Horses and Cattle VS Alien Wildlife

[magnemoe]

6 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Again, this is not our Earth.

There is nothing in physics I am aware of that precludes venemous beasts from being larger.

We are just fortunate animals on Earth are not predisposed to all being lethal.

Venom works best to avoid something much larger than you eat you. If enemy is smaller you can crunch them and they evolve much faster anyway and will get immunity. 

Now alien life is likely to have an different biochemistry and could easy be dangerous to eat anyway. You could eat simpler stuff like sugar but not meat from animals who contains all sort of complex molecules. 

[kerbiloid]

But they still can be hunting extraterrestrial animals for meat for compost.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Chemistry is same everywhere.

It's energetically more benefitial for a large animal to spend all its venomous fluids inside for better performance and to mechanically destroy the target.

1. Small animals are too lightweight to exceed the strength of the target material with mechanical hit.
2, Small animals are more primitive (lesser amount of cells), more silly (same for neurons), more short-living. So, their optimal species strategy is a zerg rush, easy come- easy go, and so on, as anyway it's easier to produce ten more than repair the existing one.

So, unless it's a large venomous lurking octopus, poisoning the water around his lair, unlikely a big species will be actively venomous.
(Of course, this doesn't mean its interbal parts can't. You can't just eat a polar bear liver due to high concentration of vitamine A).

  

- Kill'em with fire.

So - the exception that proves the rule are slow-moving things like Komodo Dragons.. Venom is key to Komodo dragon's killing power | New Scientist  They prefer their prey to die quietly someplace and then be eaten at leisure.  Easy to do on an island where stuff can't run away easily, or be consumed by other competitor predators/scavengers.

You also should stay away from Kodiak and other brown bear livers.  (Too much iron)

That said - @kerbiloid is correct - the larger you are, the more you generally rely upon your mechanical tools rather than venom.

6 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

We are just fortunate animals on Earth are not predisposed to all being lethal.

But they were - look up the Terror Bird of North America  BBC - Earth - The reign of the terror birds  

We just killed everything that scared us, and we tolerate those things scared enough of us to run away and eke out a living on the margins.  AFAIK the tiger and the polar bear are about the only animals that willingly hunt people - and they live in places people find difficult.  Some puma do, but mostly out of desperation.  Crocodiles will opportunistically attack and eat people - but they don't hunt them.

 

EDIT - and I hate to say this, and while I do enjoy many of your posts/threads - I suspect most of these lately belong in "The Lounge" as being very speculative / off topic.  This sub-thread is generally for asking actual science & spaceflight questions that might have concrete answers, rather than requiring purely speculative responses on things there is no way for us to know at this point - given that we suspect, but have yet to actually find, bacteria and other forms of life outside of this wet rock we live on

Edited December 14, 2020 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Terwin]

6 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

1. This is a space faring alien race that MUST colonize if they are to reproduce. It's one of the challenges that occur when a race is both biologically immortal and able and with a desire to reproduce (at least as strong as a human's). The homeworld would be over populated otherwise since they don't approve of culling each other.

 

5 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Behaviorwise, the main difference between us and the aliens is that the aliens are naturally inclined toward actually being responsible, whereas humans have to learn this, with them it's something they just do.

Besides new world colonies, the other option they have employed are space habitats....but planets are preferable for a host of reasons.

The primary drivers for 'irresponsible' behavior in humans are competition for procreation and providing for offspring.

So if their desire to reproduce is at least as strong as that of humans, then they will happily strip-mine their world(and any other they can reach) to make space for their children.  Biological immortality and lack of war will only make this worse instead of better, as power and authority will accumulate over centuries instead of over decades, and crowding will climb without the safety-valve of war to drop crowding when it grows too fast.

The best mitigation would be for them to be strongly herd-minded so that they find crowding to be a positive instead of a stressor.  By the time they have the ability to leave their home world, domesticated animals may well be a rarity due to the resource cost being similar to having another child.

