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?

>>5101999
pig

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>>5101999
armadillos
its already happened before, it can happen again

>>5102038
being armored isn't a niche formfag

>>5101999
Pangolins
Armadillo Lizards
Snapping turtles
Thorny devils
Horned lizards

All of those actually grow big scales/osteroderms/spikes on their bodies and tails and could probably evolve a club.

>>5102048
what did I just say about armor and niches, formfag

>>5101999

turtles like Meilania

>>5102087
>>5102041

Well the exact niche of ankylosaurs is unclear. We understand them as low browsers, so technically a horse is an akylosaur analogue

>>5101996
op what the hell is that thing

>>5102164

What is Mako? luman

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>>5102164
oh wouldn't you like to know

wasn't there a game where you built your own animals? Spore?

>>5102041
uh, "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?

>>5102311
That's a strategy. What does the herbivore specifically eat

>>5102313
I 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

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>>5102313
>>5102325
cope

>>5102328
you didn't even try with that one

>>5102289

yup

>>5102323
plants, you fat faggot
stop being obtuse

>>5102322
they'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

>>5102416

Again, horses.

>>5102423
Horses are specialists.

>>5102323
What'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.

>>5102459
A 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

>>5102488
Well, 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.

>>5102515
The fact that polar bears will eat you isn't your niche

>>5102533
You're being very silly.

https://alpha.sagan4.org/wiki/Dioramas

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>>5102776
Not even gonna bump the thread with an example?

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future

>>5103134
what's with the multiple eye creatures?

>>5103445
just 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
>>5102533
What a sperg lmao

>>5103558
I 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 so

like I get it's AI, but in theory you could use AI to make a sort of "good enough" sketch of ideas you had
always a shame when AI images turn out to have just no thought behind them

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>>5103558
>>5103682
you do realize those are classic sagan 4 dioramas """remastered""" with AI right

>>5103822
Why not post the originals then? they are much more appealing

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>>5103824
idk "future" or smth here's another one

>>5103822
Putting 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 microorganisms
https://youtu.be/uuhW4BwN90A

New Kaimere videos
https://youtu.be/qT1EL5niQ9k
https://youtu.be/yTutXAv4IQA

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>>5104196
>kaimere
speaking of things that aren't spec evo...

>>5104196
Noterra really deserves far more views
single celled spec-evo is fascinating

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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 penguin
and you could call them martlets because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martlet

>>5104470
the 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 warm
all 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

>>5101996

New Age of Monotremes megavideo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFBaVIsWQCc&t=692s

>>5104470
I 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.

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>tits
>lays eggs
harpies are fucking monotremes

>>5102164
It's called Italian brainrot

>>5105820
>>tits
>monotremes
you'll lap up her milk off of her bare, nipple-less flat chest and you'll like it. I'm sure I would.