25 Million Years PE: The End Of The Rodentocene

25 million years PE: The End of the Rodentocene

Dusk of One and Dawn of Another: The End of the Rodentocene Era

It is a chilly afternoon in northern Nodera. The main yellow sun, Alpha, is beginning to set, casting the temperate landscape with a bright yellow gleam, while above it hovers the red-orange pinprick of Beta, promising a few hours more of Beta-twilight before true night sets in. Above in the sky soar a number of ratbats, emerging at dusk to seize the swarms of airborne insects active in this hour of tangerine skies.

It has been 25 million years since life first came to HP-02017, and the wildlife certainly shows its adaptation. Once all just tiny, humble hamsters, they have expanded into such an unimaginable array of forms their seeding precursors would never have foreseen--wherever they were, so long a time later.

In the grasses of the Noderan landscape the sounds of a scuffle can be heard: two rival male masked luchaboars are jousting for territory, squealing loudly as they lock tusks and try to throw their opponent into the ground. Their species, and their territorial jousting, has gone virtually unchanged since the Late Rodentocene, 5 million years ago, but by this time great changes have occurred around them. Once they were the greatest of all Nodera's creatures, but now that age has passed.

The luchaboars butt heads with loud squeals, trying to scare the rival off their turf. But suddenly, both cease their combat and perk their ears in attention, as a faint rumbling sound, slowly approaching, interrupts their petty dispute.

Something is coming.

Something big.

A herd of mison come plodding their way, the ground rumbling with their footsteps while clouds of vapor condense in the cold air with each mighty breath. Like the bumbaas, the mison are descendants of the cavybaras as well-- but their size is on a whole different level.

Weighing almost two thousand pounds when fully grown and measuring six feet high at the shoulder, these lumbering giants have increased in mass from their cavybara ancestors almost twentyfold, and are now thousands of times much more massive than the miniscule hamster that was released onto this planet all too long ago. The vacancy of niches allowed the miniscule hamster to spread out into bigger forms: some of which are now very big indeed.

The herd emerges onto the plains, migrating to new grazing land, and soon dozens, and then hundreds, come tromping their way through the grassland: and faced with such a massive herd, the two brawling luchaboars wisely drop their conflict and promptly flee, while the mison continue on, indifferent to the smaller creatures scurrying beneath them.

As the chilly climate of the Rodentocene's end caused sea levels to drop, the mison, which originated from Westerna, crossed the exposed land bridges down to Ecatoria and across to Nodera, and now they have become established there too, roaming the plains in large herds as they migrate in search of food.

But the mison are not alone. Soon the herd is flanked by several large bounding figures: a group of bipedal, hopping boingos. Large plains grazers descended from the jerryboas, specifically the greater skipperroo, these 190-pound, six-foot-tall leapers dominate the grasslands throughout nearly every continent save for Borealia and Peninsulaustra. Their efficient bounding gaits and grazing dentition have allowed the boingos to conquer the plains, crowding out most of the hamtelopes and keeping their grazing species as small hare-like grazers in the plains...or at least, most of them.

Towering above them all is an immense figure that, with its slender neck, long legs bearing hoofed toes, and a lack of a tail, is unmistakably a giant hamtelope: the girat. While most plains-dwelling hamtelopes avoided competition with the jerryboas and their descendants the boingos by remaining small and feeding on soft, low-ground vegetation, other hamtelopes instead avoided competitive pressure by taking the opposite route, becoming high browsers that feed on tall vegetation beyond the boingos' reach: culminating in the girats, which when full-grown can stand up to 16 feet high-- the tallest hamsters to walk the planet.

Suddenly, the once massive cavybaras and bumbaas are tremendously dwarfed by the great new creatures that have emerged to fill the niches of large megafauna prevalent on Earth, but absent here. The arrival of these massive, mighty behemoths heralds the end of the Rodentocene, and the dawning of a new era: the Therocene-- the age of beasts.

▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪

More Posts from Enbylvania65000 and Others

enbylvania65000

4 years ago

Amazon.com: Muse Delusion eBook: Flor, T. K.: Kindle Store

Muse Delusion - Kindle edition by Flor, T. K.. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Muse Delusion.

Muse Delusion - a love story with a touch of Greek mythology.

I was a beta reader so trust me this is a great book!

It's free for a limited time only so order now!

Tags

lovestory ( muses ) kindleunlimited

1 note View Post

enbylvania65000

1 year ago

I cast Summon Kidney Stone

Tags

funny

4K notes View Post

enbylvania65000

1 year ago

An image of a Tumblr post screenshot which reads, "I'm available for fun sweetie, where are you?" underneath the text is a poll with the two options being, "I'm new Latina babe in town, and I don't know much about your zip code so I can." and, "Are you a cop or in any way affiliated with law enforcement." The visible tags for the post are as follows: #yellowjackets, #taylorswift, #the mandalorian, #donald trump, #welcome home, #asexual, #succession, the rest of the tags are cut off.

