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.
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Forum user Uncanny Gemstar drew what is supposed to be a me. Thanks!
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As they walk in, they're greeted by a small, poorly kept pathway leading to a poorly constructed Japanese-style gate. Behind this, a small field made up of corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, among other plants is contrasted by large piles of books, as well as a few rather out of place looking laptops. Off in the corner, a small woman, with long, striped, and strikingly colorful socks, no shoes, unremarkable denim shorts, a large, fancy black coat, arm warmers, glasses, a tuque, and somewhat unkempt, mid-length blue-and-pink-streaked red hair, is rummaging through a trash bin, located behind a sign saying "employees only". She continues this for a while (walking behind a wall to change her outfit now and then), until one of her visitors coughs. Startled, she looks up, apologizes, and grabs a handful of textbooks and novels before daintily running off to join them.
What, you want me to tell you what these mean?
Predenterra The (Lost) Lost World The Standing World
Read First
Clarifications on my sex and gender Sorry if I come off as rude, I don't put much thought into word choice sometimes. I'm also super prone to editing my posts, sometimes multiple times, in the minutes following posting. For the love of god, take my posts from my earlier days on the forum with a grain of salt. I was not particularly knowledgeable or mature back then. Some of them are so cringe-worthy I can't even bring myself to look at them.
Words Maybe
Great Words
Words To Spec By
It would have to be something extremely alien, pushing the limits of our imagination. But those are always my favorite kinds of life. ~~The Words of The Xenologist
Words To Live By
Ignorance is never insulting if you're willing to learn, we're all ignorant about most things. ~~The Words of Lamna
Words I Live By
Yeah, and even if you don't agree with creationists on that concept, that doesn't mean they can't be decent people. I have friends who are creationist (possibly even young earth) that I get along with fine in general life. I don't think they're right of course, but that doesn't make them intellectual degenerates. ~~The Words of forbidden3
Member Quotes
jman123
Ass-breathing fish-lizards? Sounds like a punk rock band
Sheather
"Holy fucking shit a toilet paper roll! Our favorite thing!"
Urufumarukai
Tyrannosaurus aquastronka
Kamineigh
Myo, if you don't stop reading the YouTube comments...
Lamna
Are you saying what I think you're saying?
Sheather bathes in cum?
Cephylus
And last night I dreamed I was blowing up a Kindergarten with a grenade launcher for no particular reason...
revin
Oh, and of course more people get killed by selfies than by sharks. Of course.
The smell of rotting flesh really kills my appetite, surprising, but the visual appearance of corpses makes me hungry. Is that weird?
Ebervalius
I mean, let us say I'm a genderfluid blurflux demi-romantic woman who is sexually attracted to men, but only if they are Melanesian and have a voice like that of Nicholas Cage. Okay, so what?
trex841
When I first saw that picture, I thought you were dissecting a condom.
Mr Mysterio
All hail Robo-Stalin.
Peashyjah
Seems like everything in this project is now dead.
Stealth Rock
Seagulls are pretty much trees, right?
Watcher
We all must finish chapters of our lives to go on to the next. Sometime this means leaving behind versions of ourselves that don't want to die.
Yiqi15
For April fool's, we had to make an orgasm that resembled a human foot.
Flisch
im the black market
CaledonianWarrior96
He was a skater birb, she said tweet you later birb
Most People at Some Point
Quotes
Some dude called plucas1 from Youtube comments
Funny, isn't it, that our world needs Clark Kent a lot more than Superman.
Xenoblade Chronicles
Even though he is our creator, that does not afford him the right to take our lives on a whim. But that is the thinking of a homs. He is a god. Such morals cannot apply to gods. So you think we should just shut up and die?! If that is the fate decided by a god. You are mistaken if you think we will simply accept such a fate and wait to die. We'll never stop fighting. Not till the end. To Zanza, the outcome is the same. Thus your logic is flawed.
Hades - Kid Icarus Uprising
When freaky aliens give you lemons, make freaky alien lemonade.
Kid Icarus Uprising
But Souls are delicious. They're like bacon - they taste good on anything. But if you eat them, you completely remove them from existence! They can't move on or... or be reincarnated! Huh. I never really gave it much thought. Besides, what do you mean by reincarnation anyway? You know, being reborn as someone or something else. Which means different body, different memories, different experiences, yes? So isn't being reborn as "something else" the same as being "removed from existence"? I... I... eating souls isn't right! That depends on your definition of "right". All living things survive by eating other living things. So what? You're a god. You should be above all that! Gods are above living things, which doesn't necessarily mean we care about them.
