This is a species that I have been working on for a while now and they are called Skyrays or whistlers. They are around the size of horses I believe!

Now, Skyrays are an omnivorous species with the ability to fly. Their diet consists of nuts, soft fruits, meat, shelled organisms, and bones, which is all sliced and crushed by their internalised beaks. Their tongues have evolved as a third pair of limbs to aid in manipulating objects, but they are still able to taste with them. They also breathe through spiracles on the base of their neck, which also aid in smell and vocalisation. Finally, their secondary pair of eyes is surrounded by heat sensors, allowing to switch to thermal vision in darker surroundings.

So what do I want feedback/critique on? Well I would like feedback on my alien’s morphology and biology in general

Hey, I'm working on a procedural space exploration game, and I really want to nail down the realism; I don't want to just put red trees on a green planet and call it a day.

Unfortunately im a software engineer rather than a chemist or biologist, and so any guesses i could make about what other kinds of flora and fauna could plausibly exist on a planet with a different sun and different chemicals readily-available would be just that: a guess

And so i come before you to ask the simple question: what the hell colours of trees would be believable?

I know our sun emits primarily high-energy light -- purples and blues -- and so it makes sense that most flora has evolved to make use of green-reflecting chlorophyll and/or red-reflecting Phycobiliproteins (hell of a scrabble word i just learned). If there was, for example, a star that primarily emitted lower-energy light in the red/infra-red range, would there potentially be a different structure that might reflect, say blue light, appearing almost bluish-black in contrast to the predominantly red-lit landscape?

Honestly any food for thought, ideas, or rabbit holes to jump into would be very much appreciated. I'm just as interested in learning more about this as I am interested in making a realistic alien landscape :)

While working on my seed world project, I thought it would be cool if one of the three main groups of terrestrial arthropods (beetles, mantis, and millipedes) developed social behavior like ants or bees. But none of those groups have social interaction between individuals (as far as I know). So do you think it would be possible? In which case, which one?

Btw, if this concept ends up being part of my project, I will cite the most helpfull comments.

The Ediacaran period was home to many organisms whose method of getting energy is unclear, as they lack obvious mouthparts and didn't live in an environment that was suitable for photosynthesis. Do we think they could have utilised the flow of water to generate energy? It would explain their large surface area and apparent sessility. It would also explain why they went extinct after the rise of plants and animals, as kinetotrophy is much less efficient.

I'm almost certain someone has suggested this before, so if there are any papers or projects anyone knows about I'd be interested.

While we can, sadly, quite safely assume we would never find a living, pure breed hominid excluding the most primitive ones, who could not freely produce fertile offspring with Homo sapiens sapiens, and as a result did not get absorbed by our expansion, such as Homo floresiensis in Indonesia or maybe Paranthropus in South Africa, we must acknowledge Homo neanderthalensis and Homo longi/juluensis did not just magically disappear within 500 years about 38.000 BCE. Just as the expansion of their lineage did not end Homo erectus in a matter of a few thousands of years, the sapiens expansion only caused a slow, and often interrupted assimilation of these hominid species. Indeed, in some areas Neanderthals and Denisovans survived way longer than what is usually believed.

Here I will focus on the long survival of phenotypical neanderthalensis characteristics in isolated, Eurasian Homo sapiens sapiens populations. As I will explain at the end of the post, such phenotypical characteristics are not necessarily linked to a quantitatively much higher level of introgression, yet could still be linked in a way with local relict hominid folklore.

First, about relict hominids, we must separate the main ones, such as Bigfoot and Yeti, which are most likely pongids with ancestral, gibbonlike bipedalism (I will soon make a post to explain why the most ancient apes are bipedal, even though not fully erect, just like the modern day Hylobatids), from more humanlike, often but not necessarily quite smaller, less popular ones such as the many iterations of the Almasti. While some are most likely hominids, or at least one of them, Lai Ho'a, which is basically Homo floresiensis, is, the others can not be a pure breed of a relict species, because any hominid resembling Homo georgicus, erectus, heidelbergensis, antecessor, neanderthalensis and longi/juluensis can and did interbreed with Homo sapiens. After the huge expansion in both areal and population of Homo sapiens sapiens, there is literally pretty much no chance for a pocket of pure specimen of any other species to be alive, and even balanced hybrids are no longer a significant possibility. However, it has not been this way for as long as most people think.

While pure Neanderthals are believed to have lasted until 40.000 ybp, and more recently until 28.000 ybp, it is very likely a few nearly pure specimen survived until the end of the Last Glacial Maximum or a little later. Only the end of the LGM, about 19.000 ybp, set up the conditions for their total extinction, coupled with the discovery of agricoltural practices in the Middle East and the subsequent enormous expansion of Homo sapiens sapiens.

