Talk:Darwin IV

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Contents 1 Darwin IV's Wildlife 2 (Original Top Post) 3 Grove-back nutrition 4 Dead Image Links 5 List of species 6 Darwin IV Sentients? 7 Lie Corrections 8 Added a new section. 9 Speculation 10 I finally got the Book, and in great condition too! 11 Groveback leg posture 11.1 reply to legs incident

[edit] Darwin IV's Wildlife

"List innaccuracy

Some species descriptions are so wrong that they aren't even "VAGUELY" right! The finleg isn't even aquatic, let alone serpent shaped! And has anyone seen the forest gulper definition? It says something to the effect of "a large camaflaging snake"! (And I'm not a bad typist. They really did spell camaflouging "camafl-A-ging"!) Someone, please, fix this travesty! It may be fiction, but even fiction has to have SOME truth in it!"

Indeed! When I found this page, I absolutely abhorred it for its ridiculous and laughable lies. I own (and I have the publishing house's proof of this) the last "whole" (as in capable of legitimate resale) copy of "Expedition" on the North and South American, European, and Australian continents. If you wish, I can commandeer this entire page, and rewrite it to the utmost truth and cleanliness. I shall not take this bold act, though, until I recieve public approval.

-- Ngorongoro 4/2/06

I'm not sure what you mean by the last whole copy; mine still has its covers. At any rate, the work needs to be done. A Wikipedia motto is "be bold", so I say go for it.--Curtis Clark 17:30, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I merely went on the information given to me by the publishing house that there is only one confirmed whole copy in existence, and that it was the one that I bought from them a while back--the last they still had on their own hands. I figured such really must be true when I discovered this page's ignorance of Darwin IV's wildlife. If yours is still good, you may wish to contact them...

And now with your approval my friend, I shall indeed be bold!

-- Ngorongoro 4/2/06

Amazon claims 16 used copies, some in very good condition. Abebooks claims 12.--Curtis Clark 20:00, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I know these books and their pervayers - they are not in truly good condition, only good condition considering the condition of most of the copies. Do not be fooled by those rawly capitalist sites. The only (and I mean that) method of obtaining this kind of book in any quality is to meet the dealer face-to-face or to get it from the publisher (which you cannot anymore). Either way, that is not the point, this page needs to be revamped severely.

--[User:Ngorongoro|Ngorongoro]]

[edit] (Original Top Post)

It would be nice to indicate which critters were found only in Expedition and which were also in Alien Planet. --Curtis Clark 05:07, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, 68.63.255.106! --Curtis Clark 03:55, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Your welcome Curtis Clark! -- 68.63.255.106

[edit] Grove-back nutrition

Did Alien Planet actually say that the grove-back absorbed food through its underside? I know we (the biology and paleontology consultants) debated its nutrition (and its ability to stand on legs that jut out to the side, something that never happens in large Earth mammals and dinosaurs), and I remember suggesting a mutualistic relationship with the trees of the grove, but I have more than once been surprised by the way things were finally cast in the program. --Curtis Clark 05:37, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that they mentioned direct absorption, which struck me as inneficient for an animal with that low a surface area/body mass ratio. --Icelight 16:16, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

They evidently changed writers in the last stage (Peter Crabbe had done the original writing), and the new writer(s) took some liberties with some of our carefully-constructed "how do we make this even possible" scenarios. I remember on hearing "half sponge, half virus", thinking "Where did that come from?"--Curtis Clark 16:51, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dead Image Links

I'm getting 504 (gateway timeout) errors every time I try to follow the image links. Some of those could be changed over to direct one to Barlowe's homepage here, and the images it provides. However, it would certainly be nice if we could find images we could actually display of some of the creatures. Not that I hold out any major hope we could do so. But the dead links need to be fixed. --Icelight 16:16, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of species

The list of species needs some work. I just cleaned it up some, but there are still a lot of poorly written or incomplete entries. Also, there are essentially 3 sets of species on this page: those exclusive to Expedition, those exclusive to Alien Planet, and those which appear in both. These should be clearly differentiated and possibly separated into sub-sections. Xastic 20:06, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Darwin IV Sentients?

