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Questions that don't need their own topics vol.2; New and fresh
Topic Started: Jan 4 2018, 11:18 AM (26,846 Views)
Setaceous Cetacean
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Akurian452
Jun 19 2018, 03:29 PM
If cephalopods are able to possess multiple limps and still have enough energy to allow higher cognitive function (compared to most other animals), could there theoretically be a terrestrial organism that's the same (an 8-10 limbed organism with chimp to human level intelligence)?
I recommend checking out this topic.

While it doesn’t directly address your question, there is information and discussion within that could help you. I personally don’t know exactly how limb number affects cognitive development, but assuming all of these limbs are useful for procuring energy, surviving, or mating, then I see no issues with your theoretical creature.

But then again, I’m no expert, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. Hope I (sorta) helped and didn’t misinterpret your question!
Edited by Setaceous Cetacean, Jun 19 2018, 03:44 PM.
If you like balloons, the color red, or mixotrophic plants derived from photosynthetic vertebrate-analogues, then check out my xenobiology project Solais

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Akurian452
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Setaceous Cetacean
Jun 19 2018, 03:41 PM
Akurian452
Jun 19 2018, 03:29 PM
If cephalopods are able to possess multiple limps and still have enough energy to allow higher cognitive function (compared to most other animals), could there theoretically be a terrestrial organism that's the same (an 8-10 limbed organism with chimp to human level intelligence)?
I recommend checking out this topic.

While it doesn’t directly address your question, there is information and discussion within that could help you. I personally don’t know exactly how limb number affects cognitive development, but assuming all of these limbs are useful for procuring energy, surviving, or mating, then I see no issues with your theoretical creature.

But then again, I’m no expert, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. Hope I (sorta) helped and didn’t misinterpret your question!
I've heard before that since large brains require a lot of energy (nutrition and oxygen in this case) having too many limbs would use up the energy that would enable large brains to exist. I doubt you'd be able to have a sapient species that has 100 or even 20 limbs but you have octopuses and squids that have 8 & 10 limps respectively that demonstrate multiple signs of intelligence (particularly octopuses). I don't know if it has to do with their physiology, environment, a combination of both or something else. I'm asking because I'm considering designing a sapient terrestrial species that has eight limbs as opposed to four.

On an unrelated note, I also asked if high gravity would be problematic to burrowing animals but no one has answered that.
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IIGSY
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Akurian452
Jun 19 2018, 04:56 PM
Setaceous Cetacean
Jun 19 2018, 03:41 PM
Akurian452
Jun 19 2018, 03:29 PM
If cephalopods are able to possess multiple limps and still have enough energy to allow higher cognitive function (compared to most other animals), could there theoretically be a terrestrial organism that's the same (an 8-10 limbed organism with chimp to human level intelligence)?
I recommend checking out this topic.

While it doesn’t directly address your question, there is information and discussion within that could help you. I personally don’t know exactly how limb number affects cognitive development, but assuming all of these limbs are useful for procuring energy, surviving, or mating, then I see no issues with your theoretical creature.

But then again, I’m no expert, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. Hope I (sorta) helped and didn’t misinterpret your question!
I've heard before that since large brains require a lot of energy (nutrition and oxygen in this case) having too many limbs would use up the energy that would enable large brains to exist. I doubt you'd be able to have a sapient species that has 100 or even 20 limbs but you have octopuses and squids that have 8 & 10 limps respectively that demonstrate multiple signs of intelligence (particularly octopuses). I don't know if it has to do with their physiology, environment, a combination of both or something else. I'm asking because I'm considering designing a sapient terrestrial species that has eight limbs as opposed to four.

On an unrelated note, I also asked if high gravity would be problematic to burrowing animals but no one has answered that.
A terrestrial cephalopod is much more likely to be a lowly, slug like creature than anything sapient. Those tentacles are pretty useless on land for anything more than simply dragging itself along the ground and maybe catching certain prey. But not way they would be able to act like arms or legs without extreme modification.
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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.

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Phylogeny of the arthropods and some related groups


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Akurian452
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IIGSY
Jun 19 2018, 06:28 PM
Akurian452
Jun 19 2018, 04:56 PM
Setaceous Cetacean
Jun 19 2018, 03:41 PM
Akurian452
Jun 19 2018, 03:29 PM
If cephalopods are able to possess multiple limps and still have enough energy to allow higher cognitive function (compared to most other animals), could there theoretically be a terrestrial organism that's the same (an 8-10 limbed organism with chimp to human level intelligence)?
I recommend checking out this topic.

While it doesn’t directly address your question, there is information and discussion within that could help you. I personally don’t know exactly how limb number affects cognitive development, but assuming all of these limbs are useful for procuring energy, surviving, or mating, then I see no issues with your theoretical creature.