Even then, Homo sapiens hybrids with 10% - 50% introgression likely lingered until about 10.000 years ago in isolated, remote groups.

NEANDERTHALOID REMAINS WITHIN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Thanks to circumstances perhaps unlikely to be entirely random, it is only within a few tens of kilometers from Kermeles that a significant discovery was made, which remains poorly known in the West. In 1918, digging in one of the streets of Pyatigorsk, a famous Caucasus spa, on the banks of the Podkumok River, revealed fragments of a skull and a humerus. They were lying below a layer which contained pottery and a polished stone axe. According to professor A. Gremiatsky, distinguished anthropologist from Moscow State University who published an osteological analysis in 1922, these bones while somewhat atttenuated in their features in comparison with “classical” neanderthaloids would undoubtedly classify the Podkumok Man as a neanderthaloid if not even a true Neanderthal. Professor V.P. Rengarten, a geologist, confirmed this diagnostic by assigning the bone-containing stratum to the Würmian glaciation, based on his knowledge of the region, without however having visited the site. In 1933, another geologist, N.M Egorov, examined the site and found that the layer containing the burial pit, together with the bones, of recent origin, had simply collapsed into the underlying deposits -- the kind of intrusion event well known to archeologists. While later (1937) studying the site, archaeologist V.P. Lunin showed that the bone fragments were inseparable from the other artifacts, all part of a Bronze Age grave site. Other geologists confirmed this interpretation. “One scientist’s mistake sometimes deserves a monument, ” remarked Professor B. Porchnev when reporting on this situation. That mistake was indeed to provoke among Russian scientists reflection about other, rather frequent cases of absolutely out-of- place neanderthalians. Starting with the complete skull found at Nowosiolka in the Ukraine in 1901 within a Scythian burial tumulus, described in 1908 by Professor K. Stolyhwo, holder of the chair of anthropology at the University of Cracow and later member of the Polish Academy of Science. This author found that of 47 fundamental features “23, including some most important ones, show no difference with Homo neanderthalensis, 11 are close to Homo neanderthalensis, and 13 are different.” The title of Kazimierz Stolyhwo memoir announced: “The Nowosiolka skull as proof of the esistence in historical times of forms related to Homo primigenius.”

Actually, further discoveries of anachronistic neanderthalians were to come. While finds at Khvalisk and Oundori, on the Volga, go back at most to the end of the upper Paleolithic, the Ingrene (Ukraine) skeleton with its “oblong skull, low and receding forehead, with highly developed browridges and pronounced prognatism” (A.Miller,1935) was found while excavating a Neolithic site (6,000- 7,000 BCE), the Kebeliaia (Estonia) skull dates from around 4,500 BCE. The Romankovo (Ukraine) humerus is about of the same age (4,000 BCE), the neanderthalian remains of Deer Island (Karelia) and Sieverka (Moskow region) lay in recent layers, etc… These “neanderthaloids” are found here and there in Asia, Africa, Europe, even in France, to the puzzlement of their discoverers: the Leverdac frontal bone dates from “Protohistory”; that of Estancarbo was found in a Gallo-Roman site. The list could go on! The essential fact is that these documents harmoniously bring together complementary and consistent features, discarding the hypothesis of individual throwbacks, where only one or a few archaic traits are manifested. (G. Astre, 1956).

Within the Caucasus, Podkumok has been joined by many other paleanthropic skulls found within historical contexts. For example, Mozdok 1 presents “archaic morphological peculiarities which are even clearer and more pronounced than in the Podkumok skull” (Porchnev, 1963).

The top of the Podkumok skull, found in a Bronze
Age funeral complex. View from above.
Below: Side view. Note the heavy super-orbital bulge
creating a prominent ridge, well forward of the brain -
containing part of the frontal bone.

https://preview.redd.it/hl5wezbgak7e1.png?width=300&format=png&auto=webp&s=fc7aaa9e2a4826773774cd6aacd222da08773587

The Nowosiolka skull found in a
Scythian grave in Ukraine. Besides the
usual projections, K. Stolyhwo shows the
skull from above, highlighting the thickness
of the supra-orbital bulges and their
uninterrupted continuity. According to
Kazimierz Stolyhwo the Nowosiolka skull is
seen as a proof of the existence in historical
times of forms related to Homo neanderthalensis.

https://preview.redd.it/3zehjj6jak7e1.png?width=300&format=png&auto=webp&s=7a3e36309b93fee7a7ef376c8c9b8f75b7b1f24a

It is quite believable the direct ancestors of modern people from areas such as Caucasus, Altai and northern Pakistan mountains were able to meet the last pockets of Neanderthals/hybrid Neanderthals, if not even the last pockets of humans with significant erectus introgression, who could have been quite a bit hairier than any other human group on a regular basis. This is the most likely origin of the Almasti folklore, but not an explanation for modern sightings.

