Balundaur1 - Speculative Dinosaur Project

Speculative evolution is a genre of speculative fiction and an artistic movement focused on hypothetical scenarios in the

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

of life, and a significant form of fictional biology. It is also known as speculative biology and it is referred to as speculative zoology in regards to hypothetical

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...

s. Works incorporating speculative evolution may have entirely conceptual species that evolve on a planet other than Earth, or they may be an alternate history focused on an alternate evolution of terrestrial life. Speculative evolution is often considered

hard science fiction Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's ''Islands of Space'' in the Novemb ...

because of its strong connection to and basis in science, particularly

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

. Speculative evolution is a long-standing trope within science fiction, often recognized as beginning as such with

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

The Time Machine ''The Time Machine'' is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively for ...

'', which featured several imaginary future creatures. Although small-scale speculative faunas were a hallmark of science fiction throughout the 20th century, ideas were only rarely well-developed, with some exceptions such as Stanley Weinbaum's Planetary series, Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom, a fictional rendition of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

and its ecosystem published through novels from 1912 to 1941, and

Gerolf Steiner Gerolf Steiner (22 March 1908 – 14 August 2009) was a German zoologist. Life and career Steiner was born in Strasbourg, Alsace in March 1908. He earned his doctorate in 1931 at the University of Heidelberg. He completed his habilitation in 19 ...

's Rhinogradentia, a fictional order of mammals created in 1957. The modern speculative evolution movement is generally agreed to have begun with the publication of Dougal Dixon's 1981 book ''

After Man ''After Man: A Zoology of the Future'' is a 1981 speculative evolution book written by Scottish geologist and palaeontologist Dougal Dixon and illustrated by several illustrators including Diz Wallis, John Butler, Brian McIntyre, Philip Hood, ...

'', which explored a fully realized future Earth with a complete ecosystem of over a hundred hypothetical animals. The success of ''After Man'' spawned several "sequels" by Dixon, focusing on different alternate and future scenarios. Dixon's work, like most similar works that came after them, were created with real biological principles in mind and were aimed at exploring real life processes, such as evolution and

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

, through the use of fictional examples. Speculative evolution's possible use as an educational and scientific tool has been noted and discussed through the decades following the publication of ''After Man''. Speculative evolution can be useful in exploring and showcasing patterns present in the present and in the past. By extrapolating past trends into the future, scientists can research and predict the most likely scenarios of how certain organisms and lineages could respond to ecological changes. In some cases, creatures first imagined within speculative evolution have since been discovered, such as an imaginary filter-feeding

anomalocarid Radiodonta is an extinct order of stem-group arthropods that was successful worldwide during the Cambrian period. They may be referred to as radiodonts, radiodontans, radiodontids, anomalocarids, or anomalocaridids, although the last two origi ...

illustrated by artist John Meszaros in the 2013 book '' All Your Yesterdays'' by

John Conway John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to many branches ...

, C. M. Kosemen and

Darren Naish Darren William Naish is a British vertebrate palaeontologist, author and science communicator. As a researcher, he is best known for his work describing and reevaluating dinosaurs and other Mesozoic reptiles, including '' Eotyrannus'', '' Xenop ...

being proven as having existed through fossils discovered in 2014 of the real anomalocarid '' Tamisiocaris''.

History

Early works

Explorations of hypothetical worlds featuring future, alternate or alien lifeforms is a long-standing trope in

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

. One of the earliest works usually recognized as representing one of speculative evolution is

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

'', published in 1895. ''The Time Machine'', set over eight hundred thousand years in the future, features post-human descendants in the form of the beautiful but weak

Eloi The Eloi are one of the two fictional post-human races, along with the Morlocks, in H. G. Wells' 1895 novel ''The Time Machine''. In H. G. Wells' ''The Time Machine'' By the year AD 802,701, humanity has evolved into two separate species: t ...

and the brutish

Morlock Morlocks are a fictional species created by H. G. Wells for his 1895 novel,'' The Time Machine'', and are the main antagonists. Since their creation by H. G. Wells, the Morlocks have appeared in many other works such as sequels, films, televi ...

