Posts tagged creature-design
In the media myth of King Kong, there exists a gorilla; 50 feet tall. The largest great apes ever to exist were Gigantopithecus Blacki which, stood up to 9.8 ft, and weighed up to 1,190 lb. While t...
I'm designing an Anthropomorphic Lu-pine. (Get it? Cuz it's technically a tree, but it looks like a werewolf.) They are mobile, omnivorous plants, slightly larger than the average person. They are ...
I've been trying to come up with a genetically plausible origin for dwarves, but with little success. By dwarves, I'm talking about the jolly and burly people similar to that of Tolkien's dwarves. ...
My species of caniform-like creature has a relatively long muzzle because of its strong sense of smell. I would like to know how to give it a long muzzle with its large brain size. Members of this ...
I'm trying to design a humanoid or anthropomorphic organism that would be classified as a plant. The main argument people mention is that it wouldn't be able to produce enough energy to survive. I'...
From the movie Tremors, behold the graboid: These are vicious, SUV to bus sized sandworms that have acquired a taste for human flesh. They are known to "swim" through the earth really fast too. ...
The Hoop snake is a mythical creature from the United States and Canada that looks like a regular snake, but has the ability to grab its tail in its mouth and roll like a wheel at high speeds. It h...
Would it be possible to have a giant, made of stone for example, that would be 40km tall? Would the earth or even his legs be able to hold him? And if not, what would be the tallest plausible heigh...
I have a super-earth world. The surface of the world is shallower due to extra gravity, so shorter mountain ranges and less ocean depths. The world orbits a binary star system at a distance of the ...
Say an alien civilization came to Earth during the age of dinosaurs and picked up a few raptors to use militarily. With genetic modifications, the raptors have human-level intelligence while mainta...
I have a species that is a descendant of modern humans, but containing superior bioengineered organs. One of these organs would be a small heart-like organ inside the head. This heart connects with...
I've a creature that can focus CO2 laser through the len of the unique eyeball as means of self defense mechanism via natural selection. Now using the same natural selection process how can such cr...
For a story I require an intelligent [drepanosaur]. But to work with the plot the creature needs to still have traits that don't mix well with classical vertebrate evolution of intelligence. Requi...
The average temperature on this world surface is −55 degrees Celsius. 80% of the surface of this world is covered by liquid ammonia oceans. This planet has a surface gravity of 0.75"‰g. The atmo...
This question is inspired by the last paragraph of my answer here: Negating the negative effects of childbearing (A follow up question to this can be found here: Methods to ensure gene flow in spe...
Info I'm designing a prehistoric-dragonfly that has little holes or perforations in its wings. When the wind flows through them, they make music (the viability of flying with these wings will be c...
Inspired by a brief comment converstaion found here. I would like to investigate the design and development of an alien species whose technological development did not include an understanding of ...
Previous questions here: Creating a scientifically semi-valid super-soldier, part 1: Skeleton Creating a scientifically semi-valid super-soldier, part 2: nervous system Creating a scientifically...
What characteristics (compare those of a mountain goat foot: good grip on rocks, doesn't slip off, etc) would the foot of a dog or a wolf need to have to be useful in rocky settings such as mountai...
There is a website called the SCP Foundation which features a variety of creatures, objects and phenomena that border on the horrifying to the just plain weird. This one straddles the boundary betw...
Bird wings are made mostly of feathers, and there's about a million articles out there on that subject. Bats, on the other hand, have wings made largely of skin and bone. These are flexible, giving...
I have a clam that has modified its foot to make a flat, net-like structure to catch insects often shaped like a leaf. I wanted to know where this hit in terms of feasibility or if there were any e...
I would like to genetically modify a human being in one concrete case like I did in other parts of my little series of How would it affect a human to suddenly... This time I would like to add a pre...
I request some help with the design of one particular denizen of my fantasy world, tentatively named Boar Troll. It needs to be an ungulate or closely related creature with emerging sentience, and...
This just out of curiosity and interest, could something like the marsupilami exist in our world? If you don't know, the marsupilami is pretty much a bipedal, arboreal monkey like monotreme (egg-la...
Background: I am working on a super soldier transhuman/posthuman concept for my fictional world. It takes the base human genome then uses genetic engineering to augment, delete, enhance, add, and ...
Premise By definition, an ectotherm uses environmental heat sources to regulate its own body temperature. The most common forms of body heat regulation that we observe from ectotherms here on Eart...
Laugh all you like, you won't be laughing when it sprays you with its jade trunk of death. Info I figured out that I wanted an elephant that sprays poison (not acid) out of its trunk a while ago ...
Info I'm designing a breed of cow that produces acid instead of milk. Part of the reason this is useful for my story is that the cows produce as much acid as a dairy cow would milk (through selec...
In my most recent question, I asked for a material other than calcium and collagen that could form skeletons in alien creatures. My favourite answer was bio-steel; "Iron with a small percentage of ...
Somewhat similar questions have been posed before, but what I'm really interested in is what selection pressures would be necessary to produce a subspecies of giant humans, about three meters in he...
More posts from this thread are here: Metal-Feathered Macaw Viability Part 1: How Can It Fly? Info See this previous question to learn about the premise. We now know, via this amazing answer, ...
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...
My dragons all develop in similar ways. There are 4 developmental cases depending on what limbs the dragon has. First case: All limbs If the dragon has all 4 limbs here is how it develops. First,...
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...
Simple question I think, I have some Idea of the answer but would like the ol' second opinion. Vertebrates use olfactory glands in their nostrils (or thereabouts) to sense smell, as well as the roo...
I am interested in creating a reality based version of a creature from Greek mythology called a Siren. Sirens were believed to combine women and birds in various ways. In early Greek art, Sire...
So, it turns out that bats are actually pretty good swimmers; several species of bats have been reported swimming, and they're far more capable and agile in the water than they are on land: https:...
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...
Humans (and mammals) have 2 lungs, one right and the another left. The right lung has 3 lobes and the left have 2 lobes because in the "third" there is the heart, so the right lung is bigger than t...
If you were tasking with creating a genetically engineered flying creature, capable of full powered flight on a (newly terraformed) planet with a surface gravity almost twice that of Earth's, do yo...
Tl;dr: Humans create a composite image out out what each of their eyes see Humans process the two images into one using their visual cortex Humans can't see infrared because of a lack of photorec...
Context In one of my stories I am having a villain try to bring back the beauty of the giant arthropods in the Carboniferous period by genetically engineering his own personal, mega-pseudo-arthrop...
Cerberus was a three headed dog, commonly depicted with a collar and tail of snakes. Such an organism is quite difficult to justify, but how can such a creature appear that way? Is there a realist...
I have been thinking about which mutants from Marvel are most realistic and Zeitgeist comes to mind. Long story short, his power is weaponized acidic vomit. He can spew it a few meters away at will...
I apologise in advance for the graphic nature of this question. I guess it just had to be asked. I am looking for a way to make the feces of my alien vertebrates some color other than brown or gr...
A submission for the Anatomically Correct Series. The VodnÃk (or Vodyanoy) are very interesting water spirits from Slavic mythology.They're described to have long green hair, and a face like a ...
I have a race of mainly insectoid aliens known as the Erepo who have virtually bioengineered a ecosystem around themselves. Now I currently have them using either organic systems they can "grow" or...
I am creating a planet where life exists on big islands of frozen methane around the poles. I did some research: from what I understand, methane freezes around -180°C, so I wanted it to be -190°C...
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...