I know that in Expedition the eosapiens are the only sentients on Darwin...but does Alien Planet ever say there are more? It's fairly obvious(to me, anyway) that the "mysterious" contacts Ike and Leo keep picking up are eosapiens, and I can recall no other mention of intelligent Darwinian life. Leo attempts communication with a bladderhorn, but the creature makes little attempt to respond, suggesting it is not fully sentient.

No. At no stage of production was there any thought of additional sentient species. --Curtis Clark 04:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I have not seen Alien Planet, but there do seem to be multiple inaccuracies in the List of species. Corrections are quite welcome. Xastic 19:41, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Will someone who has seen Alien Planet look at the entries for Talv, Yogo, and Zong? These entries don't seem legit. Xastic 19:05, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

They aren't. At all. Removed. The big giveaway is that neither the book nor TV special gave any of the creatures these kind of dumb, made up, nonsense word names. "Syooons?!" - Give me a break! Three O's in a row?! MakeRocketGoNow 23:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks. Those were really bugging me. Xastic 23:43, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lie Corrections

I tried fixing this but it dosn't want to save my changes. I have the book, I saved my changes on a .txt so I can paste these changes later. I fixed all the lies and added aditional creatures that were in the book. If you want to look at my changes, here they are:

• Amoebic Sea† - The Amoebic Sea is a gelatinous sea of single-celled organisms. It is home to emperor sea striders and sac-backs.

• Arctic Sedge-slider - Around ten feet tall creature, the arctic sedge slider is perfectly adapted for life in the cold. The arctic sedge slider's name comes from the furrows it leaves in its wake. This creature has an ingenious adaption for the cold. When temperatures drop low, or a fierce arctic storm comes, the sedge slider has the ability to retract it's head deep into its warm body cavity. When conditions are favorable again, its head reemerges again and it resumes its activities. The arctic sedge slider has what may be the biggest sonar bulge of any animal on Darwin IV. This massive organ produces sonar pings in, not one, but multiple frequencies. And, since the bulge is on the sedge slider's back, it gives the animal the ability to "see" in 360 degrees. It takes quite a clever predator to catch an arctic sedge slider by surprise. See a pair of sedge sliders here.

• Arrowtongue† - Averaging about eight feet tall, an arrowtongue impales its prey with a 26-foot-long, serrated, arrow-tipped appendage. Like many spiders on Earth (and like most predators on Darwin IV), arrowtongues are liquivores, injecting digestive juices into their prey and then sucking out the food. They also are fierce, solitary hunters found across the planet.They somewhat resemble a T-rex.

• Beach Quill† -Beach Quills are short-range attack hunters and are some of the smallest creatures on Darwin IV. They attack in colonies and kill their prey with a neurotoxin. In Alien Planet, a large colony kill a Groveback.

• Belly-thrower - these one-legged aliens shoot their stomachs over their prey through an oral sphincter like a net and the liquifying prey is slowly pulled back into the alien's mouth.

• Bladderhorn† - It is bipedal and bright blue, with two antlers extending out of the sides of its head. Bladderhorns use bellows for communication, which, in Alien Planet, makes Leo think it is intelligent, and he shows the Bladderhorn a symbol puzzle. This spooks the Bladderhorn into running away. Then a mysterious creature attacks and deactivates Leo. Ike sees Bladderhorns near the conclusion of the exploration. Bladderhorns fight with their antlers, too, using light shows to scare enemies. Image of a Bladderhorn here.

• Bolt tongue - Though it resembles a small arrowtongue, the bolt tongue has some key features that distinguish it from its larger relative. Its skull is longer and narrower than the arrowtongue's, and it lacks the small fleshy spines of its savannah counterpart. Its back lacks biolights and has a large patch of grey running from the tip of its skull to the end of its tail. The bolt tongue inhabits sub-polar regions of the northern icecap, where it preys upon several species of arctic herbivores. Image of a bolt tongue here.

• Butchertree† - Many species prey on the numerous, fast breeding prismalope, but the butchertree is the only species that has the prismalope come to it. Dotting the plains of the northern hemisphere, the butchertree kills just about anything unfortunate enough to come within attack range. It is unknown just how this species reproduces. One possibility is that the small flyer it associates with transfers eggs and sperm between individuals. Another possibility is that the flyer itself is the second gender of the species, a sexually dimorphic extreme. Either way, young butchertrees are found close to their "parent", and are connected to them through an umbilical cord similar to that of the "growths" that mimic the flyers. The cord disappears once the young are capable of nurishing themselves. In Alien Planet the butchertree is one of only two species shown to prey on skewers. See the butchertree, as well as the unamed flyer and prismalope here.

