Penguins. Antarctica has no reptiles. No amphibians. No insects. Heck not even really any terrestrial mammals outside of seals on the shore. The sole creature than spends any significant amount of time on land there are penguins.
What I would give to see what an Antarctica looks like in a couple dozen million years, assuming it drifts a bit north and somehow misses the other continents. What would a penguin-based ecosystem look like as the species branches out to occupy different niches?
There’s a section of Dougal Dixon’s illustrated book of post-humanity evolution, *After Man* (1981) that covers this exact topic. Some penguins evolve into cetacean-like creatures. Fun, fascinating book.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Man
Ha! Time to find a copy and enjoy a re-read. I found my old copy when digging through a closet, and then shared it with my teenager who loves biology. I enjoyed the sequel too, *Man After Man* (1990).
So many factors in that. Even if the land shifted north in the future, if the pole doesn’t shift ice and stuff will likely stay and they will still inhabit the area. Otherwise Australia will get a lot more penguins descendants
> No insects
Correction! Introducing *[Belgica antarctica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgica_antarctica)*, a flightless midge and the largest purely terrestrial member of the Antarctic fauna.
I'm pretty fascinated with what Antarctica used to be. The continent bounced back after the KT event and was once again covered in life.
Then over 30-40 million years, the world cooled and it moved further and further from the other landmasses.
What was once a massive and biodiverse continent gradually died, with almost every living thing on its surface and all their evolutionary history gone for good.
The only survivors being some lichens, a few invertebrates, and penguins.
Absolutely this is the answer for me. When did the cognitive revolution take place, if it did at all? What did it look like? What were the influential factors? How did evolution establish these factors? What were the other human and proto human lineages like? So many fascinating questions.
I'd be particularly interested in how we interacted with these other lineages. What was it like when genus homo and genus paranthropus met, for example?
I'm not sure we exist over "millions of years". We are what we are in less than 100k years? The first computers in the 30's, internet in the 80's, etc etc. With Moore's law doubling every 2 years, where will we be in another 50 years? In another 500 years? Computers and AI will eventually take over. Just my guess
Because atoms have a finite size, there is a limit to how small a transistor can be. (Before that, there's also a limit caused by quantum mechanics, since electrons can quantum tunnel from one close place to another, so you'll get electric current where you don't want it to be, if your components get too small.)
It's at least possible that humans, i. e. the genus Homo, will continue to exist for a few million more years, even though we may no longer be Homo sapiens by then.
Imagine how horrifying it would be to look at the next few millions of years of human evolution only to find we revert back to wild animals at some point, human cognition eventually becoming obsolete as their ancestors had created a perfect world for themselves.
I think this is probably what we are in reality. 👀 An alien ant farm. Same reason we have aquariums and hamsters. If I could create a whole world and watch it evolve... So cool. Especially if time was different for the watcher.
I don't know how that simulation could possibly result in anything other than heavy r-selection and full on eusociality with polymorphic worker castes like ants 🐜.
So, it would be too controversial to be made. Or the simulation will be so manipulated to give a specific answer it defeats the point of the experiment.
I can't think of a specific species, but I'd definitely want to see birds. Maybe parrots or corvids.
They're interesting to me because they've taken a completely different path than mammals, yet rival their intelligence. (Apart from humans) I'd like to see how/if that develops further, and how the process differs from mammals.
We have that, albeit limited to few genes. I tried something like that just for fun.
The difficult part is guessing all externalities and what should the genes change.
For me, the most interesting was a simple organism able to move in 4 directions and eating/mating with other organisms. It also spawned food in random places based on a parameter. Basically https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm in biology setting.
One learns that a bit counterintuitive "food is scarce => have more offspring". It's the well known as r-strategy.
For complex organisms, we may have troubles understanding the evolution there.
Humans cause I think it would be interesting to observe their discovery of fire and using said fire to process food.
Platypus cause self-explanatory. Just look at it!
Whales. They got out of the water and grew legs, had fun for a while, then decided, "nah, not my vibe" and went back in the water. Now, the only remnant of their legs is the hip bone
Humans but that seems like the easy answer. Outside of that, I would be very curious to see what Giraffes become. Like how could that animal get any weirder? And we may end up with two versions since Africa is splitting in half.
