Posts tagged xenobiology
I'm worldbuilding a species X that doesn't have males. All members are females. X reproduces sexually using males from related species Z. There it combines the shared chromosomes but passes unique...
The terrestrial "vertebrates" of my planet must breathe air, and therefore must have lungs of some kind. They are descended from fish-like creatures, which breathe through gills. However, I would ...
So, I'm currently toying around with the idea of a hypercarnivorous sapient race on a planet in my universe, and I'd like to make them scary, but without abiding only by the "rule of cool". (Also n...
(Question in highlighted text) So, the chances are that you've heard of brine pools, which form when methane erupting from the seabed expose ancient salt deposits - the concentrated salt mixes wit...
I was asking a deviantART.com artist why they often draw their anthros and furries with wide hips regardless of gender, and they told me this (copypasting): "I'll see if I can't whip something up ...
This is a partial extension to this question: What kind of natural armor would stop bullets? I was wondering if a creature could grow armor in such a way which would allow for it to detach a porti...
So I was designing some aliens who exhale colder air that they take in and one person gave me a really great suggestion, using phase change materials in the creature's make up to absorb the heat fr...
I've got a subspecies of human, Homo Volantes, that has been designed to live both in zero-G and in surface gravity. Several adaptations have been made, one of them including the replacement of fra...
I'm playing around with a story idea that includes vacuum dwelling intelligent life, but I'm not sure I understand the constraints of biochemistry I need to deal with. There's lots of potential s...
Suppose that there is a moon, orbiting a gas giant, and that gas giant is a rogue planet - it moves freely through the universe, unbound by the gravity of a star. This means that one, the moon will...
Say that you have a medium-sized, bipedal, vertebrate-like creature. It no longer has the need to have arms, so they atrophied until they disappeared entirely. Now imagine an animal that shares s...
Beneath the sands of the Planet Dalia, their lives an abominable creature, a creature that eats beings whole and slowly, slowly digests them for years at a time. This creature is...The Tayan. Wor...
So, there is a great beast called the Tayan. It burrows itself into the ground, and eats all creatures unfortunate enough to fall in. The Tayan's throat has muscles that push food down into its sto...
Excerpt from the great Dalian Holy Book "The Dark God, the Tayan, was first formed when the gods above sent a curse down to the surface, to remind our people of our dependence on our gods. If the ...
I'm designing an alien world on which its creatures evolved from four-eyed early life forms. However, there is a fair amount of other beings that have six or even eight eyes. How could such creatur...
I was just wondering if it would be possible for a planet to have life that only uses noble gases in their biology. Like for example breathing in certain noble gases like Argon or Krypton for ener...
I am making a universe and I thought that it would be unrealistic for all life forms in my entire universe to be based upon carbon. I am aware of silicon as a possible replacement, but I'm looking...
I am working on creating a sapient reptilian species from a mineral-rich Planet that has very little flora. I was wanting this species to use a super acid (specifically fluoroantimonic acid) excret...
I just want big cat eyes (i.e., lions, tigers, etc.) in a humanoid that can be just as expressive as a human's yet not having our very conspicuous eye-whites. Doable, yes or no?
So, there is a monstrous creature called the Tayan. It was created many thousand years ago by a hyper advanced race that created it as a sort of biological torture mechanism. It's so huge it can ...
Here on Earth, Carbon is the base of all life from plants to fungi to animals. The most common alternative that exists is Silicon, but surely out of the over 100 elements other than Carbon and Sili...
Let's assume that our intelligent alien organism is living on an earth like planet with an atmosphere but higher gravity. Its world is on the verge of doom. Somehow it could make it to earth with a...
Epimetheus is a planet with about three times the mass of Earth orbiting a sun-like star in the Andromeda galaxy. However, two major factors separate Epimetheus from Earth. First, it has a thick at...
I found this thing source: http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Flying_Nightmare In its dormancy it folds itself and it rooted to the ground. However when it detects prey, it hovers above and engulfs i...