Excluding the ever present misidentified, mangy bears with a broken front paw, which is the most likely explanation for, depending on the area, 70% to 99% of the reports, and admitting there are no longer pure Neanderthals or Erectus, or even balanced hybrids for the matter, because in the last mere 5.000 years human populations mixed at a ridiculously accelerated rate and covered pretty much all the corners of Eurasia, I believe it is still possible, or at least it was until the end of the 20th century, to find relict, small pockets of human hunter gatherer populations with still present Neanderthaloid characteristics. Does this mean they are like 10%-25% Neanderthal ? Not necessarily. Actually we can pretty much be sure they are only slightly more Neanderthal than the locals, because otherwise the locals themselves would have had a visibly higher level of introgression from the occasional interbreeding of the populations.

How did they stay culturally Mesolithic/Paleolithic ? How did they mantain Neanderthaloid phenotypical characteristics if they are mostly sapiens ? Why are they hairier than what a full Neanderthal is even supposed to be ? My theory is still in the cradle, but here is what I think :

I believe those populations are the descendants of yet unsampled HG Paleolithic or Mesolithic lineages, coming from remote areas were Neanderthals lasted the longest and heavily interbred with human newcomers. While the human HG still absorbed the Neanderthals by 15.000 - 20.000 ybp, due to the isolation of areas such as the Caucasus or Altai mountains a few human groups with high Neanderthal introgression have been mostly cut out from interations with other populations for several thousands of years. While always interbreeding every now end then (which inspired the "Almasti abduction" folklore) with locals, they never ever advanced culturally. Geographical isolation made them unable to get much Neolithic farmer and Indoeuropean admixture, and genetic isolation coupled with a rough environment and a total lack of technology caused them to maintain Neanderthaloid face features, even though, as I already implied, their Neanderthal admixture still got progressively reduced over time. The adaptation to a more and more isolated, and ever smaller and more violent environment can also have caused a loss of the already existing technology. The loss of weapon making knowledge could have caused a size increase in these populations in order to protect thenselves from predators.

Finally, since those isolated groups would have naturally declined in numbers, I believe the growing inbreeding trend made those populations develop unhortodox, extreme traits such as even more abundant hairiness. I also believe the reported hairiness is exagerated. Indeed less hairy than average human groups often descibed hairier than average ones in apeish terms. For example the Ainu were often said by Chinese sources to be covered in body hair.

At the end, it is not 100% impossible for a real Homo erectus/Homo georgicus population to have survived, but the chances are so low for them to have survived unmixed or nearly so for the last 40.000 years and not have been detected in the genome of the human locals, it is quite safer to assume the Almasti/Almas/Barmanou is a highly specialized, highly isolated, mostly sapiens human group with an extraordinary surviving Mesolithic or Paleolithic micro culture, a very primitive language and significant but not extremely high Neanderthal introgression.

Today's post for my alien planet project, Prometheus, is about another ventrochordate from the eccentric sister group to the dominant bony fish and tetrapod-like brachiognathans.

If you want to know more about ventrochordate anatomy and classes, and see these linked posts.

-

Javelin

Hastateuthis   (hasta + teuthís, ‘spear squid’)

Species: H. australis, H. pyrosoma

Family: Rapiobrachidae  Order: Ichthyoteuthis  Class: Sarcobrachia

Size: 1.3-2.4 metres long  Diet: active hunter  Activity: nocturnal

Habitat: open ocean

As on Earth, each night on Prometheus, huge numbers of marine creatures rise up from the depths to feed close to the surface. Indeed, the much longer nights of Prometheus allow much more time for animals to make this journey, while also allowing others to come to the surface only for a specific period of time when conditions are just right.

As these travellers move back and forth in the evening and early morning, common predators like the paddle skewer will hunt them from the surface waters around 200 metres deep or less, known as the epipelagic zone. In the deeper, darker waters of the mesopelagic and bathypelagic zones, other predators are more dominant that catch vertical migrators as they move throughout the night. One such predator is the strange javelin.

