2036 editionPrevious Thread: >>5040573WHAT IS SPECULATIVE EVOLUTION?Speculative evolution is the exploration and imagining of how life might evolve in the future or could have evolved in alternate pasts. It's a multimedia sci-fi genre that harnesses scientific principles to create detailed and plausible hypothetical creatures, ecosystems, and evolutionary histories.RESOURCES:https://speculativeevolution.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Tutorial>One-stop shop for relevant background information for starting a projecthttp://planetfuraha.blogspot.com/>Fantastic blog covering all sorts of spec evo topics in-depthhttps://specevo.jcink.net/>The Speculative Evolution forums, full of resources and ongoing projectsRECOMMENDED PROJECTS:https://pastebin.com/zhBbaNTB>Link to a PDF of Wayne Barlowe’s “Expedition”, a seminal work of speculative evolution full of incredible paintings and illustrationshttps://youtu.be/Rbi8Jgx1CNE>”The Future is Wild”, a CGI documentary following the evolution of life on Earth in the far futurehttps://pastebin.com/esdFrSEZ>Dougal Dixon, arguably the father of speculative evolution. These are links to PDF’s of his books “After Man”, “The New Dinosaurs”, and “Man After Man”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egzZv8tqT_k&list=PL6xPxnYMQpquNuaEffJzjGjMsr6VktCYl&ab_channel=Biblaridionhttps://sites.google.com/site/worldofserina/https://sunriseonilion.wordpress.com/http://www.cmkosemen.com/snaiad_web/snduterus.htmlhttps://www.deviantart.com/sanrou/gallery/56844005/nauhttp://www.planetfuraha.nl/https://multituberculateearth.wordpress.com/https://sites.google.com/view/lokiworldofrats/homehttps://specevo.jcink.net/index.php?showtopic=4578&st=15https://www.deviantart.com/bicyclefroghttps://hardeshur.blogspot.com/p/main-page.htmlhttps://rylmadolisland.blogspot.com/p/main-page.html?zx=bba41f9d602b6b9ahttps://lemuriaspeculative.wordpress.comhttps://alpha.sagan4.org/wiki/Main_Page
RECOMMENDED READING LIST ON EVOLUTION: > The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins > The Extended Phenotype - Richard Dawkins > The Revolutionary Phenotype - J.F. Gariepy > Evolution and the Theory of Games - John Maynard Smith > Animal Signals - John Maynard Smith > The Red Queen - Matt Ridley > Mendel's Principles of Heredity - Bateson & Mendel > Population Genetics: A Concise Guide - John H. Guillespie > The Largest Avian Radiation: The Evolution of Perching Birds, or the Order Passeriformes by Jon Fjeldså, Les Christidis, and Per G. P. Ericson >The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity by Douglas Erwin >Carboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction: The Late Paleozoic Ice Age World by George McGhee Jr. >Triassic Life on Land: The Great Transition by Hans-Dieter Sues >On the Prowl: In Search of Big Cat Origins by Mark Hallett and John Harris
What's an animal alive today that could converge into an ankylosaur niche?
>>5101999pig
>>5101999armadillosits already happened before, it can happen again
>>5102038being armored isn't a niche formfag
>>5101999PangolinsArmadillo LizardsSnapping turtles Thorny devilsHorned lizardsAll of those actually grow big scales/osteroderms/spikes on their bodies and tails and could probably evolve a club.
>>5102048what did I just say about armor and niches, formfag
>>5101999turtles like Meilania
>>5102087>>5102041Well the exact niche of ankylosaurs is unclear. We understand them as low browsers, so technically a horse is an akylosaur analogue
>>5101996op what the hell is that thing
>>5102164What is Mako? luman
>>5102164oh wouldn't you like to know
wasn't there a game where you built your own animals? Spore?
>>5102041uh, "herbivore that focuses on being slow and defensive instead of cursorial" is a niche, actually.
not a fan of the aislop, it's nonsense because it disregards the actual evolution part of speculative evolution and is frustratingly derivative.
Why are creatures in speculative evolution so hideous?
>>5102311That's a strategy. What does the herbivore specifically eat
>>5102313I think the slop is bait. I recognize the creatures and the project they're from has a strict policy against AI. Unsure why slopify them
>>5102313>>5102325cope
>>5102328you didn't even try with that one
>>5102289yup
>>5102323plants, you fat faggotstop being obtuse
>>5102322they're trying too hard to be "realistic"
>>5102386>doesn't know the difference between a browser and a grazer or a generalist and a specialist
>>5102416Again, horses.
>>5102423Horses are specialists.
