Posts tagged evolution
Cats in New York City are an invasive species that are a plague to the animal kingdom. It is well documented that these bloodthirsty psychopaths are responsible for the murder of billions of innoce...
We all know Pikachu, fuzzy, small rodent, with the ability to discharge electrical energy as an attack. But could Pikachu ever evolve in our world, and how would it do so? What's required: Rod...
I am working on an extraterrestrial class of tetrapod-like organisms. To give them an evolutionary advantage, I am considering biological hydraulics to supplement the muscles in the hind legs. Ev...
I envisioned a world where people are not bounded by marriage and females are free to choose those who they deem "accomplished" and have offspring with him. The males "occasionally" interact with ...
Basically, a sun-synchronous orbit is where one side of an object is always facing a star as it revolves around it (much like our Moon is, which is where the phrase 'dark side of the moon' originat...
Assume these homo super-dwarf aka fairy and homo sapiens come from a common ancestor, and somehow they evolved a pair of wings and can do vertical takeoff. The average adult is approximately the ...
What would humans look like if they were genetically suited for life under a giant orange star like Iota Draconis ? These would be people who were genetically indistinguishable from humans from ear...
Preface Evolution is great for trial and error over millennia. It creates wonderfully intelligent creatures that are suitable for a variety of habitats. All it needs to start with is a creature th...
Given there is no other species that can do the job better. How much can you change a species to fulfill a specific task. The evolution of horses was pretty extreme from what I remember. Are those...
Medieval bestiaries describe a creature, a type of desert-dwelling ant that digs for gold. It was also said to be the size of a fox, but I'll ignore that in this question. Why would ants unearth p...
These dragons spend most of their lives in the ocean, however during the mating season they will migrate inland and gather together on a mountain top. Throughout the journey they will cease feeding...
In the stone-age world that I am building, I don't just want one-dimensional characters who are either hunters or gatherers. I want a great quantity of people including those who would have become ...
Here is the scenario: A Paleo/Mesozoic mass extinction wiped out 96% of all terrestrial species, and the only plants that survived were as follows: One genus of conifer One genus of cycad One ge...
...kill every protohuman who tries to leave the African continent. This comment made me think about one question. Suppose you have robot guards, like futuristic lasers, who just shoot at any ...
Many mythological humans vary in depictions. Let's use Trolls from Scandinavia as an example. Some are said to be giants compared to humans (I'd imagine twice the height), and some, like Danish Tro...
A classical trope of fantasy is lizardfolk, or a similar species by another name (see for instance the Argonians of Elder Scrolls fame). In general, though, we're dealing with: Bipedal, often pl...
Please avoid the obvious jokes. Now I know there are different versions of the Greek monster Typhon, so first I will try to describe its properties. Incredibly large roughly 50-100 feet tall, al...
A while ago, I asked a bunch of questions about my alternate Earth timeline, which contains plausible fantasy creatures. One of the concepts I've devised more recently is a solution for mermaids (M...
As a series of anatomically correct myths, here we have the Cyclops. One of the most similar creatures to man but with 'one' noticeable difference, one eye. It seems that land animals love their tw...
In ancient Mesopotamian mythology, Humbaba was an evil giant slain by the hero Gilgamesh in the famous Epic of Gilgamesh. In the epic, there was only one Humbaba, but for the purposes of this quest...
As a series of anatomically correct myths, here we have the Nuckelavee. Is there a realistic way that Nuckelavee could evolve? Using Earth or near-Earth biology, how close could I get to the classi...
The tomte is a creature from scandinavian mythology. It's pretty small, humanoid and has clothes and a beard. They live on farms and in houses where they help out with farmwork and other labour, th...
So here's the deal: In a D&D-fantasy-style world, the continent of Archaon is inhabited by a wide variety of elves, whose physical characteristics vary based on their dwellings. The forest elv...
As a series of anatomically correct myths, here we have the griffin. Is there a realistic way that griffins could evolve? Using Earth or near-Earth biology, how close could I get to the classic gri...
I would like a realistic evolutionary path for non-hominid humanoids, but evolution is extremely complex and varied, so I will narrow the question to examining how evolution might occur in felines ...