The javelin is a kind of ventrochordate like brachiognathans, but it belongs to the more ancestral sarcobrachians. It has a cartilaginous skeleton, scaleless skin, an anus at the end of its tail, and a set of tentacles for mouthparts lined by toothy keratinous spikes, but their radular teeth are still hardened by silica. The javelin is a kind of sarchobrachian called ichthyoteuthids, the squidfish, which have modified respiratory spiracles on their back which allow them to move by jet propulsion.

The javelin is so named for being a fast moving predator with a sleek lightweight body and a pointed end of six spiny tentacles which it uses to catch and dismember prey. The javelin cruises along using the motion of its broad tail fin combined with the rhythmic pushing of jet propulsion, while allowing it to move with sudden speed and agility by a great sweep of its tail and pectoral fins at the same time.

To hunt in the darkness, the javelin has large eyes and large bristly antennae to see and smell its prey. These antennae lie flat to either side of the javelin’s head, rather than sticking straight up, to reduce drag.

The night is also when javelin gather to breed. During the warmer months, productive temperate coastal waters are visited by large numbers of javelin travelling here to find a mate. Throughout the night, the javelin display to each other with a ripple of bioluminescent patches lighting up along their back, with males trying to match the rhythm of their prospective mates.

The javelin reproduce with simple external fertilisation, swimming close together, they release clouds of egg and sperm which meet in the open water. The fertilised eggs sink deeper and small larval forms emerge which lack the pectoral fins of adults and have a small tailfin and short tentacles without any keratinous teeth. These traits reflect the evolutionary origins of ventrochordates, retained in this early stage of the javelin’s life.

The larval javelins move only with their little tail and by their jet propulsion. They must stay in deep water for safety, using their toothless tentacles to grab zooplankton, as they gradually grow larger and acquire their derived adult traits.

-

Thanks to anyone for reading!

Taugs are the most numerous animal on Danggetii for every other creature on the moon there are 10.5 Taugs. Everything eats them, to the point no one is absolutely sure how long they can live, they just live until something eats them.

Taugs have 2 modes eating and running. They have no defense or offense they just run. They only stop to eat they don't even breed they reproduce asexually dropping 3-5 sticky grey foul smelling poisonous eggs every day. They get covered in sand, hatch in 3 weeks, within 2 months they're producing more Taugs and in 4 months they're full grown.

Taugs can eat pretty much any plants on the moon. They are extremely anxious creatures (understandably everything wants to kill them) they can't be domesticated, they'll just run in circles till they die. They also don't recognize plants that aren't growing out of the ground.

As you know, the abundance of water during the Hadean and Archean periods of earth allowed life to flourish and develop as it is now. But what if this was not the case? In this alternate earth, there are only a few small pools of water on the planet dotting the surface of the planet and the largest bodies of water on the planet are merely the size of the Red Sea. How would fragile primitive life form and adapt? Discuss.

Bats are limited to reaching sizes comparable to the largest flying birds by their solid, non-hollow bones. Birds, too, are limited to reaching azdarchid pterosaur sizes because of their bipedal gait. Like pterosaurs, mammals are quadrupeds, but they are also limited by their non-hollow bones yet again.

Is there any way for flying mammals to reach large sizes, comparable to pterosaurs or large flying birds (preferably without hollowing out their bones, as this seems like an adaptation occuring in 200 million years rather than maybe 50)?

Credit for image goes to u/SummerAndTinkles

https://preview.redd.it/440civsxzf7e1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c17f4a9952f6987fda52335728a263fd8791de44

I’ve never heard of a speculative evolution where earth life and alien life lives on the same planet. Has anyone done it before?

Aquilae is a planet where it inhabits Eagles as the apex predators, small mammals with the largest rabbits, reptiles like iguanas, many different species of fish and smooth coated otters in the huge ocean on the planet which would have rivers, lakes, forests and mountains. The eagles form the Northern Hemisphere like on Earth would head to the southern hemisphere to wait out the winter in their home and when they go back the eagles would be greeted with a huge abundance of mammals in the Northern Hemisphere.

Most species of eagles in the south would be sea eagles since the southern hemisphere would have an abundance of fish and lakes with a continent on the South having more lakes and rivers than land leading for sea eagles to go to piscivory. A few eagles on the northern hemisphere would be sea eagles but they would live on more watery areas like rivers, lakes and coastallines. A few species of iguanas in the Northern Hemisphere would live in the coastal lines of the Northern continent.

The Sponge Tree Mostly just notes so far. This probably isn’t exactly the most realistic thing ever but whatever. I think it’s cool. But anyways,

Evolution

planets evolve extremely different from earth. The first “plant” to reach land is a sponge like organism similar to those of sponges on earth. Naturally, more sponges survived near the surface of the water right next to the coast. Because why would any predators venture there? The more near the coast. The more likely the sponge wouldn’t be eaten by predators. Eventually the sponges evolved to be partially out of the water. It used tube like systems to pump water into its filter feeding system. Soon enough the sponges evolved to be completely out of water. And used longer roots that connected into the ocean.