Edited December 14, 2020 by Terwin
typo

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, Terwin said:

 

The primary drivers for 'irresponsible' behavior in humans are competition for procreation and providing for offspring.

So if their desire to reproduce is at least as strong as that of humans, then they will happily strip-mine their world(and any other they can reach) to make space for their children.  Biological immortality and lack of war will only make this worse instead of better, as power and authority will accumulate over centuries instead of over decades, and crowding will climb without the safety-valve of war to drop crowding when it grows too fast.

The best mitigation would be for them to be strongly herd-minded so that they find crowding to be a positive instead of a stressor.  By the time they have the ability to leave their home world, domesticated animals may well be a rarity due to the resource cost being similar to having another child.

 

War would be interstellar with other races...but given that most all combat spacecraft are nonmanned they don't suffer many casualties unless a colony itself is attacked.

Strip mine their entire world? You mean break it up to make more space habitats?

That sounds extreme.

They are not herd minded though.

 

[Terwin]

27 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

Strip mine their entire world? You mean break it up to make more space habitats?

That sounds extreme.

They are not herd minded though.

More that they would aggressively develop all available resources such that China would seem to have better environmental protections in comparison.

Without something to 'thin the herd' or some sort of herd mentality(ie some reason for individuals to feel safer/happier with more crowding) it seems likely that overcrowding would lead to scenarios similar to that which caused 'rodent utopia' type experiments to end with the population dying out: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-mouse-utopias-1960s-led-grim-predictions-humans-180954423/

tl/dr: Rodent utopia experiments provide food and sanitation for a breeding population to see what happens when crowding increases without limit.  Generally, after a certain level of crowding, the rodents develop 'Behavioral Sinks' and stop providing normal reproductive behaviors, causing the population to eventually die out completely in spite of plentiful food and decreasing crowding.   

[kerbiloid]

A smartphone with social networks and remote food delivery allows to increase the experiment rate by an order of magnitude.

[Spacescifi]

4 hours ago, Terwin said:

More that they would aggressively develop all available resources such that China would seem to have better environmental protections in comparison.

Without something to 'thin the herd' or some sort of herd mentality(ie some reason for individuals to feel safer/happier with more crowding) it seems likely that overcrowding would lead to scenarios similar to that which caused 'rodent utopia' type experiments to end with the population dying out: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-mouse-utopias-1960s-led-grim-predictions-humans-180954423/

tl/dr: Rodent utopia experiments provide food and sanitation for a breeding population to see what happens when crowding increases without limit.  Generally, after a certain level of crowding, the rodents develop 'Behavioral Sinks' and stop providing normal reproductive behaviors, causing the population to eventually die out completely in spite of plentiful food and decreasing crowding.   

 

The homeworld IS the behavior sink. Have kids? Fine. You must ship them off once they reach adulthood or go with them.

Result? Lots of family living in spaceships, habitats, colonies, or in search of a new homeworld.

Since dying through old age is not an option, the homeworld is considered commonwealth, and is rented out to people on a regular basis. Time shares. No one stays permanently.

Everyone goes to space sooner or later, and eventually they get to return once they get their turn.

[kerbiloid]

https://tasks.illustrativemathematics.org/content-standards/tasks/533

[KerikBalm]

22 hours ago, Piscator said:

Seems a bit of a stretch to postulate an alien biosphere biochemically similar enough for their venoms to work on earth creatures, 

...

- Pick an island, sterilize it, start from scratch (shoot any returning fauna on sight)

First is a really good point.

Second, that could work, or you could use superior technology to make your own bioweapon against the offending native species. Release an aerosol, wait for the resulting pandemic to remove the problem.

 

22 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

There is nothing in physics I am aware of that precludes venemous beasts from being larger.

Rate of diffusion. The bigger the animal, the longer it takes to kill, and also the longer it takes to inject a sufficient dose thanks to a v^2 vs v^3 oof the cross section of the venom channel to volume of target.

Venom becomes too slow when the other creature can kill you mechanically in a matter of seconds.

22 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

The island idea sounds good. Even a scifi dome plasma shield may be in order here.

