>>4894711
these look like the worms that crawl up in a milf's asshole to breed her in my fetish story

Offf to a great start I see.

>>4895293
Can you post it

>>4894711
Saw this pop up in my feed the other day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYTvdEwlkk8&t=10s
Seems really fucking stupid, from the very idea to the designs

>>4894711
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egzZv8tqT_k&list=PL6xPxnYMQpquNuaEffJzjGjMsr6VktCYl&ab_channel=Biblaridion [Embed]
just finished watching this whole series
pretty kino
kinda annoyed that both lineages of land animals have 4 sets of walking limbs and 6 total eyes as an ancestral trait, though.

does genetically engineering animals to live on human space colonies count as spec evo
because I've got some cool animal ideas but I'm thinking of them in context of my oneill cylinder fantasy world wherein they'd probably have been engineered.

File: Sapient Mixocete.jpg (97 KB, 1280x720)

97 KB JPG

Sapient Mixocete just dropped!

>>4895535
This! All he needed to do was knock off a pair of eyes or add some to one group.

File: GaPGaGkacAAIPWj.jpg (227 KB, 1252x2048)

227 KB JPG

here's an idea
Carnivorous Sauropods

>>4895661
The only way it could work would be as an opportunistic omnivore scavenger

>>4895661
>>4895713
In theory it could work on an island environment. If Cold-Blooded Goats could evolve (Myotragus)... Neck should be shorter though and skull larger as a predator however.

we have a discord right, and its dead
should it be shilled here more

>>4895752
Usually I would /pol/post but the new spam rule is overburdensome. I'm more of an /an/poster tbqh.

File: Regalia Cities.png (1.53 MB, 1512x966)

1.53 MB PNG

This is my imaginary island country of Regalia, located in the northwestern Atlantic.

What kind of endemic wildlife would be feasible to exist there? The nearest landmass is Newfoundland in Canada.

>>4895422
seems like he smoked the kaimere ganja

>>4895752
yeah it's 100% dead last post was in like march

>>4895931
based upon its location just southeast of newfoundland, it'd probably have mostly similar mammal fauna, but more limited.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mammals_of_Newfoundland
unique species might include minuscule subspecies of black bear and deer.

>>4895604
The fucks a mixocete?
captcha: S O Y M A N

I'll just leave this here:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-observed-evidence-evolution-real-120000860.html

>>4895962
QRD?

>>4896167
I'm just saying the designs for those tyrannosauroids remidn me of kaimere's designs in their head ornamentation

File: Neomixocetus sophons.jpg (70 KB, 1280x720)

70 KB JPG

>>4896049
Well it's a descendant of Whales from the Early Oligocene if they hybridised at that date 32 mya on another world, giving them a mixture of features from Odontocetes and Mysticetes. This one is from a lineage that became amphibious.

File: unnamed.png (667 KB, 1024x573)

667 KB PNG

https://youtu.be/q455668UgWc?si=Ck1Gox5uLnz-UR_q


put on your baseball kaps, because this shit's a wild ride.

>>4896448
I'm gonna put my thinking kap on instead

>saw a vid where scientist prefer humanity not going the tech/singularity route and let us evolve naturally. fuck bots that may put us in a matrix

>>4896447
I can barely see anything

>>4896520
Sorry I have a shitty camera.

>>4896574
Apology accepted, don't let it happen again.

>>4896580
Going to charge up the ol' tablet. Has a good camera.

>>4896586
Good, can't wait to see what you got.

>>4896588
Soon now...

File: Neomixocetus sophons.jpg (514 KB, 1920x2560)

514 KB JPG

>>4896588
How's this?

File: Neomixocetus sophons.png (2.21 MB, 2560x1920)

2.21 MB PNG

>>4896597

>>4896597
>>4896599
Why's it so humanoid? Where'd the back legs come from?

File: Atavistic Dolphin Back Fl(...).png (468 KB, 1170x727)

468 KB PNG

>>4896600
Came from several Atavisms quite early on. No land predators on the planet's since only else is Brown Algae, Krill, Fish and Squid so became quite advantageous.

>>4896601
Do you have land fish and land squid and land krill?

File: file.png (284 KB, 700x700)

284 KB PNG

>>4896599
It probably shouldn't have a tail fluke or such an expandable throat if it's so adapted to land.
Also nitpick but most cetaceans only have 4 fingers in their fins, not 5.