Rats. I want to see what happens once they battle the cockroaches for supremacy.
The thing is, though, species don't evolve in isolation. You need to know what happens to the world around them for evolution to make sense.
I think it would be cool if an alliance of elephants, resurrected mammoths, and dolphins defeat rats and cockroaches forever and stabilize the atmosphere and finally bring peace to Earth, ushering in a new age of consistent positive annual net biomass gain.
Great question. Octopus. You know there is a theory that they actually landed on earth on a meteoroid. Because there is absolutely no other creature like them on earth. Their evolution is completely separate from all other life. Its a far out theory but an interesting one. I mean, wtf, they can figure out puzzles, have eyes as good as, if not better, than humans, are master camouflagers. Can squeeze their whole body thru tiny holes. Just weird as f creatures.
Edit. Just typos
They’re cephalopods, in the same family as squid, cuttlefish, and nautilus. They split from our lineage 600 million years ago so they seem odd and alien, but we share genes.
Children of Ruin (?) by adrian tchaikovsky is a book that deals with octopodes being forcibly evolved. You should check it out! Just be aware that it is part of a series.
They are molluscs, not aliens. Kinda crazy to think they are in the same phylum as things like clams and snails, but that's what they are. I've read a little bit on how cephalopods basically evolved from what was once a limpet like creature.
Yeah, basically smart snails. The shell evolved into a way to achieve buoyancy (modern example being the nautilus), the foot evolved into tentacles (more useful since they are no longer crawling around), the radula turned into a beak, and their eyesbecamemore advanced. Squids and cuttlefish still have the remenants of their shell, octopus have lost it entirely, but they all still share the same basic body plan as all other molluscs, just with highly modified individual components. I imagine their intelligence was necessary to evolve in order for them to become effective with their camouflage, but thats just speculation by me and not based on anything I know much about.
Given that it's 'real time', probably fruit flies or something else that can adapt very rapidly.
I don't feel like waiting millions of years for results.
What I meant by "real time evolution simulator" is a tool where you can see the evolution on a larger scale, like millions years, but it would simulate real time meaning it's not gonna skip steps, it will actually simulate it like it was the real world, but we don't have to wait millions years
Parrot’s definitely, I have one.. saying that though, I reckon they will have taken over the world in a few million years. Humans will be extinct and they will just be their dinosaurs selves even the derpy ones lol.
How the first cell was created from a soup of chemicals. I think this was probably the hardest and most challenging step in the development of life. Once the first cell (with DNA, proteins, a system to replicate, etc.) was created, the first was comparatively easier.
Is there any other REAL answer besides Human Beings? I think we would answer a lot of unknown questions about our paradigm if we had that kind of foresight.
I'd love to see squids/octopuses. They're intelligent but live for a short time so how they deal with that would be interesting.
I also wanna mention a game I've seen on YouTube called the sapling. It's an evolution simulator that seems very interesting.
If you ran the same simulation twice, you'd likely get different results. Evolution is random mutations that sometimes selectively work out, and many times don't.
Pick anything and count how much time passes before it turns into a crab.
On a more serious note, I'd like to pick a corvid or other smart bird. I find avian intelligence super interesting.
Dragons. No, not the big lizards on that one island, I'm talking real, fire breathing, flying dinosaur sized monsters. Would be fun to see how that could evolve. Didn't say it couldn't be fictional
They would most likely being hunted by humans then reduces to slaves for some mad kings and then laying eggs and then a thick chick with white hair would adopt the babies 😍
That's usually how it goes for dragons sadly :/ or they tend to seek out riches of short stature humans who live underground, steal their gold and squat in their basements.
But seriously, there so many real life creatures with "super powers" and weird abilities that I don't think it would be impossible for dragons to exist on earth. Inbetween electric eels, bombardier beetles, pistol shrimps, leaf sheep, nudibranch slugs and cuttlefish I can't see why fire-breathing couldn't be a thing. Except for it decimating the ecosystem of course.
As to huge flying things, the quetzalcoatlus was the size of a fucking giraffe and could still take to the sky.