s. Further into the future, the protagonist of the book finds large crab-monsters and huge butterflies. Science fiction authors who wrote after Wells often used fictional creatures in the same vein, but most such imaginary faunas were small and not very developed. Barsoom green martian

Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote in the early 20th century, can like Wells be considered an early speculative evolution author. Although his fictional ecosystems were still relatively small in scope, they were the settings of many of his novels and as such quite well-developed. In particular, Burroughs's Barsoom, a fictional version of the planet

which appeared in ten novels published from 1912 to 1941, featured a Martian

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

with a variety of alien creatures and several distinct Martian cultures and ethnic groups. In 1930,

Olaf Stapledon William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) – known as Olaf Stapledon – was a British philosopher and author of science fiction.Andy Sawyer, " illiamOlaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. ''Fifty Key Figures ...

published a "

future history A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors of science fiction and other speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction. Sometimes the author publishes a timeline of events in the history, whil ...

", ''Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future'', describing the history of humanity from the present onwards, across two billion years and eighteen human species, of which ''

Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

'' is the first. The book anticipates the science of genetic engineering, and is an early instance of the fictional group mind idea. Published in 1957, German zoologist

's book ''Bau und Leben der Rhinogradentia'' (translated into English as ''The Snouters: The Form and Life of the Rhinogrades'') described the fictional evolution, biology and behavior of an imaginary order of mammals, the Rhinogradentia or "rhinogrades". The Rhinogrades are characterized by a nose-like feature called a "nasorium", the form and function of which vary significantly between species, akin to

Darwin's finches Darwin's finches (also known as the Galápagos finches) are a group of about 18 species of passerine birds. They are well known for their remarkable diversity in beak form and function. They are often classified as the subfamily Geospizinae or t ...

and their beak specialization. This diverse group of fictional animals inhabits a series of islands in which they have gradually evolved, radiating into most ecological niches. Satirical papers have been published continuing Steiner's imagined world. Although the work does feature an entire speculative ecosystem, its impact is dwarfed by the later works due to its limited scope, only exploring the life of an island archipelago. In 1976, the Italian author and illustrator Leo Lionni published ''Parallel Botany'', a "

field guide A field guide is a book designed to help the reader identify wildlife (flora or fauna) or other objects of natural occurrence (e.g. rocks and minerals). It is generally designed to be brought into the "field" or local area where such objects exi ...

to imaginary plants", presented with academic-style mentions of genuine people and places. ''Parallel Botany'' has been compared to the 1972 book '' Invisible Cities'' by

Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the '' Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the ''Cosmicomi ...

, in which Marco Polo in a dialogue with Kublai Khan describes 55 cities, which, like Lionni's "parallel" plants, are "only as real as the mind's ability to conceptualize them".

Movement

One of the significant "founding" works of speculative evolution is ''

'' by Dougal Dixon, published in 1981. To this day, ''After Man'' is recognized as the first truly large-scale speculative evolution project involving a whole world and a vast array of species. Furthering its significance is the fact that the book was made very accessible by being published by mainstream publishers and being fully illustrated with color images. As such, ''After Man'' is often seen as having firmly established the idea of

creating Creation may refer to: Religion *''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing *Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it *Creationism, the belief that ...

entire speculative worlds. Through the decades following ''After Man'''s publication, Dixon remained one of the sole authors of speculative evolution, publishing two more books in the same vein as ''After Man''; '' The New Dinosaurs'' in 1988 and '' Man After Man'' in 1990. Dixon cited ''The Time Machine'' as his primary inspiration, being unaware of Steiner's work, and devised ''After Man'' as a popular-level book on the processes of evolution that instead of using the past to tell the story projected the processes into the future. A central idea of ''After Man'', besides a wave of extinction following humans, is

convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last com ...

as new species bear a close resemblance to their unrelated predecessors. When designing the various animals of the book, Dixon looked at the different types of

biome A biome () is a biogeographical unit consisting of a biological community that has formed in response to the physical environment in which they are found and a shared regional climate. Biomes may span more than one continent. Biome is a broader ...

s on the planet and what adaptations animals living there have, designing new animals descended from modern day ones with the same set of adaptations. The success of ''After Man'' inspired Dixon to continue writing books that explained factual scientific processes through fictional examples. ''The New Dinosaurs'' was in essence a book about

zoogeography Zoogeography is the branch of the science of biogeography that is concerned with geographic distribution (present and past) of animal species. As a multifaceted field of study, zoogeography incorporates methods of molecular biology, genetics, mor ...

