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| Is my planet's life too Earth-like?; Plus plausibility discussion | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 27 2018, 11:26 AM (501 Views) | |
| Seal | Jun 29 2018, 03:56 AM Post #16 |
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Fetus
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Yeah, six is good for stability (And there are also hexapods on Nemo), but splitting a derived tail in two is a good bit easier than splitting a pair of actual limbs in two as well. So, as I said, agility is the main driving force of the tetrapods' evolution. Having two front legs and one back leg, it makes for pretty bad speed, and even if they could go fast, their back leg doesn't work for turning at high speed. It would just skid off the ground and they'd fall over. So basically, imagine this is how tetrapods evolved on Nemo: small tripeds evolved to hunt fast prey, like large cursorial insect analogues, in dense forests, where speed and agility was required. The back leg split to dramatically improve steering and general velocity. |
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Ever wondered what a hexapodal fire-breathing rauisuchian on steroids would look like? What about a floating colony of bioluminescent siphonophore analogues? Maybe even plants with muscular systems that shoot you with darts? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then why not take a look at my xenobiology project; Nemo? Quotes: "Why must we climb away to the seal-less parts of the world? - Margo Lanagan "I'm not above acting like a seal every once in a while and waiting for the next fish, I just don't want to do it all the time." - Fred Thompson | |
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| SpeculativeNebula | Jun 29 2018, 04:52 AM Post #17 |
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Fetus
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I think as soon as you had a fish analogue it was likely for other Earth-like vertebrate-analogues to evolve, even if they had a slightly different body plan or leg number and arrangement. Personally I'm not much good at extremely alien-like worlds, although I enjoy reading them. I think to speculate very alien biology requires a good foundation of scientific understanding, particularly of chemistry. Even then it's difficult. My own rule is that unless a world is specifically trying to make itself as alien and realistic as possible, it's fine and expected for it to have some or even a lot of Earth parallels. Some things I feel might help with your project is to flesh out the other lifeforms there, though I don't know if you have more complete work elsewhere. What other non-vertebrate-analogue animals or other non-animal forms of life are present on this planet? What are the primary producers? Could you make a balanced food web for one of your world's habitats? I think that might help visualise how different species are competing and how they might evolve together, creating opportunity for weird relationships. Maybe think more about the internal biology of the fish-likes and their descendants. If you intend to make your aliens more alien, this could be one way. If you know your creatures both inside and out you might be able to come up with more novel and less Earth-like forms. |
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Deviant art accounts: Speculative evolution, natural history and aliens Story worlds and miscellaneous art Fantasy and unlikely creatures | |
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| Seal | Jun 29 2018, 06:43 AM Post #18 |
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Fetus
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Yeah, I forgot to mention in the original post that a lot of the rest of the world has been fleshed out pretty well, and these are quite a bit more alien. I've pretty much finished sketching all the basic invertebrate forms for Nemo, and I've got a good few real "aliens" in there, like armoured worms and giant colonial balloons. As for the non-animal forms of life, there are a few unicellular kingdoms, and then three more complex ones: the Notaphytes - plants similar to ours that produce mild electrical fields - the Musculophytes, plants with a basic system of muscles, and the Ovizoans; stationary, fungus-like organisms that produce buoyant "eggs", which float on air currents until they settle somewhere and hatch. I've more or less got the internal anatomy of the vertebrates sussed out - I won't go into much details here, but their two most notable features are their iron skeletons and reproductive systems, which are situated in the chest. |
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Ever wondered what a hexapodal fire-breathing rauisuchian on steroids would look like? What about a floating colony of bioluminescent siphonophore analogues? Maybe even plants with muscular systems that shoot you with darts? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then why not take a look at my xenobiology project; Nemo? Quotes: "Why must we climb away to the seal-less parts of the world? - Margo Lanagan "I'm not above acting like a seal every once in a while and waiting for the next fish, I just don't want to do it all the time." - Fred Thompson | |
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7:43 PM Jul 10