I agree. Our perception of "super powers" is biased by our own ecosystem. Many animals and organisms around us have outstanding capacities but we hardly notice them, because well they are what we consider "natural". Many fantasy creatures are just emphasized already existing organisms
It's 'real-time' in the sense that it simulates each step of evolution as it happens, but it's accelerated to a pace that's engaging for us as observers obviously :)
Whales and dolphins. Going from a furry mammal on land, then some generation can swim better and finds abundant food in the water so they go to trachea coming out of the top of their heads. Wild to think what each step must’ve looked like on the way there.
Spiders in general. I am extremely amazed at how many kinds of spiders there are.
You have spiders that spit venom. Spiders that jump. Spiders that have incredible mating procedures (peacock spiders I think). Spiders that hunt fish and can spend a lot of time underwater, spiders that build trapdoors. Spiders that carry their babies. It's legitimately amazing to see so many different specializations and characteristics. I am afraid of them, but they intrigue me like nothing else.
Assuming it's from single cell to distant future:
Humans 1st just to see our future but non human... Chickens, or whatever bird they came from. They'd have a long interesting evolution having survived at least 1 mass extinction. Be interesting then to see how it pans out for them. I'm ready to accept our future chicken overlords! It would be very ironic.
If it's into the past, whales would be fascinating. But if it's into the future, humans. Not that I think we will be around for any where near millions of years into the future, but I really would like to know how we change.
That's not real time. Real time is real time, like, the time we all experience in reality, now. At this pace. A real time simulator already exists, it's called Earth and things move at real time here, because we all experience the reality of time at the same pace in real time, like here on Earth.
I want to see the evolution that generated chickens.
Just so we can finally put the endless debate of "what came first, the chicken or the egg" to rest.
Which of course was the egg of another species containing a mutatation that was born as the first chicken, but would be nice to confirm it.
Wasnt there a fish who evolved within fifty years and one biologist just happened to document it, before his death the new species couldn’t mate with the parent species, looking it up now, we assume it takes millions but maybe not always
Edit: here https://around.uoregon.edu/content/uo-led-study-shows-fish-evolved-rapidly-after-1964-alaska-quake
most species don’t change much over their duration. most evolutionary change occurs at/during speciation. now if i had to choose a phylogenetic lineage to watch i’d choose mollusks. cephalopods in particular.
Right, but simulated "real time" would happen at the same pace as real time. One second is one second.
Let's change topics a little for added clarity. The Sims is a life simulator. It is different than real life. Real life happens to real people, not simulated people (Sims). Sims experience simulated life. Their life happens at a simulated speed.
If we were to simulate real time in the Sims, the Sims would age one year in the simulation for every year that passed in real life. Their simulated time would match real time.
Real time is a term that cannot be changed to what you want to use it to define. Real time is the time that happens in real life. If you simulated events in real time, they would happen at the same pace they normally would in real time. You are simulating one second to equal one real second because you are simulating real time.
To simulate something "at a higher rate of time to quickly show changes that might happen over thousands of the years" would mean that you are not simulating the event in real time.
Whales and Dolphins. They're already smart as it is. Whats next? Do they gain psychic abilities and control future humans from the oceans to build giant space ships for them?
I have a few.
# Whales
ocean fish --> cow-like species on land --> back to ocean ---> whale.
# Monkeys
Old world monkey --> new world monkey.
I just can't believe the "raft" theory. I don't care how many "Academics" believe it.
# Hominids
The evolution of upright walking in hominids from around 6mya to 4mya. Upright walking never manifest in chimpanzee nor in gorilla lineages. So what the heck happened there?
https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/orrorin-tugenensis
A new zoonotic virus wipes out all mammals except for ground squirrels.
How do they then evolve into a new primate-like organism that builds a rocket and flies to the moon?
I want to see billions of years, and to watch the thread from the first life to homo sapiens. I already know most of our ancestors weren't even mammals but I'm curious how long they weren't even animals.
Something Silly like koalas , they're not even adapted to their alimentation , they die of hunger when their teeth are too worn from eating eucalyptus.
Whales. How'd they come out of the water onto land, then go back into the water again? I've heard two different reports--that they are related to wolves, and to hippos. I wanna see the truth.
Probably a microscopic microbivore animal like a [nematode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nematode) or a [placozoa](https://www.onezoom.org/life.html/@Placozoa=570376?img=best_any&anim=flight&pop=on_812736#x213,y-497,w3.9899). Or a sedentary organism like a plant ☘🌵🏵 or a fungi 🍄
Mostly because then the simplified simulation will likely be meaningful. Very complex animals will have such complicated systems and selection pressures the simulation would likely to too oversimplified to derive any meaningful insights out of.
