Questions tagged [anatomy]
For questions about the physical structure of an organism.
364
questions
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How would the phonetics of a snake be?
I am trying to create my first alien language, I am creating an alien race that is like a two-legged reptile, has a head similar to snakes, has something similar to feathers (mostly on the head) and ...
2
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1answer
201 views
How would warm-blooded insects work?
Like would that even be possible in any way, could it happen and why or why not?
Would the environment also suffer because of the warm-blooded insect(s)?
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3answers
193 views
Via what mechanism could a humanoid entity regrow multiple sets of teeth throughout its life?
I am not asking what the consequences of this would be, nor what kind of humanoid entity might evolve such a thing - simply how it would be possible.
3
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1answer
71 views
Flight drag and the superior limit size for hexapod dragons?
For what I know birds have an much lower superior size limit for flying forms than pterosaurs because they use two different groups of muscles to locomotion, wings for fly and legs for walk in ...
1
vote
1answer
43 views
Rimerunner discussion [closed]
https://speculativeevolution.fandom.com/wiki/Rimerunner One of the weirdest creatures of Darwin IV in the book Expedition is the Rimerunner.
This rare resident of the tundra regions hops along on one ...
3
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1answer
79 views
Would there be problems in a humanoid with non-simian shoulders?
Humanoids are very common in various worlds, and all of them are very ape-like. This is most evident at the shoulders, which support the arms at the side of the body. What would be the issues with ...
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1answer
57 views
Limitations of caudal tripod creatures and how solve them
An idea that I've seen many times and I wanted to use in some concept creatures is the tripedalism suported by two real limbs and the caudal part of the body, for practical terms the tail.
I remember ...
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0answers
95 views
Anatomically Correct Headless Swan Men
The akephaloi are a strange race with a stranger form. They mostly resemble a human from the neck down, but have an eagle's head and a swan's neck. They also possess a pair of swan-like wings at the ...
5
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2answers
669 views
Anatomically correct Cipactli
Cipactli is a monstrous deity from the Mexica/Aztec culture characterized to be insatiable, primitive, and represent chaos and disorder.
Representations combine features from different animals, ...
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1answer
91 views
Plausibility of plastic bones
So, how possible are plastic bones? Take clorox by Stephen L. Gullet for example, organisms use chlorine as a defense mechanism, which eventually accumulated in the atmosphere (1%),which caused plants ...
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4answers
158 views
How might this creature evolve?
The creature is an amphibious creature that lives in and near lakes. It is very large, being about 1.5m high at the thickest part of the body, and 7.5m long in total. Its neck is about 3.5m long and ...
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1answer
124 views
Anatomically Correct Moon People
The moon people are strange extraterrestrials. They originated on the Earth, but now live on the Moon, which, despite its reduced gravity, still has an Earth-like atmosphere and ecosystem. They are ...
2
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1answer
128 views
How could sequential mandibles evolve? [closed]
How could an alien creature evolve with a set of multiple mandibles attached to a single maxilla? The mandibles would have different types of teeth, and all jaws would be planar, with some teeth ...
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2answers
198 views
Alternative to hydroxyapatite in alien organisms
A bit of a further expansion of my last question. I am looking for alternatives to regular bone of earth (hydroxyapatite) because my superearth would have about 50% more gravity than that of earth. ...
2
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3answers
200 views
Could this rock-badger exist?
Rock-badgers are large mustelids with a strange ability: They can burrow through stone. They achieve this with large, slightly mole-like forelimbs, with mineralized claws that can cut through stone. ...
3
votes
2answers
217 views
How plausible is a two-way crab?
The two-way crab is an intelligent alien with a strange form: It is biradially symetric, with multiple legs at the sides, 2 arms beside each face, and two faces at opposite ends of the body. It has no ...
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vote
2answers
89 views
How would radially symmetric, saltatorial monopedal creatures plan out underground towns for movement?
These creatures are radially symmetric, saltatorial monopeds. They manipulate items using a ring of tentacles around the mouth at the top of the body. They are 2m tall, and can jump 2m high and 5m ...
