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Published: 2020-08-14 14:34:38 +0000 UTC; Views: 899; Favourites: 34; Downloads: 1
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Description
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4This is an odd one, because I`m not sure about the taxonomic position of these things, though the presence of an anus means they`re probably tube animals.
The basic form (1) is somewhat mollusc-like, but only somewhat. It has a round shell on its back, some limbs with suckers, tooth plates that will later develop into a beak, and a cavity around its anus that houses its gills (something between a mollusc` mantle cavity and a very wide cloaca).
you can easily see how this thing evolved into the turtlesquid (2), which now possesses a neck, tentacles and siphon (not uniflow like the fishes, but good enough). In addition to the shell and beak, these animals may have various scales, claws, and hairs on the outside and a sort of spring-like endoskeleton of unclear origins in their limbs and neck. Some are sessile filter-feeders (3), others crawl on the seafloor with powerful arms (4). Some lost their shell and just have a soft mantle, possibly with protective hairs (5).
6 and 7 are snakelike forms that are mostly neck.
8 is a mock turtle, who abandoned the ancestral U-shape for a more streamlined, fast-swimming body plan.
9 is a turtlebird, whcih has limbs so well-developed it may even go on land (there are no true land animals, and very little land to speak of, but this does give it some advantage).
Some turtlesquid (though it`s more of a turtoctopus really) retained more of the ancestral limbs (10), and eventually gave rise to some uncannily tetrapod-like beasts (11), though still retaining a butt-siphon.