16
votes
What environments/pressures would incentivise/select hunting in pairs?
Hunting in group gives the obvious advantage of the number, but there is no hard limit to stop it at just two, because the more the better.
The only stop to the size of the hunting pack is the size of ...
- 236k
16
votes
Can land plants absorb carbon dioxide into their leaves without the need for sunlight?
Yes. This is called crassulacean acid metabolism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crassulacean_acid_metabolism
Crassulacean acid metabolism, also known as CAM photosynthesis, is a
carbon fixation ...
- 272k
10
votes
What environments/pressures would incentivise/select hunting in pairs?
Brothers.
source
Cheetah brothers stick together and hunt as a pair or trio. It makes sense for brothers to cooperate. They share genetic material and so cooperation produces a fitness benefit for ...
- 272k
8
votes
How can I bypass Bergmann's rule in cold weather populations of humans?
Relatively recent climate change
This can be explained by e.g. an ice age setting in. The onset was about say, 10,000 years ago, average sea temperature went down 12 degrees Celcius. There has been no ...
- 11.9k
8
votes
What environments/pressures would incentivise/select hunting in pairs?
Dichotomy:
Any time you might have specialization of function, having a representative of each kind would be a distinct advantage.
Imagine, if you will, a species where the male is strong and has ...
- 51.4k
6
votes
What environments/pressures would incentivise/select hunting in pairs?
Breeding Pairs
Many animals form pairs to raise their young. It requires no leap of imagination to have animals that stay in pairs the rest of the year. This includes hunting together. Easy.
- 37k
6
votes
How do I justify the evolution of merpeople within a few million years?
Problematic
The thing about evolution is that it is the result of organisms with favourable mutations having an increased chance of surviving long enough to reproduce, and the next generation likewise ...
- 18.9k
6
votes
Accepted
Blue star adaptation
Physical adaptations would be less about hue and more about shielding. Colors would tend to be darker - consider that albinism is more dangerous and susceptible to more radiation damage. This article ...
- 3,132
6
votes
Can land plants absorb carbon dioxide into their leaves without the need for sunlight?
They can absorb CO₂, but what are they going to do with it?
Rubisco will happily grab CO₂ and bind it provided ribose 1-5 biphosphate is available, and provided the plant has energy, (from ATP, from ...
- 10.2k
6
votes
Can land plants absorb carbon dioxide into their leaves without the need for sunlight?
Some microbes in the deep ocean will metabolise sulfur coming from thermal vents and use the energy to fix carbon. And inside the broken nuclear plant in Chernobyl there is a fungus that uses melanin ...
- 125k
5
votes
Blue star adaptation
There are way more factors than just the classification of the star in picking the adaptation of the organisms living under it. And don't forget that the color in the star name only indicates the ...
- 236k
5
votes
What evidence could reveal to aliens that their sun is the result of a binary star merger?
An alternative means of having life living under a blue star is that it didn't evolve there, but was transplanted from elsewhere.
The most reliable way of doing this would be to have an interstellar ...
- 17.8k
5
votes
What might case cause the development of biological nuclear weapons as a natural evolutionary adaptation of a species?
Start with an electric organ
A number of different species, such as the electric eel, have electric organs where many cells are stacked, which pass ions at one side to add up to a strong effect. In ...
- 18.6k
5
votes
Accepted
How do I justify the evolution of merpeople within a few million years?
You're not the first person to ask this sort of question. To crib from one of my own answers to one of those other questions:
Your timescale seems pretty brief, but might be doable. Australopithicines ...
- 59.6k
4
votes
How can I bypass Bergmann's rule in cold weather populations of humans?
Coat.
Scandinavia is cold and snowy in the winter. In some places the Sun does not come up for months!
But the mighty Scandinavians do not care. They are cold resistant and taller than most ethnic ...
- 37k
4
votes
What evidence could reveal to aliens that their sun is the result of a binary star merger?
This does not seem workable. Presumably, we start with a planet, orbiting a star in the red-to-yellow dwarf range, and life starts up naturally?
Then another star collides with the primary, forming a ...
- 17.8k
3
votes
Blue star vision
Evolution will find a way: on our planet there are animals who are blind because they don't have a use for vision, living in a very dark environment (moles, cave dwellers, etc.) and there are animals ...
- 236k
3
votes
Accepted
What evidence could reveal to aliens that their sun is the result of a binary star merger?
Zircons.
First, they need enough astronomical knowledge to predict the lifetimes of stars.
Then, they need to know the age of their planet. When that turns out to thousands of times longer than the ...
- 33.9k
3
votes
Would humans crossbreeding with animal people cause more birth defects?
Up to your Imagination
Humanimals are not real. Since they are not real you get to decide how they work. In particular you get to decide how their children with pure humans deal with traits from both ...
- 37k
2
votes
What environments/pressures would incentivise/select hunting in pairs?
For more about co-operative strategies like this, google 'evolutionarily stable strategies' or ESS. There are many like the cheetah brothers where evolution prefers (even slightly) co-operation that ...
- 21
2
votes
Macroscopic life in the Dead Sea?
Hagfish!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eptatretus_springeri
Eptatretus springeri, the Gulf hagfish,[3] is the only known species
with the ability to enter brine pools, or pools of extremely high salt
...
- 272k
2
votes
Blue star adaptation
There is a serious doubt that complex life could evolve near a blue star. Conventionally, stars of classes O and B are called blue. According to the table here https://sites.uni.edu/morgans/astro/...
- 170
2
votes
Accepted
Blue star vision
Advantages of seeing under a blue star: (1) The range of wavelengths available is wider, giving the potential for "more colors" -- for any given chemistry more interesting transitions occur ...
- 794
2
votes
Accepted
How to create realistic alien evolution in a swampy planet? (Like dagobah from Star Wars)
Honestly, roaches, kind of like District 9. They would be intelligent enough and have many usable limbs. This question is kind of vague so almost anything can work here, even a blob-person.
- 38
2
votes
Can land plants absorb carbon dioxide into their leaves without the need for sunlight?
You need some kind of energy source
Transforming CO2 and water into carbohydrates costs energy, so the plants in the cave need to get it from somewhere.
Surface plants take that energy in the form of ...
- 1,010
2
votes
Would humans crossbreeding with animal people cause more birth defects?
One has to wonder if human's bred with animals before hand to get these animal humans -.-
As said above, its up to your imagination. That said, humans have a peculiarly high number of genetic defects ...
- 89
1
vote
How to create realistic alien evolution in a swampy planet? (Like dagobah from Star Wars)
You should exlain what you want in more detail. YOur question as it is worded now, 2:26 pm EST on May 7, 2022, is vague enough to have several possible meanings.
Do you plaln to create a planet wth ...
- 23.5k
1
vote
How to create realistic alien evolution in a swampy planet? (Like dagobah from Star Wars)
I would go with the ocotopi!
They are highly intelligent, by some measures of problem solving they are smarter than six-year-old humans.
And completely alien to humans. Five lobed brains, 8 arms that ...
- 28.7k
1
vote
How to create realistic alien evolution in a swampy planet? (Like dagobah from Star Wars)
Crabs
Crabs have evolved on Earth several times. A process called carcinisation.
I guess that means if life evolved on Mars it . . . MIGHT be crabs.
- 37k
1
vote
What might case cause the development of biological nuclear weapons as a natural evolutionary adaptation of a species?
An insectoid like species that uses nuclear isotopes as fuel.
This is a species with different types of insect in different roles. Workers, soldiers, queens, etc. Some of them use nuclear isotopes as ...
- 23.5k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible