Posts tagged evolution
For my group of alien tetrapods, I would like to have them evolve a sort of built in protection against the elements and other organisms. While researching, I came across information on graphene, a...
I was thinking of a lifeforms that would have a brain more similar to that of a quantum computer than an ordinary brain. I was thinking the brain would use something similar to qubits that could be...
My race of arboreal humanoids has limb proportions very similar to those of a human apart from their slightly lengthened arms. They are already quite strong, and I'm hoping to add to their flexibi...
Let's say that, since the dawn of time, any time an organism has died, it has dissipated upon death. With no decaying matter to fertilize or produce future plants/animals, would life have adapted? ...
Zerg Overlords are flying alien creatures that aid their broods by managing lesser members of the swarm, transporting units within their carapaces, and alerting a hive about any danger they perceiv...
There have been countless online articles that go into painstaking detail about the implausibility of Godzilla existing in real life. But, let's just assume that a creature like Godzilla naturally ...
So, in my last question, I asked "How could an animal run fast using blade-like feet that sink into spongy ground?" The premise was that on my planet, forests grow not from soil but from spongy, ...
A submission for the Anatomically Correct Series. The plant genus Mandragora as we know today are nightshades that contain highly biologically active alkaloids that make them poisonous, with the...
Bonobos tend to solve disagreements through sex instead of violence, what might have caused this to evolve, or something similar to evolve in a sapient race of humanoids?
For my a story I'm writing, I have 3 species that are from the same evolution line; Kitsune's, Tanuki's, and Bakeneko/Nekomatas. All three are familiar in the lines of shapeshifiting animals. Thei...
Imagine a world where a creationist situation holds: God (or an alien master species, if you prefer) created all the species you see in the world today, and there will never be any others. Are th...
We all know what the minotaur is and what it looks like, a buff man with the head and tail of a bull. But could this creature evolve? Could it even exist? If a Minotaur could exist, what environmen...
I am writing a book, and I want to create either a sentient fungoid or plant and I wish for it to use hormones instead of neurons to transfer information. I'm not sure how this would work and affec...
I am creating a species for my alien world that will be seen as 'holy' by the planets dominant religion. I'd like to know if my 'holy' species could viably exist biologically/evolutionarily. Assu...
There's this creature that swims over the surface of water and it's giant, almost the size of a whale and has thick scales as armor over its back. This creature almost never dives underwater so fro...
In my world, I am attempting to design a primitive organism to be the ancestor of life on an artificial planet with all chemicals necessary for life. I want the organism to be as small as possible ...
We are used to a world where humans are basically an apex predator; we don't really need to worry much about becoming some other animal's next meal. If that wasn't the case, and humans had to be w...
Imagine life evolving on a planet. First creatures crawl out of the ocean and start colonizing the land. Then one of the species gets into such conditions where it needs to specialize in two differ...
CONTEXT/EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY A book that I'm currently writing called Surge features an enemy faction called the Degenerates that are heavily inspired by the Scythians (Indo-Iranian horse nomads t...
I am writing a story where a species undergoes devolution. Is there any scientific or plausible way to do this? The process can be instantaneous or may take ages, I do not mind which as I need to w...
In the game mass effect the Asari are an alien species...no one truly knows their shape and real form, but they do apear as sexy females to many other species, humans included. The asari can repro...
So I'm creating an original world with a number of creatures, and original peoples. One of the peoples has a two-speak language. One element, the base of the language, is based off of local mytholo...
So, in a post-apocalyptic setting, when humans have gone extinct and their cities fell into ruin, I was wondering what animals might evolve to conquer the ruins of our cities. Notice: I know that ...
I watched a youtube video on the Darwin IV probe mission to this planet has lower mass than the earth, about the size of Mars, and has a single sea. According to the movie, the microbes that reside...
I've been wondering about insular dwarfism, and would like to know if it only affects certain animals (Since some animals grow larger upon colonizing an island, often due to the absence of predator...
