Design Your Own Species 10/29/17

Summary: My group and I were posed with the task of deigning a species that could not only survive, but thrive in Planet C. Planet C is a tropical environment with a flat terrain. It is predominantly rain forests that are moist and hot. There are many large pools of water or lakes in the rain forests where killer poisonous plants grow. The vegetation is comprised of an abundance of leaves, nuts, and fruits and some of the animals are carnivorous snakes, monkeys, fish, insects and birds. Our animal lives in the multitude of lakes in the rain forests and eats both plants and animals. It is in the middle of the food chain, eating fish, algae and seaweed and getting eaten by birds and carnivorous snakes. The fact that it is an omnivore allows the animal to survive longer. For example, if the fish dies off this animal can eat seaweed. The animal will still eventually die because the seaweed population will decrease, but the since it is an omnivore it will live longer.

S&EP-Using Models:
My group and I used models this week when were creating a food web and sketch of our animal that incorporated all the traits it needed to survive. In the food web it is somewhat in the middle because it is an omnivore. Drawing this food web let me see not only who eats what, but what would happen to our animal is something it ate were to die off. It would live on whatever else it could consume for a while, but eventually it would pass, as well. Seeing what animals would eat our animal showed me especially what traits it would need to avoid predators. For instance, the animal had a spike at the end of its tail to stab the birds that try to eat it from above. Also, the conceptual sketch showed us what traits were too "over the top." The reason we couldn't add too many traits to our animal is because part of the challenge of designing this new animal is that is cannot be the top of the food chain. All in all mapping out and modeling how our animal would fit into its environment enabled my understanding of what traits our animal would need. (It was helpful)

XCC-Structure and Function:
Like mentioned above our animal has two limbs that allow it to eat vegetation around the lake in which it resides. In addition to this, we have combined multiple body systems from different animals so it can live "to the fullest extent" in its environment. An example of this would be the animal's circulatory system. The circulatory system of our animal is a play on the circulatory system of a frog and a seal. Its heart is made up of three main chambers including two atria and a ventricle. heart, it consists of 3 main chambers two atria and a single ventricle. The purpose of the atrium are to receive oxygenated blood from the lungs and skin in one and deoxygenated blood from the veins in the other. The reason why the ventricle is centered is because the purpose of the ventricle is to serve as a division between oxygenated and deoxygenated blood (it divides the side that deals with oxygenated blood from the other). This example of structure and function shows how the shape and positioning of certain parts of our animals circulatory system allow it to separate the oxygenated and deoxygenated blood.

Multiplier: This week I was a ,mutant, to be more specific a creator because I offered to assist my team in anyway shape or form.