Evolution 2

This form seemed perfect for multiple of millions of years. But then microorganisms and other plants and animals soon evolved to also be on land. At this point, the sponge trees evolved to trap rainwater. Which contained more bacteria and food for it. The leaves slowly formed into cup like shapes that helped capture rainwater. I forgot to mention that the sponge tress are photosynthetic. So they can capture light too.

conclusion

so basically after all that. The sponge trees have diverged into a lot of different ways. Some interconnect with each other and make a whole system of water transporting systems. That transport food to each other. Some others reverted back to their oceanic ways. Some even resorted to even more carnivorous behaviors. Killing and eating even bigger organisms other than microorganisms. Overall, a very weird alternative to trees on earth.

Also want feedback. Like how realistic it is, any ideas to make it better, etc

I've been wanting to create a project that's entirely community driven, built around a wiki system, probably using MediaWiki. The idea is to collaboratively build a fictional universe where anyone can contribute. People could add articles about galaxies, star systems, planets, evolutionary processes, and world-building. The wiki would also allow people to add the emergent cultures, stories, politics, and how all these elements interact within one unified universe.

To make it even more immersive, I'd include a map-based system where users can visualize the universe. This would range from mapping star systems to detailing continents on individual planets.

I know it's a big idea, but if something like this already exists, I'd love to explore it! And if it doesn’t, I might just make it one day.

Greetings, I am Norrin Raddical, aka Agnostic Space Jesus, In my journey's through time and space i have found many wonders and mysteries, allow me to introduce you to one i found particularly fascinating. A world i call Hippokosmos.

I first encountered this world only a few decades after it's abandonment my humans. A heavily terraformed world, it seems to have been built solely as a resort, and for what i can only assume was an extremely niche interest. The vast wealth and power of the civilization that engineered this place truly boggles the mind. A map i found on a deteriorated pamphlet for the resort, further investigation suggests an even greater civilization demanded humanity abandon this system.

Humans did leave, but left behind their carefully engineered planet and the equally engineered biosphere on it. The only tetrapod member of which; Equus callebus, the horse, we shall be focusing our attention today.

First however, lets look at the planet itself. Similar to the world of Apollo this planet is dominated by land, however where Apollo was built to maintain a massive monoculture, Hipposkosmos was designed to provide a wide variety of riding experiences. A huge linear mountain range, filled with carefully carved winding mountain trails, bisects the continental mass, obstructing any planet circling migration patterns.

To the east of this range is a vast grassy plain, itself bisected by a river at least twice as long as any on earth. To the west of the "Great Fence", as i shall dub this range, is an enormous desert. Featuring winding canyon trails, enormous dunes, and of course numerous lush oasis where a rider and horse might rest and relax and shelter from the sun.

Separating the desert region and the great plain is a region of rolling hills, where forests and meadows abound. The northern hemisphere is of a generally lower elevation and is dominated by an ocean comparable in size to the pacific. The southern pole in contrast is dominated by a tall mountain range that scrape into the skies. Comparable to antartica but with thinner atmosphere. Half girdling this range is a second smaller, though still very large, ocean.

Now the more astute among you may be wondering about the overall distribution of terrain. I have for example just casually mentioned a region of "plains" the size of all of asia (ie also all of europe). Those of you learned in history may know that when earth was in it's more mega continental phases, the vast land areas created climate conditions that humans would classify on a range of unpleasant to lethal. Counteracting the desertifying effects of such large land masses is a space mirror in orbit over the planet. This structure deflects a small amount of light from the hills and plains regions to the great fence, greatly moderating temperatures across 3 quadrants of the planet. My initial estimations and analysis of this star system suggest this system will remain stable for the next hundred million years or so, but i am concerned by this world's dependence on this artifact.

In the centuries following human abandonment, the horses took to their new world with gusto. with no predators and few concerns, (all horses on the planet seem to have been quite effectively treated for parasites and disease before import, or were grown on planet without such hangers on in the first place) their herds quickly grew to sizes hard to imagine. The buffalo herds of pre-columbian america were tiny in comparison. And as happens in such conditions, they ate themselves to starvation, nearly going extinct.

