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The Species Factory; Empty your mind
Topic Started: Nov 6 2014, 06:54 PM (33,404 Views)
Sayornis
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A speculative animal based on Escher's Curl-Up. It moves by curling its whole body into a wheel, head at the center, and using limbs to kick itself along.

Posted Image

This could evolve from a lizard or some sort of arthropod-- or both could exist in an environment where rolling was a useful form of movement. Such as the floors of The Library, maybe.
The Library is open. (Now under new management!)
Dr Nitwhite
Aug 19 2016, 07:42 PM
As I said before, the Library is like spec crack.
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GlarnBoudin
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Could work. There's already lizards that do something like that (Armadillo girdled lizards, anyone?), so taking it a bit farther wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Also, an entelodont-like descendant of Kaprosuchus. Because nightmares, that's why.
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Sayornis
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Last night I was reading about the Rat King of German folklore, and started thinking about how to create a reasonably plausible spec creature based on it. Perhaps a species of social (maybe eusocial) rat which can intwine their tails and coordinate their movements through vocal or tactile cues, so that a group of them moves like a single radial creature, and separate and rejoin as needed. Or they simply form defensive formations (perhaps around young, injured companions, or the queen of a eusocial colony) with all the rats facing outward, like this sculpture:

Posted Image

I'm considering developing this into a proper post for The Library, but anyone is free to borrow the idea if they're interested (especially because I will be fairly busy tomorrow and later this week).
Edited by Sayornis, Aug 22 2016, 11:17 AM.
The Library is open. (Now under new management!)
Dr Nitwhite
Aug 19 2016, 07:42 PM
As I said before, the Library is like spec crack.
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Mach-Point
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I've noticed that we tend to focus on animals rather than plants.

What if flowering plants adapted to live in polar regions? Could that ever happen? What effect would that have on animal life? Has that been done?

I'm just trying to be part of the smart person club here.

EDIT: I meant to say LARGE flowing plants. I am well aware of the fact that there are flowing plants in the arctic but most of them are small and not tree-sized.
Edited by Mach-Point, Aug 22 2016, 06:17 PM.
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Dragonthunders
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I feel that the main problem for the evolution of these plants is the soil, most there is frozen, in other words permafrost, it dont give chance for proper development of the roots to get deep enough and also a proper growth (is for that there is only little plants)
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Mach-Point
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Dragonthunders
Aug 22 2016, 06:37 PM
I feel that the main problem for the evolution of these plants is the soil, most there is frozen, in other words permafrost, it dont give chance for proper development of the roots to get deep enough and also a proper growth (is for that there is only little plants)
There are huge conifer forests near the arctic though. That's what I was trying to say.
What if those conifers were replaced by cold-resistant flowing plants? Could that happen?
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LittleLazyLass
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Perhaps some sort of a symbiotic relationship with a type of animal?
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Mach-Point
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LittleIslander
Aug 22 2016, 08:01 PM
Perhaps some sort of a symbiotic relationship with a type of animal?
They could be pollinated by white arctic hummingbirds. The fruit would be eaten by snow monkeys.
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GlarnBoudin
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Had an idea for kinda-viviparous birds, and I wanted to get your opinion on just how plausible it is.

Basically, a bird that takes to laying its eggs later and later, due to a harsh environment, that develops a large, expansive cloaca (Or whatever the term is for where birds keep their eggs before laying them) to store them. There is a risk, however, of the egg hatching while inside this pseudo-womb, the shards of the eggshell causing internal bleeding and the hatchling suffocating, killing both the parent and the baby. To avoid this, the bird develops tougher, more durable walls for its egg storage space-maybe stretchier as well?-in order to keep the eggshell shards from damaging it whenever this happens, ensuring that the parent, at the very least, survives to lay another day.
Eventually, this evolution effects the offspring itself-it hatches from the egg fully capable of pushing its way out of its mother's 'womb,' sort of like how mammal babies are born. The shards of the eggshell are excreted after the infant has managed to get out as well.
Edited by GlarnBoudin, Aug 23 2016, 08:49 AM.
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Dragonthunders
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Mach-Point
Aug 22 2016, 07:50 PM
Dragonthunders
Aug 22 2016, 06:37 PM
I feel that the main problem for the evolution of these plants is the soil, most there is frozen, in other words permafrost, it dont give chance for proper development of the roots to get deep enough and also a proper growth (is for that there is only little plants)
There are huge conifer forests near the arctic though. That's what I was trying to say.
What if those conifers were replaced by cold-resistant flowing plants? Could that happen?
I dont think that conifers would be somehow replaced by angiosperms (At least if you're making a "what if" scenario where conifers would be extinct or a terraformed planet which the only plants are angiosperms)
For other things, In fact there are some species of flowering trees living in such areas, and especially the same conditions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betula_pubescens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbus_aucuparia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_pauciflora

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The Future is Far
Welcome to the next chapters of the evolution of life on earth, travel the across the earth on a journey that goes beyond the limits, a billion years of future history in the making.

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Wonder what is the big of the big on speculative evolution? no problem, here is the answer

Coming one day
Age of Mankind
Humanity fate and its possible finals.

The Long Cosmic Journey
The history outside our world.

The alternative paths
The multiverse, the final frontier...

Holocene park: Welcome to the biggest adventure of the last 215 million years, where the age of mammals comes to life again!
Cambrian mars: An interesting experiment on an unprecedented scale, the life of a particular and important period in the history of our planet, the cambric life, has been transported to a terraformed and habitable mars in an alternative past.
Two different paths, two different worlds, but same life and same weirdness.




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Deinosuchus55
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I had an idea for two species of reptiles (I call them drakons: 25-30 feet long) native to a whole new planet that I made up. They are the top predators, and descended from bearded dragons.
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HangingThief
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Sayornis
Aug 14 2016, 08:58 AM
A speculative animal based on Escher's Curl-Up. It moves by curling its whole body into a wheel, head at the center, and using limbs to kick itself along.

Posted Image

This could evolve from a lizard or some sort of arthropod-- or both could exist in an environment where rolling was a useful form of movement. Such as the floors of The Library, maybe.
There's a caterpillar that does this, only without the pushing itself along part. There's also a spider that moves with rapid somersaults.
Hey.


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peashyjah
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Joschua Knüppe
Aug 6 2016, 04:40 AM
Here some sketches.

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These creatures looked awesome and they also sound interesting.
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HangingThief
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Why would marine rodents swim like fish? Nearly all other aquatic mammals (including beavers) bend their spines up and down.
Edited by HangingThief, Aug 24 2016, 03:47 PM.
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Ivan_The_Inedible
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I think it has to do with the way murids swim, specifically with tail movement, though I very well could be wrong about it.
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