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Well, Joschua Knuppe, also called Hyrotrioskjan on this site (www.deviantart.com/hyrotrioskj… ), has dropped another big speculative evolution project, this time looking at the speculative wildlife of Atlantis (mobile.twitter.com/JoschuaKnup… ). The project is currently in phase one in which people submit entries for Atlantis' Paleocene wildlife and we'll gradually get to the Holocene, and this is my first submission for #Atlantisbestiary .

In modern wildlife, many intricate and specific relationships are known between species and the same is true in Paleocene Atlantis. Parasitic wasps had already evolved in the Cretaceous, and survived past the K-T mass extinction and still exists today. In Paleocene Atlantis, one such insect is the Coral ichneumon Wasp (Corallaculeo parasiticus), a member of the Ichneumonidae family. This wasp is sexually dimorphic, with the females being larger than the males, as well as different-colored and possessing a long stinger absent in males. But to understand more about it, we should first look to another creature of Paleocene Atlantis, the midwife false salamander (Maiaerpeton atlanticus).

A 10-centimeter long tailed amphibian, Maiaerpeton may look like a salamander, but actually belongs in the unrelated extinct amphibian family called Albanerpetontidae. Like the Cretaceous albanerpetontid Yaksha peretti from Myanmar, its long tongue can be launched like a missile at high speed towards its insect prey, allowing it to feed like a chameleon. While most amphibians show little to no parental care, the female midwife false salamander will carry her eggs on her back from the moment they are laid until they hatch, offering them some more protection from predators. As in other amphibian eggs, this albanerpetontid's eggs lack a hard calcium shell and so are at risk of drying up. Therefore, the amphibian is only found crawling in the leaf litter of Atlantis' wet and moist rainforests and wetlands where their eggs can be kept hydrated constantly.

The coral ichneumon wasp is a specialist parasite that only takes the eggs of midwife false salamanders as hosts. The female has an immensely long ovipositor, which allows it to hover above the mother amphibian as the insect injects her eggs into the amphibian eggs. Inside the amphibian egg, the wasp egg will hatch into a larva that will eat the amphibians embryo. When the larva completes its metamorphosis, it will emerge from the amphibian egg as a winged adult and have killed off the embryo that was originally inside, then go off to mate and repeat the cycle. A mother wasp can parasitize many eggs in a false salamander's clutch, but ultimately the amphibians breed year round and many eggs survive, sustaining the populations of both species. Ironically, the wasps are small enough to be preyed upon by the albanerpetontids.

Description
Well, Joschua Knuppe, also called Hyrotrioskjan on this site (www.deviantart.com/hyrotrioskj… ), has dropped another big speculative evolution project, this time looking at the speculative wildlife of Atlantis (mobile.twitter.com/JoschuaKnup… ). The project is currently in phase one in which people submit entries for Atlantis' Paleocene wildlife and we'll gradually get to the Holocene, and this is my first submission for #Atlantisbestiary .

In modern wildlife, many intricate and specific relationships are known between species and the same is true in Paleocene Atlantis. Parasitic wasps had already evolved in the Cretaceous, and survived past the K-T mass extinction and still exists today. In Paleocene Atlantis, one such insect is the Coral ichneumon Wasp (Corallaculeo parasiticus), a member of the Ichneumonidae family. This wasp is sexually dimorphic, with the females being larger than the males, as well as different-colored and possessing a long stinger absent in males. But to understand more about it, we should first look to another creature of Paleocene Atlantis, the midwife false salamander (Maiaerpeton atlanticus).

A 10-centimeter long tailed amphibian, Maiaerpeton may look like a salamander, but actually belongs in the unrelated extinct amphibian family called Albanerpetontidae. Like the Cretaceous albanerpetontid Yaksha peretti from Myanmar, its long tongue can be launched like a missile at high speed towards its insect prey, allowing it to feed like a chameleon. While most amphibians show little to no parental care, the female midwife false salamander will carry her eggs on her back from the moment they are laid until they hatch, offering them some more protection from predators. As in other amphibian eggs, this albanerpetontid's eggs lack a hard calcium shell and so are at risk of drying up. Therefore, the amphibian is only found crawling in the leaf litter of Atlantis' wet and moist rainforests and wetlands where their eggs can be kept hydrated constantly.

The coral ichneumon wasp is a specialist parasite that only takes the eggs of midwife false salamanders as hosts. The female has an immensely long ovipositor, which allows it to hover above the mother amphibian as the insect injects her eggs into the amphibian eggs. Inside the amphibian egg, the wasp egg will hatch into a larva that will eat the amphibians embryo. When the larva completes its metamorphosis, it will emerge from the amphibian egg as a winged adult and have killed off the embryo that was originally inside, then go off to mate and repeat the cycle. A mother wasp can parasitize many eggs in a false salamander's clutch, but ultimately the amphibians breed year round and many eggs survive, sustaining the populations of both species. Ironically, the wasps are small enough to be preyed upon by the albanerpetontids.