Ooo, didn't know about the webspinners. Or the specifics on pteropods.
F.I.N.D.R Field Incident Logs A comprehensive list of all organisms, artifacts, and alternative worlds encountered by the foundation team.
At the present time, concepts within are inconsistent and ever shifting.
Protectorates of the Proan Empire
The Sundered Realms - A fantasy realm where the world is divided into different sections. (Following names subject to change)
The Gavell Kingdom
The Everdark Forest
The Lunar Tundra
The Sand Sea
The Asteroid Cloud
The Rotting Shard
The Orbital River
The Outer Shadow
Bottle Beasts - This Universes version of Pokemon.
Worlds Impacted by the Enlightened/Visceral War
The 'Verse Whale - The Homeworld of the two forces, a planet sized organism, and the unique life that has flourished on it.
замороженный конец - An Ice Age world populated by tripodal organisms.
[To Be Named] - A world of creatures with an arm for a head
[To Be Named] - The Homeworld of a species where only the males are sapient.
[To Be Named] - The home of a race of carnivorous, trap building beings.
[To Be Named] - A planet of organisms that can link their minds, where two forms of intelligence have arisen.
Unaffiliated Universes
[To Be Named] - A parallel earth where the Synapsids took over after the Permian Extinction, among other resulting changes.
نيو نيو امستردام - An abandoned Dyson Cylinder containing an Ecumenopolis now catering to our former pets and pests. (A concept developed entirely separate from DroidSyber's Arcology, I swear.)
The Bleed - A vast universe where physics are more a suggestion than a rule.
Parakosmos Minor - Known Earth Pocket Universes, Natural or Artificial.
Island of Marsupials and Armadillos off the coast of South America
A world inhabited by Woodpecker descendants (Again, not meant to be a clone of Serina, I in no way have that much detail ready for this.)
Katiwala - Your typical Lost World...if i decide to go that route...
Crustacean are really nasty guys. Don't let the woodlice and crabs fool you. There are many parasitic species with highly modified bodies, so much so you'd never guess they were an arthropod.
Take for example Lernaeocera branchialis, or the cod worm.
They spend their early life looking much like any other copepod. They hatch, live as free swimming larva until they are mature enough to parasitise slow moving fish like lumpfish or flatfish.
The swim into their gills, and drink their blood, still looking like a copepod. At this point they mate, and rather than just reproducing, the females go swimming off to find cod, haddock, etc.
They then swim inside the cod's gills and start drinking blood, but the time their body grows long and worm-like, becoming some of the largest copepods in the world (still only 5cm, but that's pretty big considering most are only millimetres in length). The penetrate deep into the cod's circulatory system until they penetrate the heart, from there the cod worms starts branching out.
It can then lay eggs and start the cycle over again.
Now that we've seen all the weird shit fish do, think of this. Imagine if tetrapods did the same things. Mammals with eyestalks. Reptiles where the much smaller male melds into the female. I know I'v asked this before, but is this stuff even possible in tetrapods?
This thread has made me really interested in the truly bizarre features that fish have workout that tetrapods apparently haven't.
F.I.N.D.R Field Incident Logs A comprehensive list of all organisms, artifacts, and alternative worlds encountered by the foundation team.
At the present time, concepts within are inconsistent and ever shifting.
Protectorates of the Proan Empire
The Sundered Realms - A fantasy realm where the world is divided into different sections. (Following names subject to change)
The Gavell Kingdom
The Everdark Forest
The Lunar Tundra
The Sand Sea
The Asteroid Cloud
The Rotting Shard
The Orbital River
The Outer Shadow
Bottle Beasts - This Universes version of Pokemon.
Worlds Impacted by the Enlightened/Visceral War
The 'Verse Whale - The Homeworld of the two forces, a planet sized organism, and the unique life that has flourished on it.
замороженный конец - An Ice Age world populated by tripodal organisms.
[To Be Named] - A world of creatures with an arm for a head
[To Be Named] - The Homeworld of a species where only the males are sapient.
[To Be Named] - The home of a race of carnivorous, trap building beings.
[To Be Named] - A planet of organisms that can link their minds, where two forms of intelligence have arisen.
Unaffiliated Universes
[To Be Named] - A parallel earth where the Synapsids took over after the Permian Extinction, among other resulting changes.
نيو نيو امستردام - An abandoned Dyson Cylinder containing an Ecumenopolis now catering to our former pets and pests. (A concept developed entirely separate from DroidSyber's Arcology, I swear.)
The Bleed - A vast universe where physics are more a suggestion than a rule.