This cycle of catastrophic growth and death continued for about a dozen cycles before the behaviors that created it were completely excised from the gene pool. It may be more proper to say instead that it was that long before the only survivors had traits and behaviors that counteracted the cycle of disaster. This phase of development takes about 30,000 years, only about 10,000 generations at most, and the horses at the end of this stage are, except in behavior, little changed from those first brought to the planet. Accordingly, at this stage I shall refer to the varieties as "breeds", rather than "species".

The first of these we shall discus is the Southern Noriker. The solo sentinels of the southern slopes. These sure footed horse are extremely solitary. Aggressive, they will attack any other individual that enters their high mountainous territories. Other individuals are only tolerated during breeding, excepting mother's with calves, though they are chased off as soon as they near maturity. This breed's main range is the far south and the high altitude slopes leading to the southern cap.

Dominating the Great Fence is the diminutive Woolly Pony. Unlike some other breeds, they have in this brief period changed more physically than behaviorally. It would appear though that the inherent dangers of their high mountain habitat prevent over population.

The Highland Draft populates the hills and forest region between the great plain and great desert. This line exhibits a lifestyle that might be described as both lazy and gluttonous. Accordingly they are rotund animals. This breed sports enlarged canines, using them to access otherwise inaccessible plant material, such as by digging roots and tearing off bark.

The Pale Mustang, nomads of the desert. Roaming vast distances from oasis to oasis, this breed as well is more shaped by it's hazardous habitat than by the cycle of disaster. The only notable traits unique to this breed are wider than average hooves, granting additional stability in sandy terrain, and memory comparable to an elephants, allowing them to navigate to and find watering holes they had only visited decades before.

Turning now to the great plain and therefore the most populous herds on Hippokosmos. First, the Fanged Clyde. Huge horses sporting long canine fangs. Like the musk deer, males of this breed grow long canines and use them to fight for dominance and breeding rights in their herds. On earth it is uncommon for breeding male's competitions to be lethal. Lacking predators to pressure them, nearly every contest between males in this species is to the death, for both parties not uncommonly.

The Fabella Nova is the opposite of the fanged clyde in almost every way. These horses are small and social and have beautiful oversized manes and tails. Their anti-overpopulation development seems primarily to be "picky females". Females will only allow themselves to be mounted rarely, and typically only after a particularly intriguing courtship dance performance.

It has grown long, so I shall bring this entry of the journal to a close for now. Next time we shall travel a million years past this period, and examine 12 species descendent from the breeds we have explored today. I hope you return and join me on this journey, until then may good fortune bless you!

The remnants of the Orpheus ship, which crashed onto the surface of Calypso, carried with it three primary populations of fauna: salt water hydra, salt water copepods, and salt water tardigrades. Alongside these , simple forms of algae were also drifting among the debris. Upon defrosting in Calypso’s oceans, these organisms began to integrate into the alien environment.

Within the first few generations, a rudimentary ecosystem emerged. The hydra preyed on the copepods, while the copepods fed on juvenile hydra and algae. The tardigrades scavenged anything that it could find on the ocean floor. With no competition, the algae rapidly spread across the vast oceans of Calypso.

After a few hundred generations, evolution began to reshape the ecosystem. The hydra adapted for greater mobility, developing rudimentary fins through fusing their tentacles and flattening their bodies to enhance their swimming capabilities. Additionally, the hydra population shifted from asexual to exclusively heterosexual reproduction, likely due to the pressures of their dense population in a confined environment.

In response to the hydra's growing predation, copepods evolved to become larger and started hiding in algae blooms, increasing their chances of surviving attacks. Meanwhile, the tardigrades, facing virtually no predation or competition, spread across the ocean

Now the reason I have this is because there's a species in my world known as the quadruoptic shark, or Jadefish,b it's a shark that's about 30 ft long and weighs 5 to 6 tons and has four eyes as its name suggests

It has an unhingable jaw and expandable stomach that allows it's a swallow fish up to twice it, basically a cross between a great white and a gulper catfish

Now the reason I need the shark to be able to eat algae and have oxygen in their stomachs is because

1, these sharks are highly intelligent, surpassing that of orcas and whales or dolphins,and very sadistic, taking joy in the suffering and fear of their prey

This coupled with the fact that they can control whether or not their stomach produces acid on commandc make some even more terrifying

This is because they like to swallow human sized prey

, large fish can do damage inside the stomach if not digested quickly

They prefer to wait up to 6 hours with the prey in their stomach before they start producing acid and the digestion process going

I wanted to add a little touch to lore, claiming that Jadefish would eat algae or aquatic plants so they would produce oxygen inside the shark's stomach and thus keep the terrified prey alive even longer before they got bored and start up digestion

Just came here to confirm if this process would actually work within the stomach considering that the plants and algae convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and there's a lot of carbon dioxide in a belly

And would adding oxygen to the stomach actually increase the prey's survival time, at least until the shark decided it got bored with all those squirming pirates and crew member from that boat it capsized

If not, is there anything else a sharkn could eat that could produce internal oxygen for a brief moment

https://www.reddit.com/r/SpeculativeEvolution/s/J7vtPiEwvw

After taking a look at this post, I've realized that i don't have anything remoterly similar to these species, or something like the Birrin.

