Posts tagged fauna
Is it plausible for a species of ant that inhabits a mangrove-like marine environment to have their abdomen evolve into a tail-like appendage for swimming to move from tree to tree to forage?
What marine or brackish water animals would be best for domestication attempts by a semi-aquatic civilization? Bonus Points for those that get me pet/domesticated sharks!
I have a type of coral that feeds off of bacteria that love bird feces (or something involving a bird species). It grows large rocky spires out of the water to create a habitat for birds. I need to...
The 'Before' Picture Imagine if African Wild Dogs developed the ability to float. There is no scientific explanation to how they can float; it's just happened and we do not need to know why. The d...
This is my first post on these forums, sorry if I've accidentally overlooked any rules or etiquette. Please let me know if more detail is necessary or would be helpful. This question is about a spe...
I have some large, megafauna level amphibians inhabiting a temperate rainforest with naturally high levels of humidity. Would my large amphibians have any problems maintaining a classic amphibian t...
More posts from this thread will be linked here: Metal-Feathered Macaw Viability Part 2: Best Wing Shape? Info I'm designing a macaw that has metal feathers, claws, and a metal beak--to be parti...
The Earth-like planet I'm working on is the culmination of years of labor by the galaxy's best scientists. It consists of fully artificial ecosystems, and is, for all intents and purposes, like Ear...
Suppose that there is a species of dogs that are much more intelligent than humans and can speak. The humans know that the animal is smarter too. The only reason these animals can't rule over human...
Some hundreds of years ago, all humanity was removed from the Americas. In fact, most humans are gone from the world altogether. In the intervening time, nature has overrun the formerly human domin...
Edit: I've written an answer of my own now, and I'd appreciate it if any of you informed on the subject of evolution could review it, then inform me of its plausibility, via the comments (Of the a...
How would fire honey be useful and manageable to a beehive/bee colony? Info In this scenario, bees harvest nectar from a particular flower. The nectar is not only spicy from capsaicin, but litera...
Note: this is not a duplicate of Anatomically correct Giants or What would be the tallest possible height for humanlike creatures in earthlike conditions? because my giants are far from humanoid. A...
This is the second question in a series about my ongoing worldbuilding project, which seeks to explain the evolution and biology of various fantasy creatures. The first one was: Is petrifying visi...
My planet has an increased axial tilt, resulting in crazier winters and summers and higher temperatures. For most places, the temperature never drops below freezing - even in the winter, but the da...
If humans didn't exist, what species would populate the earth? Would an animal gain human-like intelligence if humans weren't here? What animal would gain dominance?
So, out in Colorado, in the city of Den (population 1600), there is a huge problem. Before the war, a geneticist lab was trying to create police dogs that were stronger and superior to normal dogs....
Human civilization really took off when individuals started to interact with each other, in language and trade and settlements. The transition from stone age to our space faring civilization of tod...
An integral species in a large worldbuilding project I'm working on right now is based around the concept of extreme agility. The species shall be a megafauna (Is that grammatically correct - "a m...
We have a regular Earth as we know it, but instead of humans, there is this worm-like race, intelligent similarly as nowadays humans. Their inner physiology is different from our worms (and not imp...
I am writing a novel, in which the main character has their mind transferred to a wolf body, losing all thier memories in the proccess. My current explanation is that the state of every neuron in ...
In my fictional planet, forests grow not on soil, but on vast spongy mats of fungi. Traditional Earth-like feet would struggle to get grip on the squishy ground, so most megafauna taxa have feet li...
I have, what I hope to be, a fairly simple question. I am designing a planet where there are no carnivores. Assumptions The creatures would all be very complacent and would feed and live in v...
So, in my last question, I asked "How could an animal run fast using blade-like feet that sink into spongy ground?" The premise was that on my planet, forests grow not from soil but from spongy, ...
Suppose there was a world on which evolution and natural selection took an odd turn and never produced an organism that could be considered a plant by our modern definition, but which still produce...
I'm trying to develop a planet which has somehow developed sentience. By sentience I mean more of an animal intelligence than being a person. So far I've got a couple of ideas: It's actually a sp...
