Dream #33
— January 13, 2026 at 5:30 am
Limerick
A marshal named Bazaine once dreamed
Of Gambian rats basketball-themed
With woodpeckers drumming
And cotingas humming
While Japanese fish-music streamed
Of Gambian rats basketball-themed
With woodpeckers drumming
And cotingas humming
While Japanese fish-music streamed
Haiku
Ancient kilns cooling—
pouched rats grow three feet in length
beneath Mount Carmel
pouched rats grow three feet in length
beneath Mount Carmel
What If
What if the myrmecophagous feeding patterns of Paleocene Ernanodontidae could explain the modern foraging synchronicities observed between Wahnes's parotia and the arthropod communities of Papua New Guinea's mountain forests?
Feasibility Assessment
This hypothesis presents several intriguing elements but faces significant scientific challenges. Here's my assessment:
The hypothesis attempts to link extinct Paleocene Ernanodontidae, which were myrmecophagous (ant-eating) placental mammals that lived in Asia from the middle to late Paleocene, with modern foraging patterns of Wahnes's parotia, a bird-of-paradise endemic to Papua New Guinea's mountain forests that feeds mainly on fruits and arthropods. The proposed mechanism is speculative evolutionary synchronicity patterns established ~60 million years ago.
**Testability and Research Intersections:** The hypothesis intersects with established research areas including convergent evolution in myrmecophagous mammals, modern arthropod diel activity patterns in Papua New Guinea forests, and predator-prey evolutionary ecology. However, connecting a Paleocene Asian mammalian lineage to modern New Guinean avian-arthropod interactions lacks any plausible causal mechanism. Arthropod activity patterns in Papua New Guinea show temperature-dependent synchronicity with higher daytime activity, but these patterns likely reflect local ecological drivers rather than ancient evolutionary legacies.
**Key Obstacles:** The hypothesis faces fundamental biogeographical and temporal barriers. Ernanodontidae were restricted to Paleocene Asia and Mongolia, while Papua New Guinea's biota evolved independently. The 60-million-year temporal gap makes direct evolutionary transmission impossible. No known mechanism could preserve specific foraging synchronicity patterns across such vast evolutionary time and geographical distance, especially between completely different vertebrate lineages occupying different ecological roles.
**PLAUSIBILITY rating: Physically Implausible**
The hypothesis lacks any viable mechanism for causation and conflates temporal correlation with evolutionary connection across incompatible biogeographical and phylogenetic boundaries.
The hypothesis attempts to link extinct Paleocene Ernanodontidae, which were myrmecophagous (ant-eating) placental mammals that lived in Asia from the middle to late Paleocene, with modern foraging patterns of Wahnes's parotia, a bird-of-paradise endemic to Papua New Guinea's mountain forests that feeds mainly on fruits and arthropods. The proposed mechanism is speculative evolutionary synchronicity patterns established ~60 million years ago.
**Testability and Research Intersections:** The hypothesis intersects with established research areas including convergent evolution in myrmecophagous mammals, modern arthropod diel activity patterns in Papua New Guinea forests, and predator-prey evolutionary ecology. However, connecting a Paleocene Asian mammalian lineage to modern New Guinean avian-arthropod interactions lacks any plausible causal mechanism. Arthropod activity patterns in Papua New Guinea show temperature-dependent synchronicity with higher daytime activity, but these patterns likely reflect local ecological drivers rather than ancient evolutionary legacies.
**Key Obstacles:** The hypothesis faces fundamental biogeographical and temporal barriers. Ernanodontidae were restricted to Paleocene Asia and Mongolia, while Papua New Guinea's biota evolved independently. The 60-million-year temporal gap makes direct evolutionary transmission impossible. No known mechanism could preserve specific foraging synchronicity patterns across such vast evolutionary time and geographical distance, especially between completely different vertebrate lineages occupying different ecological roles.
**PLAUSIBILITY rating: Physically Implausible**
The hypothesis lacks any viable mechanism for causation and conflates temporal correlation with evolutionary connection across incompatible biogeographical and phylogenetic boundaries.
Sources:
Ernanodontidae - Wikipedia
·
Palaeanodonta
·
Ernanodon - Wikipedia
·
About: Ernanodontidae
·
A nearly complete skeleton of Ernanodon (Mammalia, Palaeanodonta) from Mongolia: morphofunctional analysis: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology: Vol 32, No 5
·
Palaeanodonta - Wikipedia
·
Myrmecophagidae - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
·
(PDF) Feeding in Myrmecophagous Mammals
·
Hologenomic insights into mammalian adaptations to myrmecophagy - PMC
·
CHAPTER 15 – Feeding in Myrmecophagous Mammals | Semantic Scholar
·
Wahnes's Parotia | Animal Database | Fandom
·
Wahnes's parotia - Facts, Diet, Habitat & Pictures on Animalia.bio
·
Wahnes's Parotia (Parotia wahnesi) · iNaturalist
·
Wahnes's parotia - Wikipedia
·
Parotia wahnesi (Wahnes's Parotia) - Avibase
·
Parotia Birds-of-Paradise: Characteristics, Behavior, Dances | Sea Life, Islands and Oceania — Facts and Details
·
Endemic Animals of Papua New Guinea
·
Wahnes's Parotia (Parotia wahnesi)
·
Diel activity of arboreal arthropods associated with Papua New Guinean trees: Journal of Natural History: Vol 30, No 1
·
Wahnes’ Parotia - The Australian Museum
·
Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics: The Predator-Prey Adaptive Play and the Ecological Theater - PMC
·
Evolutionary Ecology of Plant-Arthropod Interactions in Light of the "Omics" Sciences: A Broad Guide - PubMed
·
Frontiers | Predator-Prey Interactions and Eavesdropping in Vibrational Communication Networks
·
Optimal foraging theory - Wikipedia
·
Experimentally simulating the evolution-to-ecology connection: Divergent predator morphologies alter natural food webs | PNAS
·
Complex eco-evolutionary dynamics induced by the coevolution of predator–prey movement strategies | Evolutionary Ecology
·
Evolutionary Ecology of Plant-Arthropod Interactions in Light of the “Omics” Sciences: A Broad Guide - PMC
·
Evolutionary history of interactions among terrestrial arthropods - ScienceDirect
·
Coevolution can reverse predator–prey cycles | PNAS
·
Predator interference alters foraging behavior of a generalist predatory arthropod | Oecologia