File: Dolphin Thumbs.png (251 KB, 1200x675)

251 KB PNG

>>4896603
What forced them onto land facultatively was actually giant predatory Fish. The land became somewhat of a retreat. There is Sand Hoppers and Land Kelp however of which take the niche of Insects and Land Plants respectively.

>>4896605
Delphinids have 5 phalanges, the Mixocetes retained 10 on the front and 8 on the back since they come from earlier Oligocene stock.

>>4896607
>forced them onto land facultatively was actually giant predatory Fish
I find this unlikely, airbreathers just have far more potential to get bigger than water breathers. Megalodon was probably pushing the upper limit of what size animals with gills can reach.

>>4896610
The difference was Mixocetes were toothless with baleen not long after the hybridisation event of their early Oligocene Ancestors, limiting their future niches. I could see Xiphactinus-like descendants of Ray-Finned Fish popping up.

>>4896612
But also eating small oily Fish and Squid as well as Krill as echolocators oddly enough, the Mixocetes could power their yuge brains.

>>4896612
>The difference was Mixocetes were toothless with baleen not long after the hybridisation event of their early Oligocene Ancestors, limiting their future niches
I could easily see them adapt their baleen into quills that function like teeth.

>>4896605
It's truly barely adapted to land, only going there to retreat and collect stuff, they even burned flotsam to keep warm in winter in their pre-civilisation state.

>>4896615
Some Macropredatory Mixocetes do, just not this one. One could argue the filter-feeders became safer on land with all those big Teleosts and Macropredatory Mixocetes. Like somewhere between a Shorebird and a Flamingo with traits of Otter and Beaver in there.

Can you have a insect a bit like eevee where what it can metamorphize into multiple different things?
Instead of two sets of DNA where one dies and the other is activated, it has three sets, two potential things that it could turn into, but which one it does turn into, is influenced by the environment. So it could have one form being of a butterfly sort, and another form being of a beetle sort.

>>4896621
Would be quite cumbersome, but sexual dimorphism could be a thing with this.

>>4896448
The giant crocodile turtle is probably one of the most plausible spec designs i've seen in a while since it's just a giant snapper, bear turtle is also cool

>>4896621
epigenetics can go a long ass way if need be towards generating different morphologies
most plausible might be an aquatic nymph form insect that either morphs into an aquatic adult or a terrestrial adult depending on environmental factors?

https://youtu.be/Be_W5rPSXKI?si=ui1SiLmYSdB-mpxP
some type of coastal parrot adapting to durophagy, eating various crustaceans, perhaps molluscs. Bonus: using their legs and beaks to pull them along coral and/or seaweed/kelp instead of swimming. Mite b kul.

>>4896621
I think ants do this? as in some become a queen or worker or something. not exactly sure if that's true or how it works though

>>4895931
To determine that, you would have to answer the following questions:
>how much of Regalia was covered by ice during the ice age?
>if Regalia was completely covered up by ice, then has Regalia had a land connection to North America since the ice melted?
>if not, then when did Regalia last have a land connection to another landmass, or has it always been isolated?

>>4898221
other important question is how long ago did human got in the island
Because if the Europeans were the first ones he could justify even pygmy mammoths

>>4895293
We need spec takes on hentai tentacle monsters/parasites fr!

>>4896621
I guess something like locusts having differences depending on how the environment and abundance of food is. Its called phase polyphenism

Alright, here we go
>holocene extinction occurs
>most birds and rodents, and some monkeys, felines and canines survive
>birds end up dominating due to generally superior eyesight and moderate sense of smell, versatile beak for scavenging, generally higher average intelligence, social behavior
>also, they have lower body weight due to pneumatic bones and thus require less food to survive, have generalist diets, more efficient respiration than mammals, and can fly and leave environments easily
>birds end up diversifying rapidly while mammals are relegated to rodents, monkeys and the odd small carnivore
>millions of years later
>birds on land evolve analogs of elephant birds, terror birds, oviraptors, utahraptors, neimengosaurus and paraxenisaurus, before figuring out to extend their tails by making the fused bone large
>in the sea gigantic penguins fill the niches left by whales, dolphins and seals, and gigantic storks and flamingos abandon wings and become plesiosaur analogs
>the mesozoic dinosaur dominance never ended, it merely took a short break during the late cenozoic

>>4898514
to be fair, synapsids and sauropsids have sort of been alternating dominance, there's nothing inherent to either that would suggest they naturally belong on top

also might be the issue that rodents like rats are just about the most effective predators of small birds imaginable

>>4895293
Are you that politics guy that got caught looking at hentai?