Or how about just a fence and net?

Or just genetically modify your cattle to have a chitinous carapace that is thick enough to stop the bites of these bird-things

[YNM]

Don't forget, folks :

Humans and other life-forms on Earth have evolved through a very competitive Natural Selection process.

 

Spoiler

Although, in the case your aliens have also evolved through a competitive Natural Selection process... then we might need to be worried.

Click here if you prefer to be spoiled about the series' plot.

I'm honestly surprised why no western sci-fi writers have ever wrote anything similar. (Or if there is / was, do tell me ! I'd like to read how western people view this particular question.)

 

Edited December 15, 2020 by YNM

[kerbiloid]

Btw, yes, the human is another ~50..100 kg heavy biggest venomous creature.

He just has to rent the venom from other species.

Spoiler

So, we can see how tricky is to be venomous when you are bigger than a dog.

Edited December 15, 2020 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

4 hours ago, YNM said:

 

  Hide contents

 

I'm honestly surprised why no western sci-fi writers have ever wrote anything similar. (Or if there is / was, do tell me ! I'd like to read how western people view this particular question.)

 

You mean, like this? 

 

Edited December 15, 2020 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[YNM]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

You mean, like this? 

Well, this is an advanced version of that plot, let's just say - rather than just go and take off the existing ones, you go and breed humans (also they're limited to being kids). It's originally finished in comic book (manga) form, but the animated series (anime) adaptation is still ongoing, hence it could be a real spoiler for some.

Also obviously the story goes and shows the protagonist' (complete) success, but I wonder if a sinister version is available as well, perhaps fleshed in a novel. Everyone in Silico by Jim Munroe tells at least a close narrative in mentioning but it's not what actually happens in the whole plot. (everyone in silico is definitely sinister.)

And I have to say that IMO this particular possibility is worse than just being left alone or being completely annihilated.

Edited December 15, 2020 by YNM

[wumpus]

On 12/14/2020 at 4:31 AM, kerbiloid said:

Their venom is weak and non-lethal, and they mostly kill mechanically. They just don't clean teeth.

And they weight like a small pig or a little more than a human.

So, they perfectly mark the upper limit of venomous species: ~100 kg (and the venom is poor).

5..10 kg is the biggest animal which can be actively poisonous. Bigger ones prefer to crush.

From what I understand, the "venom" is produced by symbiotes that live in the komodo dragons' dirty mouths.  I'd strongly suspect that alien venom wouldn't be effective against Earth biology (and vice versa).  The alien  komodo dragon  might easily pick up strains of bacteria dangerous to Earth critters.

I'm fairly surprised that vultures and similar carrion birds don't have poisonous claws similar to komodo dragon teeth.  Birds could work well with "touch and go" tactics and circle around until the prey dies.

On 12/14/2020 at 4:19 AM, Spacescifi said:

 

That's not chemistry. That's just your logic based on chemistry.

There is nothing in physics that says a larger venemous creature cannot exist...they just don't.

Which is fortunate for us.

This is not fire breathing dragons. Venom is far more achievable than that.

The catch is that a large venemous creature has to eat that much more to stay alive.  A grizzly bear needs something like 1 square mile territory.  A venomous grizzly would require a similar territory.  But a venomous black bear would be just as lethal (to anything other than another venomous black bear) and require less territory (and spread faster).  There would be evolutionary pressure to get smaller once the venom was sufficiently effective to hunt down moose (if moose was needed for food, which is unlikely).

[Spacescifi]

9 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

First is a really good point.

Second, that could work, or you could use superior technology to make your own bioweapon against the offending native species. Release an aerosol, wait for the resulting pandemic to remove the problem.

 

Rate of diffusion. The bigger the animal, the longer it takes to kill, and also the longer it takes to inject a sufficient dose thanks to a v^2 vs v^3 oof the cross section of the venom channel to volume of target.

Venom becomes too slow when the other creature can kill you mechanically in a matter of seconds.

Or how about just a fence and net?

