Posts tagged mammals
What coloration pattern/ technique could a large mammalian predator employ to evade detection from other mammalian predators at 100 -> 20 meter distances (or close enough so that it could sprint...
Some 55.8 million years ago, Earth underwent a really dramatic heat wave known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. What happened, exactly? We don't know how it happened, but we do k...
The last time I asked something similar, I asked if it would be possible for xenarthran mammals (armadillos, sloths and anteaters) to be thrown off of South America from life-giving rafts to other ...
Say the word "Australia", and one of the first things to come to your mind would be the marsupials. Of the 334 species of pouched mammals whose earliest ancestors witnessed the fall of the dinos...
"Serina" is a popular speculative evolution project in which, apart from a long list of fish, invertebrates and plants, the only terrestrial chordate to colonize this terraformed moon is the canary...
In exploring likely candidates for an alternate Earth without rodents, someone suggested multituberculates to me. Here's a little summary as to who the multituberculates were for anyone not in the ...
The muroids are a superfamily of rodents consisting today of mice, rats, voles, hamsters, lemmings and gerbils. There are at least 1750 different species of them, proof apparent of their environme...
In the waters of Iceland, the natives have their own word for a particular brand of cetaceans--"Illhveli", literally "evil whales". And the bloodthirstiest of them all is Raudkembingur, Icelandic ...
I wanted to include a spider-like race in my book (not a typical drider, but more like a hairy hominid covered in tarantula-like hair and thinner and longer limbs and fingers). However, I wanted th...
Perissodactyla is an order of mammals consisting currently of the seventeen species of horses, rhinoceroses and tapirs. Usually, any clade is connected by a coupling of genetics and physical morph...
I'm working with this alien race that looks and functions essentially like a mammal - skin, muscles, hair, internal bones, large size, etc. - but evolved from an insect or other bug. They're a larg...
Back home, Amphicyonidae (bear-dogs) predated Ursidae by only four million years. While the latter still lives in the form of eight species, the former had been extinct for two-and-a-half million ...
On Earth, while birds and reptiles can be quite brightly colored, it's rare for mammals to have any bright colors, and the rare times they do, it's either just slightly different (like with orangut...
Many mythological creatures have a popularity secondary only to the dragon (the one true global force.) Among them is the griffin, a half-bird-half-cat cut-and-paste. Now, in an alternate Earth, ...
In recent years, we have found evidence in the Negev Desert of the Middle East of a striped hyena, a solitary carnivoran, tagging along with a pack of wolves. This sort of alliance is found nowher...
Here is all you need to know about the creodonts: They were a group of carnivorous mammals that, despite having carnassials, had no relation to Carnivora. They were a global force, occupying terr...
In an alternate Earth, there are no bats. Instead, there are "flying monkeys" (which are actually lemuriform primates, rather like bushbabies or lorises.) And even though they have batlike ears, ...
So as most of you probably know, cows don't produce milk all year round for no reason, they need to be pregnant and then you gotta do something with the calves"¦ Now in my story that has an ecosys...
For context, I've been working on a fantasy race for use in a science fiction novel, the gist of which is essentially a red fox that has had its genes manipulated by a supernatural force with the p...
I'm working on a setting with merfolk that I'd prefer to be fully mammalian. However, they have underwater cities and I find that hard to believe for a species that needs to surface every few hour...
So, I have thought about the evolution of my aliens and how they could evolve things like lactation but still retain their reptilian characteristics. Here is my best thought about it so far: Evol...
How could a mammal produce milk which resembles blood? The blood milk should keep as many properties of milk as possible, curding for example, while resembling blood as much as possible. The mamm...
Rats are commonly associated with illness and disease due to the role they played in The Black Death. However, some works of fiction portray rats as carnivorous swarms, devouring people indiscrimin...
Right from the beginning, the xenarthrans--armadillos, sloths and anteaters--have been at a disadvantage. For the longest time, their home was an island continent, which made them extremely vulner...
Given an unlimited time to evolve: what are the best ways to make any wild bovinae immune to its natural predators like the classic big felines (lions or tigers) and most reptiles (crocodiles or Ko...
In the movie Guardians of the Galaxy (and a few others), we meet a bipedal raccoon known as Rocket (who I am aware did not evolve to be bipedal, but I am using him as an example). I honestly love t...
As far as I am aware, female mammals cannot produce eggs (as in ova) after a certain age/maturation. How could the female produce eggs for an unlimited amount of time, resulting in a 'queen' mamma...
Ever since I found out about the green blooded skink, I have wondered if it's possible for other blood colours to evolve among vertebrates, specifically blue in mammals.
In marine mammals, there are two different body types for two different niches: A long, strong tail for all-marine whales... ...and all four legs modified into flippers for pinnipeds that fee...
Could a cow produce bottled milk? The answer is, of course, no; there is no way a cow could do that; obviously. Perhaps I should be more clear on what I'm asking. Is there any way a mammalian cr...
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:...
In an alternate Earth, coral has been extinct for over 400 million years. In their place were the following: Bivalvia (clams, oysters, mussels) Cirripedia (barnacles) Canalipalpata (bristle-foot...
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...
In the great apes, there are two worlds--ground and treetop. Representing the ground is the largest primate on Earth, the genus Gorilla. Representing the treetops is genus Pongo, the orangutan. ...
Bradypodidae is the family consisting of the three-toed sloths, the one we most associate the word "sloth" with. As far as we know, they exist only in the tropical forests of Latin America and nev...
Without a doubt, the most iconic mammals of Australia are the pouch-bearing marsupials. You can find less than 250 species in that one island-continent. Marsupials have been around for 65 milli...
Is it possible that a monkey-like creature, in the mountains, could evolve to have no legs and a really strong set of fore-arms? I was thinking that this might be possible because of the climbing s...
On Earth, the polar bear is among the most sexually dimorphic animals, with males being on average almost twice as heavy as females (Wikipedia claims average weights of 450 kg for males versus 260 ...
