Jurassic Park Period Part 7

 Fauna - All the rest of it

 Insects and arachnids - There appears to have been no major extinction of insects at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary. Many important insect fossil localities are known from the Jurassic of Eurasia. The diversity of insects stagnated throughout the Early and Middle Jurassic, but during the latter third of the Jurassic, origination rates increased substantially while extinction rates remained flat. The increasing diversity of insects in the Middle–Late Jurassic corresponds with a substantial increase in the diversity of insect mouthparts. The Middle to Late Jurassic was a time of major diversification for beetles. Weevils first appear in the fossil record during the Middle to Late Jurassic, but are suspected to have originated during the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic. The oldest known lepidopterans (the group containing butterflies and moths) are known from the Triassic–Jurassic boundary. Modern representatives of both dragonflies and damselflies also first appeared during the Jurassic. Although modern representatives are not known until the Cenozoic, insects thought to represent primitive relatives of modern fleas are known from the Middle Jurassic of Asia. These insects are substantially different from modern fleas, because they lack the specialized morphology and they were larger. The earliest group of stick insects first appeared during the Middle Jurassic.

Spiders diversified through the Jurassic, and several long names of species or orders were given in the article. But to me, a spider is a spider. The oldest member of the family Archaeidae is known from the Middle Jurassic of China. Mongolarachne from the Middle Jurassic of China is among the largest known fossil spiders, with legs over 5 centimetres (2 inches) long. I know I've seen granddaddy longlegs with longer legs, but maybe they are not true spiders. It's been a long time since I had the opportunity to count their legs.

Birds - The earliest avialans (birds and their ancestors) appear during the Middle to Late Jurassic. There are some examples from China that have been postulated to have been birds, but have alternatively been found to be a separate lineage of another group of animal altogether. So not only were there birds, but also animals that may or may not have been birds.

Mammals - Mammals originated from cynodonts at the end of the Triassic. Cynodonts were a group of creatures that measured up to 1.5 metres (4.5 feet) in length, and that did include a tail. They may have eaten roots, insects, eggs, and possibly even small or infant dinosaurs. As mammals, they diversified extensively during the Jurassic. While most Jurassic mammals are solely known from isolated teeth and jaw fragments, exceptionally preserved remains have revealed a variety of lifestyles. Some were adapted to aquatic life, similar to the platypus and otters. Some members had a patagium akin to those of flying squirrels, allowing them to glide through the air. One aardvark-like mammal was likely a specialist on colonial insects, similar to living anteaters.

Early relatives of monotremes first appear in the Middle Jurassic of Gondwana. The monotremes are a group of highly specialized egg-laying predatory mammals, containing the platypus and echidnas. There are only five living species of monotreme, contained within two families.

Therian mammals, represented today by living placentals and marsupials, appear during the early Late Jurassic, represented by Juramaia, a mammal closer to the ancestry of placentals than marsupials. Juramaia is much more advanced than expected for its age, as other therian mammals do not appear until a later period.

Two groups of non-mammalian cynodonts persisted beyond the end of the Triassic. One ate insects and has a few records from the Early Jurassic. A herbivorous group of cynodonts has abundant records from the Jurassic, overwhelmingly from the Northern Hemisphere.

Sounds like life was all over the planet, much like it is today. Possibly not quite as diverse as it is today. If we could keep the herbivores out of our crop fields, it might be possible to colonize. And we should be able to hunt, to put meat on the table. I'm a little worried about that, though. If we killed the wrong mammal, would we disrupt the evolutionary trail that would result in humans?

Well, we'd never know about it. There's millions of years between the Jurassic Period and the development of anything resembling humans. There's several possibilities here, that I see. Either our colony would thrive, establishing a new timeline of humans on Earth. By the time 'modern day' came around, we may have taken off for outer space. In which case, we would either all leave and Earth would be devoid of humans. Or not everybody left, and the civilization continued strong, so Earth would have humans, even though it was a mixed-up mess as to how we evolved, showing up so abruptly in the Jurassic. Or at some point, our little piece of civilization would sputter and die, and there would be no humans any more, and who would be here to miss them? Or our civilization would die, and humans would evolve, lending a whole new meaning to the term 'Circle of Life'.

Okay, so we'll take a vote. Everybody in favor of settling down here in the Jurassic Period and establishing a colony, say 'Aye'.