>>5102323What's the difference between a strategy and a niche? Don't tell me you think niche is exclusive to how they obtain food, because that's extremely silly.
>>5102459A niche is what specific resource the species exploits. And a specific subset of plants is as much a different resource from other subsets of plants as insects are from rodents for carnivores
>>5102488Well, that's wrong. A niche is what role an organism fills in an environment or ecosystem. That typically includes what foodstuff they consume, but it does not require that inclusion for it to be a niche.
>>5102515The fact that polar bears will eat you isn't your niche
>>5102533You're being very silly.
https://alpha.sagan4.org/wiki/Dioramas
>>5102776Not even gonna bump the thread with an example?
future
>>5103134what's with the multiple eye creatures?
>>5103445just report it for trolling and ignore it, he's not posting any actual spec evo and is not interested in discussing it.
>>5102041>>5102323>>5102416>>5102488>>5102533What a sperg lmao
>>5103558I was hoping there actually was some thought behind it or justification like maybe a concept of earth undergoing a cataclysm that wiped out every vertebrate and evolution having to start over or solike I get it's AI, but in theory you could use AI to make a sort of "good enough" sketch of ideas you hadalways a shame when AI images turn out to have just no thought behind them
>>5103558>>5103682you do realize those are classic sagan 4 dioramas """remastered""" with AI right
>>5103822Why not post the originals then? they are much more appealing
>>5103824idk "future" or smth here's another one
>>5103822Putting an existing work through a slop filter and then not discussing it at all is not suitable for these threads. It's just regurgitating things, especially considering the filenames most likely in a malicious manner. It's just trolling.
New Noterra video on not!cryogenian microorganismshttps://youtu.be/uuhW4BwN90ANew Kaimere videoshttps://youtu.be/qT1EL5niQ9khttps://youtu.be/yTutXAv4IQA
>>5104196>kaimerespeaking of things that aren't spec evo...
>>5104196Noterra really deserves far more views single celled spec-evo is fascinating
could animals ever transition to live in space, the same way aquatic species moved onto land?>swifts already spend 10 months in the air without needing to land>suddenly a predator appears that mostly hunts swifts at lower elevation>selective pressure for swifts that fly higher and land less often>eventually you reach the first bird that gives live birth, with the offspring remaining in a pouch to avoid falling before their wings are ready, finally enabling them to keep airborne for their entire lives>when attacked by predators, they ascend to where the air is too thin for them to follow, holding its breath for over 30 minutes like an emperor penguinand you could call them martlets because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martlet
>>5104470the air being thin doesn't just make it harder to breathe, it also makes it harder to avoid stalling, requiring increasingly more energy to maintain the necessary velocity to stay at that altitude or increasingly massive wingspan then there's the issue that it gets cold fast at higher altitudes again requiring more energy expended to stay warmall while your ability to generate energy is reduced significantly by your lower oxygen intake and you still need to descend to get food because there's no possible ecosystem that high since it completely lacks autotrophs to form the baseline, which means exposing yourself to predators, while being hamstrung at lower altitude by the requirements to survive at extreme altitude, and you are not capable of ascending fast enough to escape danger and you're also not big enough to simply avoid predators entirely due to the requirement of being extremely light weight to be even capable of remaining airborne there's simply no good way to achieve this
>>5101996New Age of Monotremes megavideo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFBaVIsWQCc&t=692s
>>5104470I think this might be achievable by pests that hitch a ride with humans going to space. Not sure exactly how they'd adapt but it seems plausible.
>tits>lays eggsharpies are fucking monotremes
>>5102164It's called Italian brainrot
>>5105820>>tits>monotremesyou'll lap up her milk off of her bare, nipple-less flat chest and you'll like it. I'm sure I would.
>>5105820You do realise there's a number of extinct mammal groups that laid eggs right?
>>5105982Mammal-like reptiles?
>>5105982yes but as you said those groups are extinct so they cant possibly be harpies
>>5106709Said groups became extinct fairly recently though. You could have your harpies be the last representatives of said group.>>5106677I mean animals like Castorocauda and Morganucodon
>>5104494/thread >>5104470>live in spacealso,choose your words better next time. High altitudes≠space no living beings can survive in outer space,let alone thrive
>>5106751>no living beings can survive in outer space,let alone thriveIn theory it would be possible through genetic manipulation create some kind of microorganism capable of withstanding vacuum and use special pigments to withstand the radiation and gain energy from itbut even if you could do that they still completely and utterly lack nutrients, so you pretty much need them anchored to a comet for them to have any chance, and it needs to be a comet or waterbearing asteroid rich in carbon and other necessary mineralsyou could in theory simplify a creature to use as little elements as possible but even then extracting those from an asteroid or comet rich in them is exceedingly hard constrained by a simplified bodyplan
>>5105820There's been more bird species with teeth or that produce milk then there are or have ever been mammals with feathers.