Imagine that, in the near future, pollution, overpopulation and war leads to a massive extinction where almost all chordates, some invertebrates and many plants are wiped out. Small, resilient plan...
As discussed here: How would a Reflecting-Oven-Jay Evolve? The Reflecting-oven-Jay This is a small African predatory bird with a perfectly smooth set of wings with an area of ~100 cm2, so ...
So, in a post-apocalyptic setting, when humans have gone extinct and their cities fell into ruin, I was wondering what animals might evolve to conquer the ruins of our cities. Notice: I know that ...
Okay, now this question is a bit random. But, I'm planning for a possible book project about a 2019 expedition to an undiscovered island. The island is near the northern tip of the Ninetyeast Ridg...
I've been wondering about insular dwarfism, and would like to know if it only affects certain animals (Since some animals grow larger upon colonizing an island, often due to the absence of predator...
In a question about mermaids, it was proposed that they might have evolved to look like humans to lure them in and prey on them. How could a creature survive on a diet of nothing but lured-in huma...
A book that I'm currently writing called Surge features an enemy faction called the Degenerates that are heavily inspired by the Scythians (Indo-Iranian horse nomads that ruled the Eurasian Steppe ...
I want this world to have two things, typically on the complete opposite end of geological timescales: Land fauna is incredibly "Young" - Pretty much nothing larger than a "large" insect (Some li...
My previous question was how to classify a domain (now superdomain) of duocellular life named Duotorusa. Anyone who has taken high school biology know that all life on earth are divided into th...
A global epidemic of H1Z2 virus has rendered 95% of the population into zombies. The zombies have lost most of their frontal and temporal lobes so the following capabilities are either severely de...
I am envisioning a world around a red dwarf star. The planet has violent and accelerated (due to higher geological activity) plate tectonics and has a magnetic field about 75% the strength of the E...
Considering a world with Jackalopes. These half-rabbit half-antelope creatures stand a little over 2 feet long when fully grown and have horns like a deer growing 1 to 2 feet in length. Like deer...
What sort of biological challenges and modifications would it take to create a snake with a head on both ends? Assume that said snake is created by a deity and thus some complicated evolution path...
This probably sounds fairly ridiculous- I know, but in short I've been developing a sort of future earth. It's not extraordinarily accurate, but I've been trying to at least keep the obvious in che...
Think Moa, very big bird, kept as livestock in a western-ish world. Could they be safely lassoed? Their necks are quite long and, I imagine, delicate, at least when compared to cattle or horses. If...
I recently asked a question regarding whether or not a fictional theropod dinosaur-like creature I created could feasibly raise and lower its head which sported a number of large horns. I receive...
Mating rituals are various behaviours, serving as a precursor to copulation in almost all animal species. In general these serve to aid the females of the species to pick out a mate. They can be in...
As part of Fortnightly topic challenge #3: Creature Design I am looking for a realistic way to create a particularly nasty creature. What I would like: A creature that is capable of emitting a ...
So I was thinking of a land animal with a biological harpoon, I'm not 100% sure why it would evolve with it. Details of it would be: Quadrupedal Medium-sized (similar to a pony) and would hunt s...
T-Rex Forever LLC has a mating pair of Tyrannosaurus rex. They're a bit shady on how they got them, time travel, cloning...they won't say. Third-party biologists and paleontologists have examined...
I am writing a fiction set in the 'dark ages', a pre-industrial, pre-gunpowder world. On Earth that would be no later than 800 AD, but this doesn't have to match Earth. There is no magic, and I won...
Imagine an earth-like planet on which gravity is reduced by 20%-30% every 15 months. The low-grav-effect should start slowly, reaching its peak/bottom of round about 0.7 g after 6 weeks and should ...
In this fantasy world there is no day/night but a constant mild light. There are also no seasons and the mild light is akin to the light at dawn or dusk. The sun doesn't really exist. How would th...
So, in the world I'm creating, humans have meddled with animals in order to create unicorns, dragons, jackalopes ect. However, some of these animals were more powerful and intelligent than intended...