• Daggerwrist† - The daggerwrist is a human-sized tree-dwelling carnivore. It glides from tree to tree with the assistance of skin flaps, similar to those of a flying squirrel. Its hands are large daggers designed for clinging to plaque-bark trees and killing prey, mainly trunk-suckers. Unlike most of Darwin IV's predators, the daggerwrist has what could be considered a jaw. It is actually part of the skull that detaches to stab its prey and inject the needed digestive enzymes.

• Diskflyer - Diskflyers live in the Amoebic sea and operate within very distinct four square kilometer territories. It is not known whether young diskflyers stay within the territories in which they were born or if they leave to establish new territories of their own. Diskflyers, like most of the animals on Darwin IV, are hermaphroditic, and mating impregnates both partners. It is not known whether diskflyers give birth to live young or eggs, but it is probably the latter.

• Ebony Blister-wing - The ebony blister wing is a large alien with huge wings with air-filled bags.

• Emperor Sea Strider† - The emperor sea strider is the one of the largest known creatures on Darwin IV. In Alien Planet, the Sea strider is around 80 feet tall, but in the book Expedition, it is more than 500 feet tall! Sea striders walk on the surface of the Amoebic sea with their two massive feet. Sea striders are found only on the Amoebic Sea for two reasons: the sea's gelatinous surface is the only material that can support the striders' great weight, and the sea is the only source of nutrients large enough to support such creatures. When sea striders are born they are capable of flight, but as adults they are bipedal.

• Eosapien† - Eosapiens are the natives of Darwin IV in Expedition. The eosapiens appear to be highly mobile,airborne, and semi-sentient. They possess tentacle-like limbs, navigate with organic rudders, and use large bags of methane to provide lift. Eosapiens have rudimentary intelligence roughly equivalent to that of our own ancestors (ie. Homo neanderthalensis) and spears (called 'flechettes') that they use for hunting purposes. In Alien Planet they were one of only two species shown to prey on skewers. Leo was assaulted by one while trying to comunicate with a bladderhorn. A group of eosapiens apparently interpreted a camera disk launched by Ike as a threat; the last image from the camera disk showed the eosapiens flying away, carrying a limp Ike. The floating balloon probe resembles the floating Eosapiens, and the launch of the video disc was probably interpreted as throwing a flechette.

• Fin Leg - Fin Legs are under water serpents that feast on the sea striders that come into its territory.

• Finned Snapper - The finned snapper is an amphibious creature that walks on its fins. They feed on jetdarters.

• Flipstick - Flipsticks are tall, cylindrical creatures. The flipstick's signature form of locomotion involves leaping into the air and flipping 180° to land on its opposite end.

• Follow-wing - Follow-wings are tiny flying scavengers that follow aerial predators, such as the deadly Skewer.

• Forest Gulper - Gulpers are snake-like creatures with tiny wings. They make bellowing cries to attract Spade Noses, their main prey.

• Forest Slider - Forest sliders hang out with trunk suckers and also feed on plaque bark tree sap. During youth, its deformed hind leg is scraped off by their parents without any harm.

• Gelsucker - The gelsucker is a quadruped, but also has a pair of clawed arms, giving it a total of six appendages. Gelsuckers are so called because they feast on the flesh of the jelly bladder plant, which grows in small groves on the outskirts of pocket forests. They use their clawed arms to rip the "bladders" open, and then use their extendable proboscis to suck down the semi-solid flesh.

• Grove-back† - In Alien Planet the grove-back is the largest of the creatures of Darwin IV, with the possible exception, depending on definition, of the Ameobic Sea. Fully mature they are large enough that entire stands of trees grow on their backs during the long periods of dormancy they spend burried in the ground. Once mobile they travel on two large front legs and a rear appendage shape much like a sledge or runner. The feeding habits of the grove back differ between the book and the film. In Alien Planet, the grove-back feeds by absorbing nutrients from the soil through the skin of its underbody. But, in the book Expedition, the grove-back is a filter feeder, feeding on the microscopic plants and animals that number in the thousands in Darwin IV's air currents. Considering the grove-back's size and speed, the first mentioned lifestyle is probably more realistic.

