Posts tagged xenobiology
This is my first post here, but here we go: I have been creating an alien world for a while, and the sentient species on it is very canine-like. They have a canine body, legs, and head, and the on...
My question is not human-specific. I found this question that mentions that a brain have more neuronal complexity; I deduce it is more efficient (in terms of neural communication and energy use) to...
The Humerns are quite an odd species when it comes to mating. They have nine distinct sexes (not genders, they're biologically distinct) all of which exhibit varying levels of dimorphism and all of...
I need someone to fact-check me and tell me if there's anything immediately bogus or physically impossible with the scenario I'm about to propose. Billions of years ago, under the ice of Europa, t...
I'm working on explaining away the existence of a planet whose entire ecosystem is based upon bioluminescent creatures, and I've been wondering if there could be a reason for their blood (or other ...
One of my characters has hands very different to the ones we're used to. His fingers can close towards both sides of the hand, meaning that the back of his hand is also a palm and he has a second ...
I have a species with mostly avoidant and introverted personalities. They prefer to stay in small, nomadic groups and flee when the surrounding population becomes too large. The criterion for "too...
I am writing a story (well, developing one) in which a humanoid intelligently genetically engineered species is effectively immortal. The creature maintains its lifespan through a thick-shelled see...
Not long ago I asked about pH indicators and their use in making fantastical skin colors (pH Indicators and Fantastical Skin Colors) In that question, I listed bromothymol blue as a type of indica...
I have a race of people who have silver blood. Thing is, I'm really trying to keep it as realistic as possible despite this being a fantasy world. The blood has raw magic energy in it as well, but ...
The ground shakes as a colony of Triopticpelorovenatorius Baromassobrachiosaurus (T.B.) shamble across the forest floor. A glorious mix of blue, purple, and green colors shift under the treetops as...
A caveat I will begin this question with is this: this system MUST be entirely organic. In fact it must be EVOLVED. Therefore Ghost in the Shell or Metal Gear-style nanocomms or cranial implants ar...
So, the end-point I want to work towards is a creature that lives on a high-gravity planet that has some sort of adaptation that neutralises the effects of that high gravity, ideally in a way that ...
Disclaimer: This question is the second of a new series of questions of mine about introducing hexapeds to the fauna of my conworld. There are/will be other questions addressing i.a.: characteristi...
I am designing a rather sizable (~ 2000 kg) carnivorous predatory species and I want it to expel all the waste it produces in the form of dry, compacted pellets (similar to owl pellets, except of c...
Bioluminescence and/or extremely large eyes to take in the almost nonexistent light beneath Europa's ice sheet, or eyeless sockets and a transparent body with senses better equipped to detect minut...
In a SciFi world I'm building with other people, we'd like to create a planet with an infection outbreak going on. There are wildlings. They are pretty primitive, have stone tools and wood houses. ...
My story premise is that a human expedition to Europa has happened and the travellers have tunnelled through the ice and formed a colony in the ocean. When they breached into the ocean, they disc...
As suggested in this article, the evolution of the adaptive immune system didn't actually give vertebrates a huge benefit, it just led to an escalation of the arms race between vertebrates and path...
I'm designing an intelligent alien species in which child rearing is a very labor instensive and lengthy process (their progeny take a little more than a decade and a half to mature), so much so th...
In my RPG campaign setting the orcs are tougher than most other races. In hard times they can eat wood (small bushes and fresh pieces of trees). In really hard times they can eat healthy soil and...
On earth, as far a we know, there are two main ways that bacteria gain energy. there is Photosynthesis, the transition of light into chemical based energies such as ATP. there are chemical proce...
I have devised a semi-aquatic sapient species known as the Hexapi who until now I thought were trichromats. However, after doing my research on the evolution of the eye, I found out that colour vis...
In Plague-inc the most typical strategy is trying to infect everyone, while staying hidden by not harming infected people (when a virus, bacteria, fungus is found, people start working on the cure)...
Note: I'm talking about a fourth spatial dimension. As far as I can tell, a 2 dimensional creature has one possible digestive system structure; have a cavity inside its body connected to the outsi...