, something the general public would be unfamiliar with, using a world in which the non-avian dinosaurs had not gone extinct. ''Man After Man'', explored

over the course of the next few million years by showcasing its effects through the eyes of future human descendants. Today, many artists and writers work on speculative evolution projects online, often in the same vein as Dixon's works. Speculative evolution continues to endure a somewhat mainstream presence through films and TV shows featuring hypothetical and imaginary creatures, such as ''

The Future is Wild ''The Future Is Wild'' (also referred to by the acronym ''FIW'') is a 2002 speculative evolution docufiction miniseries and an accompanying multimedia entertainment franchise. ''The Future Is Wild'' explores the ecosystems and wildlife of thre ...

'' (2002), ''

Primeval Primeval may refer to: * Primeval forest, an area of forest that has attained great age * Primeval number, a positive integer satisfying certain conditions * Primeval history, name given by biblical scholars to the first eleven chapters of the Bo ...

'' (2007–2011), ''

Avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appeara ...

'' (2009), '' Terra Nova'' (2011), and ''Alien Worlds'' (2020). The modern explosion of speculative evolution has been termed by British paleontologist

as the "Speculative Zoology Movement".

As an educational and scientific tool

Although primarily characterized as entertainment, speculative evolution can be used as educational tool to explain and illustrate real natural processes through using fictional and imaginary examples. The worlds created are often built on ecological and biological principles inferred from the real

evolutionary history of life The history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms evolved, from the earliest emergence of life to present day. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago (abbreviated as ''Ga'', for ''gigaannum'') and evide ...

on Earth and readers can learn from them as such. For example, all of Dixon's speculative works are aimed at exploring real processes, with ''After Man'' exploring evolution, ''The New Dinosaurs'' zoogeography and both ''Man After Man'' and '' Greenworld'' (2010) exploring climate change, offering an

environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

message. In some cases, speculative evolution artists have successfully predicted the existence of organisms that were later discovered to resemble something real. Many of the animals featured in Dixon's ''After Man'' are still considered plausible ideas, with some of them (such as specialized rodents and semi-aquatic primates) being reinforced with recent biology studies. A creature dubbed "''Ceticaris''", conceived by artist John Meszaros as a filter-feeding

, was published in the 2013 book '' All Your Yesterdays'', and in 2014, the actual Cambrian anomalocarid '' Tamisiocaris'' was discovered to have been a filter-feeder. In honor of Meszaros's prediction, ''Tamisiocaris'' was included in a new clade named the Cetiocaridae. Dougal Dixon's ''The New Dinosaurs'' was heavily influenced by paleontological ideas developing during its time, such as the ongoing dinosaur renaissance, and as such many of the dinosaurs in the book are energetic and active creatures rather than sluggish and lumbering. Dixon extrapolated on the ideas of paleontologists such as

Robert Bakker Robert Thomas Bakker (born March 24, 1945) is an American paleontologist who helped reshape modern theories about dinosaurs, particularly by adding support to the theory that some dinosaurs were endothermic (warm-blooded). Along with his mentor ...

and

Gregory S. Paul Gregory Scott Paul (born December 24, 1954) is an American freelance researcher, author and illustrator who works in paleontology, and more recently has examined sociology and theology. He is best known for his work and research on theropod dino ...

when creating his creatures and also used patterns seen in the actual evolutionary history of the dinosaurs and pushing them to an extreme. Perhaps because of this, many of the animals in the book are similar to actual Mesozoic animals that were later discovered. Many of the dinosaurs in it are feathered, something not widely accepted at the time of its publication but seen as likely today. Similarly, ''After Man'' in 1981 represents a sort of time capsule of geological thought before global warming was fully discerned, but Dixon also portrays a sixth mass extinction or

