Posts tagged xenobiology
For a book that I'm working on I am plotting out various points in time to make sure my plot is following accordingly. I apologize in advance for the lengthy post. It is a fungus-like infection tha...
Question: Are there are any serious biological or evolutionary plausibility issues with separating the energy storage/production function from the production of structural/regulatory biomass? Back...
So I'm working on this new novel with a fungal-like disease that is alien in nature and I have a question pertaining to spore germination. Some background - the disease is fungal-like, but not nec...
The Grey Alien trope almost always features a disproportionately large head, which often comes in unusual shapes to boot. There's nothing wrong with the trope, large brains are cool but what baffle...
I'm working on a first contact story set in the near future where an advanced alien species arrives at Earth and reveals itself to humanity, but is utterly baffled by the diversity of life that it ...
Assumptions: Jupiter's moon Europa has a salty subsurface ocean in contact with a rocky mantle. The ocean is populated by hydrothermal vents produced by tidal heating. Global heat flow is similar...
The purpose of this question is to get an alien race with a diffused set of organs, which makes any part of their body interchangeable. Why would a species need this? Well for one it might be becau...
So as I was creating a variety of creatures I wondered if speed is exclusive to smaller creatures or if a large organism could move deceptively fast to take prey or predator by surprise. This is as...
In my narrative I have these aliens that don't experience time, they don't remember and don't predict events, which makes them completely reactionary. This is supposed to make them alien and diffic...
In the movie, Arrival, there is an advance alien race that arrives on are planet, with a few landing in specific places. The aliens species are called "heptapods" (by our standards). They have 7 a...
I've got an intelligent, stone-age species that looks a bit like an Azhdarchid pterosaur. It is around the size of a large eagle. They have a proboscis and a finger on each wing used for manipulati...
Could a creature carry its own ecosystem around with it? What traits would it need to make this viable? These self-sufficient creatures are native to planet which is for the most part frozen and ...
Animals on Earth have 2 or 4 legs they use for walking. On another world, however, animals have 3. I want to know how these animals will walk. How will their legs be placed and how will they move t...
I want to make my unicorns use the horn as their male genital. Is it biologically possible to put the genital on their head? I know there are many strange genital locations for animals, for example...
Recently I have been playing a lot of stellaris, " a strategy game that allows you to control a alien species and advance your way through the galaxy". In the game there is something called "Living...
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...
How fast could run a humanoid being, how much damage could resist, how much weight could lift, how strong could hit, under the indicated evolutionary conditions? is there a limit? I have always tho...
Now a change from dragon questions: Let's move onto aliens based on mythological creatures! Most land creatures on the planet of Antiquoloci have a strange sensory system in place of a nose, doing...
Would it be possible to have an organism to be based on alcohol, rather than water? Complexity does not matter, but a complex organism would be favourable. their environment would be in oceans of i...
So, in my story, there is a species called the Telenoids. They have the ability to induce auditory nerve impulses so powerful they cause intense headaches and severe pain to nearby targeted non-tel...
I want to know if there is a possible way to temporarily turn normal human into soup like caterpillar in their chrysalis state as they metamorphose into another being, either biological/chemical or...
I made an organism called the Skarlix for a art/xenobiology project called Sagan 4. The Skarlix is a eukaryotic, somewhat amoeba-like organism that "eats" various metal compounds and "breathes" (o...
As the title: What organs or modifications would be needed to have creature that can eat/digest hair without problem? (Preferably digested normal/quick enough, and they only eat hair.) This inclu...
Summary at bottom. I have a character from a homemade alien species. The species has silver/white hair and blue/violet eyes. I know these are traits of a melanin deficiency, but I imagined her hav...
I've been thinking about worlds like Keplar-62e, thought to be covered in deep oceans, and wondering about floating reefs. Could a bio-structure substantially similar to terrestrial coral hold eno...
So, I'm building this world where most of the lifeforms, for one reason or another, are reptiles. Now, I know there have been reptile dominant periods in Earth's history, so it isn't impossible for...
