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 (33,397 Views)
Fazaner
Member Avatar
Шашава птичурина
 *  *  *  *  *
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Jan 1 2017, 02:38 PM
I have this idea of nematomorphs infecting gastropods. This is possible, right?
I don't see problem with that. For example Trematodas infect two animals in their life cycle, first infecting snails as intermediate host then by snails getting to vertebrates. You could do the same with any species not only gastropods.
Projects (they are not dead, just updated realy slowly, feel free to comment):
-World after plague After a horrible plague unleashed by man nature slowly recovers. Now 36 million years later we take a look at this weird and wonderful world.
-Galaxy on fire. They have left their home to get out of war. They had no idea what awaits them.

My Deviant art profile, if you're curious.
Before you get offended or butthurt read this

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deinosuchus55
Newborn
 *  *  *
Thanks for the ideas, Fazaner!

The tortoise is great! It would have a lighter shell to not sink, and a longer neck to reach up to the surface while the rest of it's body remained underwater.

How did you know?! I was going to do iguanas for the main herbivores, along with chuckwallas and tortoises. The nimble iguana would likely live on the savannah and plains. Thanks for the ideas!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
IIGSY
Member Avatar
A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Deinosuchus55
Jan 2 2017, 11:43 AM
Thanks for the ideas, Fazaner!

The tortoise is great! It would have a lighter shell to not sink, and a longer neck to reach up to the surface while the rest of it's body remained underwater.

How did you know?! I was going to do iguanas for the main herbivores, along with chuckwallas and tortoises. The nimble iguana would likely live on the savannah and plains. Thanks for the ideas!
How about a large cricket or snail or other herbivorous "invertebrate". Though they get completely crushed in the presence of placental mammals, large invertebrates seem to do much better if birds and reptiles are the dominant vertebrates. Just look at new zealand and the giant weta.
Projects
Punga: A terraformed world with no vertebrates
Last one crawling: The last arthropod

ARTH-6810: A world without vertebrates (It's ded, but you can still read I guess)

Potential ideas-
Swamp world: A world covered in lakes, with the largest being caspian sized.
Nematozoic: After a mass extinction of ultimate proportions, a single species of nematode is the only surviving animal.
Tri-devonian: A devonian like ecosystem with holocene species on three different continents.

Quotes


Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups


In honor of the greatest clade of all time


More pictures


Other cool things


All African countries can fit into Brazil
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
GlarnBoudin
Member Avatar
Disgusting Skin Fetishist
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
A fairly large, squat chameleon that uses its tongue to capture fish and frogs.

A sea otter-like wallaby that carries rocks in its pouch to crack open molluscs.

A caseid with a very long neck and paddle-like limbs to feed on vegetation growing along the water's edge, sorta like oldschool sauropods.
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
 
Beetleboy
Member Avatar
neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Quote:
 
A sea otter-like wallaby that carries rocks in its pouch to crack open molluscs.
I love this idea! A multifunctional pouch is something I thought about before, mainly for a concept that will appear in Legacy (which is what my genetic modification themed project is called, I've discussed it here before), a bipedal GM'd dog with a pouch. Humans call them 'poochettes' or 'purse pups', but I haven't decided what to call their descendants yet. I'm wondering when to publish Legacy, since a lot of the beginning is already done, so I might post it today . . .
~ The Age of Forests ~
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
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Why not pouch pouches :), pretty cool concept too.
Posted Image
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Beetleboy
Member Avatar
neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Corecin
Jan 10 2017, 11:36 AM
Why not pouch pouches :), pretty cool concept too.
Thanks. Even though I'm not really fond of dogs, in fact I actually have a fear of them, after being attacked by one when I was younger, but they sure are cool for spec. :lol:
~ The Age of Forests ~
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deinosuchus55
Newborn
 *  *  *
Thanks for the ideas, Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt! I think a large grasshopper, cricket, snail, or slug would be very possible, most likely in the forests.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
LittleLazyLass
Member Avatar
Proud quilt in a bag

Hmm, I was bored in science class today, and might have fell asleep, but when I stopped being sleepy I wasn't tired, but I was still bored so I messed around with these two pencils, pretending they were organisms, and somehow that made me wonder about making biologically advantageous necrophilia. I think that came into it because one pencil was broken - the lead represented all the important organs, and so the one broken in half was dead, but the lead was exposed, and I stuck the head of the other pencil into it, which kind of seemed like some sort of reproduction, and hence necrophilia.

Anyway, I wonder if some sort of organism, probably alien, or at least very far from our present time, could have some bodily functions continue to work as normal even if the central nervous system stops working. So a dead male could still be a viable source of sperm to impregnate a female (if they were hermaphrodites, this would be a lot simpler, since a dead female probably isn't useful, unless we're going all in with this). In a harsh world where finding mates is difficult, perhaps this could be advantageous enough to outweigh the fact that your young will inherent genes from something that didn't survive.

In short, I shoved two pencils together and gave natural selection the middle finger.
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
 
Tartarus
Member Avatar
Prime Specimen
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
There are actually some organisms where a male's body can continue mating after death. For example, the body of a mantis male will keep injecting sperm into the female he's mating with even if she's bitten off his head (which happens rarely in the wild, but still it is something that's been observed and documented nonetheless). Granted, postmortem mating occurs only shortly after death, and not long after it, but still it does show your concept is perhaps not all that implausible.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Sphenodon
Member Avatar
Calcareous

An idea: a derived, terrestrialized descendant of some type of crayfish. Small and herbivorous (or mostly so), being devoted grazers of soft grasses and similar low-lying plant life. The front-most pair of chelipeds remains of similar size to those of their ancestors, while the second and third pairs have enlarged and adapted to use as plant-clipping appendages; the fourth and fifth pairs of limbs remain purely ambulatory, and are now long enough and held in a stance sufficient to keep the creature elevated off the ground. The pleon is usually kept curled beneath the cephalothorax, but not in a manner of carcinisation; rather, it remains large and possesses intense musculature.