Anthropocene The Anthropocene ( ) is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change. , neither the International Commissio ...

before it was commonplace to do so. Dromaeosauroides

Speculative evolution can be useful in exploring and showcasing patterns present in the present and in the past, and there is a useful aspect to hypothesizing on the form of future and alien life. By extrapolating past trends into the future, scientists could research and predict the most likely scenarios of how certain organisms and lineages could respond to ecological changes. As such, speculative evolution facilitates authors and artists to develop realistic hypotheses of the future. In some scientific fields, speculation is essential in understanding what is being studied.

Paleontologists Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of foss ...

apply their own understanding of natural processes and biology to understand the appearances and lifestyles of extinct organisms that are discovered, varying in how far their speculation goes. For instance, ''All Yesterdays'' and its sequel ''All Your Yesterdays'' (2017) explores highly speculative renditions of real (and in some cases hypothetical) prehistoric animals that do not explicitly contradict any of the recovered fossil material. The speculation undertaken for ''All Yesterdays'' and its sequel has been compared to that of Dixon's speculative evolution works, though its objective was to challenge modern conservative perceptions and ideas of how dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures lived, rather than designing whole new ecosystems. The books have inspired a modern artistic movement of artists going beyond conventional

paleoart Paleoart (also spelled palaeoart, paleo-art, or paleo art) is any original artistic work that attempts to depict prehistoric life according to scientific evidence. Works of paleoart may be representations of fossil remains or imagined depiction ...

tropes, expanding into increasingly speculative renditions of prehistoric life. Additionally, the evolutionary history of fictional organisms has been used as a tool in biology education.

Caminalcules Caminalcules are a fictive group of animal-like life forms, which were created as a tool for better understanding phylogenetics in real organisms. They were created by Joseph H. Camin (University of Kansas) and consist of 29 living 'species' and 48 ...

, named after Joseph H. Camin, are a group of animal-like lifeforms, consisting of 77 purported extant and fossil species that were invented as a tool for understanding phylogenetics. The classification of Caminalcules, as well as other fictional creatures like dragons and aliens, have been used as analogies to teach concepts in evolution and systematics. Speculative evolution is sometimes presented in museum exhibitions. For instance, both ''After Man'' and ''The Future is Wild'' has been presented in exhibition form, educating museum visitors on the principles of biology and evolution through using their own fictional future creatures.

Subsets

Extraterrestrial life

A popular subset of speculative evolution is the exploration of possible realistic extraterrestrial life and ecosystems. Speculative evolution writings focusing on extraterrestrial life, like the blog ''Furahan Biology'', use realistic scientific principles to describe the biomechanics of hypothetical alien life. Although commonly identified with terms such as "astrobiology", "xenobiology" or "exobiology", these terms designate actual scientific fields largely unrelated to speculative evolution. Though 20th century work in exobiology sometimes formulated "audacious" ideas about extraterrestrial forms of life. Astrophysicists Carl Sagan and

Edwin Salpeter Edwin Ernest Salpeter (3 December 1924 – 26 November 2008,) was an Austrian–Australian–American astrophysicist. Life Born in Vienna to a Jewish family, Salpeter emigrated from Austria to Australia while in his teens to escape the Nazis. He ...

speculated that a "hunters, floaters and sinkers" ecosystem could populate the atmospheres of

gas giant A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Gas giants are also called failed stars because they contain the same basic elements as a star. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" ...

planets like Jupiter, and scientifically described it in a 1976 paper. In extraterrestrial-focused speculative biology, lifeforms are often designed with the intention to populate planets wildly different from Earth, and in such cases concerns like chemistry,

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...

and the

laws of physics Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) ...

become just as important to consider as the usual biological principles. Very exotic environments of physical extremes may be explored in such scenarios. For example,

Robert Forward Robert Lull Forward (August 15, 1932 – September 21, 2002) was an American physicist and science fiction writer. His literary work was noted for its scientific credibility and use of ideas developed from his career as an aerospace engineer. He ...