>>4898534
... you realize how little that narrows it down?

File: Champ.jpg (39 KB, 780x592)

39 KB JPG

anyone know of whoever artist cooked this amphibian Champ, and that squid Ningen?

>>4898514
>birds end up dominating due to generally superior eyesight and moderate sense of smell, versatile beak for scavenging, generally higher average intelligence, social behavior
Why didn't this lead to them dominating after the K-Pg?

>>4899504
because many more mammal lineages survived the Kpg extinction then bird lineages

>>4899614
Even if thats true why would it matter? many more lineages of dicynodonts survived the permian yet it's not them who eventually dominated.

>>4899617
because it means that are more variation and niches that can be explored right way enabling them to diversify and take over quicker

>many more lineages of dicynodonts survived the permian yet it's not them who eventually dominated.
No, only three lineages of dicynodonts survived the great dying less than the number of Archosauromorphs lineages that survived the great dying and the number of avian lineages that survived the K-pg extinction

>>4899614
Issue I guess is trying to think of an extinction event that would leave significantly more avians alive than mammals
especially given the "bat" factor, its exceedingly difficult to dream up any scenario that would hardly kill bird lineages while simultaneously wiping out most if not all bats

I'm also not quite sold on birds winning out an evolutionary race against rodents in an extinction level event, the latter are far more adaptive due to lower generational time

New Kaimere video
https://youtu.be/g9Xbvp_FBF8

>>4899954
stop posting this tranny project

also it's so strange that I almost always happen to check this thread soon after you shill it here, I only check it like twice a week maybe. I wonder why it always syncs up like this.

but yeah not a fan, as always.

>>4900069
Lemme guess... it's "tranny" cuz one of the mermaid homunculi are spliced with a fish that can change sex, like how ya freaks proclaimed Serina had that too just cuz of the tripodal deer fish having the same biological quirk?
Or mayhaps it was just a brief passing mention of a human character being one? "oooh NOOO, the bare minimum example of a sample of the human condition included, oh the horror!" stfu no one cares for you, die alone and in the dark, forgotten and unseen, unloved, anon.

>>4900113
Alien Biospheres also had it
Really none of that ever struck me as "tranny"
But rather because spec-evo tends to try and use things that are less common in our world but still interesting

>>4900113
https://youtu.be/5SIo4sq1Kc8?si=pFebzQ9crut-faAy
the entire project is an excuse to write fanfiction (multiple books) about his particular tranny butch lesbian black waifus. Disingenuous retard.

Serina went to shit the second they added sentient species

>>4900291
and unfortunately once you add them you sort of have to focus on them because most of your audience is now fixated on them

File: Europa_Ocean.jpg (301 KB, 1600x900)

301 KB JPG

Seems like europa is being discussed again. What sort of life can exist here? Most life will probably stick to the ocean floor since that's where the energy is but also the pressure is so high, even tardigrades from earth wouldn't survive. Does that write off the possibility of large multicellular life?

>>4900290
Waow based!

>>4900291
>sapient*

File: bees 25-19.png (1.45 MB, 2800x2000)

1.45 MB PNG

I'm building a honeybee seed world, it's got no vertebrates. Three arachnids, one oceanic crustacean and mainly Apis melifera and (eight species of) plants.
I've got one spec evo video, and I'm working on the second quite feverishly.
https://youtu.be/0_HwP-ePjdU

>>4900747
just bee urself

File: 123922.png (205 KB, 1535x730)

205 KB PNG

What would be a fun way for giant flightless birds to lose heat

One idea is thermoregulation through the beak. This works on some species like the big-beaked predators but there's herbivores too which have much smaller heads and beaks, where this wouldnt be an option.

Another would be a wide variety of vasculated crests on the beak and head that function kind of like the ears of an elephant.

Another would be to make them bald or at least very sparsely feathered above certain sizes.

