Mammal Mania: Carnivora Hunt
The Carnivora mammalian order takes it name from the latin carō ‘flesh’ and vorāre ‘to devour’, referring to animals that eat meat.
Most of the animals in this order are indeed hunters, but don’t get their order name confused with the word “carnivore,” or an animal the subsists mainly or entirely on meat. Though many carnivorans have a primarily meat-based diet, some are omnivorous, and a few, like everyone’s favorite bamboo-chomping panda bear, are mainly herbivores.
The carnivoran order rose 6 million years after the K-pg extenction event that eviscerated the dinosaurs and left an opening for a diversity of new mammalian life. Early carnivorans were nocturnal, weasel-like creatures that hid out in trees or wandered the forest floor.
While these early ancestors were overshadowed by larger carniverous predators of the day, the extinction of many of these predators by the end of the Eocene epoch left a gap which the carnivorans quickly filled. By the Miocene epoch carnivorans had diversified and grown in numbers, becoming the dominant predatory order of the day.
Carnivorans can be divided into two suborders – Feliformia, “cat-like” carnivorans, and Caniformia, “dog-like” carnivorans. From a more scientific perspective the division between these two groups centers around the boney structures that surround the middle ear. Feliforms have double-chambered auditory bullae, while caniforms have single chambered (or partially divided) auditory bullae.
Feliforms include cat, hyenas, mongooses and civets, while dogs, bears, raccoons, weasels, and seals are all caniforms.
Whether you like cats, dogs, both, or just the thrill of the chase, carnivorans have something for everyone! Let the hunt begin!
There are 12 mergers in the Hunt cell; you have 5.5 days and 24 guesses to locate them all, between midnight ET on 8/19 and noon ET on 8/24.
How to identify and report mergers
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- Select Hunt cell from Change Cell menu. Stay in the overview.
- Type /debug into chat. This will reveal a special box with information about the cell (located above the “Start Playing” box).
- Use ALT+click to select the origin point of the merger you have identified. It is a good idea to zoom in close on the merger before you select it to get the most accurate coordinates.
- Find the coordinates of the merger’s origin in the cell information box. These are next to the word “center.”
- In the chat pm thehunt bot your coordinates. For example: /pm thehunt 5123 4321 5678.
- thehunt bot will let you know if you got it right or wrong and tell you how many guesses you have left.
- To check how many mergers you have found and to check what guesses you have submitted, type “/pm thehunt !list”; the bot will give you a list of all the coordinates you have guessed, and whether or not there was a merger at each set of coordinates. A + means there was a merger there, a — means there was not a merger there.
- If you accidentally submit the same coordinate a second time, it does not count as two guesses.
Do not reveal your coordinates to other players. Do not do anything against the spirit of the Hunt. Anyone caught cheating will be automatically disqualified from the event and will not receive any points.
Proximity to merger start point is determined by number of voxels (1 voxel = approx. 1/250th of a cube’s width). Mergers are only counted as found if guessed within a distance of 250 voxels. Pieces of dust floating in space don’t count as mergers, so please don’t report them! We also do not count fused mergers that could not be removed during the Hunt prep process.
Swag: The top scoring player wins the choice of a notebook or a mug, plus a sticker/magnet set! Second and third place will each also win a sticker/magnet set.
Bonus info is available in your in-game notifications. Good luck, and happy hunting!