On another tangent, since I haven't had the motivation to finish the river modifications (still at about 50%), I decided to re-visit the world's "palaeogeography" and I've been thinking how past movements of the continents would have affected their flora and fauna.
I don't plan to introduce any fantasy species into the natural flora and fauna, although several extinct species may end up being resurrected, depending on how the final results turn out regarding my "evolution model". Essentially the plan is that the evolutionary relationships of various animal groups should be the same on Aduhr as they are on Earth. So, some continent might end up having Australia-like fauna with Monotremes and Marsupials, while another might have something like pre-Great American Interchange South America.
For sake of simplicity I'll assume that overall the fauna and flora resemble present day Earth, and only relatively recently extinct species (say, extinct within the last 5 million years) have a chance of existing on present-day Aduhr.
To begin with, I'll concentrate on the evolution of mammals, since they're probably the most important group to consider (as reptiles are relatively similar between various continents, and birds can basically migrate anywhere via flying). So, the basic division of mammals that occurred during the Mesozoic era is the division into Monotremes (platypus and echidna), Metatheria (marsupials and related groups) and Eutheria (ancestral to placental mammals).
We don't know for certain when true placental mammals emerged (around 100 Mya might be a decent estimate), and in general the early evolution of placental mammals and the exact relationships of various groups remains a somewhat disputed question, but there is a consensus regarding their classification into 3 major groups: Xenarthra (South America), Afrotheria (Africa) and Boreoeutheria (Eurasia and North America).
So, as each of these three major groups of placental mammals evolved on separate continents, it's logical that a similar process would occur on Aduhr as well. Interestingly, Xenarthra evolved alongside true Marsupials in South America.
With this in mind, I thought to update Aduhr's palaeogeography a little. Unfortunately, I was unable to get GPlates to work (since I updated to Windows10, apparently GPlates is incompatible with it). So, any updates regarding the tectonic history and modelling of past continental drift will have to wait.
However, I do still have the maps produced with my old tectonic model. As I mentioned, they are a bit outdated, since I have since defined the extent of the continental crust and made a few small additions, but I guess they'll have to do.
As I don't recall if I posted this before, this is the final version of the "present day" world map, including the continental crust:
A Mollweide projection of Aduhr 100 Mya (map via GPlates):
And finally a bit more refined version of "Palaeo-Aduhr", based on the GPlates map. This includes my first concept of where the main mammal groups (Monotremata, Metatheria and Eutheria) lived on Aduhr ca. 100 Mya:
Ok, that ended up being a bit more substantial than I originally planned for a "tangent project". Anyway, I hope someone finds this interesting!
EDIT:
Btw, the "100 Mya" maps are centered on 60° E Longitude (in order to have no continents "lining the borders"). So, they're essentially offset when compared to the map of "present-day" Aduhr.
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