Another would be to have a series of wattles and all sorts of fleshy bits dangling down from their head and neck, however if these birds would fight I imagine they would get all ripped up.

Another would be that they evolve some rudimentary sweat glands. However I'm not sure how necessary sweating is. Despite it having a huge advantage in dumping heat it also means that they would need to drink an ungodly amount of water. Also, elephants despite also being enormous and warm-blooded, hardly sweat at all.

Last thing I can come up with is they coat their legs in moisture from their mouth or something, the way kangaroos lick their forearms to cool down.

File: 131919.png (47 KB, 465x328)

47 KB PNG

>>4900778
I'm also considering the shapes of the bill. For something that big, it can't dance around on one foot to kick things, and so it has no other way to capture and kill prey besides the beak. As such the feet have no talons and are purely concerned with weight distribution and locomotion, while the beak has to be a highly versatile tool thats extremely specialized. Yet I've mostly just used the general terror bird or eagle-type beak with a single hook at the end, which were all used in conjunction with talons on the feet. Imagining it taking down something the size of an elephant, I don't know if that kind of a beak would be enough. Should there be some serration involved? Maybe multiple tomia? Or should the beak instead be shorter and more macaw-like, a pincer shape used to exert more force.

>>4900784
pseudoteeth might work

>>4900778
I think ostriches have stretches of bare skin under their wings that they can beat their wings over to cool their core a bit, that might work on a larger scale. You could also have them use their neck and the muscles that controls their ability to fluff feathers so they could raise a bunch of sparse feathers arranged in like rings or something to cool off their neck, maybe.
>Another would be to have a series of wattles and all sorts of fleshy bits dangling down from their head and neck, however if these birds would fight I imagine they would get all ripped up.
Or it could serve as thick, fleshy armor like a badger or bear has. Might work.

>>4900784
Shorter crushing beak makes more sense to me. Could also develop spurs on their legs so that they can us it to hold an animal down after making a first bite; that could let them use their weight to their advantage without dealing with fast kicks.

File: ningen_squid.png (250 KB, 950x800)

250 KB PNG

>>4899102
fr tho, did some legendary drawfag just... randomly popped in and cooked such kino shit in that old spec thread on /x/ b4 fading into the abyss??

>>4900747
Nice work anon! Don't forget that most of the bees are solitary

>>4901364
Thank you, the purple lineage has already reached a solitary niche, so it's gonna blow up soon.

>>4901316
would you the beakussy?

File: Screenshot_20240816_145929.jpg (20 KB, 713x394)

20 KB JPG

>>4901474

File: 144789.gif (2.18 MB, 480x366)

2.18 MB GIF

>>4900747
>That one clam world project with dog sized bees

File: 1614282627455.png (83 KB, 619x594)

83 KB PNG

Anyone knows what will happen to an ecosystem if the insects are the size of dogs?

>>4902942
what kind of insect, thats pretty important

>>4902942
Carboniferous 2.0: Hymenoptera Boogaloo

>>4902961
Every insect.
From bees to ants to bugs to flies to maggots.
What i want to know is can dog-sized insects still participate on decomposition process?

>>4903262
>bees, butterflies, and other general pollinators
no more fruit bats or hummingbirds, giant flowers get bigger
>ants, termites, and other colony insect
theres a problem now, where they basically strip the land clean around the nest for underground farms
>flies
not much changes really, i guess birds would get fucked up or get more food
>beetles and other detrivores
probably going to be rarer because theyre going to strip the land clean, at a certain point theyll stop eating shit and eat normal things
>predatory insects
very dangerous, predatory beetles will fuck up a lot; parasitic wasps, cazadores;

>>4903262
A dog sized bee would not be able to fly to begin with unless it's wings changed completely

>>4903265
>not much changes really, i guess birds would get fucked up or get more food
>falcons and other agile predatory birds getting in an arms race with giant flies to become agile enough to catch them
>birds and giant flies darting and weaving through forests at break neck speeds and making turns that would normally obliterate something of similar size
Sounds kino actually

>>4901316
still wondering, btw...

>>4898542
I mean he is famous for being caught and lying about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWg6z5ODZBY
Also he was just a /lit/fag sorry.