>>5107665wait which bird species produce milk, as in actual milk?
>>5107686Not actual milk but crop milk is common among birds like pigeons, penguins and flamingos
>>5107815oh sure I knew about that one but I was just wondering if some bird convergently evolved true milkwhich is not entirely unlikely considering that siphonops annulatus actually went and evolved proper milk despite being a caecilian
>>5101996New entry in Lemuria https://lemuriaspeculative.wordpress.com/2026/03/12/freshwater-dugong/
I'm hoping to make a litrpg about a Zerg like alien and I'd like your guys thoughts in regards to this stat sheet. #Specimen Profile: Hybrid Tyrsect Drone Classification:- Taxonomic Species Designation: Tyrsecta (Drone Caste, Young Adult Phase) - Specimen ID: TDR-047-HYB - Observation Date: Cycle 47.892 Morphological Analysis:- Body Plan: Hexapod (six-limbed) ambulatory structure, approximately human-scale (1.8m length, 1.2m height at shoulder). - Cranial Features: Raptor-like skull with; ant-derived mandibles at the corner for grabbing and pinning in place (lancing edges, tensile strength ~350 MPa). - Exoskeletal Armor: Sparse chitinous plating, covering vitals and sitting well away from joints.- Unique Morphology: Abdomen gaster acid gland reservoir (capacity: 1 L corrosive fluid, pH <2). - Locomotion: Agile, predatory gait; capable of bursts up to 60 Km/h. - Sensory Apparatus: Compound eyes (360° field), 20/190 vision; chemoreceptors on antennae for pheromone detection. - Vital Signs: Metabolic rate elevated (energy expenditure: 2.5x baseline drone); regenerative capacity moderate (minor wounds heal in ~48 hours). - Genetic Integration: Rodent cerebrum xenograft stable; hybrid vigor noted (enhanced neural plasticity). - Acid gland ejection range: 6-8m; toxin profile: Hydrofluoric-based, tissue dissolution rate: 10cm3/min. - Synaptic Relay Cluster: Range 12 meters; Low frequency; Baseline drone hive-mind relay organ.Behavioral Assessment:- Cognitive Status: Independent Thought unlocked; no longer hive-dependent. Quantitative Stats Overview:| Attribute | Value | Notes || Strength | Mandible crush force: 1,500N; lift capacity: 300kg. || Agility | 16 m/s; jump height of 2 meters. || Durability | Chitinous armor rating of ~350 MPa. || Intelligence quotient | 25; Post-mutation; basic problem-solving emergent. || Kill Count | 19 tyrsect drones. || Malleable Biomass Accumulated 16 liters of tyrsecta flesh. |
>>5108738looks interesting, what is it for?
Rhinoailurus amurensis, a newly discovered Early Oligocene felid from the Russian Far East that may reshape understanding of early cat evolution. Unearthed in 2023 from the Bureya River formation, the fossil includes a well-preserved skull and partial skeleton. While similar in size to a modern bobcat, the animal’s most striking feature is its highly developed nasal structure, unlike anything previously seen in related carnivores, immediately drawing scientific attention.Anatomically, Rhinoailurus was a capable carnivore with strong jaws, sharp teeth, and a body suited for agile movement, but its defining trait was its extraordinary sense of smell. Its nasal cavity was vastly enlarged and complex, suggesting an olfactory ability far surpassing that of modern animals—even exceeding that of a bloodhound. This implies it was a scent-specialist predator, likely relying on smell rather than speed or vision to locate prey and navigate its environment.Its evolutionary position remains debated. Some analyses place it as a sister taxon to Proailurus, an ancestor of modern cats, while others argue it belongs to a farther separate, extinct feliform lineage. Regardless, Rhinoailurus lived in a mixed woodland-savanna ecosystem during a time of climatic change, where its advanced olfactory abilities would have been advantageous. Ongoing research aims to clarify its classification and further explore its sensory adaptations, with hopes that additional fossils will shed more light on this unusual predator’s place in evolutionary history.
>>5111588>aislop
Biogeographically, the current continents do not allow for as much variation as would be possible; Eurasia is very vast and located at relatively high latitudes. Imagine if the continents were more fragmented, with more islands, and if most of it were concentrated in the tropics. We would have an even richer global flora and fauna.
>>5111714Floating islands would work. Rafts of nitrogen fixing reeds would provide shelter for seagoing and castaway animals without changing ocean currents.
>>5111714Cretaceous to Eocene in our history
