monster ecology
Jul. 11th, 2022 09:41 amWhile chatting with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fayanoraI got reminded of something from a story or RPG.
"Vampire" grass. Something that looks like your typical wild grass, but that can attack and kill animals unfortunate enough to get too close I don't recall details from the source, but we started playing around a bit.
I think the original had enough mobility to ensnare critters. Entangling combined with blood sucking and maybe a a toxin that kept them from fighting for too long.
So I figured there'd be patches of "grass (probably fairly tall grass) on the prairies and savannahs, etc that conceal the bones of the animals that have fallen victim to the grass.
unfortunate herbivores that grazed in the wrong spot, or ones fleeing from predators. And predators that were too intent on the chase.
possibly some animals that are immune to the attacks, but draw in predators who then fall victim to the grass.
There'd likely be some insects (ants, various worms and grubs, etc) that'd help things along by speeding up the breakdown on the animal bodies. Some would eat the flesh, others might bury some of it. And their wastes would be much easier for the plants to access. Everybody benefits. :-)
And given evolution, animals would learn the colors or scents of the grasses to avoid them, and the grasses with different enough colors/scents would get more prey, thus selecting for not being recognized and thus getting more prey.
Likewise, there would be other grasses that happen to resemble the vampire grasses and thus would benefit by not getting grazed on as much.
and these are just first order effects of the existence of such a plant. Thinking about the ecosystems that something will create or is likely to create can flesh out a world nicely.
Thinking like these also avoids ridiculous "uber-predators" that would in a real world mess the ecosystem up horribly because they don't actually *fit* into the system.
fayanoraI got reminded of something from a story or RPG. "Vampire" grass. Something that looks like your typical wild grass, but that can attack and kill animals unfortunate enough to get too close I don't recall details from the source, but we started playing around a bit.
I think the original had enough mobility to ensnare critters. Entangling combined with blood sucking and maybe a a toxin that kept them from fighting for too long.
So I figured there'd be patches of "grass (probably fairly tall grass) on the prairies and savannahs, etc that conceal the bones of the animals that have fallen victim to the grass.
unfortunate herbivores that grazed in the wrong spot, or ones fleeing from predators. And predators that were too intent on the chase.
possibly some animals that are immune to the attacks, but draw in predators who then fall victim to the grass.
There'd likely be some insects (ants, various worms and grubs, etc) that'd help things along by speeding up the breakdown on the animal bodies. Some would eat the flesh, others might bury some of it. And their wastes would be much easier for the plants to access. Everybody benefits. :-)
And given evolution, animals would learn the colors or scents of the grasses to avoid them, and the grasses with different enough colors/scents would get more prey, thus selecting for not being recognized and thus getting more prey.
Likewise, there would be other grasses that happen to resemble the vampire grasses and thus would benefit by not getting grazed on as much.
and these are just first order effects of the existence of such a plant. Thinking about the ecosystems that something will create or is likely to create can flesh out a world nicely.
Thinking like these also avoids ridiculous "uber-predators" that would in a real world mess the ecosystem up horribly because they don't actually *fit* into the system.
