Posts tagged creature-design
Satyrs, fauns, pan, and even the devil are commonly depicted as humanoid bipeds with goatlike unguligrade hooves for feet. However, common as such beings may be in fantasy and mythology, I have bee...
Of all the creatures in Hatjörn's dominion, there is none as peculiar as the Murinae Spirita, the mean booze-rat. A vermin so resilient that has developed the most wondrous means of defence and...
The hybrids were created when unseen aliens sent SETI a message explaining how to combine human and alien DNA. (Ignoring the scientific illiteracy and contradictions in the films) Under the constra...
In how smart can I make ants, an idea was suggested, to instead of making each ant individually sapient, make the 'anthill' as a whole sapient; a kind of unconventional hive mind. Just as a familia...
Is there any way a catdog (like from the television program Catdog) could survive? If it could survive could it evolve? Are there any reasons it couldn't?
A Weyland-Yutani like conglomerate wants to colonize exoplanet in the habitable zone of the orange dwarf 0.75 M of the Sun. The planet has 2 X Earth diameter 3g surface gravity atmosphere 92% ...
Age varies vastly even in just the vertebrate world, from the 2 years a rabbit has to the over 170 year old Seychelles giant tortoise, who is still going. Obviously, Lifespan will determine populat...
I recently decided to revisit an older scenario I came up with, Ant-hill world, but I have been hitting roadblocks, both old and new. One of the bigger roadblocks is the evolution of such an odd mu...
On my fictitious planet, a 1/2 pound mammal had a brain to body mass ratio similar to that of a human , could they have human - level intelligence, or would the brain be too small the develop that ...
How would intelligent lifeforms evolve bio magnetic resonance imaging? No bionic components or any other prosthetic technology is allowed, how can I extend the ability to see through dehydrated obj...
Caloric intake varies vastly even in just the world of mammals, from the hundreds of pounds of leaves an elephant eats everyday, to the small amount a sloth eats. Obviously, caloric intake is impor...
Litter size varies vastly even in just the world of mammals, from the single spawn of an elephant to the up to 30 children an opossum can have. Obvious, litter size will determine population, cultu...
In the award winning Studio Ghibli film, Arrietty, there exists a creature known simply as the Borrower. Borrowers are a small version of human, no taller than a few inches, yet are otherwise the s...
In my world, instead of mammals, birds have become the dominant order. Similar to how Quadrabirds replaced the grazing mammals; Aquabirds will take up the niche cetaceans occupy. My goal is that t...
In the world I am designing, instead of mammals, birds are the dominant species. In this world, replacing the niche of deer gazelle and cattle are a group of animals known as Quadrabirds. These are...
On our own world, following the fall of the dinosaurs, mammals became the dominant class. This was caused by a cluster of factors, such as the rapidly changing temperatures and their ability to ada...
Vertebrate tooth enamel is made from Hydroxylapatite, however this need not be the only material available that an alien species could use to make teeth or tooth-like structures. Given that an ide...
What would be the most effective feet design for sustaining massive weight and also allow for the ability to climb? The organism in question has 12 limbs, 8 of which are large and strong legs that...
In a species I am designing, they have eyesight similar to a cats, their vision at a distance is excellent, but the closer you get, the blurrier the vision is. One solution I had for this was for t...
Gliding is a relatively simple trait to explain in a species' evolution, much quicker than flight or becoming aquatic. But what environments support an animal in the evolution to flight? For exam...
In this context, my world assumes an infinite universe so parallel Earths are possible and probability isn't an issue. My planet has half the gravity of Earth but an atmosphere 12x denser, although...
I'm trying to design a species that is largely aquatic and yet capable of walking / running (loosely) on land. I've already figured out a gill and lung type respiratory system to allow them to brea...
We have talked about hive minds a lot here and relatively recently, a new idea of hive mind has become popular; the collective consciousness. The basic run down is that a collective consciousness s...
The idea of a collective consciousness (Or Anthill) is pretty simple: instead of cells you have small sentient animal that make up a larger creature. This is different from a hive mind in that the ...
So, this world I've got in my head is inhabited by plant-beings, all of whom are constantly connected to the Garden, a kind of physical heaven, through an all encompassing web of roots, tree brains...
