Rat here. Party hardy.

You rodent basterds are like 85% of what Euarchantoglires is about... Deffinately looks like a long history of partying.

Yeah we dominate the animal kingdom. Us and bats.

Deal with it.

i like rats. and bats :)
fuzzy and loveable ^_^

Gah, there needs to be a tree of life graph normalized by total cell count or mass. We'd see how dominative you critters are then! :]

I saw a survey on that in Africa, where they cordoned off a section of savanna and collected all the living things they could find to see the true makeup of the African biomass. The arthropods out-mass the chordates by an order of magnitude. The King of the Beasts is definitely a queen, and she's a termite.

That's not at all surprising, they're everywhere. Now I wonder how the plants compare to animals. Should be something like 10:1 to 20:1 if old textbooks are to be trusted.

Maybe more than that. I'm not sure what the food conversion efficiency is, but if the biomass of plants is 10:1, that probably wouldn't be enough to sustain the heterotrophs that feed on it. I'm thinking 20:1 would have to be a lower bound. But, of course, that's pure rectal extrication.

I do remember seeing a pyramyd graph in the context of biomass in food networks and an associated 10:1 ratio back in school. We were told that's what the food conversion efficiency is. Then only a couple of years back, I've seen 13:1 and 15:1 conversion in the context of growing livestock. But that's only mass conversion in food webs, the actual biomass ratio could be different - not all plants are eatable and digestable, like large trees. So yeah, could be something like 20:1 to 30:1 by rectal extrification.

Bat here! LET'S PARTY HEARTY BISKY

V.Vulpes over here :)

Coyote of course! What fantastically adaptable canines. Everywhere I've hiked in this country I've always seen, heard, or saw sign of them. It has been similar with deer.

heh bat

Heh, fine. And as expected, unlike what many people think, hyenas are close to kitties.

And to think, this only charts mammals. I can only imagine the scale it would have to be if it listed every known variety of life on earth.

This is a nice reference to have. I didn't realize primates took up that big a of a chunk of the pie, so to speak.

I said to myself, "What's with the lighter line around the circl—OH NO THOSE ARE ALL WORDS"

Hehe, yeah, blew me away.

Apparently, this is a complete list of ALL mammal species. Not sure how many extinct species are included, I've only found Megaceros and several rat-like mammals from Afrosoricida.

Artiodactyla here....yet I cannot find me (or us)

It's now called Cetartiodactyla, after merging Artiodactyla and Cetacea.
Yes, it means "we" have been placed in one clade with whales and dolphins. Cool, huh? :]

That is pretty unexpected :)

It's a good union though

Yes, together we shall dominate land and water!
(We still need bats for superiority in air... maybe we can persuade them by letting suck on some artery once in a while.)

Apparently the divergence between Artiodactyla and Cetacea is pretty recent.
Their evolution is pretty awesome.
Also it gets weirder - both (Artiodactyla and Cetacea) are closely related to an order of... believe it or not... Carnivorous Ungulates. "Rawr! Flesh eating deer is out to get you!"

Wow..learning something new here :)

Too bad I'm a plant :c

There there... it'll be fine, who doesn't love pretty flowers?
<Pours some water>

Dawww, thanks lol

Though I'm not really the flowering kind, I'm more of the "omnoms on bugs" kind ;D

Even better, a practical plant!

:D Yey <3

Oh yes, this wonderful diagram. I envision a vast plaza, with species and strata inlaid in mosaic and lines of gold.

This would have been such a fun thing to learn in elementary school.

Reptiles keep on and on!

That diagram... is freaking beautiful.

I want this as a poster on my wall.... You are so awesome for posting this! Thank you!

You just gave me an awesomely incredible idea of recreating this in a massive amount of space, like a hedge maze or something that size/scale. You start in the middle, after walking over a bridge from the left side (on what is on that graph) and it drops you off in the middle. The fun part of the maze would be each path you would choose would tell you what species it was, when it went extinct or if it's still alive, and if extinct--tell you "better luck on your next choice of turns, you could have just as easily become extinct too."

I think it'd be awesome.

You would probably die trying to get out lol

It's a possibility, but it would also be known that "it takes an entire day to really explore anything, so make sure you dont come with the intention of leaving in an hour". :3

Too. Much. Information. My head exploded...