• Gyrosprinter† - The "antelope" of Darwin IV. Unlike the antelopes of Earth, the gyrosprinter has two legs: a fusion of the forelimbs and the fusion of the hind limbs. Unfortunately such a placement of legs can be cumbersome. In place of a tail, the gyrosprinter has two organs of balance (similar to the inner ear of a human) located in two thick prongs protruding from either side of its trunk. It has two hearts and its nostrils grow from its shoulders.

• Hook-tailed Flyer - A flying creature that hangs from trees like bats.

• Ice Crawler - These animals that resemble pillbugs are nearly motionless and make comically flatulent roars.

• Ice Dart - Small flying animals that have three pointy tubes for feeding and drinking, one on their face, another on their bottom sides, and a third one on its rear. It also pokes itself on ice during snow storms.

• Jetdarter† - One of Darwin IV's bizarre aerial life forms. The Jetdarter is a scavenger whose compact body assumes a jet-like shape. It has no wings to aid in flight. Instead it has a biological version of a ramjet engine - complete with a turbine of bone and gristle. It has two legs, which fold up during flight. The jetdarter forms nests in the pocket-forests and fear many creatues, such as eletrophyte plants and finned snappers.

• Keeled Slider - The keeled slider is a giant brown animal with kneeled arms. They build special egg chambers to keed eggs and young in. They slide down muddy mountains. Can be male or female.

• Littoralope† - The littoralope is an animal that hides under huge sea strider skulls. In Alien Planet, the littoralopes have tails that resemble their heads.

• Mummy-nest Flyer - These are large blue and gold wasp-like animals that nest in mummy-nests.

• Mummy-nest - This animal has sphincter-like orfices on it's body. It is later invaded by mummy-nest flyers.

• Praire-ram - Prarie rams are animals that impales their prey's chest to suck bodly juices.

• Prismalope - An numerous triped of Darwin's plains, prismalopes often travel in herds. The first thing one notices about this creature is its massive cranium. Though it appears ungainly, it houses the prismalopes grasping tentacles, which it uses to capture small prey. This fast-breeding creature is preyed upon by a multitude of predators, both terrestrial and airborne.

• Prongheads† - Prongheads are pack hunting animals that mainly feed on gyrosprinters and littoralopes. They are named for the four hollow prongs protruding from their faces that act as tubes to siphon liquids from their prey.

• Rayback - An agile predator of Darwin IV's grasslands. This creature gets its name for its four prongs that project from its back. Unlike most other predators with specialized features to suit specific prey, the rayback has no specializations. Its only weapons are its lightning-fast speed and a dagger-like tongue. It is fierce and attacks anything that moves. Like all of Darwin IV's creatures, it uses sonar to sense its surroundings.

• Rimerunner - The rimerunner is one of the bizarre one-legged animals on Darwin IV. Supported by only one leg, the rumerunner can only hop along its icy arctic home like a kangaroo. It eats only aerophytes and other microscopic aerborne organisms. At the front of its head the rimerunner sports an umbrella-like organ. This organ, suspended by thin neural cables, is a sophisticated sonar system along with a primitive eye (which is likely atrophying).

• Rugose Floater - Rugose floaters are heavly wrinkled, fish-like aliens that float in the air. During spawning season, it has eggs trailing behind their "fins" and reduce to their cresent shape when spawning is complete.

• Sac-back - The sacback lives at the edge of the Amoebic Sea, where it feeds on the sea's gelatanous covering. The sacback gets its name from the sac on the males' back. The sac is used to store pre-digested "sea" material which is later fed to the females. Male and female sacbacks live completely different lives. Males live on the surface, walking around on their three legs. Female sacbacks dig "tombs" in which they bury themselves. Once buried, the only part of the female that sees the light of day is her mouth and tentacle. Image of mating sacbacks here.

• Scavenge-wing - Scavenge-wings are flying animals that has a special digestive system suitable for eating carcases.

• Skewer† - The deadliest predator of Darwin IV. It is an enormous flying creature, with a wingspan of 15 meters - larger than any flying creature that ever lived on Earth. Its wings do not flap but squeeze, shifting shape to shift flight. It is actually propelled by combusting methane gas in four jet-pods on its wings. This allows the skewer to travel at speeds of 200 miles per hour. Its killing tool is a hollow lance that impales its prey, injects digestive enzymes, and sucks the corpse dry. The skewer also hunt in groups, each skewer dropping the spoils and another swoops in to feast.

