Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Speculative biology is simultaneously a science and form of art in which one speculates on the possibilities of life and evolution. What could the world look like if dinosaurs had never gone extinct? What could alien lifeforms look like? What kinds of plants and animals might exist in the far future? These questions and more are tackled by speculative biologists, and the Speculative Evolution welcomes all relevant ideas, inquiries, and world-building projects alike. With a member base comprising users from across the world, our community is the largest and longest-running place of gathering for speculative biologists on the web.

While unregistered users are able to browse the forum on a basic level, registering an account provides additional forum access not visible to guests as well as the ability to join in discussions and contribute yourself! Registration is free and instantaneous.

Join our community today!

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
The Species Factory; Empty your mind
Topic Started: Nov 6 2014, 06:54 PM (33,401 Views)
Hybrid
Member Avatar
May Specula Grant you Bountiful Spec!

Quote:
 

Basically, a fairly typical ankylosaur starts knocking down trees to get at the tasty leaves normally out of its reach, similarly to what elephants do today. Over the generations, the population's tail clubs start to flatten in order to more efficiently bring down trees, eventually becoming a horizontally flattened axe-like blade.

I don't see that being likely. If an ankylosaur was evolving to browse on higher vegetation, for whatever reason even though they were rather specialized to lower grown vegetation, they would do other things. A distant relative shows one way: the stegosaurs. Miragaia evolved a longer neck, rather then transformation their tail into an axe or whatever. This one is the most likely, probably with longer limbs and the like. The other one is simply leaning on trees to push them over. Ankylosaurs weren't lightweights, their weight could easily knock down many trees. The only thing is that this will likely causing leg injuries: which would be bad and make them more vulnerable to predators.

So if they were going to become browsers of higher growing vegetation, they would certainly follow what stegosaurs did: converge with sauropods. It might not be "wow axe tailed ankylosaur so cool and edgy (literally) it can cut the ankles off any large predators and cut raptors in half!", but it would certainly super interesting in its own regard: ankylosaurs, creatures who live low to the grow, specializing into sauropod-like forms.
Quote:
 
swim with an up-and-down motion

Considering only the base of the tail was flexible, they wouldn't be swimming very well.

Quote:
 
The dinosaurs also use this bladed tail to pat down soil on top of their eggs

The typical club could easily do this, if they would engage in that behaviour at all.
If I sound rude while critiquing, I apologize in hindsight!
"To those like the misguided; look at the story of Man, and come to your senses! It is not the destination, but the trip that matters. What you do today influences tomorrow, not the other way around. Love Today, and seize All Tomorrows!" - Nemo Ramjet
ノ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ヽ

Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Datura
Member Avatar
Adult
 *  *  *  *  *  *
Resident Anurognathid
Aug 31 2016, 11:07 AM
flashman63
Aug 24 2016, 09:49 PM
re: Flowering antarctic plants;

One of the major problems pointed out, in addition to all the normal hardships of arctic living, is permafrost, which makes setting down roots very difficult. Way I see it, there are two potential solutions to this problem; One, they're extremely long-lived and slow growing with a lot of energy devoted to expanding the roots. Over time, they grind away at the ice. Another, more interesting one, would be if a plant could potentially utilize some kind of chemical heating to periodically defrost the ground adjacent to its roots. Maybe it could naturally produce some kind of acidic citrus-like chemical, though I imagine that would take a lot of energy. A more interesting idea I thought of was some kind of cold-resistant bombardier beetle type. In addition to using the chemical to warm itself, it'll "donate" some to the plant, allowing it to survive the winter, and grow fruits to be eaten by the *Bombardier Beetle,.
I'm pretty sure a lot of flowering plants already exist well above the arctic circle, and survive the winters by either being perennial species or going dormant when temperatures plummet.

Edit- just saw that this was referring to antarctic flowering plants. My point still stands though.