's 1980 ''

Dragon's Egg ''Dragon's Egg'' is a 1980 hard science fiction novel by American writer Robert L. Forward. In the story, Dragon's Egg is a neutron star with a surface gravity 67 billion times that of Earth, and inhabited by cheela, intelligent creatures ...

'' develops a tale of life on a neutron star, and the resulting high-gravity, high-energy environment with an atmosphere of iron vapor and mountains 5-100 millimeters high. Once the star cools down and stable chemistry develops, life evolves extremely quickly, and Forward imagines a civilization of "cheela" that lives a million times faster than humans. In some cases, artists and writers exploring possible alien life conjure similar ideas independent of each other, often attributed to studying the same biological processes and ideas. Such occasions can be called "convergent speculation", similar to the scientific idea of

. Perhaps the most famous speculative work on a hypothetical alien ecosystem is

Wayne Barlowe Wayne Douglas Barlowe is an American science fiction and fantasy writer, painter, and concept artist. Barlowe's work focuses on esoteric landscapes and creatures such as citizens of hell and alien worlds. He has painted over 300 book and magazi ...

's 1990 book '' Expedition'', which explores the fictional planet Darwin IV. ''Expedition'' was written as a report of a 24th-century expedition that had been led to the planet by a team composed of both humans and intelligent aliens and used paintings and descriptive texts to create and describe a fully realized extraterrestrial ecosystem. Barlowe later served as an executive producer of a TV adaptation of the book, ''

Alien Planet ''Alien Planet'' is a 2005 docufiction TV special created for the Discovery Channel. Based on the 1990 book '' Expedition'' by the artist and writer Wayne Barlowe, ''Alien Planet'' explores the imagined extraterrestrial life of the fictional plan ...

'' (2005) where exploration of Darwin IV is instead carried out by robotic probes and the segments detailing the ecosystems of the planet are intercut with interviews with scientists, such as

Michio Kaku Michio Kaku (, ; born January 24, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist, futurist, and popularizer of science ( science communicator). He is a professor of theoretical physics in the City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center. Kak ...

, Jack Horner and James B. Garvin. Other examples of speculative evolution focused on extraterrestrial life include Dougal Dixon's 2010 book ''Greenworld'', TV programmes such as 1997 the BBC2/ Discovery Channel special ''

Natural History of an Alien ''Natural History of an Alien'', also known as ''Anatomy of an Alien'' in the US, is an early Discovery Channel mockumentary similar to ''Alien Planet'', aired in 1998. This mockumentary featured various alien ecosystem projects from the Epona Pro ...

'' and the 2005

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

/ National Geographic programme '' Extraterrestrial'' as well as a variety of personal web-based artistic projects, such as C. M. Kosemen's " Snaiad" and Gert van Dijk's "Furaha", envisioning the biosphere of entire alien worlds. Through science fiction, the speculative biology of extraterrestrial organisms has a strong presence in popular culture. The eponymous monster of '' Alien'' (1979), particularly its life cycle from egg to parasitoid larva to 'Xenomorph', is thought to be based on the real habits of

parasitoid wasp Parasitoid wasps are a large group of hymenopteran superfamilies, with all but the wood wasps (Orussoidea) being in the wasp-waisted Apocrita. As parasitoids, they lay their eggs on or in the bodies of other arthropods, sooner or later causin ...

s in biology. Further,

H. R. Giger Hans Ruedi Giger ( ; ; 5 February 1940 – 12 May 2014) was a Swiss artist best known for his airbrushed images that blended human physiques with machines, an art style known as " biomechanical". Giger later abandoned airbrush for pastels, mark ...