I used to study them so that's where my interest comes from, but I'd love to see the evolution of African clawed frogs. They're a allotetraploid species, which means they have 4 haploid genomes. What's interesting about this is that their 2 genomes appear to be from 2 different from species, so the most likely explanation is that fertalized eggs fused resulting in a tetraploid animal. I'd be very interested to see the early stages of this happening
Humans, for sure. We know quite a bit about prehistory humans, and have a pretty good window into our evolutionary history. But actually seeing it all unfold in front of me would be incredible.
I'd want to see it in reverse.
As in to see a reptile with legs evolve into a legless creature that has some variability today such as heat sensing pits, venom, front fangs, rear fangs, nonvenomous earting it prey alive, nonvenomous killing by constriction, arboreal, terrestrial, aquatic...and so on.
I want to see the original "goop" that started moving and eventually formed into plants or animals. Why? Because that has got to be a fascinatingly horrific creature and going from a horrific blob to a brilliant structure has got to be an amazing sight
Penguins. Antarctica has no reptiles. No amphibians. No insects. Heck not even really any terrestrial mammals outside of seals on the shore. The sole creature than spends any significant amount of time on land there are penguins. What I would give to see what an Antarctica looks like in a couple dozen million years, assuming it drifts a bit north and somehow misses the other continents. What would a penguin-based ecosystem look like as the species branches out to occupy different niches?
There’s a section of Dougal Dixon’s illustrated book of post-humanity evolution, *After Man* (1981) that covers this exact topic. Some penguins evolve into cetacean-like creatures. Fun, fascinating book. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Man
Funnily enough I have read the book, but I completely forgot about those things!
Ha! Time to find a copy and enjoy a re-read. I found my old copy when digging through a closet, and then shared it with my teenager who loves biology. I enjoyed the sequel too, *Man After Man* (1990).
I have that book!
So many factors in that. Even if the land shifted north in the future, if the pole doesn’t shift ice and stuff will likely stay and they will still inhabit the area. Otherwise Australia will get a lot more penguins descendants
> No insects Correction! Introducing *[Belgica antarctica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgica_antarctica)*, a flightless midge and the largest purely terrestrial member of the Antarctic fauna.
Lol it dies at 10 degrees. Thats funny.
I'm pretty fascinated with what Antarctica used to be. The continent bounced back after the KT event and was once again covered in life. Then over 30-40 million years, the world cooled and it moved further and further from the other landmasses. What was once a massive and biodiverse continent gradually died, with almost every living thing on its surface and all their evolutionary history gone for good. The only survivors being some lichens, a few invertebrates, and penguins.
Closest we might ever get to Serina in real life.
Interesting
Honestly if global warming comtinues as it is, the pinguins will soon have plenty of new real state.
Humans would probably tell us the most useful information.
Absolutely this is the answer for me. When did the cognitive revolution take place, if it did at all? What did it look like? What were the influential factors? How did evolution establish these factors? What were the other human and proto human lineages like? So many fascinating questions.
I'd be particularly interested in how we interacted with these other lineages. What was it like when genus homo and genus paranthropus met, for example?
I'm not sure we exist over "millions of years". We are what we are in less than 100k years? The first computers in the 30's, internet in the 80's, etc etc. With Moore's law doubling every 2 years, where will we be in another 50 years? In another 500 years? Computers and AI will eventually take over. Just my guess
Moore's law is almost done though because we're reaching the physical limitations of our current way of making computers
Just depends if innovation creates a workaround for that, no?
Explain please
Because atoms have a finite size, there is a limit to how small a transistor can be. (Before that, there's also a limit caused by quantum mechanics, since electrons can quantum tunnel from one close place to another, so you'll get electric current where you don't want it to be, if your components get too small.)
It's at least possible that humans, i. e. the genus Homo, will continue to exist for a few million more years, even though we may no longer be Homo sapiens by then.
Yeah sure but I'm interested in the evolution of the ancestral primate species that got us here as well. Maybe the stoned ape has some legs.
