in their fossilized poop and as gut content afaik.
>>83504972Arthropleura would have been so sluggish. I know there was a lot of oxygen to go around back then, but that's just too big for a bug. I don't think biology bloody allows it.
>>83505143Plus can you imagine how much time would be needed for something that long to shed its exoskeleton?
>>83505138Yeah, I'm not saying that they were carnivorous just that we don't know for sure. I'd say that robust mouthparts argument doesn't really track though, as a lot of the material they would've been eating would've been woody and so they likely already had robust mouth parts. They were more than likely herbivorous, but a fossil could come out tomorrow and completely upend that. My own theory is that they were omnivorous but more likely to scavenge or eat small critters than anything larger. You can imagine how some still mostly aquatic relatives to tetrapods would be able to be gobbled up by such a creature if they were too far from the water.>>83505143Yeah, that's almost certainly why a lot of the large land arthropods were just wiped out/out competed by the tetrapods. Also molting makes them extremely vulnerable. If you know where the giant, scary bugs have their den or are molting then you can just kill them in the process of doing that or just after they molt(their exoskeleton will still be soft and weak and they'll be exhausted).
>>83504972Ever look at land animal skulls and fish skulls, and see the eerie resemblance? Knowing that we've all evolved from fish, instead of insects or octopi. We all have ugly fish faces.
Already average day in Australia
>>83505188Oh because molluscs and arthropods are just gorgeous?
>>83504972That millipede would have SLAYED on a modern centipede dating app.
>>83505833Literally that one meme