The creatures possess a unique use for this; when threatened, they initiate a modified version of their ancestors' instinctive escape reaction allowing them to spring across the terrain in a manner similar to that of a grasshopper or jird (forward, as opposed to backward). To facilitate this, the uropods have shifted, morphed and transmuted into a foot-like appendage at the posterior end of the pleon, bearing a rugose surface on their "upper" surfaces to aid in traction with the soil.
Edited by Sphenodon, Jan 13 2017, 01:17 AM.

We have a Discord server! If you would like to join, simply message myself, Flisch, or Icthyander.
Some of my ideas (nothing real yet, but soon):
Refugium: A last chance for collapsing ecosystems and their inhabitants.
Pansauria: A terraforming project featuring the evolution of exactly one animal - the marine iguana.
Mars Renewed: An insight into the life of Mars thirty million years after its terraforming by humankind.
Microcosm: An exceedingly small environment.
Alcyon: A planet colonized by species remodeled into new niches by genetic engineering.
Oddballs: Aberrant representatives of various biological groups compete and coexist.

..and probably some other stuff at some point (perhaps a no K-T project). Stay tuned!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
HangingThief
Member Avatar
ghoulish
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Sphenodon
Jan 13 2017, 01:13 AM
An idea: a derived, terrestrialized descendant of some type of crayfish. Small and herbivorous (or mostly so), being devoted grazers of soft grasses and similar low-lying plant life. The front-most pair of chelipeds remains of similar size to those of their ancestors, while the second and third pairs have enlarged and adapted to use as plant-clipping appendages; the fourth and fifth pairs of limbs remain purely ambulatory, and are now long enough and held in a stance sufficient to keep the creature elevated off the ground. The pleon is usually kept curled beneath the cephalothorax, but not in a manner of carcinisation; rather, it remains large and possesses intense musculature.

The creatures possess a unique use for this; when threatened, they initiate a modified version of their ancestors' instinctive escape reaction allowing them to spring across the terrain in a manner similar to that of a grasshopper or jird (forward, as opposed to backward). To facilitate this, the uropods have shifted, morphed and transmuted into a foot-like appendage at the posterior end of the pleon, bearing a rugose surface on their "upper" surfaces to aid in traction with the soil.
Sounds very similar to a concept I made awhile ago, except they're arboreal so they only use their tails to jump as a last- ditch escape effort.
Hey.


Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
IIGSY
Member Avatar
A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Deinosuchus55
Jan 11 2017, 08:06 PM
Thanks for the ideas, Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt! I think a large grasshopper, cricket, snail, or slug would be very possible, most likely in the forests.
Also, there could be the terrestrial equivalent of cleaner shrimp.
Projects
Punga: A terraformed world with no vertebrates
Last one crawling: The last arthropod

ARTH-6810: A world without vertebrates (It's ded, but you can still read I guess)

Potential ideas-
Swamp world: A world covered in lakes, with the largest being caspian sized.
Nematozoic: After a mass extinction of ultimate proportions, a single species of nematode is the only surviving animal.
Tri-devonian: A devonian like ecosystem with holocene species on three different continents.

Quotes


Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups


In honor of the greatest clade of all time


More pictures


Other cool things


All African countries can fit into Brazil
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Fazaner
Member Avatar
Шашава птичурина
 *  *  *  *  *
Today i got a idea for animal but i am not sure about it, so i want to hear yours opinion.
Large marine semi-aquatic otter descendant, with long flexible neck, for fins, and generally plesiosaur-like appearance. Neck is what makes a problem, if i am not wrong it would will require more vertebra, and could be done in 30 my? Otter is european species.
Projects (they are not dead, just updated realy slowly, feel free to comment):
-World after plague After a horrible plague unleashed by man nature slowly recovers. Now 36 million years later we take a look at this weird and wonderful world.
-Galaxy on fire. They have left their home to get out of war. They had no idea what awaits them.

My Deviant art profile, if you're curious.
Before you get offended or butthurt read this

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
TerrificTyler
Member Avatar
Snazz God
 *  *  *  *  *
Some concepts I've had in my head for a while of very derived animals, living sometime in the distant future.

Posted Image

A: Snake descendant that has, utilizing it's split jaw, turned into a radial organism. It is a sessile organism, with hundreds of sticky 'hairs' on jaws to trap other organisms like a venus fly trap.

B: I've been wondering if some kind of tetrapod (Or neo-tetrapod), might be able to evolve a life cycle with more drastic changes. I used an entirely terrestrial amphibian as an example, with oviviparous reproduction, and the young are entirely terrestrial tadpoles that burrow through the ground, and gradually venture to the surface.

C: Some variety of bird which has developed pseudo-fingers.


Posted Image


The Time Bubble- A universe-sized terrarium

My Deviantart


Wkhuh duh rqob wzr jhqghuv
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Fully Featured & Customizable Free Forums
Learn More · Register for Free
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · General Spec · Next Topic »
Add Reply