Dougal Dixon's Microplatia; part II

The previous post dealt with an unknown project by Dougal Dixon meant for the Science Museum, and today's post will deal with the rest of the project.

First, I must rectify something I wrote previously. The 'bones' of animals on Microplatia are very springy and tend to curve in one direction; they are curved the other way by muscles. On Earth, vertebrate and arthropod limbs with a joint with one direction of movement need muscles pulling the bone or segment one way and other muscles pulling the other way. On Microplatia here are just two elements: a bone curving one way and a muscle pulling it the other. The fact that such bones can bend poses interesting problems regarding their capacity to withstand compression, as you would not want to load a bent bone too much. Then again, quite

Anyway, I assumed that the tube slung under the fishing rods of the Walkingmouth would represent the muscle, but I was wrong. Dougal remarked:

"The 'muscle and spring' arrangement is not visible. The trunk-like organ below the 'fishing rod' is merely the gastric tract. All the musculature involved in casting out the 'fishing rod' is contained within the body of the beast. So the action involved is just like that of an angler casting his line. The 'muscle and spring' arrangement is better seen on the bubbles-on-stilts; I attach a sketch and the photo of the model (now alas lost to me)." 

Click to enlarge; copyright Dougal Dixon

Before we go on to 'bubbles-on-stilts' I will post the remaining sketches of the Walkingmouth. The one above shows some surface structures. I rather like the idea of a 'mother of pearl' type iridescence.  I have considered painting an animal with such a surface myself, but will need to study the visual appearance of mother of pearl in more detail before I can paint that in any believable manner. I wonder how the model makers charged with building model Walkingmouth for the Science Museum exhibition would have solved that problem. As far as I know there is no paint that gives that effect.

Click to enlarge; copyright Dougal Dixon

Here is the next picture. It shows that the animal is equipped with three slug-like feet. This image is also the first to show the animal's eyes, placed on the front below the 'fishing rod/gastric tract' ensembles.  I will just call it a 'tackle' to save words.

Click to enlarge; copyright Dougal Dixon

Moving on... literally, in a way, as this sketch shows how the tackle can move: it is interesting that the text says the bow is being 'cast'. I would expect it to be deployed slowly and deliberately, but the image of these five tackles flying out and being reeled in slowly is appealing and quite alien.

Click to enlarge; copyright Dougal Dixon

Here is a mouth unit, of which the animal as a whole will have five. I think that the structures that look a bit like scimitars in their overall shape are examples of the 'bone/muscle assembly', with the bow forming one curved edge of the structure while the muscles fill the concave side. There seems to be a scraper on the underside of the mouth. I see four small 'limbs' near the mouth, two vertically and two horizontally, while further along there are two much larger limbs on each side. My guess is that four smaller ones are there to manipulate food into the mouth, and that the four large ones are the ones that actually walk the mouth over the ground. I wonder what types of food the Walkingmouth eats. If I am right in thinking that the lower 'jaw' is a scraper, its food might consist of animals secured to the substrate such as clams. Then again, plants need to be freed from the ground too. That's all I can show you of Walkingmouths.

Click to enlarge; copyright Dougal Dixon

Another body plan resembles a Walkingmouth turned upside down: the bubbles-on-stilts. The sketch above shows a few; they remind me of Wells' Martian tripod walking engines because of their overall shape.   There are four here, which certainly helps to make their gait a lot easier to imagine than if there would have been three only. Then again, the order in which their legs move is probably the easiest thing to visualise as far as their legs are concerned. The nature of the 'curving bone plus muscle' arrangement is well visible here. Each walking legs apparently consists of a large proximal segment and a smaller distal segment curving the other way; we might as well call it a foot. The front view shows that the animals are quite narrow. That is not surprising at all; if you look closely at many large mammals, including elephants, you will find them to be quite narrow in relation to their other dimensions as well. The build of the legs must say something about the internal structure of the curving bones: their direction of bend depends on their own curvature and the muscles pulling on them, but they must be ery resistant to bending in other directions as I see no muscles controlling their curvatures in other directions than the front and aft one.

Click to enlarge; copyright Dougal Dixon

Finally, here is a photograph of a bubble-on-stilt model. It shows the translucent carapace covering the body quite well, as well as the structure of the legs. The reddish parts of the legs have considerable size in the fore-and aft dimension, no doubt to provide leverage for the muscles.         

It is a pity the model was lost, and a greater pity that the exhibition, perhaps with an accompanying book, was not realised. There are not many projects on Speculative Biology that actually make it to the stage of a book of a television programme, so each one counts. I would have liked to see more of Microplatia, and am visualising a mother-of-pearl Walkingmouth in crystal-clear sea water, gobbling up pearly clams. I wonder which kind of animal in turns feeds on Walkingmouths...
a few vertebrate bones are not held vertically when loaded, and I see no reason that such bones could not be bent. As always it will depend on the mass to be carried relative to gravity.