Posts tagged biology
Could a world with no animals whatsoever (not even insects, no humans, etc) still have plant life? These plants do not have to include all the plants in our world, or even any of the same plants. I...
Humans developed martial arts to give themselves an advantage in combat against untrained, but possibly stronger or better-armed opponents. Presumably, martial arts are one way of making up for the...
While Prionosuchus and other large temnospondyls are definitely imposing and capable of causing mortal harm, they still adhere to a distinctly salamander-like profile. Anurans (relating to frogs...
In some parts of the world, termites are consumed opportunistically by humans. I'm considering the possibility of using mound-building fungus-farming macrotermes as livestock for a culture of corvi...
The older man looked at the younger one. He took a deep breath and began to tell his tale, just like he was told before when he himself was that young. I've been here way longer than you, let m...
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...
What I am imagining is some sort of gargantuan beast that encloses a star with its monstrous jaws and then feeds off the rays released by the sun to power itself. I am curious what kind of creatur...
I'd like to have a large underground world. Imagine the "Underdark" which will be familiar with DnD folks. A huge network of large and small caverns connected by winding passageways. The occasio...
This excludes metal stakes, knives etc. to the heart, it's not the bleeding out that's the issue. Just for some reason, a wooden stake to the heart ends a vampire. Why? Assume the type of vampire ...
I'm thinking of making a species that evolved in a planet that has a type of algae that secretes a nutrient rich sludge that the species only has to drink to survive. I know that this would make th...
I'm sure there have been questions on here about fire-breathing dragons, and I recently saw a question about a lightning-breathing dragon, but back in fifth grade I wrote a 150-page story about a d...
I am trying to figure out how to build a human colony on a moon (75% of Earth size) of a gas giant. Some details of the planetary system chosen for colonisation: K-type main sequence star (about...
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. ...
I'm thinking primarily in terms of the macronutrients, carbohydrates and proteins. I know that fats are 9 calories per gram and both proteins and carbohydrates are 4 calories per gram, which makes...
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...
Horizontal gene transfer via retroviruses that change an organism's germ line DNA exist, even in humans, and account for a minority but not insignificant portion of the genomes of many, if not most...
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...
There are many organisms that sometimes reproduce asexually and sometimes reproduce sexually (even snakes and sharks!). There are also a fair number of organism that reproduce sexually but have a ...
I am creating a planet which is similar to earth (but slightly smaller), with similar climates and resource distribution. It is inhabited by 3 races, one of which are humans, and the other relevant...
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...
I want to kill a huge Dragon. How to do this? The only description currently available of this Dragon is very short: "It looks like a lizard with two wings of bats and he swallowed our ship witho...
My source of inspiration and imagination... StarGate Atlantis Tv-Series: Wraith hive-ships were mainly biological. Genesis Rising Pc-game: The game itself, storyline, human technology, etc based ar...
I've recently read an article (Source: https://www.livescience.com/22146-why-don-t-any-animals-have-wheels.html) explaining why animals don't have wheels for locomotion, and that legs are common be...
Let me clarify on that title, because this question focuses specifically on vegetables that have not been cultivated for their fruits--like tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers and pumpkins--or ...
Is it reasonably possible for a type of human to exist that rapidly tans in the presence of large amounts of sun/radiation and loses it again afterwards, in a matter of minutes? Also, how might suc...
Imagine a character with a healing ability similar to Wolverine or Deadpool (as in able to recover from most injuries in minutes). The ability is always "on," and works like a sped-up version of th...
I've recently been replaying Skyrim (for about the fifth time now), and I've stumbled across something I thought would make for an interesting question. The Greybeards are a group of extremely pow...
The Nachtkrapp is a german version of the bogeyman or in a more general term a kind of bugbear. Nacht is the german word for night and Krapp is used in southern germany and austria as a word for ra...
I was thinking of a scenario in which a population of snakes gets stranded on an island in which they are literally the only animals. This hypothetical island does not even have insects for the sn...
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...
Assuming these vampires are genetically altered humans and not undead humans. What biological structure changes would you need to make vampires with the following parameters realistic. Abilities:,...
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 remember reading Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The protagonist is a an extremely strong man, capable of hand to paw combat with lions. The origin of his strength is attributed to living among g...
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...
The consensus (1, 2) is that the reason most continents have relatively few large animals compared to Africa is that humans, even stone age humans, were able to drive them to extinction. African a...
This world takes place in the remains of the Eastern United States, devastated by 3000 years of neglect and climate change. The Mississipi river is pretty much a gulf now, which has caused everythi...
I'm in the point of my story when two main characters meet each other, ally and start a rebellion against gods. One of my main characters is a wolf-girl (anime tendencies bruh) however she'll one o...
I'm looking for answers that focus on changes in internal anatomy that allow humans to survive in a high-g environment. If dramatic visible change can be avoided, that'd be great. Problems Circula...
We have escaped the galactic government, and now our greatest endeavour yet, life in space. How shall these gargantuan space entities move and travel through space? The whale or other in question...
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)...
In my fantasy story, elves live high up in giant trees (or at least something similar to a tree). These trees are so massive, that entire cities can be built on their branches. The branches have fl...
Is an alien lifeform covering itself comfortably in flames as a defense mechanism to wane off predators possible? I've heard of microbes surviving the extreme condition of outer space in complete v...
In my latest draft, a worm-like species buries itself deep below the crust of their world and consumes/gathers tiny amounts of heavy metals. Can you think of any plausible reason why a wormlike cr...
What would be the effects of high or low gravity on human body development? How would the human body develop under a different gravity? Many science fiction stories explore the idea that people fro...
Consider the sharingan, a power in the anime Naruto that strengthens with the hatred you have (yes, the Uchihas are like ninja Sith Lords XD). The sharingan is 'awakened' after the person experienc...
In this world, there are two trans-human species that are emerging at the same time. They vehemently despise each other and conflict is fast approaching. I would like to make the struggle between t...
My creature is a 'chimera', so it is a combination of a few different animals. As a defense (or an offense) mechanism, it can coat itself in a flammable oil and self ignite. I would prefer to refer...
I have a creature that, thanks to its multiple, unique DNA chains, is impervious to cancer. So now I will move on to the next aspect: energy production. This creature has two types of energy produ...
So for a story I'm working on I thought of a forest-dwelling predator (see the image for a design) which has a skin very sensitive to light (not in a painful way, just that it notices differences i...
