Ecosystem Basics: Hesperidia, the North-Eastern Continent - Printable Version

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Ecosystem Basics: Hesperidia, the North-Eastern Continent - Bears Armed - 01-14-2020

In terms of position, and the presence of certain nations, this land-mass is effectively the new map’s “successor” to the old map’s main continent… except that it covers a wider range of latitudes. The previous map’s two continents together were originally defined as stretching c. 20-55[sup]o[/sup] north of the equator, but were later expanded (while Sanctaria was cartographer) to cover either “the full range” (which was Sanctaria’s suggestion) or c. 15[sup]o[/sup]S — 65[sup]o[/sup]N (my own suggestion, based on using the grid that overlay some copies of the map as a scale in degrees) instead. On the new map, however, this continent alone now stretches all of the way from the edge of the Artic into the northern edge of the Tropics…
On the original map this continent’s equivalent therefore had basically temperate climates, except that some parts of its northern coasts were cold enough for Polar Bears while [nation]Malabra[/nation] was anomalously — ‘Tropically’, even — hot. 
On the new map, with an extent closer to that of Eurasia it should probably now have a similar basic range of climates to that continent as well although if we continue with my earlier presumptions that the IDU’s world is slightly more ‘temperate’ overall than RL Earth (due to an absence here of major icecaps) then broad-leafed forests would probably be more widespread than they are in Eurasia, while grasslands and deserts would be scarcer. There could still be grasslands at high altitudes, and grasslands and perhaps even deserts where the ‘rain-shadow’ of mountain ranges led to drier conditions, though… Also, areas surfaced with Precambrian rocks tend (at least outside the ‘tropical rainforest’ belt) to support “poorer” vegetation than do areas where the top strata are newer: looking at RL for examples, this factor contributes to the facts that northern Canada & much of Siberia are mostly covered by either coniferous forests or bogs or tundra while Africa’s Kalahari and much of Australia have deserts… Also, if some types of large herbivores become established in an area of not-too-dense woodland then they themselves might end up turning that area into open grassland instead…

The ecosystems chosen for various nations here on the original version of the map were mainly derived from those of RL Europe or North America (i.e. the home continents of those nation’s players…) but with some endemic species added as well. Malabra was an exception, again, with an intrusion of ‘Amazon Rainforest’ ecosystems into its central districts and various species from both India and the non-rainforest parts of South America (including formerly-native species that are now extinct on the RL-Earth, such as Gompotheres, Glyptodonts, and Giant Ground Sloths…) in the drier-but-still-hot lands to the west of that… In more recent years, working with the players of various nations, I also oversaw the introduction of some species from eastern Asia (e.g. in [nation]Laeral[/nation]) as well. 
I suggest that we draw most species for the version of this continent on the new map from the same sources as those. If you look at RL India and southern China, or Mexico, you will see that various species (or, at least, genera) of large mammal which exist in Europe or further north in Asia or in the USA are also capable of doing well at those latitudes too — e.g. Tiger, Puma, Wolf, Golden Jackal, Coyote, Red Fox, Wild Boar, wild cattle [species differ), deer [species differ) — and the Pleistocene fauna of South America (before Humans arrived there) had even more in common with that of its northern neighbour… Endemic mammals would then be mostly smaller ones, which tend to have narrower geographical ranges anyway. I had designed an ‘Old IDU Tropical’ set of small-to-medium Mammals that I thought might still exist in parts of Malabra and nearby lands (as stocks surviving from a distant past in which the whole region was warmer…), and we could use elements from that in the more extensive tropics that the continent’s new version possesses. Also, some genera of the larger mammals that came to the old map from South America into Malabra had also spread into RL [prehistoric] North America as well and thus could have reached us from there instead.

For the old map, I was presuming that the two continents were on separate tectonic plates that had been united in a single supercontinent at the start of the Mesozoic Era (‘Age of Dinosaurs’) but had split apart during the later Jurassic or early Cretaceous and were now both moving slowly northwards but whose speeds had varied so that (with global changes in sea-level probably also playing a part) there were a few times when land-bridges formed and allowed species to pass more easily from one to the other. I think that it would make sense to continue with this explanation. Furthermore, it had been agreed that most of Malabra had originated as a fragment that broke off from the southern continent in the later Cretaceous and then moved northwards more rapidly so that collided with the northern one (pushing up mountains) around the end of the Eocene, which not only explained how some groups of species moved between the continents but also gave us a place where some of those groups could have developed & diversified in isolation before that spreading: If the players of any nations that are now in a suitable position to fill that role is willing to accept it then please let me know. (Or possibly the same role could now be filled by one or more nations on the northern edge of the southern continent, “left behind” after breaking off from this one, instead?).
The question of whether there have also been land-bridge connections to this continent’s western neighbour, with possible exchanges of species across those, is obviously one in which the players of nations on that other continent should also have a say… 


Main Questions
1. Keep my basic presumptions about regional climate, and thus about likely climates here?
2. Continue following my already-used ideas about the basic groups of animals present, although perhaps with “local” [i.e. ‘nation’-based] changes?
3. Were there prehistoric land-bridges to the South-Eastern continent, and is there perhaps even a large area that detached from one of these continents & then became attached to the other one?
4. Were there prehistoric land-bridges to the North-Western continent?
5. Do your people have a name for this continent?
6. Do your people have names for any of the region’s other continents?
7. Is your ‘national animal’ native to at least part of the continent (or to at least one nearby island), introduced there, just symbolic, or what?

The usefulness of a geologically recent land-bridge to the NE continent would obviously be affected by the terrain specified at their ends by relevant lands' current owners (at present Trive in the NW & nobody yet in the NE), but even if they fill their ends of the current gap with mountains there could have been a useful 'shelf' of plains along one or the other side of this -- or even on both sides -- exposed during a period of lower sea-levels.

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Re: Ecosystem Basics: North-Eastern Continent - Libertas Omnium Maximus - 01-16-2020

The Regional Cartographer ([nation]Zamastan[/nation]) has officially decided to make the name as Hespia (just like the old main northern continent) as the name was used literally hundreds of times in various posts pre-Winter of 2019. I confirmed this fact two nights ago.



It would seem that the cartographer also decided to keep the main southern continent (by "main", I mean "more populated") as Catica (Likely for the same reason).

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Re: Ecosystem Basics: North-Eastern Continent - Bears Armed - 01-18-2020

Libertas Omnium Maximus post_id=20957 time=1579130936 user_id=463 Wrote:The Regional Cartographer ([nation]Zamastan[/nation]) has officially decided to make the name as Hespia (just like the old main northern continent) as the name was used literally hundreds of times in various posts pre-Winter of 2019. I confirmed this fact two nights ago.



It would seem that the cartographer also decided to keep the main southern continent (by "main", I mean "more populated") as Catica (Likely for the same reason).

Thank you.

Of course, that doesn't rule out some nations' peoples having their own traditional names for any of the continents as well...
For example, I had already decided that in Ursine the NE continent was known [coincidentally :wink: ] as 'Idu'.

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