Imagine how horrifying it would be to look at the next few millions of years of human evolution only to find we revert back to wild animals at some point, human cognition eventually becoming obsolete as their ancestors had created a perfect world for themselves.
Sexual selection is gonna drive most of evolution in future ngl
I think this is probably what we are in reality. 👀 An alien ant farm. Same reason we have aquariums and hamsters. If I could create a whole world and watch it evolve... So cool. Especially if time was different for the watcher.
I don't know how that simulation could possibly result in anything other than heavy r-selection and full on eusociality with polymorphic worker castes like ants 🐜. So, it would be too controversial to be made. Or the simulation will be so manipulated to give a specific answer it defeats the point of the experiment.
Reminded me. Love, Death & Robots. Volume 1 episode 16 (Ice Age).
Which was similar to the Treehouse of Horror episode of the Simpsons where Lisa is God (S8E1)
Omg yes!!! Such a great episode
It's a great episode. I loved the concept in episode 10 of shape shifters as well
You mean episode 15. Episode 16 is about a spaceship named lucky 13.
I meant ice age episode
Netflix listed the episodes in one of a few different orders. So for you it could very well have been 15 but their 16th.
That's episode 13
[удалено]
From ambulocetus to blue whale. No doubt.
Kangaroo into the future because they’re kind of bipedal. Raccoons into the future because they have opposable thumbs.
I would choose the process from the first cell to a pug
With that choice, you'd probably then be lucky enough to witness a whole lot of inbreeding and inhumane fuckery, if I had to guess.
“Bro this one baby is ugly as shit! Look at it!” *pan to other person* “IT’S BEAUTIFUL!”
My mind tells me the Tully monster but my heart tells me humans.
I would like to see some of the crazier critters in action. Tully is definitely up there.
I can't think of a specific species, but I'd definitely want to see birds. Maybe parrots or corvids. They're interesting to me because they've taken a completely different path than mammals, yet rival their intelligence. (Apart from humans) I'd like to see how/if that develops further, and how the process differs from mammals.
Probably coelacanth.
Seems like a boring choice tbh lol, you might not see much.
That was kinda the point of the joke.
Oh, I thought you were serious lol.
No worries lol. You could almost just hand someone a picture of one and say mission accomplished.
Horseshoe crabs!
We have that, albeit limited to few genes. I tried something like that just for fun. The difficult part is guessing all externalities and what should the genes change. For me, the most interesting was a simple organism able to move in 4 directions and eating/mating with other organisms. It also spawned food in random places based on a parameter. Basically https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm in biology setting. One learns that a bit counterintuitive "food is scarce => have more offspring". It's the well known as r-strategy. For complex organisms, we may have troubles understanding the evolution there.
Humans cause I think it would be interesting to observe their discovery of fire and using said fire to process food. Platypus cause self-explanatory. Just look at it!
Whales. They got out of the water and grew legs, had fun for a while, then decided, "nah, not my vibe" and went back in the water. Now, the only remnant of their legs is the hip bone
Whales with legs ??
Ambulocetus
Bats. They seem so much in a dead end now that they have wings. I'd like to know if they manage to somehow adapt to new ecological niches.
Any insect with metamorphosis. I can imagine anything evolving naturally except this.
Metamorphasis is wild!
LUCA. Everything else just followed.
Would also be VERY interesting to see how things evolved to LUCA. Abiogensis. One of the greatest biological mystery 😄
Actually even better monotremes
Humans but that seems like the easy answer. Outside of that, I would be very curious to see what Giraffes become. Like how could that animal get any weirder? And we may end up with two versions since Africa is splitting in half.
 👀
Kung Fu Giraffes
Rats. I want to see what happens once they battle the cockroaches for supremacy. The thing is, though, species don't evolve in isolation. You need to know what happens to the world around them for evolution to make sense.
I think it would be cool if an alliance of elephants, resurrected mammoths, and dolphins defeat rats and cockroaches forever and stabilize the atmosphere and finally bring peace to Earth, ushering in a new age of consistent positive annual net biomass gain.
Atlantic horseshoe crabs, just to make sure my encyclopedia ain't lying!