Can an organism have traits that resemble both an animal and a plant? Such as bone, chlorophyll, muscles, and cell walls. Not necessarily a hybrid, but something that can be classified in between t...
I'm designing an alien species and I want the males to have deer-like antlers. Now I also need this species to have a genetic predisposition (as in it is not just a cultural affectation) to be prim...
I am designing an semi-aquatic sapient species known as the Tetrapi. They have an appearance similar to that octopi, only with 4 tentacles comprised of 3 opposable digits. Unlike octopi, they are a...
I'm making an alien race that's kinda like the Tyranids. My problem right now is that they're starting out on a planet. How would they actually leave this planet using only their biological abiliti...
I swear I saw this question elsewhere. Let me know if this is a dupe. Photons are great. They're little bundles of energy that Reflect off of nearly everything, allowing us to see faraway obj...
Image people with roughly the same brain and nervous system layout as a human as a first approximation using the same kinds of cells and chemicals, etc. But, these people have organs that can dire...
Ceraon is a moon with advanced megafauna and flora. The moon is pretty small, so gravity is only about one fifth of that on earth. Much of the life-preserving atmosphere is retained through a gre...
I am currently trying to design a kamikaze goblin. This goblin would drink explosives and have some sort of storage area within their abdominal regions. How would this goblin be able to have these ...
This question is specifically about the mechanics of an alien creature swimming in highly viscous magma, the unlikeliness of life surviving at magma temperatures etc isn't relevant. Just imagine it...
Would it be possible for an extraterrestrial humanoid or superhero to increase and decrease their hearing at will, and if so, how? I'm thinking specifically of an alien who can somehow adjust their...
As a school project, I am designing an extraterrestrial animal, and I would like to include a multiple-hearted mammal-like organism. Is there any set of circumstances in which having 3 hearts would...
In this Answer I suggested that an animal could have a tampani acting as a loudspeaker, as in Vernor Vinge's The Blabber, later featured as the race called Tines in A Fire Upon the Deep. In the ori...
Years ago, I was tinkering around with the idea of an engineered life form which could survive the vacuum of space and be made into a starship. I have since given up on the idea, but curiosity is s...
I'd like an alien to be warm-blooded, but have external gills. Imagine a kind of giant crab or woodlouse (pillbug) which spends part of its time on land and part of the time in the sea. However, ex...
If we were to encounter alien species of, lets say approximately the same size as us, would there be any reason to expect them to communicate in the same frequency ranges as us? Human beings have ...
Let's say that in a fictional world (the world of Heroes of Might and Magic IV in my case) the square-cubic problem of insect respiration is somehow solved, so I have giant mantes roaming the area,...
Suppose they have non-flexible beaks, but they still posses vocal cords and a tongue capable of producing the same sounds as humans. Variation of these bird-people are as follows: What types of ...
Would the discovery of alien bacteria found on even an Earth analog planet preclude the possibility of colonization due to the potentially deadly nature of bacterial/viral infections? Put different...
My generation ship aliens have 2 thumbed hands. No, not the 2 thumbs on the same side that some humans have but the 2 thumbs on opposite sides. So it would be kind of like this: Except more rept...
I am building a science fiction universe, and I am currently thinking of many different unique sentient alien species that would populate the galaxy. I have thought of a rocky planet with Earth le...
I was wondering, could the use of chitin (assuming it's composed the same as in insect exoskeletons) combined with hydrocarbons feasibly make a working endoskeleton? I know that chitin could be use...
We are the only sentient civilization currently known to man, and sight is an integral part of both our everyday lives as well as most major technological advances throughout human history. Withou...
Another question for my comic: my friend has made a demand that I give one of her characters a flying mount, preferably griffin-like. I have some designs but I want them to be plausible: How bulk...
There are a wide range of environmental temperatures located all around the world, from the low -90° C to high 60° C at the extremes. When looking at the core body temperature however the range i...
On Earth, we use taxonomy to organize biological organisms into an identifiable hierarchy in which organisms that are evolutionarily related are placed in close proximity. This evolutionary approac...