I'm trying to create a habitable planet but with a low atmospheric pressure, similar to Mars. But instead with 15 percent of Earth's atmospheric pressure, what traits can I give my animals so they ...
Is it feasible that such a race can exist within the following constraints? Body: Humanoid design Average heights at maturity between 2 metres (females) and 2,5 metres (males) Live ...
So Murlocs. I'm referencing Murlocs from World of Warcraft since I never actually found any other novels or games that have them. Described as a bipedal, amphibious, intelligent, aggressive[Still ...
In my fictional world there are small organisms the size of a dog or smaller,some have the shape of mini-volcanoes, while some are stuck between rocks, they don't move and live in both sea and land...
Since we're dealing with cat-folk already with the question about the Khajiit, I figured we'd toss a different evolutionary lineage for furry humanoids around, that of the hyena. Ever since the ea...
Here's the scenario: animals on a world with an atmosphere with a significant amount of a certain gas is able to store "air" into a transparent growth (like a crest) and, with an electrical chord i...
Slime molds are a fairly well-known grouping of organisms, performing a valuable function as real-life detritivores and bacterivores, as well as inspiring fantasy tropes such as oozes. Many slime ...
I'm currently working on a story treatment for a monster story. The story is sort of a love letter to many different genres and classic tropes employed and made famous by, John Carpenter, Ridley Sc...
The fantasy creature I am imagining (planning a short story or two around) satisfies the following analogy: Human is to Chimpanzee as "This Thing" is to Badger. That is, the creature has a cl...
Imagine if nature had evolved its own version of the modern blimp, or the old fashioned zeppelin. Picture a creature built like a huge hydrogen balloon, a thin tissue of living flesh and tenuous sk...
I've been working on this creature some more and have hit another snag. If my critters communicate through the use of pheromones and chemical trails, how do they communicate the message that it i...
I was watching a show, in which spirits, in the sense of Spirits you can summon, etc. are a common place in the world. The spirits, generally can be anything at all that is considered a spirit alre...
Hunting is dangerous; even for the predator, hunting can result in death. There have been countless example where a predator was killed by what was supposed to be prey. Animals have evolved many wa...
I was thinking I would have a race and at the most basic level it is a ground covering moss. As it encounters other colonies of itself they will join together to form one contiguous colony while ke...
There is a creature. Let's call it a Blop. Blops are fairly simple creatures: They consist of a tough, flexible outer skin and then an inner structure that is (essentially) organs and tentacles fl...
Enter the Argonian: a (really) ugly sentient human-like lizard. Although almost no one plays as this race on their Skyrim playthroughs, they have some pretty astounding capabilities; they are maste...
Behold the Khajiit; Born from the insanely popular game series, Elder Scrolls, the Khajiit are a race of cat people who live in hot jungles. From the moment I saw this race, I fell in love with ...
I'm retouching the idea discussed in detail here Evolution of species with seperate sapient and non-sapient forms?. I like the discussion had there, but want to focus in on one specific question, ...
In an old story of mine, there happened to be a species of humanoid who could produce a variety of mutants and hybrids from stolen and harvested DNA, sperm, and biological tissues. They would produ...
The obvious hitch with a superdense atmosphere is that, even without being super deep as well, it absorbs light. Just as the bottom of the ocean is dark even just miles deep, an atmosphere as dense...
Note: This question assumes an earth-like biology. Could a microbe (probably virus) be created that transformed humans into plants? What I mean by this is that the microbe would take human cells, ...
In Pokemon, each individual Pokemon "evolves" into a new stage of its evolution. A lot people claim that this can be explained using mere metamorphosis, but there are no mammals that go through suc...
What if our planet was always lit so that there would be no nighttime? Assume that the scenario is like this, where A is the planet and B and ABb are the stars. And they are all aligned so that it ...
On Earth, life took on a quadruped body plan which has lead to many different sub body plans; 4 legged, 2 legs-2 wings, 2 legs-2 arms, etc. This has made me wonder what possible sub body plans can ...
I've always found animal intelligence to be fascinating, particularly that of the cephalopods, some of which show some pretty remarkable talents for tool usage, mimicry, and pattern recognition. A...