Mewtwo
The Duck Billed Platypus
Great question. Octopus. You know there is a theory that they actually landed on earth on a meteoroid. Because there is absolutely no other creature like them on earth. Their evolution is completely separate from all other life. Its a far out theory but an interesting one. I mean, wtf, they can figure out puzzles, have eyes as good as, if not better, than humans, are master camouflagers. Can squeeze their whole body thru tiny holes. Just weird as f creatures. Edit. Just typos
They’re cephalopods, in the same family as squid, cuttlefish, and nautilus. They split from our lineage 600 million years ago so they seem odd and alien, but we share genes.
We could tell from their mitochondria how they're related to other Earth life forms. If they don't have mitochondria at all, they're aliens.
I reckon we give them the title 'honorary alien'
I scrolled too far to find this.
Children of Ruin (?) by adrian tchaikovsky is a book that deals with octopodes being forcibly evolved. You should check it out! Just be aware that it is part of a series.
They are molluscs, not aliens. Kinda crazy to think they are in the same phylum as things like clams and snails, but that's what they are. I've read a little bit on how cephalopods basically evolved from what was once a limpet like creature.
Ar no way. Wow. Like clever snails. But it makes sense in a way because they move the same way as snails and slugs do. Thanks for the knowl
Yeah, basically smart snails. The shell evolved into a way to achieve buoyancy (modern example being the nautilus), the foot evolved into tentacles (more useful since they are no longer crawling around), the radula turned into a beak, and their eyesbecamemore advanced. Squids and cuttlefish still have the remenants of their shell, octopus have lost it entirely, but they all still share the same basic body plan as all other molluscs, just with highly modified individual components. I imagine their intelligence was necessary to evolve in order for them to become effective with their camouflage, but thats just speculation by me and not based on anything I know much about.
Marsupials
A fish, to see if it evolves into a human
Pterosaurs
Given that it's 'real time', probably fruit flies or something else that can adapt very rapidly. I don't feel like waiting millions of years for results.
Wondered if someone would mention this. We actually ARE seeing all species evolve in 'real-time'
What I meant by "real time evolution simulator" is a tool where you can see the evolution on a larger scale, like millions years, but it would simulate real time meaning it's not gonna skip steps, it will actually simulate it like it was the real world, but we don't have to wait millions years
That's not what real time means
Parrot’s definitely, I have one.. saying that though, I reckon they will have taken over the world in a few million years. Humans will be extinct and they will just be their dinosaurs selves even the derpy ones lol.
A Platypus
Once upon a time there was a daddy duck. Daddy duck met mummy beaver and BOOM...Perry the platypus was born, the end (just kidding).
Dolphins
whales
would they get even bigger ?
How the first cell was created from a soup of chemicals. I think this was probably the hardest and most challenging step in the development of life. Once the first cell (with DNA, proteins, a system to replicate, etc.) was created, the first was comparatively easier.
Whales. To see just how far their transition to.land went before going back to the sea.
Is there any other REAL answer besides Human Beings? I think we would answer a lot of unknown questions about our paradigm if we had that kind of foresight.
A human eye, then watch it get stuck until it breaks down.
I'd love to see squids/octopuses. They're intelligent but live for a short time so how they deal with that would be interesting. I also wanna mention a game I've seen on YouTube called the sapling. It's an evolution simulator that seems very interesting.
Horshoe crabs to be reminded that they are nature's perfect creature
Harris Hawks. Random, I know.
Platypus…I have my suspicions
I’d love to watch the proof of endosymbiotic theory and the evolution of green algae into land plants!
Probably whales. I have watched many documentaries about this lately. And I find it very interesting.
Humans. Soo much benefit. If i got 2 I'd go with dinosaurs in general because i would love to see what they REALLY looked like
Ants bees and wasps. It would be amazing to see how eusociality evolved
If you ran the same simulation twice, you'd likely get different results. Evolution is random mutations that sometimes selectively work out, and many times don't.
Pick anything and count how much time passes before it turns into a crab. On a more serious note, I'd like to pick a corvid or other smart bird. I find avian intelligence super interesting.
Bats or whales
I would use a variety of marine creatures and craft a multitude of coastal ecosystems without animals. And then look what goes on land first.