In my conworld, the inhabitants have futuristic technology and use armour that is made of primarily wood but will absorb bullet impacts and even armour-piercing rounds. It is cited as being very fi...
For starters, I'll describe what I'm going for with this species (I'll call them White Hairs because, you guessed it, they have white hair) They are humanoid with pale gray skin, tall and pointed, ...
The aliens in question aren't of a hive mind in the strictest sense (instead of many drones answering to a leadership caste each organism acts as one cell, all of them are essentially 'the same ran...
Why I've Chosen Not to Handwave: The fictional galaxy in which this humanoid species (I'll refer to them as Empaths from here on out) lives is protected by a space-faring military/law-enforcing leg...
I am thinking of writing a story about a Martian civilization. It might involve humans, but, I think it will be more interesting if there are creatures adapted to the Martian lifestyle as well. So,...
As the title says, what modification is needed, so a creature cannot fart while still being able to excrete their waste? So creatures that can't excrete or doesn't have an anus like the Demodex i...
Carbon dioxide turns supercritical above a pressure of 73 atm and 304.25 K (31.10 °C). The surface of Venus fullfils these conditions. The density of the air at the surface is 67 kg/m3, whi...
Background: It is sometime in the late 21st century. Several unmanned probes have recently been sent to land on and investigate Jupiter and Saturn's moons. Two sites in particular, Europa and Titan...
Iron planets are planets which lack a significant mantle. These planets are essentially lone planetary cores. Since water and iron are unstable together iron pentacarbonyl and other exotic metal-ba...
Imagine a world where human beings can be organically enhanced to peak physical strength/ speed/ agility and maybe even gain telekinetic abilities to some extent. This enhancement is caused by the ...
I would like to have giant sand worms similar to the ones in the 'Dune' novel. What should the planet be like so that they are realistic? Giant sand worms are roughly 100m long and 5 meters in diam...
In many movies, alien species often have the ability to impregnate "every and any" species and have their mutant offspring. I have a story setup where some, not so conscientious, scientists decide...
A bit of backstory: I'm attempting to create a militaristic alien race composed of elite warriors capable of conquering the galaxy. They posses a variety of "enhanced" abilities such as immense str...
How would human appearance be different from what it is now if our circulatory system used Hemocyanin for oxygen transport instead of Hemoglobin? Limitations, restrictions, additional details, etc...
I've been thinking of the idea of creating and adding an alien species that's antimatter-based (being from a universe where antimatter became the majority instead of "normal matter"). However, I'm...
I'm working on a sci fi story where one of the species has batlike wings and comes from a moon around the size of Titan with roughly the same atmospheric pressure as Earth. Initially, I thought the...
A group of scientists discover a heretofore unknown species of fungus. unbeknownst to them, let's say it is of extraterrestrial origin but it operates very much like certain fungi on Earth (e.g. op...
I'm building an alien world for an artistic project. The world circles an m-dwarf star, and so the flora have evolved to photosynthesize longer wavelengths of light than on Earth, primarily in the ...
My setting has a lush rainforest planet, which houses some of the most feared animals in the galaxy. The abundance of food would make competition tougher and tougher over millions of years of adapt...
I'm interested that some ULF (ultra-low frequencies, especially the 17 HZ zone) can cause humans to experience sensations of fear, trembling, or even claims of seeing ghostly apparitions. What an i...
If there were people with wings, who didn't want to be naked all the time, what clothing could they wear, without it interfering with their flying? Note: I am assuming arm-wings, like birds, but y...
Could a species with an incredibly advanced electroreceptive organ (such as that of a shark) be able to use it above water? The gas-mix in which the sense works must be breathable to humans, and it...
i want to make my dragon spew/breath explosion mix with the gizzard stone fragments/shrapnel rather than common fire breath like a flamethrower but more like a shotgun. so is there any explosion c...
My planet is a frozen world. Roughly the size of earth and in a perpetual ice age. The planet has very cold temperatures at night and during the day its surface becomes very bright. The intense sol...