But then again, I’m no expert, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt. Hope I (sorta) helped and didn’t misinterpret your question!
I've heard before that since large brains require a lot of energy (nutrition and oxygen in this case) having too many limbs would use up the energy that would enable large brains to exist. I doubt you'd be able to have a sapient species that has 100 or even 20 limbs but you have octopuses and squids that have 8 & 10 limps respectively that demonstrate multiple signs of intelligence (particularly octopuses). I don't know if it has to do with their physiology, environment, a combination of both or something else. I'm asking because I'm considering designing a sapient terrestrial species that has eight limbs as opposed to four.

On an unrelated note, I also asked if high gravity would be problematic to burrowing animals but no one has answered that.
A terrestrial cephalopod is much more likely to be a lowly, slug like creature than anything sapient. Those tentacles are pretty useless on land for anything more than simply dragging itself along the ground and maybe catching certain prey. But not way they would be able to act like arms or legs without extreme modification.
I wasn't actually thinking of a terrestrial cephalopods but a sapient terrestrial organism, most likely a vertebrate, with eight to ten limbs. In my Centauri project I have a species currently called "octopods" that are eight limbed vertebrates with a radial symmetry and intelligence akin to early hominids. I wasn't sure if there has to be some kind of unique neurological wiring that would allow for eight limbs and higher cognitive function.
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Tartarus
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Akurian452
Jun 19 2018, 03:29 PM
If cephalopods are able to possess multiple limps and still have enough energy to allow higher cognitive function (compared to most other animals), could there theoretically be a terrestrial organism that's the same (an 8-10 limbed organism with chimp to human level intelligence)?
I see no reason why not. I don't think there is too much of a correlation between limb number and intelligence, so if you want to come up with some intelligent multi-limbed aliens I'd say go for it.
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Rodlox
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Akurian452
Jun 19 2018, 04:56 PM
On an unrelated note, I also asked if high gravity would be problematic to burrowing animals but no one has answered that.
Part of me thinks it would be a problem with sandy burrows like Marsupial Moles make, maybe not in clay or similarly-tough soils. I think I asked once too, and don't recall if there was a reply.
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Chuditch
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Rodlox
Jun 19 2018, 10:55 PM
Akurian452
Jun 19 2018, 04:56 PM
On an unrelated note, I also asked if high gravity would be problematic to burrowing animals but no one has answered that.
Part of me thinks it would be a problem with sandy burrows like Marsupial Moles make, maybe not in clay or similarly-tough soils. I think I asked once too, and don't recall if there was a reply.
Marsupial moles don't make burrows, the sand just collapses behind them.
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Fazaner
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Chuditch
Jun 19 2018, 11:02 PM
Marsupial moles don't make burrows, the sand just collapses behind them.
So what they do is more akin to swimming in sand rather than burrowing?
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.

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Chuditch
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Dasyurid
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Fazaner
Jun 20 2018, 07:05 AM
Chuditch
Jun 19 2018, 11:02 PM
Marsupial moles don't make burrows, the sand just collapses behind them.
So what they do is more akin to swimming in sand rather than burrowing?
Yeah, pretty much.
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beingsneaky
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Chuditch
Jun 20 2018, 07:53 AM
Fazaner
Jun 20 2018, 07:05 AM
Chuditch
Jun 19 2018, 11:02 PM
Marsupial moles don't make burrows, the sand just collapses behind them.
So what they do is more akin to swimming in sand rather than burrowing?
Yeah, pretty much.
i say we should rename marsupial moles into sand fish
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"Young ciliaurrg grow on the rear of the parent and look like small slurrg." - ZoologicalBotanist

active projects: R.T.K.L(Rotifer Tardigrade Kinorhyncha Loriciferans)
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Dragonthunders
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The ethereal archosaur in blue

Sorry but that name has been already taken
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"Active" projects

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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CaledonianWarrior96
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Dragonthunders
Jun 20 2018, 09:40 AM
Goddamnit DT, now I want 10 of those wee guys now that you've made me aware of them
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Future Planet (V.2): the Future Evolution of Life on Earth (Evolutionary Continuum)
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And now, for something completely different
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Mynameisnotdave23
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Is there any way the pectoral fins of a ray-finned fish could become ''legs''?
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Avisia, an island archipelago isolated for over 88 million years, and is know home to megafaunal birds, mekosuchine crocodiles, and many relics. (currently in infancy)
Read here: http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/8192410/2/#new

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Velociraptor
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They already have.

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Unnamed No K-Pg project: coming whenever, maybe never. I got ideas tho.
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Rodlox
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Chuditch
Jun 19 2018, 11:02 PM
Rodlox
Jun 19 2018, 10:55 PM
Akurian452
Jun 19 2018, 04:56 PM
On an unrelated note, I also asked if high gravity would be problematic to burrowing animals but no one has answered that.
Part of me thinks it would be a problem with sandy burrows like Marsupial Moles make, maybe not in clay or similarly-tough soils. I think I asked once too, and don't recall if there was a reply.
Marsupial moles don't make burrows, the sand just collapses behind them.
if it collapses, then that means that they are burrows...just not lasting ones.

also, i was trying to answer the question about burrowing critters in high-grav worlds
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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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