Parakosmos Minor - Known Earth Pocket Universes, Natural or Artificial.
Island of Marsupials and Armadillos off the coast of South America
A world inhabited by Woodpecker descendants (Again, not meant to be a clone of Serina, I in no way have that much detail ready for this.)
Katiwala - Your typical Lost World...if i decide to go that route...
Blame is the playing of children and is given to many like a gift that cannot be returned. Acceptance is the tool of the mature that is rarely loaned out.
That's metabolic and physiological complexity fer ya
A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
Posts:
3,758
Group:
Members
Member
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Area of expertise:
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Favorite Quote:
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Also known as:
Anomonys
Gender:
male
JohnFaa
Apr 19 2017, 02:32 PM
That's metabolic and physiological complexity fer ya
Would you care to eloborate? What about tetrapod physiology prevents this from happening? Why no eyestalked turtles or mammals that literally meld together?
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
"Arthropod respiratory systems aren't really "inefficient", they're just better suited to their body size. It would be quite inefficient for a tiny creature that can easily get all the oxygen it needs through passive diffusion to have a respiratory system that wastes energy on muscles that pump air into sacs. (Hence why lungless salamanders, uniquely miniscule and hyperabundant tetrapods, have ditched their lungs in favor of breathing with their skin and buccal mucous membranes.) But large, active insects already use muscles to pump air in and out of their spiracles, and I don't see why their tracheae couldn't develop pseudo- lungs if other conditions pressured them to grow larger."-HangingTheif
"Considering the lifespans of modern non- insect arthropods (decade-old old millipedes, 50 year old tarantulas, 100+ year old lobsters) I wouldn't be surprised if Arthropleura had a lifespan exceeding that of a large testudine"-HangingTheif
"Humans have a tribal mindset and it's not alien for tribes to war on each other. I mean, look at the atrocities chimpanzee tribes do to each other. Most of people's groupings and big conflicts in history are directly or obliquely manifestations of this tribal mindset."-Sceynyos-yis
"He's the leader of the bunch You know his Coconut Gun is finally back to fire in spurts. His Coconut Gun Can make you smile If he shoots ya it's firing in spurts. His Coconut Gun Is bigger, faster, stronger too! He's the gun member of the Coconut Crew! HUH!
C.G.! Coconut Gun! C.G.! Co-Coconut Gun! Shoot yourself with a Coconut Gun! HUH!"-Kamineigh
"RIP, rest in Peytoia."-Little
"In Summary: Piss on Lovecraft's racist grave by making lewds of Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep.
Then eat arby's and embrace the void."-Kamineigh
"Dougal Dixon rule 34."-Sayornis
Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups
That's metabolic and physiological complexity fer ya
Would you care to eloborate? What about tetrapod physiology prevents this from happening? Why no eyestalked turtles or mammals that literally meld together?
because there haven't been, at least not yet. maybe its because vert.s have no exoskeleton that can be inflated like stalk-eyed flies do, or maybe for some other reason. (mammals have fewer skull bones than viperfish do, don't they?)
.---------------------------------------------. Parts of the Cluster Worlds: "Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP)
A huntsman spider that wastes time on the internet because it has nothing better to do
Posts:
3,758
Group:
Members
Member
#1,987
Joined:
Sep 11, 2016
Gender:
Male
Area of expertise:
Future Evolution
Favorite Quote:
Don't have one
Also known as:
Anomonys
Gender:
male
Rodlox
Apr 19 2017, 11:31 PM
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Apr 19 2017, 06:35 PM
JohnFaa
Apr 19 2017, 02:32 PM
That's metabolic and physiological complexity fer ya
Would you care to eloborate? What about tetrapod physiology prevents this from happening? Why no eyestalked turtles or mammals that literally meld together?
because there haven't been, at least not yet. maybe its because vert.s have no exoskeleton that can be inflated like stalk-eyed flies do, or maybe for some other reason. (mammals have fewer skull bones than viperfish do, don't they?)
How does that help with the development of eyestalks?