We, humans, hold a lot of livestock. 19 billion in chickens alone. Cattle, sheep and pigs each also number over 1 billion. Currently these animals cannot evolve freely; they are selected on certain...
The Nanaue (there is no wiki link) is a Hawaiian creature of myth. It is a shark with arms and legs. It can live in both the ocean and on the land. So how do I create the monstrosity that is, the l...
As per my last two questions asked, I still have a niggling query left regarding a humanoid species in production. To further support their matriarchal theme through evolution, I have decided to ma...
I'm looking to create a species of marsupial that is heavily K select, which is to say they put significant effort into raising their young after birth (both of them :P ) in which both the male and...
Can we go from this: to this: Suppose over millennia (or as long as it takes) humans on Earth are artificially selected by aliens to be big and healthy. Is there any theoretical reason that ...
Following my last question asked regarding oviparous humanoids, is there a way for evolution to 'regard' females as the more dominant gender without going down that road, forming a heavily matriarc...
I am currently working a humanoid roughly deer-like species in a sci-fi roleplay setting, and one of the developments I have had with such species has me stuck trying to explain it in a way that ma...
continuing from the question I had asked yesterday, I have had another query come to mind. For my humanoid alien species to possess horns, it would surely put forward the risk of being the shortcut...
Scenario: An Earth that is identical to our own (for the sake of being specific let's say the environment is the same as it was in 1 BCE) The planet is uninhabited by humans (and no there aren't...
In my world the resident humanoids evolve from beaver sized aquatic axolotls.The only land on the planet can be considered mountainous terrain. Imagine a volcanic crater where only the rim surfaces...
A creature I am imagining is a small mammal about the size of a domestic cat which - through symbiotic bacteria which live in its fur - is covered its whole body over in blue-white bioluminescence,...
I've recently become interested in the possibility of silicon based life. Assume these creatures developed on a planet with zero carbon (don't question, just accept it), so they have no carbon in t...
I want to add realistic elements to a futuristic environment I am working on. Realistically, the animals we know of today will change over time and it's more likely smaller ones would survive, so I...
What would birds look like if they did not have to fight gravity to fly? The question comes from the premise put forward by some that gravity is not real and that what holds us down is pressure ca...
A centaur as we all know is a horse with a human head (and torso). I would like to consider a reverse centaur, which, for the purposes of this question, I will define to be a human with a horse's ...
While by no means a smoking gun, there is still a reasonable amount of empirical evidence on the notion that socialization and testosterone are negatively correlated. Archaeological Evidence Fro...
Okay, so I have this binary planet system. The main planet a bit bigger than earth with a size appropriate moon-planet. Both are habitable and with a humanoid species that evolved there. But, I k...
Say in a post nuclear holocaust world, elephants managed to survive and adapt. It can consume and digest iron and steel and grow two rows of metallic tusks. When threatened the elephant will lift u...
For the purpose of this question (to make the idea more plausible) a vampire is not an undead creature. Rather: A vampire is a human, infected by a symbiotic virus; The virus is present in a vamp...
(First post on StackExchange, hello world!) The project that I'm currently working on involves a Binary Planet system, both with life, although I'm only focusing on one. This planet has a climate ...
So, I made the slight mistake of worldbuilding by starting off with just a planet's local sentient species and working from there. This species, the Trillek, have a more or less theropod appearanc...
Prior to the Cambrian, there have been three separate ice ages--the Huronian, from 2.4 to 2.1 billion years ago; and the two Cryogenian ice ages, from 720 to 635 million years ago, split in such by...
I'm currently working on a world where there are two groups of dragons, Continent dragons and island dragons. The basic story is that long ago there was one massive population of dragons that lived...
I apologize if this question is not written up to standards, I am rather new to this site. I have been an avid fan of chucklefish's acclaimed sandbox title, Starbound, for a number of years now a...
How could a humanoid race and/or a human subspecies develop eusocial behavior? It's more common in insects like bees, but the naked mole rat is a eusocial mammal, so it's possible, any thoughts on ...