Australia...famous for the very dangerous creatures that do not exist elsewhere in the world. When I read this in another site, I thought "Y'know, maybe I'll have a few chapters in Australia in my sci-fi stories. Even better, maybe new creatures or existing creatures have evolved (book is set in 2945 AD) to become more dangerous) So, here are some stuff I thought of: #1- Tanzakoo -- Long ago, this was once the peaceful kangaroos that hopped along the Australian outback eating plans (and other things). This sinister creature has fangs, claws, and a powerful kick capable of breaking a man's ribs. They hunt small to medium-sized animals and have been known to devour humans when the food supply is low. #2- Wotar -- One of the most vicious creatures in Australia. The size of a North American Grizzly bear, this creature, because its blind, hunts in the dark and sleeps at day. Its senses are so attune that it can smell blood many, many feet away. It hunts quietly, silently...you don't know if they're there until they get up onto their feet and swipe at you. Their claws are laced with a poison that could kill at least four fully grown men. See, this is another way they can hunt beside the old "charge and bite/claw the prey to death" tactic. Oh, and did we mention that it has six feet horns coming out of its head? Or that its tail resembles an open flame? Well, that's it so far. I look forward to seeing what you can come up with!
I would go with dangerous herbavoirs as well. There are wild camel heards in Australia today (worlds biggest wild population actually), the offspring of important work animals that were let lose when they no longer were needed because of the modern infra structure. Camels are not very pleasant animals to begin with, and can be dangerous for people in their search for water an food. With you're super carnivores you added perhaps the camels can have turned even more defensive, easily provoked and so on. Or just a big heard running blindly is dangerous, remember that scene from the lion king?
^ How could I ever? It made me cry the first time I saw it in the theaters as a little boy. (and giave me my fear of heights) How can I make camels a bit more dangerous than they are already? If they spit, maybe these newly evolved camels spit something that's not pleasant at all. I also thought of resurrecting the Tasmanian tigers and have them roam both Australia and Tasmania in grossly large numbers.
Octocorallia Ignis (a.k.a.: the burning glue): The Australian Octocorallia, a local coelenterate, evolved to colonize dry ground. Out of the water it turned into a brownish glop, almost impossible to distinguish from a patch of earth or dirty stone. It feeds of the creatures that enter in contact with it, as once the very thin surface is broken by contact, it deflates explosively, releasing a mix of viscous digestive acids. The acids themselves also contain small pieces of the burning glue, that grow feeding on the digested matter.
Your ideas aren't bad, but you don't want to go with evolution from the way things are as your sole mechanism for getting these newfangled creatures. Think about it -- how long does classic evolution take to produce even relatively small changes? How much have humans changed physiologically in the past thousand years? The past ten thousand years? In a thousand years, you can expect kangaroos maybe to be a bit taller on average, or have somewhat different colored coats, but changing to carnivores in this amount of time doesn't seem at all plausible to me (and it won't to pretty much anyone with at least a marginal amount of scientific knowledge). You probably want to make sure you construct a believable mechanism for the creatures to change (genetic experiments gone awry, or whatever), or set this in an alternate world to our current earth.
Oh yeah! Wild dogs, and maybe they're rivals to the Tasmanian Tigers (I should rename them to something else if they're also living in Australia). We could see big pack wars between these two species. Arathald, you are correct once again. =) I think all this could be explained away as genetic experimentations and cloning, such as with the Tasmanian Tigers.
I seem to have a knack for seeing when things don't quite add up. Now if only I was as good at coming up with things that do add up, I'd be all set.
Evolution can go very quickly when there is pressure to adapt. Often, there are long periods of little or no change in a species, with bursts of rapid change when the environment changes and the species has to adapt (this is called punctuated equilibrium in biology). Breeding of dogs and cows can produce huge differences in only a few decades, and that's using only selective breeding, no genetic manipulation. I agree it's hard for a species to change from herbivore to carnivore quickly, though - it's doesn't just need to grow fangs and claws, it also needs to change its digestive system to process meat, become fast and strong enough to catch its prey, get better sight to spot its prey at a distance, learn to conserve energy between meals instead of roaming around, learn hunting techniques, and so on, or it may starve to death before it actually manages to catch anything.
I agree that Tasmanian Tigers should definitely be used I mean, as well as being infinitely cute, they have those gigantic jaws that look almost disproportionate to their size. Seeing as how your Sci-Fi is set in the future- leaps forward in genetic engineering may have brought the thing back to life (but perhaps with more dingo-like qualities? I've heard those are dangerous) What about the Moa bird too? These things are freaking huge, and they actually DO look like they should be from a weird Sci-Fi future... o_o People say they are extinct but others report sightings of them from time to time. Imagine bumping into something that looks like THIS MUTHA
Unless there is some catastrophe killing large amount of a food supply, carnivores should not exceed their food supply, omnivores or herbavores. (Man wiping out herbavores(intentionally or unintentionally) would be one way.) If the large numbers of carnivores go hungry they will start feeding on thier own, thus the population goes down.
I concur. Besides, I hate roaches. I'll think of some other creepy crawlies to scare the crap out of my protagonist. She's only gonna be in Australia once, though. She's got other space stuff she needs to do.
Oh, is this about Helen? I thought it was a new story of yours. This could have the potential to be cool in a scary scifi kind of way, but to be honest, you'll want to be careful to not sound cheesy. I mean, the first post about the bloodthirsty kangaroo made me smile a bit, you know? It's just...hard to see. Maybe you could start by looking up some animals in Australia that are already predatory and/or considered scary, then amp them up? I mean, you can change kangaroos and make them more sinister too of course, but if it's your main predator in the food chain then you might not be taken seriously. I'm not trying to discourage your idea or anything. Just sayin.'
There are loads of armadillos here in Florida; apparently they carry an STD, although I'm not sure which one. Six-foot-long armadillos that spray you with STD-infected fluids from ducts next to their carnivorous gaping jaws?
Sounds scary, better not get too close! On topic: A quick google search can find you an animal, then simply imply some genetic mutation took place which caused the animal to morph and create a new species.
Emus are bloody evil already. They freaked me out when I ran into them when I was in Australia! I am trying to remember the kind of animals I met out there. Wombats, unbelievably cute, but big claws. With a little bit of twisting, they could be like the sort of creature that looks cute, but really isn't. They have evil spiders and snakes of course - easy to do something with that. Dingos too can be easily 'eviled up'. Echidna (a little spiny hedgehoggy marsupial) could have venomous spines or something like that.
Good idea. Australia probably already have scary animals, so I just have to amp them up a bit. I can include a bit of genetic modification and cloning (like they brought back the Tasmanian Tigers) too. Of course, I'll have to mention that the genetic/cloning deal occured a few decades/centuries before the story begins. That'll give enough time for them to spread out all over the outback.