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4answers
188 views
Best place on the body to store fragile potions
The adventurers in my classic fantasy world have access to all sorts of potions. Some, like health potions and their more expensive cousins like regeneration potions, can bring people back from being ...
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3answers
176 views
Could an animal have an iris that changes its opacity?
Irides are muscular structures that can expand and contract to change the amount of light entering the eye. But, could this structure be replaced by a non-muscular structure containing pigment cells ...
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0answers
72 views
Would this chela-hand work?
The chela-hand is a type of limb, which is like a chela, except that the moveable finger has multiple sub-fingers, and is more like a hand. The creature that has the chela-hand was originally an ...
6
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1answer
113 views
Why would these creatures have an orthograde posture?
The creature is an alien resembling a reptile. It is around 1m tall. It has scales and a tetrapod-like skeleton, but lacks a tail. It breathes through paired siphons in its neck. It has no nostrils or ...
2
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2answers
153 views
How plausible are inverted humanoids?
How plausible is an upright, humanoid creature that is inverted, with the head at the bottom and the posterior region at the top? This creature could have evolved from a typical biped that evolved ...
6
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3answers
210 views
How can my large cephalopod aliens have an upright stance?
I have a species in my sci-fi setting, that are basically land-dwelling sapient nautilus.
They differ from most concepts of "land-dwelling cephalopod" in that they're supposed to be the ...
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7answers
1k views
How quickly would someone die from another organism bursting from their body?
I have a scene where a humanoid monster tries to swallow another being alive, only for them to die when the smaller being rapidly increases in size through shape-shifting and tears its way out of the ...
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1answer
123 views
Would a spider-like digestive tract work in a larger creature?
Would it be plausible for a large animal to transport nutrients through its body through digestive tubules in addition to (or even instead of) the blood? The specific system would be a system of ...
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2answers
137 views
Could an animal have a set of scales supporting its body instead of a spine?
Could an animal, similar in size and lifestyle to a hippopotamus, be supported by a set of hard, exposed scales instead of a spine and a ribcage? The scales would not be fused, but connected by joints....
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2answers
154 views
Could bats evolve to have beaks?
I understand that pterosaurs and birds evolved from having teeth to beaks as beaks are lighter than teeth and can serve the same function. pterosaurs laid eggs, and birds currently lay eggs, while ...
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4answers
186 views
Could an organism that is longer than it is tall be as intelligent as humans?
When walking humans are taller than they are long. The neck being directly below the head helps support the weight of the head, and the body being directly below the neck also supports the weight of ...
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4answers
1k views
How do the snakes on the heads of Gorgons connect with the skull?
I’m having Gorgons as a race in my story setting. They are not exclusively female, have the lower body of a serpent, and the classic snakes-for-hair element Gorgons had in Greek mythology. However, I’...
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2answers
212 views
Moving air with a heart?
Could an animal, instead of lungs, have an extra circulatory system that pumps air instead of blood? It seems plausible that it would work with water, as water seems similar enough to blood, but air, ...
0
votes
1answer
93 views
Plausibility of this hand-foot combination
Rather than having a foot that works as a hand, instead the hand and foot functions would be seperated onto different sides of the appendage. So, one side of the foot would be the sole of the foot, ...
2
votes
3answers
117 views
Is it possible for an animal to have both air-spaces and lungs?
Is it possible for an animal to have isolated air-spaces like a nautilus or man o' war if it also has lungs? The lungs need not be for breathing, but they should be directly connected to some air-...
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3answers
123 views
Could a humanoid spinal/neck structure support horns used for combat? [duplicate]
Bouncing off of this question from a while back: What alterations without drastically altering their humanoid shape nor horns, can I make to my species that lower the risk of neck snapping?
Let's ...
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3answers
233 views
What would it take for someone with an invincible head, neck and spine to die of fall damage?
In my setting, characters are (mostly mildly) superhuman in various ways. One aspect of this is that, as long as they're alive, The entirety of their body from the neck up (flesh, bones muscle, teeth, ...
