Reversing ecological naïvete

[ttyo888]

I am writing a fiction about monster birds which should be "island tamed" but instead evolution has gone the opposite. Herbivore, omnivore or Carnivore are just as fierce to outsider as to native predators.

 

And on what conditions will it happen. I don't want my birds to end up like dodos tame and defenceless due to lack of predators. My island had no mammals until people got there in my story. Rat were introduced but the local birds picked them for food just as easy.

 

And also Have heard that the Giant African Snail was picked off easily by Christmas island Crabs.

[SkepticLance]

Speaking as a New Zealander.

 

It appears that my country, some 25 million years ago went underwater for a time, wiping out all land mammals. Though this is still debatable. What followed was a mass of birds, which underwent rapid evolution. The largest one was the giant moa - 3 metres tall. Sadly for your story, it was a grazer. However, until humans arrived, we also has the world's largest eagle, which was definitely NOT a vegetarian.

 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Giant_Haasts_eagle_attacking_New_Zealand_moa.jpg

[ttyo888]

Err how is that related to island tameness, I am very aware that some of New Zealand's avians are pretty "tame".

[SkepticLance]

Island tameness relates to predation. The dodo was tame since it had no predators. NZ birds were never quite that tame, as far as we know, since predators were not uncommon. It has been suggested that the earlier birds, that went extinct under the predation of early humans, were 'tame'. However, that is supposition, not known fact.

 

If you want an island ecology, hostile to outsiders, I suggest you introduce predators of a wide range of shapes, so that the prey organisms are wary of anyone.

[iNow]

Or, you could make them mentally ill, and have the big birds have hallucinations and visions which they attack ferociously... something about imbreeding causing it maybe... and then when the humans arrive the psychotic birds can't tell the difference between attacking a figment of their imaginations versus attacking an actual life form. Otherwise, you really do need something real for them the attack/hunt/fight to make the story plausible (even if that just means that they have a high level of competition and status in their species and attack each other regularly weeding out the weak).

[SkepticLance]

If your story requires birds to attack humans, then you could introduce, as a fictional tool, a predator that is similar in size and shape to humans. You could even make that predator extinct, but only recently so, in order to make the birds react violently against humans.

[markus.dnd]

Maybe not predator? Maybe you could use something that looked like human and was/is food for birds? Or the hurting of humanoid like creature could be part of finding good mate? For showing the male strenght to the female... but in that case it should be seasonal happening... and not for all bird species...

[ttyo888]

Hmm I see....SkepticLance's advice was good.

 

Ok here some stats on my islands.

It rose out of the sea about 30-50 million years ago. Well we have a lot of bugs and plants. Basically the birds there are pretty protective their eggs much like snow geese. Species like the medium to giant herbivores can be ignored but anything they don't recognize or they recognize as a predator, they will bombed them with droppings or even peck or bite them. In simpler terms, strangers or predators will be defended against.

 

Species that will be attacked included anything they do not recognize like humans, rats dogs cats. Sounds sensible? That means they so not like strangers.

 

And in a bird dominated ecosystem with no mammalian egg eaters, there are plenty of egg and chick thieves like

 

Crabs that are half times smaller but related to the Christmas Island ones

Members of the Avarodentia, which are native to the islands and look and behave like rodents

Mynah-like birds with the same idea

Pork Birds which are actually omnivorous tubenoses having a big tube and a taste for the eggs or chicks of ground-dwelling species and pigging out on roots.

On some of the islands there are even Wetas that eat eggs!

 

As a result, some of the ground dwelling birds in my story do not lay eggs instead they are ovoviviparous! The young are nourish with yolk but no eggshell but inside the mother until the time comes. The chick uses its egg tooth to burst out of the ovum's membrane. The development of the newly hatched chick depends on the species.

 

Do you think that's sufficient to make a bird think twice about leaving yours eggs unguarded or be extra alert?