Posts tagged evolution
For a story I require an intelligent [drepanosaur]. But to work with the plot the creature needs to still have traits that don't mix well with classical vertebrate evolution of intelligence. Requi...
This is the kinkajou: It looks vaguely similar to a monkey - it has grasping digits on its forelimbs, it has a prehensile tail like some New World monkeys, and it primarily eats fruit - but it is ...
My world - basically Earth all along, unless told otherwise - is populated by humans and few fantasy-based "races" (actually, species - any interbreed offspring, if possible, is infertile): elves, ...
First of all I would like to precise what my species of wyverns actually are. I do not plan to make them huge and gigantic like in many fantasy worlds. Instead they are rather small and can be the ...
This question is inspired by the last paragraph of my answer here: Negating the negative effects of childbearing (A follow up question to this can be found here: Methods to ensure gene flow in spe...
Imagine a race of humanoids who only eat meat, and are unable to digest vegetables. Is it possible for these humanoid to be able too create/gather enough food(meat) to the point that job specializ...
In pillbugs, sex is determined by two chromosomes: Z and W. Individuals who inherit two Zs develop as males, while ZW individuals become female. But in some populations, these rules are over...
The Background I have a species of intelligent humanoids roughly modelled after bears. They're hulking great grizzly-sized solitary mesocarnivores. Genus Homo and descended from H. sapiens, but si...
What characteristics (compare those of a mountain goat foot: good grip on rocks, doesn't slip off, etc) would the foot of a dog or a wolf need to have to be useful in rocky settings such as mountai...
I have an arboreal snail whose diet consists of largely fruit, would it be feasible through its natural bodily processes it turns part of these fruits into palatable alcohol to secrete as a defense...
Is it feasible for an ectoparasite such as a a Tick to create a symbiotic relationship with its host? The hosts feeds the tick and the tick has some sort of beneficial substance within its saliva. ...
I request some help with the design of one particular denizen of my fantasy world, tentatively named Boar Troll. It needs to be an ungulate or closely related creature with emerging sentience, and...
Assuming there were no extinction level threats to the dinosaurs, and they never fully died off (and survived the following ice ages), how would this affect the evolution and technology use of huma...
On an Earth analog, assuming all the selective pressures necessary are there, how large can a flower's bloom evolve to be? I'm referring the the vegetative part of the flower, the petals! I have no...
This just out of curiosity and interest, could something like the marsupilami exist in our world? If you don't know, the marsupilami is pretty much a bipedal, arboreal monkey like monotreme (egg-la...
Is it plausible for a species of ant that inhabits a mangrove-like marine environment to have their abdomen evolve into a tail-like appendage for swimming to move from tree to tree to forage?
Imagine a sessile, multi-cellular slime like organism (or whatever necessary) awaits in a burrow or along a tree branch. Then an animal lands in its ooze and is trapped and soon paralyzed by its ve...
I have a small isolated archipelago. Is it feasible that the flora of the island through natural selection (with animals favoring bigger fruits) has been steered to evolve large, plump fruits of th...
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...
Somewhat similar questions have been posed before, but what I'm really interested in is what selection pressures would be necessary to produce a subspecies of giant humans, about three meters in he...
The 'Before' Picture Imagine if African Wild Dogs developed the ability to float. There is no scientific explanation to how they can float; it's just happened and we do not need to know why. The d...
I came up with a pretty creative idea: An alien life form having an organ near to the brain that translates information out of the blood stream into feelings. My questions: The medium of communi...
There have been several discussions about mechs, and the general consensus is - whilst cool, they're not actually a very good design. Plausible Reasons for usage of Combat Mecha What I was wonder...
So we all know that the majority of sea creatures use fins that move either from side to side or up and down to propel themselves. But our boats don't do that. Our boats use propellers - a rotatio...
Premise On Earth the seas have numerous filter feeding species, large and small, sustaining themselves on the microscopic nutrients and organisms that drift in the current. The largest animal evol...
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:...
Humans (and mammals) have 2 lungs, one right and the another left. The right lung has 3 lobes and the left have 2 lobes because in the "third" there is the heart, so the right lung is bigger than t...
As far as I have been able to determine, the majority of life reuses the same plumbing for reproductive and digestive/excretory systems. In fact, the anus is believed to be derived from the male go...
So, I am working on a species called the Vosians, who hail from the planet Vos. They are a species of eusocial insectoids, much like Earth ants. Biology The Vosians are about 3 feet tall, or 0.9 ...
I'm designing a world with a humanoid race, which has two sexes, male which is analogue to human male, and hermaphrodite which is analogue to human women with additional male reproductive organs, l...
I know that practially all other terrestrial invertebrates are inherently limited in size, primarily by their exoskeletons, and by their respiratory systems, which impose upper thresholds on their ...
I know it looks like a lot of topics but hear me out here. I am not talking about some nonsense explanation for this ability but more of an evolutionary process. Imagine that for numerous generat...
Cerberus was a three headed dog, commonly depicted with a collar and tail of snakes. Such an organism is quite difficult to justify, but how can such a creature appear that way? Is there a realist...
I have been thinking about which mutants from Marvel are most realistic and Zeitgeist comes to mind. Long story short, his power is weaponized acidic vomit. He can spew it a few meters away at will...
Okay, following my previous core question, after the apocalypse, one of my sets of survivors in this setting, the Usnay, managed to live in a fleet of ships for over a thousand years. This is pro...
So far, we see an alien life form depicted based on earth type of animal kingdom, we see an insect like Zerg, a humanoid grey alien, etc. However sometimes we see alien like Guardians of galaxy's ...
Usually, forms of life are associated with organisms like humans, plants and animals. The probability that such can evolve in an environment is very low due to the many constraints that have to be ...
The Hoatzin is a jungle bird whose only remarkable trait, other than looking fabulous, is that their wings have fingers. Is it possible that these wing fingers could evolve into arms? What abou...
So, on the planet Qualis, a reptilian species, known as the modern Qualians, evolved about 200,000 years. Before that, most fighting was down with claws and teeth, and the Qualian ancestor that had...
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...
Why this question is different from existing questions... The closest question to mine is Anatomically Correct Cerberus. It is clear from the answers to that question and indeed it's axiomatic to ...
Premise Suppose a cult has been receiving special "visions" of doom far off into the future. Even though this prophecy of doom is not impending in the here and now, these cultists are very long-te...
Note: this is not a duplicate of Anatomically correct Giants or What would be the tallest possible height for humanlike creatures in earthlike conditions? because my giants are far from humanoid. A...
We know that as a planet increases in size, its surface gets covered by oceans (more water is captured by gravity and shape is more spherical). Therefore, a planet larger than Earth can not have a ...
I am currently working on a world with a "human" species. The planet is similar to ours and these "humans" would evolve in a similar environment. I know that bio-luminescence appears mainly where ...
This is part of a series of questions about biological hydraulics, the fist one being here. My tetrapods have hydraulics in the thighs of their hind legs. To push or pull fluid from closed chambe...
What feature could more feasible evolve in a humanoid race, related to humans or not, that could be mistaken at first glance and/or conflated into by word of mouth exaggerating things, wings?
An integral species in a large worldbuilding project I'm working on right now is based around the concept of extreme agility. The species shall be a megafauna (Is that grammatically correct - "a m...
Life had been good for a certain class of tetrapods. They evolved two layers graphene in a specialized collagen creating a relatively thin yet seemingly impenetrable hide. All of their natural pre...
In my fictional world I am planning to have a humanoid species living on an arctic continent, and I am wondering what type of biological adaptations a humanoid (as in, anatomically modern humans or...