I don't think flowering plants could exist on Antarctica in its current state. Way too inhospitable.
There are flowering plants in Antarctica.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colobanthus_quitensis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deschampsia_antarctica
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Adman
Member Avatar
Totally not lamna
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Well on the edge of the continent, yes. But nowhere near the interior of the continent.
Projects and concepts that I have stewing around
Extended Pleistocene- An alternate future where man died out, and the megafauna would continue to thrive (may or may not include a bit about certain future sapients)
Inverted World- An alternate timeline where an asteroid hit during the Barremian, causing an extinction event before the Maastrichtian. Dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and notosuchians make it to the present, along with a host of other animals.
Badania- Alien planet that has life at a devonian stage of development, except it exists in the present day.
Ido- Alien world where hoppers (derived flightless ballonts) and mouthpart-legged beasts are prevalent.
Leto- Life on a moon orbiting a gas giant with an erratic orbit; experiences extremes of hot and cold.
The Park- ???
Deeper Impact- a world where the K-Pg extinction wipes out crocodilians, mammals, and birds; squamates, choristoderes, and turtles inherit the earth.
World of Equal Opportunity- alternate history where denisovans come across Beringia and interact with native fauna. Much of the Pleistocene fauna survives, and the modern humans that end up crossing into North America do not overhunt the existing animals. 10,000 years later, civilizations exist that are on par with European and Asian societies.
The Ditch- Nothing is what if seems..
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Rodlox
Superhuman
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Velociraptor
Sep 4 2016, 11:43 AM
A small piscivorous megaraptoran with proportionately large arms used for grabbing fish at the river's edge.
Baronyx Jr?
.---------------------------------------------.
Parts of the Cluster Worlds:
"Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Rodlox
Superhuman
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Coelophysoidea
Sep 4 2016, 12:28 PM
Less a species and more a clade but I've been mapping out a broad overview of a hyper-diverse Coelophysoidea from a world with no T/J extinction. The biggest and most diverse clade consists mainly of waders and swimmers which specialize in aquatic prey. Many are miniaturized (the smallest being only about 100-120 grams) and often very flamboyantly decorated with all sorts of display structures. Some isolated island species end up super-sized by comparison, approaching 100kg. Some wading species ditch the aquatic adapations entirely and survive in grassland analogue environments. Desert species specialize in fossorial prey, using a flexible neck and an exaggerated subnarial gap to extract prey from burrows. Waterways worldwide are home to duck-like species with reduced legs and abberrant dentition that allows them to filter microorganisms from the water. Others float on the surface and dive after prey underwater rather like a cormorant.

I’ll post a simplified cladogram for this project's coelophysoids some time soon to give a general idea of their phylogeny.
*wants to read more of this* looking forwards to it.

------------------

and as to Grasshopper Mice becoming otters...did their arid homes get wetter? not unheard of.

Edited by Rodlox, Sep 6 2016, 09:23 PM.
.---------------------------------------------.
Parts of the Cluster Worlds:
"Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
GlarnBoudin
Member Avatar
Disgusting Skin Fetishist
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Going back to my axe-tailed ankylosaur idea, I thought of something else: why does it have to be an ankylosaur? Several nodosaurs already have spiked tails; I could see a couple of those spikes increasing in size to make a sort of cutting blade.
Quotes
Spoiler: click to toggle


Co-creator/corporate minion for the Pop Culture Monster Apocalypse!

My Projects
Spoiler: click to toggle

Coming Soon
Spoiler: click to toggle


My dA page.
My Fanfiction.net page.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
peashyjah
Member Avatar
Bydo
 *  *  *  *  *  *
The way how Marsupial Frogs reproduced might be a little bit disturbing!
Discontinued projects:
The New Ostracoderms (i might continue with this project again someday)
The Americas (where in 58 million years from now in the future North and South America has both become isolated island continents)