Or just genetically modify your cattle to have a chitinous carapace that is thick enough to stop the bites of these bird-things

 

Good ideas...low tech solutions that actually work are preferable 

You would likely need electric netting though....the birds will swarm dive bomb netting to get through otherwise.

Electric shock could persuade them otherwise.

The first colonists would have a rough time not knowing what they are in for though.

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, wumpus said:

From what I understand, the "venom" is produced by symbiotes that live in the komodo dragons' dirty mouths. 

Afair, it's an old hypothesis, and the comodragons actually have venom glands, and their bite intoxicates the prey, making it feeling bad and lets the lizard chase the deer by crawling.

But as the dragon starts eating the prey before it can die from the venom, it's probably an auxilliary weapon, and maybe lethal, maybe not.

Anyway, if the dragons were not living in their personal local island paradise with no bigger predators and where the poisoned prey has no room to escape,
then, while it was chasing the poisoned deer, the wolves would eat at least one of them (and probably, both) before the lizard could enjoy its prey.

So, we have two examples of > 20 kg venomous speices, and both are exotic. One is a lizard owning a private island, another one is a human using intellect to own others' venoms.
Less tricky variants are < 20 kg (snakes, giant salamanders, porcupines, platypuses, some fishes).

***

Wise colonists would have a detailed agro- and zoo- technical report before landing, and a detailed map of their fields and pastures with a crop rotation scheme.

[wumpus]

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Wise colonists would have a detailed agro- and zoo- technical report before landing, and a detailed map of their fields and pastures with a crop rotation scheme.

Wise colonists would have this before leaving Earth (or whatever location).  Trying to keep the colonists on the ship might be difficult (of course with a multi-generational ship, getting the colonists to leave the ship may be the hard part).

There is a fairly classic sci-fi story of colonists who didn't get a sufficiently complete zoo-technical report and killed off all the extremely dangerous predators: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/899392.The_Legacy_of_Heorot

[YNM]

37 minutes ago, wumpus said:

The catch is that a large venomous creature has to eat that much more to stay alive.  A grizzly bear needs something like 1 square mile territory.  A venomous grizzly would require a similar territory.  But a venomous black bear would be just as lethal (to anything other than another venomous black bear) and require less territory (and spread faster).  There would be evolutionary pressure to get smaller once the venom was sufficiently effective to hunt down moose (if moose was needed for food, which is unlikely).

Hmm... wonder about these guys...

But yeah that's probably why they're only on a few islands (slightly smaller species exist on much larger areas). Venoms are actually much more about reducing the struggle of your prey you'll have to fight against, therefore lessening the physical requirements needed (very useful for reptiles whose metabolism depends on temperature) in exchange for increased chemical complexity (and danger, as the venoms are likely lethal on the species itself). It also helps slightly with digestion (lessened rigor mortis means the prey's body remains flexible, and in some case there are digestion enzymes in the mix as well). Lethality is just a side effect thanks to relaxants, anti-coagulants and digestion enzymes.

Also I'm pretty sure a large quadruped is well within the eating ranges of either venomous lizards or snakes.

Edited December 15, 2020 by YNM

[KerikBalm]

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/here-be-dragons-the-mythic-bite-of-the-komodo#.Ucq2z_n3pz1

Komodo dragons normally kill their prey quickly, and didn't evolve to bite, wait, and eat

 

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, wumpus said:

Wise colonists would have this before leaving Earth (or whatever location).  Trying to keep the colonists on the ship might be difficult (of course with a multi-generational ship, getting the colonists to leave the ship may be the hard part).

There is a fairly classic sci-fi story of colonists who didn't get a sufficiently complete zoo-technical report and killed off all the extremely dangerous predators: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/899392.The_Legacy_of_Heorot

 

Warp is fast enough that crews are not multi-generational.

And it is true that colonists would arrive prepped with data...still, there are some things you won't know even then till they start living on the colony.

Besides, they are not going to make an exhaustive list of every animal threat before they make landfall.

That would take forever, and an Earth world is a lot better than their long attempts at terraforming Mars clones, or being cooped up in space habitats.