Has anyone ever tried some kino shit like pondering the ecology of Hell/Inferno and/or Heaven/Paradiso? Think that could be an interesting gem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el97A8PMqbQ

>>4904458
Midwit core channel

File: barlowe_hells-first-born.jpg (182 KB, 653x928)

182 KB JPG

>>4904376
Wayne barlowe did hell

>>4904547
Shame the demons are often literally just humans, sure i'd be fine if they're still humanoid, but literally got human/simian features, especially the face

>>4904376
>Has anyone ever tried some kino shit like pondering the ecology of Hell
This was my original project when I was like 15 years old
Nothing remains of that except shitty pencil drawings and terrible writing

>>4903265
giant ants would probably adapt to live in far smaller colonies, like dozens or hundreds individuals at most.

Anyone know any good spec evo games?

File: 1000003083.png (790 KB, 1024x573)

790 KB PNG

>>4896448

>>4906223
There aren't any besides spore, is there?

>>4896621
Epigenetics are a hell of a drug
I'm fairly sure Ants do this

Maybe you could work that into a non-colony arthropod

File: exigua.png (412 KB, 860x571)

412 KB PNG

Parasitic Isopod that replaces your dick but is otherwise fully functional and benign. It even replicates sensation and becomes completely enslaved to the host's nervous system.

It is also quite large

would you, /an/?

>>4906298
>>>/d/

File: NgandongTiger.jpg (160 KB, 1080x712)

160 KB JPG

>>4894711
I think a pantherine with high visual acuity would absolutely dominate as an apex predator and eventually have a longer rein than that of the sabertooth cats.

Also, is the fact that the Ndagong Tiger was able to drive a sabertooth cat and a giant hyena species to extinction and mesopredator status respectively mean that the pantherines are overall superior as predators to machairodonts?

>>4906849
it means that in that specific instance it was better. It really could have gone a different way had the populations had only a few changes, like a behavioral quirk or something.

File: GIGvRw5WIAAjFwM.jpg (49 KB, 932x932)

49 KB JPG

>>4901316
>>4899102
you guys remember me?

>>4906223
Adapt if its finished already
Thrive if it ever comes out

>>4906916
We do, whom are thou, oh great and mysterious drawfag?

>>4907007
Thrive has really nice roots, but I highly doubt it's going anywhere, sadly.

File: mothhawk.jpg (389 KB, 1280x1854)

389 KB JPG

Bird-bugs

>>4906906
The Ndagong Tiger grew in size specifically to compete against the hyena add sabertooth cats, that's pretty impressive.

>>4895293
You should ask for your brain to be preserved post-mortem for studying.

>>4906849
>the Ngandong Tiger was able to drive a sabertooth and a giant hyena to extinction
Citation fucking needed, otherwise, this is nothing more than a personal headcanon

>>4907888
Again, source or gtfo.

>>4907898
>>4907899

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283496418_Niche_overlap_and_competition_potential_among_tigers_Panthera_tigris_sabertoothed_cats_Homotherium_ultimum_Hemimachairodus_zwierzyckii_and_Merriam's_Dog_Megacyon_merriami_in_the_Pleistocene_of_Java

>On Java during the Pleistocene, tigers of more than 300 kg occurred, but these are restricted to a single Late Pleistocene faunal unit, while Early and Middle Pleistocene tigers possessed body masses comparable to those of historic Javanese and extant Sumatran tigers. However, former studies have excluded carnivores from the Middle Pleistocene site of Sangiran where tigers co-occurred with machairodonts (Hemimachairodus zwierzyckii and Homotherium ultimum) and the large Merriam's Dog (Megacyon merriami). The aim of this study is to test if large tiger individuals occurred already in Early and/or Middle Pleistocene sites in Java and evaluate competition potential among carnivores from Sangiran and its consequences.

>We calculated body masses and prey mass spectrum for tigers and potential competitors using linear regressions. Niche overlap was then estimated based on the prey mass spectrum after which niche-overlaps were used as indicators for competition potentials. Reconstructed body mass for H. ultimum, H. zwierzyckii, M. merriami are154 kg (comparable to Homotherium from Untermassfeld), 130 kg and 52 kg, respectively. The niche overlap be-tween tigers and Merriam's Dog is highest (100%) while it is comparatively low (60%) between tigers and H. ultimum.