I'm inspired by the comments discussion on a (now deleted) question by XandarTheZenon. We're preconditioned to think in terms of a 2-sex lifeform, which is natural with diploid genetic material, an...
I'm trying to envision a creature that is highly dexterous, and adept at using tools, but every time I try to think of a possible grasping appendage, the only two I come up with are either tentacle...
I have a humanoid species that developed a third eye in their forehead and was wondering what could be the reason they evolved this way or what advantages it would bring?
In the National Geographic mini-series Extraterrestrial or Alien Worlds, they featured a hypothetical gas giant moon called the Blue Moon. The Blue Moon orbits a binary star, has a very dense atmos...
In my story there is a humanoid alien race, that looks almost exactly like humans, but as you might have guessed, are boneless. Just to be clear, I'm not interested in reasons why they would evolv...
I have a species that is humanoid but has two sets of arms and I was wondering what reasons there could be for why they evolved that way?
In the future, we created a Dyson Swarm. Each node (which I'd like to call a Gigalga) is an asteroid-sized, biotechnological, space-adapted, sentient plant that speaks the same evolved language as...
Or would that eye be the most well-defended from external debris and whatnot in the entire world? Cats seem to get by just fine without eyelids and a membrane but no eyelashes...likewise humans wit...
I'm developing a tree that has a peculiar fruit. Instead of having water in said fruit, there is nothing but sugar. The tree pumps sugar into a hollow orb which slowly "bakes," caramelizing into an...
Before I start, let me say that I know that what animals think and feel and whether they do it is a highly, highly debated topic. But, for this question, let us just assume that many animals think ...
I've been thinking, could there possibly be an organism that is based on the element of helium? If yes, what would it look like? (Images are welcome)
I have a super-earth world. The surface of the world is shallower due to extra gravity, so shorter mountain ranges and less ocean depths. The world orbits a binary star system at a distance of the ...
So, on the Jungle world of Qualis, the Qualian species evolved from small, tiny lizards to intelligent humanoid who dominated their planet. They built cities, from small towns to large metropolises...
So, I'm designing an alien race, called the ___________. They live on planet ________. My question is, what type of biology could make creature get effects similar to alcohol, but with sugar?
I am trying to develop an alien species that could live on Titan and at first I supposed it would be easy with the species being able to use yellow, red and near-infrared wavelengths of light to se...
Premise By definition, an ectotherm uses environmental heat sources to regulate its own body temperature. The most common forms of body heat regulation that we observe from ectotherms here on Eart...
I've been curious about writing about a very durable exoskeleton humanoid species, but I have wondered about how the extra weight of a thick exoskeleton would affect their height. I do not see th...
My dragons all develop in similar ways. There are 4 developmental cases depending on what limbs the dragon has. First case: All limbs If the dragon has all 4 limbs here is how it develops. First,...
This is my first post on these forums, sorry if I've accidentally overlooked any rules or etiquette. Please let me know if more detail is necessary or would be helpful. This question is about a spe...
Simple question I think, I have some Idea of the answer but would like the ol' second opinion. Vertebrates use olfactory glands in their nostrils (or thereabouts) to sense smell, as well as the roo...
I imagined a creature that would have an expanded lifespan thanks to a regular production of stem cells that would replace the damaged cells. During its very long lifetime, when it eats food (the ...
Is it possible for massive clumps of algae to evolve and survive in deep space? Let's say there is an expanding red star in a system with asteroids and planets once containing organic molecules, ...
On earth, the skeletons of Osteicthyes and all their descendants are made of a mixture of collagen and calcium. We can do this because Earth contains food sources for all these animals containing v...
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...
On Earth, all plants are green because they contain the pigment chlorophyll, which photosynthesizes by absorbing all light except green light. However, it is quite possible - if not likely - that ...
From my understanding, many of the features of water that make it very important for Earth's ecosystem are a result of oxygen's high electronegativity, which results in hydrogen bonding. As nitrog...