Plants can have very different pollinators: The wind, insects, and even birds. However, is there a conceivable scenario where a plant could naturally have evolved to depend on humans as pollinators...
I am thinking about the miniature kind of fae, like Tinker Bell. I think that class of faery would be the most likely to be able to fly realistically, due to the wingspan/body weight ratio. But wo...
In a question about mermaids, it was proposed that they might have evolved to look like humans to lure them in and prey on them. How could a creature survive on a diet of nothing but lured-in huma...
What I'm thinking about is simply an animal,any with a protective bony-like shell covering its eyes. The shell must be openable for clear vision but when closed the animal still has the ability t...
On Earth, most animals have tongues, albeit in many forms. This is due to the evolution from a common ancestor. Tongues are not necessary for communication, be it auditory or otherwise. However, th...
There was an orbital station; a huge torus, as known from sci-fi. It was a luxurious place for people from dusty planets to relax at, and spend hard-earned money in environments resembling Earth fr...
I have a species of ambush predators that are going to be sentient space-farers one day. But to get them on that path I need them to evolve hands, which will lead to tools, and so on. They come f...
Immediately after the apocalypse, a call went out for able-bodied adults in what was considered a noble death sentence at the time: go out into the radioactive wastes and begin to neutralize the fa...
There is this very weird species of bird that just can't get enough of delicious human flesh. But the bird has a problem - humans are big, smart, and social, so this little birdie has a unique skil...
Many other questions, as well as a few online sources, all agree that in order for me to have multiple sapient species in my world, they need to be either separated by a natural landscape or not a ...
Let's assume the planet has only one half the mass of the moon and is covered by shallow ocean. To eliminate water pressure at extreme depths, assume the ocean is also quite shallow, with a maximum...
Enter the [Insert cool and awesome Latin name here] - this species is 3 times the size of a lobster from front to tail, and a powerful hunter. Operating in swarms, they are my worlds equivalent of ...
BACKGROUND I'm working on a medieval world in which homo sapiens domesticated several other species of intelligent hominids during their prehistory, at first enslaving them to take advantage of sp...
So in my world I've got a mostly human like species but they've evolved to camouflage, specifically colour change. The world is an earth-like medieval fantasy. The different parts that appear to ch...
If there were a group of primates very similar to humans, and they had vomeronasal organs, what should the sensitivity or accuracy of such organs be? The race has a lengthened face to accommodate ...
Can life exist on a asteroid? If the asteroid can sustain life, when the asteroid crashes on a planet can life survive going through a atmosphere and landing and then living on a earth-like planet ...
QUESTION Other questions have covered what the physical structure of a humanoid giant might look like. Assuming that anatomically modern humans (or something close) were dispersed into several dis...
After circumstances make the shallow water in the oceans uninhabitable, great white sharks retreat to the deeper parts of the ocean, about 600 feet down (182 meters) to survive. The sharks can not ...
There are thousands of species of spiders on Earth. Ditto insects. And, prehistorically, there have been times when there have been several, or even half a dozen species of hominins in existence on...
When I played Zelda: Breath of the Wild and met the heavily redesigned Ritos, I took an immediate liking to their designs. Although the fact that they're fully bird-like helps, it's mostly because ...
I just thought of something. Carnivorous and dangerous monsters are often depicted as common and dangerous enemies in fantasy, especially things like RPGs, but in real life herbivores far outnumber...
If all humans (but no other species) just suddenly disappeared, leaving all of their structures standing, how long would it take for an intelligent species as dominant as the humans to evolve? Woul...
What factors could skew the sex ratio of an intelligent species, especially a humanoid/human sub-race? For example, say one race has markedly more females born than males, and another race has the ...
I am envisioning a world around a red dwarf star. The planet has violent and accelerated (due to higher geological activity) plate tectonics and has a magnetic field about 75% the strength of the E...
I am designing a creature for a tall tale I'm composing and I have apparently hit a wall when it comes to envisioning an environment that would promote the creation of an intelligent race of arachn...
