Ozzie Fauna.

From: Peter Metcalfe, CAPE Canty <CHEN190_at_cantva.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: Tue, 27 Dec 1994 20:41:17 +1300


Sandy:

In response to the Big Question of Glorantha:

>>>Where is the Australian Fauna in Glorantha?

> I don't think it's Slon. I'd look for an island somewhere to
>set such stuff upon. Perhaps one or more of the Jrusteli isles, or
>one of the larger East Isles. You don't need an area as large as
>Australia, seeing as most of Oz is taken up by (ecologically simpler)
>desert.

The trouble with this idea is that Kangeroos as I understand evolved the hopping mechanism as an efficient means of transportation over long distances over a flat terrain. So if the marsupials evolve on an island or in a jungle, no roos! We can still have possums although it's not quite the same thing.

I wrote

>>My understanding is that a long time [ago] several species of giant
>>carnivorus lizards (larger than a komodo dragon) existed in
>>Australia

> The largest I know of was around 40 feet long, In addition,
>there was at least one species of land crocodile (built for running,
>not swimming). But there were mammalian predators, too. Still, no one
>nowadays would mistake a huge monitor lizard for a dinosaur. Get
>real.

<blushes in embaressment> I do know the difference between a komodo and a dinosaur. What I was trying to do was point an example where creatures of a supposedly lower order did dominate over a complex mammalian population (ie nothing competes with a komodo in their turf) over a long time (after all there were mammals available to displace them). I mentioned this in a because I envisiaged large herbivorous marsupials in slon whereas during the Dinosaur years the largest mammalian-like creature, I think, is rat sized.

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