• Spade-nose - A four-legged animal that lives in forests. It is the common prey of the Gulper.

• Springwing The springwing is a beaked horse-like animal that springs and glides off cliffs.

• Stripewing The stripe wing is a lazy flying creature with stripes on its wings.

• Symet - Symets are herbivores named for their protective symmetry. In Expedition, Barlowe observes a herd of symets in a desert in bordering the Vallis Przewalski.

• Thornback The thornback is an herbivore that walks on its three-legged gait. Has protective thorns on it's back.

• Trunk-sucker† - The trunk-sucker is a small animal that glides through Darwin IV's forests and clings to plaque bark trees, sucking their sap. The first dead creature that the probes find on Darwin IV is in fact a trunk-sucker, most likely killed by a daggerwrist.

• Tundra-plow - An animal that digs part of it's body in the ground to get food.

• Unth† - The Unth is a mountain creature that resembles a warthog with asymmetrical tusks. The Unth is named for the sound it makes when it exhales ("uuuunnth!"). Unths live in herds. The unths of Alien Planet are first encountered by Leo, but Ike meets up with this peaceful herbivore near the end of his journey. The Unth herd was apparently spooked by either the Bladderhorn duel nearby, or a mystery creature, which deactivated Leo.

• Unamed Flyer - As of yet, this species has no common name. This flying creature is the main food source of the prismalope in the northern plains. This species has developed an intriguing relationship with the butchertree. Within a 15 ft or so radius of a butchertree are a dozen or so small growths. The growths are actually part of the butchertree, connected to it by underground tentacles. These growths are physically identical in appearance to the small unamed flyers, and should a flyer land next to one, it would be virtually impossible to tell which was which. This camouflage is often so good it can deceive prismalopes into coming inside the butchertree's attack range, where they then find themsleves skewered and drained of fluids. See the unamed flyer, prismalope, and butchertree here.

If you like these changes, copy and paste the changes (I'm sorry if I didn't change the "Finleg" info.).

Giant Blue Anteater 00:20, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed that the corrected species list was pasted and modified in the article. It's thanks to me for correcting the innacuracies! GBA 22:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Added a new section.

 It brings up things like Senses and shared traits from evolution

[edit] Speculation

Uh, folks, this is fiction. It's perfectly reasonable to report Barlowe's speculations made in Expedition or the speculations presented in Alien Planet; these are a part of the corpus of information about the fictitious Darwin IV. Everything else is "original research", and that's using the term loosely.--Curtis Clark 16:28, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I finally got the Book, and in great condition too!

Now I can clean up any inaccuracies on the page and add more info

[edit] Groveback leg posture

The groveback's leg posture may seem to splayed out, but it actually makes sense for 2 reasons

1. - No earth creature, living or extinct, has ever had a bodyplan like a groveback (e.g. 2 anterior legs and a single large rear skid.) Therefore it should seem reasonable to assume that they have different leg postures.
2. - The groveback's dorsal carapace extends far beyond its shoulders. It needs to keep those legs bent to prevent it from losing balance. If its legs were held erect, it would be in danger of falling over.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.63.255.106 (talk • contribs) .

On the other hand, large Earth organisms (elephants, sauropods, etc.) have straight legs beneath their body, which requires less energy to support their weight. I and the other biologists and paleontologists who were consultants to Alien Planet debated the likelihood of the splayed legs of the groveback. Our consensus was that the carapace must have an extremely low density, or else the animal would not be able to walk at all.--Curtis Clark 03:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] reply to legs incident

The carapace may be light, but that is not the point. The point is that the grovebacks anterior is supported by 2 legs with broad feet. Its posterior, however, is supported by a single skid, and only the tip of that skid touches the ground. If it had straight legs it probably wouldn't cover enought surface area to be able to keep itself balanced. Its alot easier to walk with your feet spread out then it is to walk on tippytoe.

The point is that bone is better at supporting weight than muscle. Try walking at a half-crouch for a while to better understand what a groveback would experience. Your point about stability is a good one, but it's important to remember that these are fictional beings, and that Wayne Barlowe is a much better artist than he is biologist or physicist.--Curtis Clark 05:47, 25 June 2006 (UTC)