In other words, colonists are willing to take that risk over living forever on a spaceship or space habitat.

11 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/here-be-dragons-the-mythic-bite-of-the-komodo#.Ucq2z_n3pz1

Komodo dragons normally kill their prey quickly, and didn't evolve to bite, wait, and eat

 

 

Large animals take a while to pass out...hours even. Buffalo on National Geographic.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Spacescifi

[YNM]

20 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Komodo dragons normally kill their prey quickly, and didn't evolve to bite, wait, and eat

Yeah, to be fair they can fight as well. Fairly mobile for a large raptile. But they don't quite take enormous preys as well as the island they're on is small anyway.

11 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

Buffalo on National Geographic.

Those buffalo here would be way too massive.

11 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

And it is true that colonists would arrive prepped with data...still, there are some things you won't know even then till they start living on the colony.

If you can hold out all your loads of herd through the journey, then you can hold those herds on the ship. Plus we've gone through herd losses (remember Australia).

Edited December 15, 2020 by YNM

[Spacescifi]

2 hours ago, YNM said:

Yeah, to be fair they can fight as well. Fairly mobile for a large raptile. But they don't quite take enormous preys as well as the island they're on is small anyway.

Those buffalo here would be way too massive.

If you can hold out all your loads of herd through the journey, then you can hold those herds on the ship. Plus we've gone through herd losses (remember Australia).

 

The most optimal solution may be just to go native, only bringing veggies and fruits they like from the homeworld.

After all there would be native colony animals near immune if not protected from the venom completely through outer shell skin.

Earth animals would get slaughtered (even domestic cats sadly), only rabbits and fast breeders stand a chance, as well as small rodents.

Fish would do alright.

May as well tame the native wildlife and kill what cannot be off that remains a threat. Perhaps keeping them in zoo's whatever they let survive.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Every time a cat bites your hand, you get more immune to the cat venom.

 

7 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

The most optimal solution may be just to go native, only bringing veggies and fruits they like from the homeworld.

Personally I appreciate koala herding for meat in zero-g, but the Australians do not want to participate.

I asked about this on this forum several years ago, and the koalas appear to be rather passively poisonous and infected.

So, except maybe kangaroo and ostriches, they still keep herding the sheep.

Sad.

P.S.
Do you want to know about herding the cattle in the land of venomous beasts (including even mammals, like platypus)? 

Just look at Australia.

Edited December 16, 2020 by kerbiloid

[YNM]

13 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

The most optimal solution may be just to go native, only bringing veggies and fruits they like from the homeworld.

After all there would be native colony animals near immune if not protected from the venom completely through outer shell skin.

Earth animals would get slaughtered (even domestic cats sadly), only rabbits and fast breeders stand a chance, as well as small rodents.

Fish would do alright.

May as well tame the native wildlife and kill what cannot be off that remains a threat. Perhaps keeping them in zoo's whatever they let survive.

Honestly if that's how deadly the wildlife are, then you'd better off just not land, or find a suitable spot first, or kill enough of the existing wildlife.

The first ever non-native animal husbandry introduction that happened on this Earth was when the Polynesians (a subgroup of Austronesians) started to spread into the various Pacific islands (they spread chickens and tamed boar, also dogs, plus the extra rats; they also carried plants, usually coconut, breadfruit and yam/taro). The catch however is that none of these islands have any existing predators for large land animals because they never had one in the first place, and as such it's an easy picking. Perhaps the closest one that ever came so early was New Zealand, where the Haast Eaagle (largest known eagle to have ever existed) were located, but by the time the Polynesians reached it (~ 1300 AD) the eagles were extinct, and it reduced to having no predators again.

The Americas were inhabited without any animal husbandry, and you can see how relatively slower their progression was (spreading was fast, but if you spread into an area w/o suitable food source you'd just die, really).

The first introduction of livestock to an area with existing land predator was Americas and then Australia by Europeans, and honestly it's an ongoing fight until today.

Edited December 16, 2020 by YNM