Most of them are a specific type of animal taking on a humanoid frame... I have no idea how to design something like Rundas from Metroid Prime 3.

A creature like that makes my brain hurt trying to interpret its design. Like- All of these weird shapes... what caused it to evolve a body like that? I can't even get an idea of what sort of creature he's supposed to be! He's either a silicon based lifeform, or a Gastropod with complicated, sick ass armor.

Is my inability of designing a complicated, "plausible" Alien like that something that i should worry about? Am i not playing around with shapes enough?

I heard someone on r/evolution say that sea urchins have "eyespots" with their feelers. So, if urchins were to become anthropomorphic/humanoid creatures in the far, far future, would they have eyes?

(Image for reference: here )

Hello and thank you for reading this.

I wanted to design an alien parasitoid super-predator for a book I am writing. But I wanted to give a semi-plausible explanation of its anatomy.

One of its features is what the creature is what is a endoparasite what reproduces by passing DNA information through light into victims/host.

Is there any plausible way for a parasitoid extraterrestrial predator to reproduce by passing DNA information through light?

Here are the characteristics of the creature.

·         Size: 2 meters high at the hip, 4 meters long.

·         Semi-Aquatic.

·         Seven “eyes” on its head.

·         Black blood.

·         Able to emit a red light thought it “eyes”.

·         Able to send DNA information through the red light to the victim’s visual organ and through it the nervous system.

·         Use host/victim’s own cells to create heterogenous cells and form an “embryo” inside host/victim.

·         Causes rapid cell reproduction what essentially “cook” the victim

If you can, I would be grateful for some plausible or semi-plausible way this creature reproduces that way.

Thank you all for your time.

Space Engine - RS 8513-3145-7-898955-867 8

Introduction

Kapuaora (translates roughly to "living cloud") is a planet orbiting the star Kaimauora, a G7V type main sequence star, with a semimajor axis of 2.59 AU. This introduction will only focus on the properties of the planet and the parent star. Kapuaora will serve as the planet which my speculative evolution project will be based, a gas giant planet similar in composition to Saturn, although being slightly warmer than Saturn in terms of its average surface temperature. The planet can be found on Space Engine as RS 8513-3145-7-898955-867 8.

Parent Star

Space Engine - RS 8513-3145-7-898955-867

The parent star Kaimauora (translates roughly to "life bearer") is a solitary yellow main sequence star smaller, cooler, less massive, and older than the Sun. The star has a mass of 0.95☉︎ and a mean radius of 0.91☉︎, giving it a density higher than the Sun of 1.75 g/cm^(3). As of the present it is 8.93 billion years old, placing it into the late main sequence, having in the last billion years reached its highest main sequence temperature, and is now cooling, albeit growing in size and increasing in luminosity. Based on evolution of similar mass stars it is expected to have a lifespan of 12.27 billion years, about 11 billion years of which is likely in the main sequence. The star currently has a surface temperature of 5522 kelvin with a bolometric luminosity of 0.8☉︎, but a lower optical luminosity of 0.68☉︎, with a higher percentage of the star's light being in the infrared spectrum compared to the Sun. The star rotates slightly slower than the Sun, completing one full rotation on its axis in 27.78 Earth days.

Planet Kapuaora

Kapuaora, the eighth planet in the Kaimauara system.

The closest analogue to Kapuaora in our Solar System is Saturn. Presently, the planet even has a ring system like Saturn, and like Saturn it is a Sudarsky Type 1 gas giant, with three cloud layers made up of ammonia, ammonium hydrosulfide and water, with the water clouds being the innermost layer. Optically as a result, the planet appears yellow, although photosynthetic life on the planet appears a blue/green colour, visible in the above picture. The planet is however slightly smaller than Saturn with an equatorial diameter of 109,397km (compared to 120,536km for Saturn), and is also less massive with a mass of only 21% (compared to Saturn at 30% that of Jupiter. This makes Kapuaora even less dense than Saturn, at 0.65 g/cm^(3) (Saturn has a density of 0.69 g/cm^(3)).

