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
Your Project Ideas; A place to share your ideas for projects
Topic Started: Oct 14 2015, 09:27 AM (65,344 Views)
Rebirth
Member Avatar
Adolescent
 *  *  *  *  *
The Holocene extinction was the largest in the Phanerozoic, and indeed, it ended it. Climate change, nuclear war, pollution, overfishing, overhunting, destructive agriculture and biological warfare were bad enough. But dramatically increased terrestrial volcanism, especially in North America and the Pacific Ring of Fire, worsened the situation. Yellowstone, Tambora, Taupo and Toba erupted within a few years of each other in a grand show of destruction, poisoning the skies and filling them with ash. The oceans acidified, and only as the Earth started to recover did an asteroid a third larger than the one believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs strike the exact same place as its predecessor, the Yucatan Peninsula, burning a massive oil deposit beneath and sending yet more dust and smoke into the sky.

This truly was a series of unfortunate events. The overwhelming majority of photosynthetic organisms died or became dormant as the world went nearly two decades without significant sunlight. Ash and the remnants of pollution and nuclear war poisoned even the most remote lands and waterways. A handful of surviving land vertebrates, including crows, rats and snakes, still lived by this point, but even the snakes eventually starved to death or became sterile. Oxygen plummeted to just under half of modern day levels. By the time the dust cleared and the few surviving simple plants, algae and phytoplankton started growing again, tetrapods as a whole ceased to exist, including humans. Even insects, myriapods and arachnids lost a significant amount, and in the case of myriapoda, the great majority of their species, and terrestrial gastropods, annelids and crustaceans were completely extinct. All plants which could be considered "trees" had fallen. If a human were to walk among this wasteland, they may well have considered the biosphere to be dead.

Even the oceans took a massive toll. Almost the entire ocean was empty of macroscopic animal life. Hydrothermal vents still sustained some invertebrates, but everywhere else, it seemed that the seas were truly empty.

That is, everywhere else, except a small remnant ecosystem in deep waters off the Pacific coasts of Canada and Russia.

The sheer amount of dead lifeforms in this region was just enough to feed animals like crabs, lobsters and polychaete worms. But the top dog of this ecosystem was an animal which, at first glance, would have gone extinct just like literally all other vertebrate species on the planet. Indeed, only a literal handful of individuals survived to see the phytoplankton start to function again, and feed the seas once more. The last vertebrate survivor of the Holocene extinction was of a group that had been in the seas since the Devonian period, and contained species widely feared and prosecuted and overfished by humans. The last survivor of chordata as a whole was a shark, specifically, the Pacific spiny dogfish, Squalus suckleyi.

From one family of individuals, the last shark would be the beginning of a second vertebrate dynasty. Within one hundred and seventy million years, Earth would be a veritable...

Planet of the Sharks.

(I know the premise is implausible, and I'd like to improve it. I'm sure there are more plausible shark species to be the "sole survivor", and if you can think of one, tell me. It is unlikely I'll be able to do this project anyway.)
My Projects
Spoiler: click to toggle
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Rodlox
Superhuman
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Rebirth
Nov 18 2017, 12:56 AM
Planet of the Sharks.

(I know the premise is implausible, and I'd like to improve it. I'm sure there are more plausible shark species to be the "sole survivor", and if you can think of one, tell me. It is unlikely I'll be able to do this project anyway.)
do. it.
.---------------------------------------------.
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
 
IIGSY
Member Avatar
A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
I have an idea. A Mesozoic documentary that does NOT focus on dinosaurs. Obviously, they''ll be there. But they don't get any more attention than mammals, plants, insects, gastropods, fish, etc. We really need to see the Mesozoic in a new light. Dinosaurs weren't the "main big thing". They where just one of many groups.
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
 
Dapper Man
Member Avatar
* I am fed up with dis wuurld *
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Been thinkin of a few ideas for a potential re-re-re-revision of Psuedo-Cenozoic:

1) Remove the non-avian dinosaurs, making its name fit the project. For example, instead of being a Caenangathid, Abominavis would be an Anseriforme, or something similar.
2) Keep the non-avian dinosaurs, but make the survivor list extremely restrictive. Only animals ~1.5-m in length survive the asteroid.
3) Keep the non-avian dinosaurs, but have a less strict survivor list, with the largest survivors being ~4-5-m in length survive the asteroid.
Speculative Evolution:

Manitou; The Needle in the Haystack.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Yiqi15
Member Avatar
Prime Specimen
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Dapper Man
Nov 21 2017, 12:52 AM
Been thinkin of a few ideas for a potential re-re-re-revision of Psuedo-Cenozoic:

1) Remove the non-avian dinosaurs, making its name fit the project. For example, instead of being a Caenangathid, Abominavis would be an Anseriforme, or something similar.
2) Keep the non-avian dinosaurs, but make the survivor list extremely restrictive. Only animals ~1.5-m in length survive the asteroid.
3) Keep the non-avian dinosaurs, but have a less strict survivor list, with the largest survivors being ~4-5-m in length survive the asteroid.
How many times are you going to reboot Psuedo-Cenozoic? You might as well reboot Spiderman while you're at it.
Current/Completed Projects
- After the Holocene: Your run-of-the-mill future evolution project.
- A History of the Odessa Rhinoceros: What happens when you ship 28 southern white rhinoceri to Texas and try and farm them? Quite a lot, actually.