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
"Arthropod respiratory systems aren't really "inefficient", they're just better suited to their body size. It would be quite inefficient for a tiny creature that can easily get all the oxygen it needs through passive diffusion to have a respiratory system that wastes energy on muscles that pump air into sacs. (Hence why lungless salamanders, uniquely miniscule and hyperabundant tetrapods, have ditched their lungs in favor of breathing with their skin and buccal mucous membranes.) But large, active insects already use muscles to pump air in and out of their spiracles, and I don't see why their tracheae couldn't develop pseudo- lungs if other conditions pressured them to grow larger."-HangingTheif
"Considering the lifespans of modern non- insect arthropods (decade-old old millipedes, 50 year old tarantulas, 100+ year old lobsters) I wouldn't be surprised if Arthropleura had a lifespan exceeding that of a large testudine"-HangingTheif
"Humans have a tribal mindset and it's not alien for tribes to war on each other. I mean, look at the atrocities chimpanzee tribes do to each other. Most of people's groupings and big conflicts in history are directly or obliquely manifestations of this tribal mindset."-Sceynyos-yis
"He's the leader of the bunch You know his Coconut Gun is finally back to fire in spurts. His Coconut Gun Can make you smile If he shoots ya it's firing in spurts. His Coconut Gun Is bigger, faster, stronger too! He's the gun member of the Coconut Crew! HUH!
C.G.! Coconut Gun! C.G.! Co-Coconut Gun! Shoot yourself with a Coconut Gun! HUH!"-Kamineigh
"RIP, rest in Peytoia."-Little
"In Summary: Piss on Lovecraft's racist grave by making lewds of Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep.
Then eat arby's and embrace the void."-Kamineigh
"Dougal Dixon rule 34."-Sayornis
Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups
"Lumping is just a cheap tactic to make weak taxa stronger" ~DK1000
Also known as:
Dilophoraptor
Gender:
Will get back to you on this
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Apr 20 2017, 05:33 AM
Rodlox
Apr 19 2017, 11:31 PM
Insect Illuminati Get Shrekt
Apr 19 2017, 06:35 PM
JohnFaa
Apr 19 2017, 02:32 PM
That's metabolic and physiological complexity fer ya
Would you care to eloborate? What about tetrapod physiology prevents this from happening? Why no eyestalked turtles or mammals that literally meld together?
because there haven't been, at least not yet. maybe its because vert.s have no exoskeleton that can be inflated like stalk-eyed flies do, or maybe for some other reason. (mammals have fewer skull bones than viperfish do, don't they?)
How does that help with the development of eyestalks?
probably the plasticity of their skulls compared to those with more calcified skulls.
Something more normal and less disgusting this time. I love rodents. Other mammals, Yeah I pretty much knew them all by the time I was 12. Rodents, still more to learn about.
Everyone here will know about naked mole rats, and many of you will know that their other, less derived mole-rats also known as blesmols (Bathyergidae).
Fewer of you will be familiar with the fact that this is a wildly successful body-plan that has evolved in rodents independently four times. Reasonably sized rodents that spend their entire lives underground eating roots and digging with large teeth that often protrude from the lips.
The American gophers are also fairly well known, especially in North America. But then their are also the Eurasia Spalacidae, and the Tuco-Tucos of South America.
While all rodents, they are about as distantly related as rodents can be. Blesmols are Phiomorpha, a group of ancient Africa rodents that today consist of blesmols, dassie rats, and cane rats.
Gophers are part of Castorimorpha, and are related to kangaroo rats and beavers.
Spalacidae are part of Muroidea, making them related to mice, rats voles and hamsters.
Tuco-Tucos taxanomy is a bit messy, their clearly members of Caviomorpha, related to chinchillas, Capybara and new world porcupines.
There are loads of these animals and they have a wide distribution. There are 65 Tuco-tucos, 37 Spalacids, 34 pocket gophers, and 25 blesmols, including the naked mole rat.
So what I'm saying is, if your project has rodents as abundant and diverse animals, you'd get something like these guys.
Three things I learned, the King African mole-rat scientific name can be correctly written as T. rex, people farm bamboo rats in China and their is an animal called a zokor, which is a Spalacid that has developed huge, mole-like claws to dig with rather than its teeth.
Three things I learned, the King African mole-rat scientific name can be correctly written as T. rex, people farm bamboo rats in China and their is an animal called a zokor, which is a Spalacid that has developed huge, mole-like claws to dig with rather than its teeth.
"No, no! No, I'm a koala, honest - put me down!"
that is all massively cool. such layers and levels of parallel evolution. (my mind boggles at how much iterative evolution must have happened)
Quote:
Tuco-Tucos taxanomy is a bit messy, their clearly members of Caviomorpha, related to chinchillas, Capybara and new world porcupines.
wait, I thought chinchillas were part of the rabbit&cavy family (lagomorphs),,,did that change, or were they folded into Caviomorpha?
.---------------------------------------------. Parts of the Cluster Worlds: "Marsupialless Australia" (what-if) & "Out on a Branch" (future evolution) & "The Earth under a still sun" (WIP)
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