Kapuaora is however hotter than Saturn. It has an effective surface temperature of -120°C, although to compensate has less internal heat compared to Saturn due to being less massive and also older. This roughly balances out to the planet being between Jupiter and Saturn in terms of its temperature, with Jupiter having a surface temperature of about -110°C and Saturn at -140°C.

Clouds and Atmosphere

Kapuaora seen from behind, its cyan atmosphere and red sunsets are clearly visible.

The cloud layers are crucial for most life on Kapuaora. Similar to Saturn, each is about 100km thick and roughly stacked on top of each other, the slower transition in temperature and pressure allowing these cloud layers to be so broad being owed to the lower amount of heat produced inside the planet and its lower density, meaning that pressure increases more gradually than it does on Jupiter, where these same three cloud layers are much thinner as temperature and pressure increase much more rapidly.

Light is able to reach most of the ammonia layer, and as such, organisms are able to make use of Kaimanaura's light for both visual and photosynthetic purposes, whilst it is unable to penetrate into the water cloud layer, which instead is lit up by constant thunderstorms, organisms living there being less dependent on light as a whole, but some organisms being able to absorb the energy from these storms to live.

Like other gas giants of its size and temperature, Kapuaora is around 95% hydrogen, 4% helium, with other materials making up less than 1% of the gaseous mass. Below its clouds, hydrogen remains gaseous for about 5000 km, gradually transitioning into a liquid as atmospheric pressure increases. This liquid hydrogen takes on metallic properties about 25,000km into the planet, which powers its magnetic field. This metallic hydrogen is thought to encase a rock/iron core about the size of Earth (we aren't exactly sure of what Saturn's core actually is like, but Kapuaora has a similar internal structure to Saturn). Internally, temperatures reach as high as 8000°C due to internal pressure (lower than Saturn due to lower mass and higher age, Saturn being 11,700°C at its core). Kapuaora radiates about 1.7 times more energy outwards from its core through the Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism than it receives from Kaimauora, as gravitational pressures compressing the planet produce friction within its hydrogen atmosphere, creating internal heat.

Wind speeds on Kapuaora can reach as high as 1400 kilometres per hour. These high winds allow organisms to remain within their optimal layers without falling further into the planet into areas that are unsuitable for their existence. Essentially, life "orbits" within the planets atmosphere. High reproduction rates have initially proved successful at reproducing more organisms faster than they fall out of their optimal layers, making life sustainable on the planet.

Kapuaora has a mean surface gravity of 9.6m/sec, which is slightly lower than Earth at 9.8m/sec. Gravity decreases towards the equator and increases towards the poles, but the difference is marginal.

Orbital Properties

Kapuaora takes 1561 Earth days (4.27 Earth years) to complete one orbit around Kaimauora. It has a slightly eccentric orbit of 0.021% (slightly more than Earth at 0.016%) although has a larger inclination to the orbital plane of 3.4°.

Axial Properties

Kapuaora spins slower than either Jupiter or Saturn, completing one full day in 13h:11m:15s. This spin makes Kapuaora oblate, with its equatorial diameter being 7% larger than its polar diameter. Kapuaora has a high axial tilt of 48.85°, meaning at its equinoxes, has its pole tilted more towards the star than its equator, giving it more extreme seasons.

Life on Kapuaora

Life on Kapuaora is organic and carbon-based like on Earth, however variable in terms of which solvents it uses depending on which layer it lives in. Organisms in the ammonia layer make use of ammonia as a solvent, whilst life in the water cloud layer utilises water as its solvent, much like life on Earth. It has proven more difficult for life to thrive in the hydrosulfide layer, with only some extremophiles making this layer home, as well as further out in the diffuse upper hydrogen stratosphere and deeper beneath the water cloud layer. Some more resillient lifeforms are able to live in these regions but it is more difficult than living in the ammonia and water cloud layers.

This boundary means that biotic interchanges between the ammonia layer and water layer are minimal, and essentially the ammonia layer and water layer are two different biospheres with different organisms. As light from the parent star can pierce most of the ammonia layer, photosynthetic organisms are able to live here, whilst in deeper layers, organisms have to produce energy either through consuming other organisms or through synthesising electricity though the planet's powerful thunderstorms.

Conclusion

So, this is it. This will be the planet that my gas giant speculative project will take place on. I'm excited to try this out, it will definitely test me more than doing an earth-like speculative project. If you have any questions about the planet or general aspects of the life living on it (not specific species as such, as they haven't yet been designed), feel free to reply and I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability.

The planet and its star can be found on Space Engine. Just search RS 8513-3145-7-898955-867 and it will take you to the star. RS 8513-3145-7-898955-867 8 will take you to the planet.