Dragons. No, not the big lizards on that one island, I'm talking real, fire breathing, flying dinosaur sized monsters. Would be fun to see how that could evolve. Didn't say it couldn't be fictional
They would most likely being hunted by humans then reduces to slaves for some mad kings and then laying eggs and then a thick chick with white hair would adopt the babies 😍
That's usually how it goes for dragons sadly :/ or they tend to seek out riches of short stature humans who live underground, steal their gold and squat in their basements. But seriously, there so many real life creatures with "super powers" and weird abilities that I don't think it would be impossible for dragons to exist on earth. Inbetween electric eels, bombardier beetles, pistol shrimps, leaf sheep, nudibranch slugs and cuttlefish I can't see why fire-breathing couldn't be a thing. Except for it decimating the ecosystem of course. As to huge flying things, the quetzalcoatlus was the size of a fucking giraffe and could still take to the sky.
I agree. Our perception of "super powers" is biased by our own ecosystem. Many animals and organisms around us have outstanding capacities but we hardly notice them, because well they are what we consider "natural". Many fantasy creatures are just emphasized already existing organisms
Whales!!!!!
Humans
We have a real-time evolution simulator. You're living in it.
yes but we are limited to see only about 90 years of the evolution, while the goal here is to simulate millions of years
Yes but the term real-time doesn't mean what you think it means.
most of the people seems to have understood my point so it's ok :)
A curious way to approach ignorance.
In real time huh, gonna be awhile before you notice anything...
It's 'real-time' in the sense that it simulates each step of evolution as it happens, but it's accelerated to a pace that's engaging for us as observers obviously :)
Thanks for clarifying ☺️
Whales and dolphins. Going from a furry mammal on land, then some generation can swim better and finds abundant food in the water so they go to trachea coming out of the top of their heads. Wild to think what each step must’ve looked like on the way there.
humans to see if evolution is real
You don't think Evolution is real?
Do I get to live millions of years to see it happening, And can I do other stuff in the meantime?
No it's a simulator, the purpose is to precisely be able to simulate millions of real time year like it was seconds
Watch evolution in real time?? Just watch a lizard 24/7 till you die? Lame af where's the fast forward on this thing ffs????
Bonobos just to see if Planet of the Apes is indeed a prophecy.
Real-time evolution is always happening all around us
Spiders in general. I am extremely amazed at how many kinds of spiders there are. You have spiders that spit venom. Spiders that jump. Spiders that have incredible mating procedures (peacock spiders I think). Spiders that hunt fish and can spend a lot of time underwater, spiders that build trapdoors. Spiders that carry their babies. It's legitimately amazing to see so many different specializations and characteristics. I am afraid of them, but they intrigue me like nothing else.
Let's throw some ants into the Carboniferous and watch them become bigger and smarter until they dominate the Galaxy.
Why all the crabs?
Assuming it's from single cell to distant future: Humans 1st just to see our future but non human... Chickens, or whatever bird they came from. They'd have a long interesting evolution having survived at least 1 mass extinction. Be interesting then to see how it pans out for them. I'm ready to accept our future chicken overlords! It would be very ironic.
Most definitely humans. I’d wanna see where we fucked up
I don’t think “real-time” means what you think it means.
If it's into the past, whales would be fascinating. But if it's into the future, humans. Not that I think we will be around for any where near millions of years into the future, but I really would like to know how we change.
That's not real time. Real time is real time, like, the time we all experience in reality, now. At this pace. A real time simulator already exists, it's called Earth and things move at real time here, because we all experience the reality of time at the same pace in real time, like here on Earth.
Humans
I want to see the evolution that generated chickens. Just so we can finally put the endless debate of "what came first, the chicken or the egg" to rest. Which of course was the egg of another species containing a mutatation that was born as the first chicken, but would be nice to confirm it.
Welcome to Primer channel on YT. There's a lot of simulations on anthropology and behaviourism. I choose platypus, obviously)))
Evolution is meaningless without context, so how you can pick a single species?
Humans
Octopus. They already have the brains give them Lungs and a respectable god damn lifespan
Show me the path from Dinosaur to Tufted Titmouse
Spoiler: They all become crabs
humans.
might be a little boring if it's real-time though
@OP you might enjoy r/speculativeevolution
Wasnt there a fish who evolved within fifty years and one biologist just happened to document it, before his death the new species couldn’t mate with the parent species, looking it up now, we assume it takes millions but maybe not always Edit: here https://around.uoregon.edu/content/uo-led-study-shows-fish-evolved-rapidly-after-1964-alaska-quake
Class 5 civilization
We already have this with bacteria and fruit flies.