's design of the Alien incorporated the features of insects, echinoderms and fossil crinoids, while concept artist John Cobb suggested acid blood as a biological defense mechanism. James Cameron's 2009 film ''Avatar'' constructed a fictional biosphere full of original, speculative alien species; a team of experts ensured that the lifeforms were scientifically plausible. The creatures of the movie took inspiration from Earth species as diverse as

pterosaur Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 ...

microraptor ''Microraptor'' (Greek, μικρός, ''mīkros'': "small"; Latin, ''raptor'': "one who seizes") is a genus of small, four-winged dromaeosaurid dinosaurs. Numerous well-preserved fossil specimens have been recovered from Liaoning, China. They ...

great white shark The great white shark (''Carcharodon carcharias''), also known as the white shark, white pointer, or simply great white, is a species of large Lamniformes, mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major ocean ...

s, and

panthers Panther may refer to: Large cats *Pantherinae, the cat subfamily that contains the genera ''Panthera'' and ''Neofelis'' **''Panthera'', the cat genus that contains tigers, lions, jaguars and leopards. ***Jaguar (''Panthera onca''), found in Sout ...

, and combined their traits to create an alien world.

Alternative evolution

Speculative Dinosaur Project Deltatheridian mustelids

Similar to alternate history, alternative evolution is the exploration of possible alternate scenarios that could have played out in the Earth's past to give rise to alternate lifeforms and ecosystems, popularly the survival of non-avian dinosaurs to the present day. As humanity is often not a part of the worlds envisioned through alternative evolution, it has sometimes been characterized as non-

anthropocentric Anthropocentrism (; ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity in the universe. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. ...

. Although dinosaurs surviving to the age of humans has been adapted as a plot point in numerous science fiction stories since at least 1912, beginning with Arthur Conan Doyle's '' The Lost World'', the idea of exploring the fully fledged alternate ecosystems that would develop in such a scenario truly began with the publication of Dixon's ''The New Dinosaurs'' in 1988, in which dinosaurs were not some lone stragglers of known species that had survived more or less unchanged for the last 66 million years, but diverse animals that had continued to evolve beyond the Cretaceous. In the vein of Dixon's ''The New Dinosaurs'' imagination, a now largely defunct, but creatively significant collaborative online project the ''Speculative Dinosaur Project'' followed in the same zoological worldbuilding tradition. Since 1988, alternative evolution has sometimes been applied in popular culture. The creatures in the 2005 film ''

King Kong King Kong is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. He has been dubbed The Eighth Wonder of the World, a phrase commonly used within the franchise. His first appearance was in the novelizat ...

'' were fictitious descendants of real animals, with Skull Island being inhabited by dinosaurs and other prehistoric fauna. Inspired by Dougal Dixon's works, the designers imagined what 65 million years or more of isolated evolution might have done to dinosaurs.''Recreating the Eighth Wonder: The Making of King Kong'' (DVD). Universal. 2006. Concept art for the film was published in the book '' The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island'' (2005), which explored the world of the film from a biological perspective, envisioning

Skull Island Skull Island is the name most often used to describe a fictional island that first appeared in the 1933 film ''King Kong'' and later appearing in its sequels, the three remakes, and any other King Kong-based media. It is the home of the eponym ...

as a surviving fragment of ancient Gondwana. Prehistoric creatures on a declining, eroding island had evolved into "a menagerie of nightmares". A hypothetical natural history of dragons is a popular subject of speculative zoology, being explored in works such as Peter Dickinson's ''

The Flight of Dragons ''The Flight of Dragons'' is a 1982 animated fantasy film produced and directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. loosely combining the speculative natural history book of the same name (1979) by Peter Dickinson with the novel '' The Dragon a ...

'' (1979), the 2004

mockumentary A mockumentary (a blend of ''mock'' and ''documentary''), fake documentary or docu-comedy is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on c ...

The Last Dragon ''The Last Dragon'' (sometimes listed as Berry Gordy's ''The Last Dragon'') is a 1985 American martial arts comedy film produced by Rupert Hitzig for Berry Gordy and directed by Michael Schultz. The film stars Taimak, Vanity, Julius Carry, C ...

'' and the '' Dragonology'' series of books.
In an episode of the documentary series '' The Universe'', briefly shows us what would have happened if the impact that formed the moon had not occurred, in that scenario no could have existed the humans and no other intelligent species due to changes climates rapids.