All Expansions (my attempt at expanding the universe of All Tomorrows by Nemo Ramjet aka C.M. Kosemen, started June 6, 2018)
Anthropozoic (my attempt at expanding the universe of Man After Man and also a re-imagining of it, coming 2019 or 2020)
New Cenozoica (my attempt at expanding the universe of The New Dinosaurs and also a re-imagining of it, also coming 2019 or 2020)
All Alternatives or All Changes (a re-telling of All Tomorrows but with some minor and major "changes", coming June 10, 2018)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
HangingThief
Member Avatar
ghoulish
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
JohnnyLuken
May 22 2016, 06:59 PM
Polymetamorphosis
Taking the idea of metamorphosis a step so that a specie has a tree of different stages it can "choose" to morph between depending on stimulus, with the ability to reproduce in different stages.
Maybe you even get a idea of one species creating its own isolated food chain, where different forms of itself cannibalise other forms.

That's exactly what tiger salamanders do. Including the reproduction part, since some populations have an axolotl- like neotenic phase.
https://www.bennington.edu/sites/default/files/sources/docs/diet%20and%20cannibalistic%20morphs-salamanders.pdf

Hey.


Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Velociraptor
Member Avatar
Reptile
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Posted Image

A penguin-like unenlagiine descendant I drew last night.
Posted Image

Unnamed No K-Pg project: coming whenever, maybe never. I got ideas tho.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Grockstar124
Member Avatar
Zygote
 *
I'm thinking about a species of tiny crabs (think the size of a US penny) that burrow into large anemones as megalopa. They feed off snippets of flesh they tear off from the anemone's prey, and store their old molts in a burrow nearby. When they breed, females regurgitate acid and chew up their molts until it's a fine paste and surround their fertilized eggs with it and secrete a special chemical to reharden the chitin. After which, she places the hardened eggs into the anemone's stomach to be regurgitated and taken away by the current.

Is this feasible?
Edited by Grockstar124, Sep 10 2016, 01:49 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Corecin
Member Avatar
Have you ever been bitch slapped for lack of listening? lack of doing what your told? cuz i'm not far from slapping you
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
A small, chihuahua like dog descendent which will hunt small burrowing animals and will live in and expand their burrows.
Posted Image
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Rodlox
Superhuman
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
peashyjah
Sep 9 2016, 03:32 PM
The way how Marsupial Frogs reproduced might be a little bit disturbing!
using something evolved for one purpose, for another function later? avoid mouth-brooding fish, then.
.---------------------------------------------.
Parts of the Cluster Worlds:
"Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
LittleLazyLass
Member Avatar
Proud quilt in a bag

Was listening to the Brachydios theme and got me wondering: Could a creature which defends itself with explosions be possible? Inject their target/aggressor with some sort of chemical that has a violent reaction with the blood or just general biochemistry of said target, causing a small, yet volatile explosion. The species name could be bayii.
totally not British, b-baka!
Posted Image You like me (Unlike)
I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess.
Me
What, you want me to tell you what these mean?
Read First
Words Maybe
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
HangingThief
Member Avatar
ghoulish
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
LittleIslander
Sep 10 2016, 06:51 PM
Was listening to the Brachydios theme and got me wondering: Could a creature which defends itself with explosions be possible? Inject their target/aggressor with some sort of chemical that has a violent reaction with the blood or just general biochemistry of said target, causing a small, yet volatile explosion. The species name could be bayii.
Sounds a little over the top if it injects the chemical into its target... Why wouldn't it just use normal venom? Then again, it's easy to develop immunity to venom... But probably not so much when the 'venom' explodes and causes physical injury.

What about a creature that spews an explosive chemical that has a delayed reaction upon contact with air?
Hey.


Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
LittleLazyLass
Member Avatar
Proud quilt in a bag

I simply suggested it would inject it since that seemed like it'd be the most simple way. But yeah, that works too.
totally not British, b-baka!
Posted Image You like me (Unlike)
I don't even really like this song that much but the title is pretty relatable sometimes, I guess.
Me
What, you want me to tell you what these mean?
Read First
Words Maybe
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Create a free forum in seconds.
Learn More · Sign-up Now
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · General Spec · Next Topic »
Add Reply