Future Projects
- XenoSphere: The greatest zoo in the galaxy.
- The Curious Case of the Woolly Giraffe: A case study of an eocene relic.
- Untittled Asylum Studios-Based Project: The truth behind all the CGI schlock
- Riggslandia V.II: A World 150 million years in the making

Potential Projects
- Klowns: The biology and culture of a creepy-yet-fascinating being

My Zoochat and Fadom Accounts
- Zoochat
- Fandom
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Beetleboy
Member Avatar
neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
That was pretty rude Yi.
~ The Age of Forests ~
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Yiqi15
Member Avatar
Prime Specimen
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Beetleboy
Nov 21 2017, 09:19 AM
That was pretty rude Yi.
It's a joke about how many times Dapper reboots PC.
Current/Completed Projects
- After the Holocene: Your run-of-the-mill future evolution project.
- A History of the Odessa Rhinoceros: What happens when you ship 28 southern white rhinoceri to Texas and try and farm them? Quite a lot, actually.

Future Projects
- XenoSphere: The greatest zoo in the galaxy.
- The Curious Case of the Woolly Giraffe: A case study of an eocene relic.
- Untittled Asylum Studios-Based Project: The truth behind all the CGI schlock
- Riggslandia V.II: A World 150 million years in the making

Potential Projects
- Klowns: The biology and culture of a creepy-yet-fascinating being

My Zoochat and Fadom Accounts
- Zoochat
- Fandom
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Beetleboy
Member Avatar
neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
I get that, I just thought it was kinda rude.
~ The Age of Forests ~
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
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Let's continue the forest ocean discussion here
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
 
Beetleboy
Member Avatar
neither lizard nor boy nor beetle . . . but a little of all three
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Having thought about it, I really do think it would be best as a collaborative project.
~ The Age of Forests ~
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
peashyjah
Member Avatar
Bydo
 *  *  *  *  *  *
How about a terraformed world where the only vertebrate species introduced is the turkey?
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
 
Yiqi15
Member Avatar
Prime Specimen
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *
peashyjah
Nov 23 2017, 06:15 PM
How about a terraformed world where the only vertebrate species introduced is the turkey?
Of course you choose to announce it on Thanksgiving (in the states at least)
Current/Completed Projects
- After the Holocene: Your run-of-the-mill future evolution project.
- A History of the Odessa Rhinoceros: What happens when you ship 28 southern white rhinoceri to Texas and try and farm them? Quite a lot, actually.

Future Projects
- XenoSphere: The greatest zoo in the galaxy.
- The Curious Case of the Woolly Giraffe: A case study of an eocene relic.
- Untittled Asylum Studios-Based Project: The truth behind all the CGI schlock
- Riggslandia V.II: A World 150 million years in the making

Potential Projects
- Klowns: The biology and culture of a creepy-yet-fascinating being

My Zoochat and Fadom Accounts
- Zoochat
- Fandom
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Talenkauen
Member Avatar
Perpetually paranoid iguanodont
 *  *  *  *  *  *
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Nov 20 2017, 03:03 PM
I have an idea. A Mesozoic documentary that does NOT focus on dinosaurs. Obviously, they''ll be there. But they don't get any more attention than mammals, plants, insects, gastropods, fish, etc. We really need to see the Mesozoic in a new light. Dinosaurs weren't the "main big thing". They where just one of many groups.

Kinda hard not to give dinosaurs some sort of focus.

They were so prominent that they influenced every other group, even down to the insects and plants. You ever heard of the fossil titanosaur eggs preserved with wasp nests inside?
Edited by Talenkauen, Nov 24 2017, 05:39 AM.
PLEASE NOTE: If I come off as harsh or demanding whilst talking to you, please tell me. I apologize in advance.....


UPCOMING PROJECTS:

Projects here
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
 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
Turkey-Gobble Spec
Nov 24 2017, 05:39 AM
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Nov 20 2017, 03:03 PM
I have an idea. A Mesozoic documentary that does NOT focus on dinosaurs. Obviously, they''ll be there. But they don't get any more attention than mammals, plants, insects, gastropods, fish, etc. We really need to see the Mesozoic in a new light. Dinosaurs weren't the "main big thing". They where just one of many groups.

Kinda hard not to give dinosaurs some sort of focus.

They were so prominent that they influenced every other group, even down to the insects and plants. You ever heard of the fossil titanosaur eggs preserved with wasp nests inside?
The same can be any other group. Mammals influenced dinosaurs just as much as dinosaurs influenced mammals, and so on. Of course, they will still be there. However, they be treated at the "main characters" or get 90% of the screen time like in most Mesozoic documentaries.



Also, no, I haven't heard of the titanosaur egg wasp nest. Can you please link me?
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
 
peashyjah
Member Avatar
Bydo
 *  *  *  *  *  *
Yiqi15
Nov 23 2017, 06:17 PM
peashyjah
Nov 23 2017, 06:15 PM
How about a terraformed world where the only vertebrate species introduced is the turkey?
Of course you choose to announce it on Thanksgiving (in the states at least)
What?
It's a idea that just randomly pops out of my head yesterday when i was bored.
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
 
2 users reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Members: Duckeyboos
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · General Spec · Next Topic »
Add Reply