>Tigers have not increased body mass before Ngandong faunal level, but competitors like Merriam's Dog seem to have decreased body mass to avoid competition with tigers. The sabertoothed cats on the other hand seem to have been unable to adapt to competition and went extinct.

>>4894711
Can you reupload the Dougal Dixon books?
I'd really like to see those.
Im pretty sure libgen doesnt exist anymore or something.

>>4907842
seeing shit like this just makes me mad. This is clearly an example of some soulless ESL retard who grinds fundies 24/7 but has absolutely no imagination. "what if x... but really y?" is the absolute worst trope in spec evo. This is awful.

>>4908317
Go to sivatherium

File: 2002-90-2-johnson-natural-2.jpg (859 KB, 1844x435)

859 KB JPG

Tell me about your worlds reefs

would there be any reasonable pathway towards penguins re-evolving claws at the end of their flippers to assist with rock climbing for nesting purpose?

>>4909727
Given that the hoatzin manage to reevolve wing-claws I think would just need a mutation to reactivate the win-claws delevopment pathway and it being an usefull enough trait to to be selected

>>4909727
Their wings already have that... material, can't remember what it is making their wings rigid, they could easily have it either create a keratinized sheath on the end or have some of their scale-like feathers just get even harder.
Also I kept trying to look it up and even broke down and asked an AI bot but I couldn't find any references to it. Anyone here know what it is? I can't tell if it's ossified tendons or what

>>4909747
the evolutionary feedback here would be, if not too unlikely, for the penguins to nest on rocky shores near cliffs, and being able to get higher up the cliffs for nesting purpose having positive fitness

though I suppose that having non-streamlined fins would perhaps be too much of a negative and it's far-fetched to go to retractable claws immediately

>>4909826
can't find it either, but does sound interesting

>>4908970
is that a website?

>>4910554
yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ2e-4d_UvI&ab_channel=SpeculativeWildlifeResearchCenter

>>4912046
My bad

File: dfnd7pt-c84475ee-9a37-4cb(...).png (3.01 MB, 2000x2655)

3.01 MB PNG

How do you guys find antarctic chronicles?
https://sites.google.com/view/antarctic-chronicles

>>4912492
I just had a lot of fun looking through davis' hotdogs' google maps info based on looking for pictures of grasses and greens in antarctica, it's pretty dang funny. Would share but 4chan keeps marking it as spam.

>>4912587
I have no idea what you're talking about.

>>4912492
I really don't like the "intelligent but not really" crows he adds in. I always hates that birds aren't good enough for speccers and they always have to throw in a mammal for "variety" but I feel as though they were a particularly bad way to do it. Not to mention most of the animals they brought with them didn't have any lasting impact.
Also the not sapient part really irks me. He wants all the advantages of a sapient species but doesn't want to deal with anything else so he makes eusocial crows that still do animal husbandry and agriculture and make tools. Speccers relationship with sapient animals is such a let down, they are incredibly reluctant to use them for some reason. I don't really know why, it's not like it'd be hard to get rid of them knowing the expected trajectory of human civilization.

>>4912820
truly a shame few writers take full advantage of the opportunities to write something alien that corvids offer for sapience

here you'd have a sapient species that, unlike humans, cannot easily win from large predators
that alone already changes up the dynamic of their stone age immensely

flight also allows much greater mobility, lower body size means drastically less food is required, so the mechanics of agriculture again would be radically different, perhaps to the point that true sedentary agriculture never develops

>>4912834
>here you'd have a sapient species that, unlike humans, cannot easily win from large predators
I think you underestimate how big of an advantage sapience is. While they might not be able to bonk predators with big rocks, they can make make traps to kill them.
>lower body size means drastically less food is required
Per individual, but all that means is you can support more individuals. I don't see agriculture being substantially different for sapient birds than humans.

