🦘 The Marsupial Reign: The Animals of the Sapphire Heart Continent
🦘 The Marsupial Reign: The Animals of the Sapphire Heart Continent Welcome back to The Worldsee . Following our geographical overview of a 1.5x expanded Australia with a massive inland sea, we now zoom in on the wildlife. To build this ecosystem, we are applying strict, conservative evolutionary biology. There are no magical monsters here. Without human arrival, the indigenous megafauna never went extinct, and there are no introduced placental predators like dingoes or feral cats. We are looking at a pure, logical continuation of marsupial, monotreme, and reptilian evolution, adapted to a wetter, greener continent. 1. The Semi-Aquatic Giants: Filling the "Hippo Niche" In our timeline, the Diprotodon was a giant, rhinoceros-sized relative of the wombat that roamed dry woodlands. In this water-rich world, they survived and naturally filled the ecological niche of the hippopotamus. The River Diprotodon: These massive herbivores have evolved slightly higher-set eyes and nost...