SINCE WHEN CAN BOTS CREATE POLLS??? EXCUSE ME?? ALSO WHAT ARE THESE OPTIONS?

81K notes View Post

enbylvania65000

1 year ago

It is May but it is still October.

It is still October whenever another hostage's body is found. It is still October whenever another IDF casualty is announced. It is still October whenever the red alert shows up on my phone. It is still October when people chant for "intifada". It is still October when people call for our home to be destroyed. It is still October when people deny what was done to our brothers and sisters. It is still October when people show support for Hamas. It is still October when a new lie about us is believed and spread. It is still October when a former role model wishes us dead.

It is still October.

When will it stop being October?

When October 2024 arrives, will it still be October 2023?

234 notes View Post

enbylvania65000

2 years ago

House Martins on a Ledge. Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935)

via

Tags

art

1K notes View Post

enbylvania65000

2 years ago

I suggest that we start using the term ‘creatives’ instead of ‘content creators’ for authors/artists/gifmakers/podficcers for a few reasons, and chief among them are these;

we can’t always be our most productive, but there’s a terrible trend of fandom folks feeling bad if they don’t have something new to post every few weeks

you’re still a creative person even if you aren’t creating something at a given time, for whatever reason

and something it’s taken me far too long to learn myself: making things is not the rent you pay to be part of a community

29K notes View Post

enbylvania65000

1 year ago

They are also erasing Jewish history of Israel from before the foundation of the state, and en masse rewriting articles on Zionism and Jews in the Middle East, getting rid of any context that justifies Israel and sometimes adding conspiracy theories. Israeli right-wing sources are considered unreliable due to being propaganda (which they are, but they also sometimes tell the truth) yet Qatari outlets are considered completely okay to use despite many many instances of outright fabrication. They should either ban both or ban neither if they want consistency. I have to constantly go to archived revisions for almost any page relating to Israel's history. Even on the summary page of Israel itself, they erased the link to the "Land of Israel" but kept the "Holy Land" and "historic region of Palestine".

This kind of stuff was happening on other topics than Jews long before October 7th, and is due to an inherent issue in English Wikipedia's editing culture. I remember how the decision making process worked years ago in a debate about deadnaming; trans people were outright ignored not just by transphobes but by "allies" because anyone with a personal stake in an issue is viewed as untrustworthy. Rules are made by consensus, which isn't a terrible idea on its own - but key part of how consensus is built is to marginalise the very people affected. I know from a friend this is also how Wikipedia operates on Romani issues.

I love the *idea* of Wikipedia so much, but the editing culture there is really toxic.

Another Jew on here commented that people were going onto Wikipedia and removing references to certain people's Jewishness, and I just saw for myself that this is true. As a Jew and a fan of old movies and history, I was looking up a list of Jewish actors on Wikipedia. I saw Tina Louise (you know, from Gilligan's Island) pop up. So I popped over to her actual page on Wikipedia. And there were zero references to her being Jewish. So I hopped on over to the Wayback Machine (bless you, Internet Archive) and put in the URL for her Wikipedia page. And wouldn't ya know it: before 10/7, there were at least 3 to 5 references to her Jewishness at any given time on her Wikipedia page. Wtf is happening.

Tags

jumblr wikipedia israblr

1K notes View Post

enbylvania65000

2 years ago

A Laboratory for Star Formation

Alt text: In this image of NGC 3603, a bright cluster of stars shining in red, orange, and yellow hues dominates the center. The stars become more sporadic throughout the rest of the image, glittering against a black backdrop of space and nebulous indigo clouds that glow in the picture’s lower half.

Credit: NASA, ESA, R. O'Connell (University of Virginia), F. Paresce (National Institute for Astrophysics, Bologna, Italy), E. Young (Universities Space Research Association/Ames Research Center), the WFC3 Science Oversight Committee, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Location: In the Carina spiral arm of our Milky Way Galaxy

Distance from Earth: About 20,000 light-years

Object type: Nebula and open star cluster

Discovered by: Sir John Herschel in 1834

Imaged here by the Hubble Space Telescope, NGC 3603 is a collection of thousands of large, hot stars, including some of the most massive stars known to us. Scientists categorize it as an “open cluster” because of its spread-out shape and low density of stars. Surrounding the bright star cluster are plumes of interstellar gas and dust, which comprise the nebula part of this cosmic object. New stars are formed from the gaseous material within these clouds! NGC 3603 holds stars at a variety of life stages, making it a laboratory for scientists to study star evolution and formation. Astronomers estimate that star formation in and around the cluster has been occurring for 10 to 20 million years.

Read more information about NGC 3603 here.

Right now, the Hubble Space Telescope is delving into its #StarrySights campaign! Find more star cluster content and breathtaking new images by following along on Hubble’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Tags

space

1K notes View Post

enbylvania65000

4 years ago

*asking about the ranger’s familiar*

“What breed of danger noodle is Muffins?”

604 notes View Post

enbylvania65000

2 years ago

Seriously just ask me anything If I don't want to answer it, I just won't.