>>4912837
sure but that's an increased level of complexity needed, and even then, simple traps often require significant physical effort in order for it to be effective, anything the size of a corvid can't make a deadfall trap that reliably takes out a wolf or a bear for example, nor can they excavate pits large enough to hinder larger animals without extraordinary effort

And you can't always rely on traps, the advantage humans had was that a group of 10 or so humans with simple wooden spears are a sufficient threat no predator wants to risk it, which means that humans can if surprised still drive them off

As for supporting more individuals, there's limits to how large stone age groups can get due to lack of any established organization, even if the corvids would have significantly higher social capacity than humans, you'd still end up with groups reaching that max social carrying capacity, while requiring drastically less food

combine this with it being drastically harder to defend pastures, domestication of large animals being more difficult due to size differences, I could very well see rather than true agriculture, Amazon tribe style forest management being the default, with groups migrating between carefully managed gardens of fruit bearing plants, fish ponds etc. which don't require constant attention and can be left to recover without oversight

and this sort of semi-nomadic lifestyle being the basis of cultural development rather than true sedentary agriculture

>>4912847
wouldnt they just do slash and burn

>>4912847
>anything the size of a corvid can't make a deadfall trap
Why not?
>or can they excavate pits large enough to hinder larger animals
Why not?
>without extraordinary effort
As we are all aware, sapient social animals are completely and utterly, hopelessly incapable of this.
>advantage humans had was that a group of 10 or so humans with simple wooden spears are a sufficient threat no predator wants to risk it
This isn't true, look up the tsavo maneaters. Even up to the gunpowder age it was common for humans to be eaten by predators.
> there's limits to how large stone age groups can get due to lack of any established organization
This isn't true either, the incas managed a level of organization comparable to any medieval state despite being in the stone age.
>domestication of large animals being more difficult due to size differences
Just domesticate smaller animals.
>>4912850
Birds already do this lol

>>4912850
that's a possibility, but I figure that treetop dwellings would be a rather elegant and natural means of living for sapient corvids
setting up traps that deter predators near those is also significantly easier

naturally there would be a lot of different types of behavior, and it's very likely some of them would practice slash and burn, but clearing burned terrain is not always that simplistic
slash and burn can also be used as a precursor to managed gardens rather than true agriculture, I believe the New Guinea people practiced this

>>4912851
both the making of the deadfall and the pits large enough to deter large predators require significant physical effort that would be extremely difficult for animals that size, not to mention animals lacking arms to help lift and dig
while not impossible, the effort required would make it impractical

In effect for them to create a deadfall against a bear would be about equivalent to humans making a deadfall suitable for a diplodocus, and doing so without using your hands

Also why individual humans getting picked off by predators happened, no predators on earth consider or have considered, at any point, homo sapiens to be a reliable prey animal
it's also, paradoxically perhaps, easier to pick off farmers than picking of hunter/gatherers who would be in tighter groups and more likely to carry weaponry

As for the Inca, I should have said stone age hunter/gatherer, the development of the Andean cultures is a long process comparable to agricultural societies elsewhere on the planet just without significant use of metal tools

should note that I'm not against sapient birds practicing true agriculture, it's a strategy we know works after all

But rather than I consider it a bit of a waste for spec-evo projects to not at least explore a bit how the different physiology of birds could potentially lead to different civilization origins and survival strategies

Speculative cultural evolution in addition to speculative biological evolution so to speak

>>4912856
>both the making of the deadfall and the pits large enough to deter large predators require significant physical effort that would be extremely difficult for animals that size
Just work together.
>>4912856
>not to mention animals lacking arms to help lift and dig
>while not impossible, the effort required would make it impractical
Just use their feet and beak.
>>4912856
>In effect for them to create a deadfall against a bear
How about use a different kind of trap for bears such as a pit trap? Hell I've never even heard of humans using deadfall traps on bears. I don't know why you're so set in thinking only in terms of deadfall traps.
>Also why individual humans getting picked off by predators happened, no predators on earth consider or have considered, at any point, homo sapiens to be a reliable prey animal
Tell me how I know you didn't look up the tsavo maneaters
>I should have said stone age hunter/gatherer
With that qualifier I don't see how the point is relevant.
>>4912859
>I consider it a bit of a waste for spec-evo projects to not at least explore a bit how the different physiology of birds could potentially lead to different civilization origins and survival strategies
Wholeheartedly agree, I just don't buy any of the reasons you give for why birds would have a substantially different technological trajectory than humans.

