Land Animal Adaptations

Not only was it a victory and thing to behold, when aquatic plants migrated and adapted to life on terra firma, equally astonishing is the fact billions of years later, aquatic animals also adapted to life on terra firma.

In order for this long, slow and important change to take place, certain things had to be in order first. For instance, the cellular structure of aquatic animals and plants were much simpler than cells needed for life on dry land. Consider the two cells to the left. The one at the top is the first Teon cell of a land plant. It is complex and has unique tentacle-like extensions. Then there is the first land animal Teon cell. You can see much more complex DNA, and other vital connectors that relate to senses and other life processes.

Primitive animal life also had to be equipped with apparatus that insured success as a resident on land. Some broad sweeping areas to consider were: dealing with exposure or lack of sufficient exposure to sunlight. Sunlight and heat lead to problems with dehydration, sun burned skin, dry skin problems, and internal body temperature control. Land animals had to deal with gravity because they were no longer buoyant in water. Breathing air, a new activity, required a biological system for exchanging oxygen with the environment. Moving on land requires muscles, power and locomotion. This ability to move will be greatly affected by the skeletal construction of land animals whether vertebrate or invertebrate. Food and caloric intake will also be different. The need for hearing and eyes for seeing, also a nervous system with brains might all be extremely helpful for land dwellers. And finally, reproduction and parental care will be conducted differently in a land ecology.

This is the image of the first Teon family member that started creeping to shore. It is called Teongensis Primitive. Each day when the tide was low, it crept to shore to look for food, lay eggs and meet other members of its own species for mating purposes. It used to walk on the ocean floor and one day kept walking all the way up to dry shore. It took 3 million years for this primitve creature to evolve into the suave, debonair and more stylish Teongenesis! Read on. This species was 12 inches in diameter and weighed 12 ounces. The life span was about 15 years or more, but we are not certain.

Species

Habitat Adaptation Information

Teongenesis

Name: Teongenesis
Habitat:Sand Dunes on the shores of Belenus.
Temperatures: 30 degrees C. at night, 90 degrees C in the day.
Size: Up to 18 inches wide, weighed 16 ounces
Reproduction: Sexual. Lay eggs on shorelines
Life Span: 15 years or more
Food source: Clams and seaworms
Special adaptations:
Teongenesis had three main body parts. The front part was a horny helmet to protect the head. The second part was the abdomen. The third body part was a sharp pointed tail.The tail is called a telson. It looked like a spike, but it was not dangerous. The tail was used as a rudder, helping to move the crab though the sand and mud. The shell was made out of a tough horny material called chitin. The shell was flexible. It also had five pairs of walking legs. The back pair of legs were extra long. They had fan-like structures on their tips to help them burrow in the sand and mud. There were small pincers on the last pair of legs that were used for cleaning the gills located in the abdomen. The Teongenesis had its mouth located between its legs. The mouth was a slit, and it did not have any jaws or teeth. What's more, the Teongenesis had ten eyes. There were two large compound eyes on either side of the helmet. Teongenesis was able to see images, but the images were probably blurry and just black and white.Teongenesis had blood that turned blue when it became oxygenated. They breathed with gills, not lungs. But the gills of Teongenesis were unique in construction. On the underside of its abdomen there was a leather-like flap that covered 5 pairs of gills. Each of the 10 gills had about 100 sheets of tissue that looked liked the pages of a book. To breathe, Teongenesis flapped its book gills. The water was forced to go past its gills. As the water passed through the gills, oxygen passed into its blood. These gills always needed to be wet or Teongenesis would die. When stranded out of water, it would dig into the wet sand to keep its gills moist. It could stay there for a few days, provided the gills stayed damp. The wet regions of foreshore proved to be a perfect environment for Teongenesis, as the first of the Teons to walk the earth.

Teonpion

Name: Teonfly Bungle
Habitat: Tropical Rainforest biome of Belenus
Temperatures: 400 in. rainfall/year. Temp. 70-85 degrees F.
Size: 3 inches long, 5 ounces.
Reproduction: Sexual. Eggs then live young.
Life Span : 3-5 years or less
Food source: Carnivore. Insects and spiders.
Special adaptations:
After 3 million years of complete success in the temperate grasslands biome, the Teonpion wandered into the Rainforest biome. This evolution included all the exact same life adaptations already being used by the Teonpion......except that there was one new twist. Because there were so many tall plants and trees in the Rainforest biome, Teonpion began to regularly climb trees and began to explore flying from tree to tree. Thus, the newest species, TeonFly Bungle made its debut as a flying scorpion-like creature. This species only lasted 1 million short years because the adaptation was unsuccessful. The main causes of the failure were: lacking aerodynamic qualities in body structure and being too bulky. Moreover, the wings were not efficient. The wings were lousy being fit only for a skinny dragon fly from earth. By frequent sudden falls caused by bumping into surfaces, the Teonfly Bungle would fall to be eaten up by a started yet hungry bystander. This loss of species soon caused the disappearance of Teonfly Bungle. The superior Teonpion continues to rule the underworld of Vesta.

Teonfly Bungle was nocturnal, was a terrestrial carnivore, had a segmented body and a venomous tail with a stinger. Movement was created by three pairs of legs and two pairs of unstable wings. The overall size of Teonfly Bungle was a small three inches maximum. The cargo was too great for the delicate wings. The species failed to thrive.

Diagram of Teon Species Animal Evolution