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2answers
111 views
How long can a humanoid's arms be before it can't throw things?
I'm making a creature that is mostly bipedal but can run on four legs if it needs to. It's not nearly as good at running as a true quadruped but it's better than a human. To do this, I've elongated ...
8
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4answers
353 views
Scaling up the bat wing: still a good alternative for a large flying animal or inferior to a pterosaur wing?
My creature is an alien roughly 3 meters tall while standing (roughly 2,5 meters at the shoulders, with arms that can touch the ground while standing upright) and weights roughly 220 kg (roughly 485 ...
4
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1answer
85 views
Evolution of ossicones like structures to tentacle or trunk like limbs
A time ago I made a similar question which is this and some time after other similar which is this. So I can consider this new question an improvement or continuation of what I wanted to achieve with ...
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0answers
132 views
Anatomy of a sexual parasitic specie with small and intelligent females but large and “brute” males
I already made a similar question searching for possible features which can make this fictional specie biologically functional, so this question can be considered a second part of this. I would ...
9
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1answer
176 views
How to design a humanoid with facultative quadrupedism?
I thought this can be considered the oposite to the monkeys' walk which the most time that are on land are quadrupedals and sometimes they can stand bipedal, so now in this case I'm asking about a ...
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3answers
308 views
What extra organs/organ modification a human would need to be able to sustain itself without food or sleep?
Recently I've been trying to create a sub-race of human species that's more efficient in... Well, war. Mostly stronger & more efficient, and because of that I want to ask a question. What "...
3
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2answers
171 views
Why would this creature have a head?
The creature is a soft-bodied animal roughly the size of a human, that resembles a wing-less bird in its stance. It has no neck or eyes, and its mouth is at the end of a pharynx attached to the torso. ...
2
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1answer
183 views
Giant Parasite Wearing a Human Flesh Suit
I'm working on designing a creature for a sci fi horror story. The organism did not naturally evolve so any concerns about these traits evolving naturally can be handwaved. For the purposes of the ...
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1answer
93 views
How would super strength affect fighting styles for women? [closed]
Because of sexual dimorphism, women in general are about 15% smaller than men on average. This in turn results in shorter reach and less mass to throw around as per the square-cube law. As a result, ...
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3answers
342 views
Plausibility of Tribe-Sized Megafauna
Given inspiration from this post here, I have been working on a society of aliens in which each tribe lives on a single member of species of enormous megafauna. Let's call the megafauna the "...
2
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1answer
120 views
Would a race with greater muscle density need more or less food than Humans?
In my world, the explanation for Elves being naturally skinny is having a much greater muscle density than their Human cousins, basically causing them to be just as strong but far less bulky and a ...
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2answers
88 views
What would be the practical capacities/endurance of a 1/4 inch rubbery octopus-like skin reinforced with metallic subdermal osteoderm?
As the title of the question say, I would like to know how a rubbery octopus-like skin reinforced with the subdermal osteoderm like those of a komodo dragon but metal-based(magnesium ? iron or else) ...
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2answers
142 views
Would minor superhuman durability and regeneration allow adult gymnasts to perform on a similar level to teenage gymnasts?
It is often said that in gymnastics that gymnasts usually peak between the ages of 16-19. A lot of this has to do with the extreme wear and tear on the joints that intense gymnastics practice causes. ...
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0answers
176 views
How would a humanoid be affected by its quadrupedal-style arms?
Humans have horizontal shoulders. We can do all kinds of stuff with them, but what would it be like if we had vertical shoulders like a quadrupedal animal, specifically, a cat? What movements could ...
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7answers
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Naming the “hand” of a humanoid bird
I'm creating a humanoid bird character. In essence, they are still human with the usual four limb package and upright walking. However, they have two wings on the back for flying, and the feathers, ...
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3answers
565 views
Generic term for limb armor [closed]
Is there a generic term that encompasses the various types of limb armor together?
I'm hoping there's a catch-all I don't know about that I could use that would describe the collective of bracers/...