>>4912852
but wouldnt they just live in a spot that is relatively unassailable and harvest the area around, like a beehive, essentially a fortress or castle

>>4912863
Digging is more than just moving dirt around though, it requires working through plant roots, removing rocks, moving earth up and away from the pit and doing it all fast enough to be effective
bird feet are generally (there's some exception, but those are not usually among the more intelligent clades) rather poorly suited for any form of digging, especially in rougher soil

>tsavo maneaters
Those were an exceptional circumstance and not indicative of larger species-wide behavior for lions, not to mention the circumstances do not in any way reflect hunter/gatherer tribes
I'm talking more general behaviors here
Furthermore, if they had attacked a group of workers armed with spears they would have in all likelyhood died or at least been sufficiently wounded death was inevitable

>>4912863
I still do believe the combination of drastically lower body weight, inability to use weapons that deter large predators and flight would make certain survival strategies that remained more niche in humans significantly more likely to work for them
The example here being semi-nomadic environmental management rather than true sedentary behavior
This doesn't "have" to be how it goes, I'm not claiming that, I'm simply giving arguments as to why the strategy "might" work better for them than for humans
And even so, there's 2 locations on earth where successful cultures used such strategies, Amazon rainforest and New Guinea

>>4912864
That's actually what I'm suggesting they would do, have fortified locations, treetops being an example of such a location, from which they harvest the surrounding area
The notes in addition to this I make is that it could make sense for rather than true agriculture have managed highly productive environments that allow for easy foraging, and that they would be semi-nomadic, moving between fortified positions to allow a managed environment time to recover to allow for future exploiting

>>4912867
>Digging is more than just moving dirt around though, it requires working through plant roots, removing rocks, moving earth up and away from the pit and doing it all fast enough to be effective
Why couldn't birds do this?
>bird feet are generally (there's some exception, but those are not usually among the more intelligent clades) rather poorly suited for any form of digging
Okay, I figured this went without saying for sapient animals but evidently not. I meant with tools, not their bare feet.
>Those were an exceptional circumstance and not indicative of larger species-wide behavior for lions
Actually it was for the time period for africans to be eaten by lions. We only think the tsavo maneaters exceptional because they targeted a european project.
>Furthermore, if they had attacked a group of workers armed with spears
spears>guns is a rare take
>>4912867
>inability to use weapons that deter large predators
Are they incapable or would they just have to use different weapons to humans?

>>4912899
>spears>guns is a rare take
that was not the takaway from this, the workers were unarmed which was the case because they were workers in an industrial society, tribal societies would have each member be armed to some degree and proficient with it's use
obviously if all of the workers had rifles that would have worked out a lot better

that said there are some edge cases where a spear is more useful, if you're in a circumstance where aiming might be difficult and you can't guarantee a shot to immediately disable the animal, a spear genuinely might work better since the animal would have to impale itself on the point

>I meant with tools, not their bare feet.
And we are talking primitive tools here, stone, wood, bone, getting through tree roots with that is difficult even for a human, if you've ever had to dig anywhere near roots you'd know even with a spade, a tool far above the abilities of a primitive society to construct, roots can be a bitch
Birds simply don't have the leverage and physical strength to use tools to properly get through roots in any appreciable timeframe
Not to mention that removing rocks that are trivial for a human to move would require major effort for them
Remember, you can only get your tools so sharp and durable without access to at least bronze metallurgy

And again I never said it was impossible, but I'm merely saying that to dig a pit trap for a large animal is such a major undertaking that for their primitive societies it would not be worth it, and generally most means of securing the ground level against large predators and large herbivores are impractical for them

>>4912899
>or would they just have to use different weapons to humans
I've actually thought this through and just about the only portable weapon I could see a stone-age corvid use that could incapacitate a wolf, would be grooved knitting-needle like carved pieces of hardwood, inlaid possibly with obsidian and coated in poison dart frog poison or something equally fast acting, used by precariously divebombing the creature and either directly injecting it or perhaps if they are weighted carefully dropping it

Nothing that requires physical strength to kill seemed plausible, nor any held ranged weaponry, since they have neither arms nor the lung capacity for blowing weapons, nor could they carry and load tension or torsion weapon other than weighted darts dropped straight down

The issue with these types of weapons is twofold,
one it requires consistent access to a source of fast-acting neurotoxin, both to the source and means of preservation
and two, that these weapons are not necessarily effective as deterrent nor can they be considered self-defense weapons since using them against an attacking creature is most likely going to result in the death of at least one, and likely multiple tribe members