Evolution of the future

The evolution of organisms in the Earth's future is a popular subset of speculative evolution. A relatively common theme in future evolution is civilizational collapse and/or humans becoming extinct due to an anthropogenic extinction event caused by environmental degradation. After such a mass extinction event, the remaining fauna and flora evolve into a variety of new forms, it also shows us they evolution of post-humans beings. Although the foundations of this subset were laid by Wells's ''The Time Machine'' already in 1895, it is generally agreed to have been definitely founded through Dixon's ''After Man'' in 1981, which explored a fully realized future ecosystem set 50 million years from the present. Dixon's third work on speculative evolution, ''Man After Man'' (1990) is also an example of future evolution, this time exploring an imagined future evolutionary path of humanity. Peter Ward's ''

Future Evolution ''Future Evolution'' is a book written by paleontologist Peter Ward and illustrated by Alexis Rockman. He addresses his own opinion of future evolution and compares it with Dougal Dixon's '' After Man: A Zoology of the Future'' and H. G. Wells's ...

'' (2001) makes a scientifically accurate approach to the prediction of patterns of evolution in the future. Ward compares his predictions with those of Dixon and Wells. He tries to understand the mechanism of mass extinctions and the principles of recovery of ecosystems. A key point is that "champion supertaxa" who diversify and speciate at a greater rate, will inherit the world after mass extinctions. Ward quotes the paleontologist

Simon Conway Morris Simon Conway Morris (born 1951) is an English palaeontologist, evolutionary biologist, and astrobiologist known for his study of the fossils of the Burgess Shale and the Cambrian explosion. The results of these discoveries were celebrated in ...

, who points out that the fantastical or even whimsical creatures devised by Dougal Dixon, echo nature's tendency to converge on the same body plans. While Ward calls Dixon's visions "semi-whimsical" and compares them to Wells' initial visions in ''The Time Machine'', he nonetheless continues the use of analogous evolution, which is a larger trend in speculative zoology. Future evolution has also been explored on TV, with the mockumentary series ''The Future is Wild'' in 2002, for which Dixon was a consultant (and author of the companion book), and the series ''Primeval'' (2007–2011), a drama series in which imagined future animals occasionally appeared. Ideas of future evolution are also frequently explored in science fiction novels, such as in

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and ...

's 1985 science fiction novel '' Galápagos'', which imagines the evolution of a small surviving group of humans into a

sea lion Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...

-like species. Stephen Baxter's 2002 science fiction novel ''

Evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

'' follows 565 million years of human evolution, from shrewlike mammals 65 million years in the past to the ultimate fate of humanity (and its descendants, both biological and non-biological) 500 million years in the future. C. M. Kosemen's 2008 '' All Tomorrows'' similarly explores the future evolution of humanity. Speculative biology and the future evolution of the human species are significant in bio art.

References

External links

Encyclopedia Galactica
A speculative evolution project by Finnish artist Ken Ferjik exploring the lifeforms of several fictional planets.
Furaha: Natural History of the planet v Phoenicis IV
A speculative evolution project by Dutch artist Gert van Dijk exploring the fictional planet Furaha and its lifeforms.

A speculative evolution project by Turkish artist C. M. Kosemen exploring the fictional planet of Snaiad and its lifeforms.
Serina: A Natural History of the World of Birds
A speculative evolution project envisioning an alien planet in which all animals have descended from mundane and commonly-kept species, in particular the Common Canary. *
All Your Yesterdays
', the sequel to ''All Yesterdays'' and a free downloadable book featuring speculative renditions of extinct animals.

A collaborative speculative evolution project exploring Earth's life as imagined 25 million years in the future.
Project Nereus
A speculative evolution project by Evan Black exploring the fictional planet Nereus and its lifeforms. *Archived site o

A collaborative speculative evolution project exploring Earth as imagined if the K-T extinction event had not occurred. Als
Russian translation
of this project an
saved English version
are available. {{Biology in fiction Speculative fiction Extraterrestrial life Science fiction genres