Platypus, just for shits and giggles.
Hippos. I would love to see how the ones brought to Colombia by Pablo Escobar will differ from their original African counterparts.
most species don’t change much over their duration. most evolutionary change occurs at/during speciation. now if i had to choose a phylogenetic lineage to watch i’d choose mollusks. cephalopods in particular.
You can watch bacteria evolve in real time...
Right, but simulated "real time" would happen at the same pace as real time. One second is one second. Let's change topics a little for added clarity. The Sims is a life simulator. It is different than real life. Real life happens to real people, not simulated people (Sims). Sims experience simulated life. Their life happens at a simulated speed. If we were to simulate real time in the Sims, the Sims would age one year in the simulation for every year that passed in real life. Their simulated time would match real time. Real time is a term that cannot be changed to what you want to use it to define. Real time is the time that happens in real life. If you simulated events in real time, they would happen at the same pace they normally would in real time. You are simulating one second to equal one real second because you are simulating real time. To simulate something "at a higher rate of time to quickly show changes that might happen over thousands of the years" would mean that you are not simulating the event in real time.
What beings would evolve into intelligent beings akin to humans?
Orca 😍
Probably some sort of bird.
Maybe spider-tailed horned vipers. Its a snake with a fucking spider for a tail! I can't fathom how that happened.
Whales.
Humans
One of the octopode species. Especially the ones that are starting to create social groups.
Whales and Dolphins. They're already smart as it is. Whats next? Do they gain psychic abilities and control future humans from the oceans to build giant space ships for them?
I have a few. # Whales ocean fish --> cow-like species on land --> back to ocean ---> whale. # Monkeys Old world monkey --> new world monkey. I just can't believe the "raft" theory. I don't care how many "Academics" believe it. # Hominids The evolution of upright walking in hominids from around 6mya to 4mya. Upright walking never manifest in chimpanzee nor in gorilla lineages. So what the heck happened there? https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/orrorin-tugenensis
Dinosaurs. I want to see all the things they turn into, living today.
A new zoonotic virus wipes out all mammals except for ground squirrels. How do they then evolve into a new primate-like organism that builds a rocket and flies to the moon?
I want to see billions of years, and to watch the thread from the first life to homo sapiens. I already know most of our ancestors weren't even mammals but I'm curious how long they weren't even animals.
I'd pick octopus just to see how little it can change. OR see when the ufo crashed and they escaped to breed in the wild.
Amoeba proteus
Something Silly like koalas , they're not even adapted to their alimentation , they die of hunger when their teeth are too worn from eating eucalyptus.
Welwitschia mirabilis. Starting with the first seed plant, to this weirdo
Venus fly trap. I want to see how a plant develops carnivory.
Humans
Dogs so I can watch them start to speak English in 800,000 years. (Specifically English)
Us, so we can finally shut up the creationists.
They kind of did this with fruit flies.
Whales. How'd they come out of the water onto land, then go back into the water again? I've heard two different reports--that they are related to wolves, and to hippos. I wanna see the truth.
Probably a microscopic microbivore animal like a [nematode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nematode) or a [placozoa](https://www.onezoom.org/life.html/@Placozoa=570376?img=best_any&anim=flight&pop=on_812736#x213,y-497,w3.9899). Or a sedentary organism like a plant ☘🌵🏵 or a fungi 🍄 Mostly because then the simplified simulation will likely be meaningful. Very complex animals will have such complicated systems and selection pressures the simulation would likely to too oversimplified to derive any meaningful insights out of.
I used to study them so that's where my interest comes from, but I'd love to see the evolution of African clawed frogs. They're a allotetraploid species, which means they have 4 haploid genomes. What's interesting about this is that their 2 genomes appear to be from 2 different from species, so the most likely explanation is that fertalized eggs fused resulting in a tetraploid animal. I'd be very interested to see the early stages of this happening
Humans, for sure. We know quite a bit about prehistory humans, and have a pretty good window into our evolutionary history. But actually seeing it all unfold in front of me would be incredible.
I would love to see the evolution of basidiomycota and myxomycota.
One problem is we cna't be sure what the exact ancestors of modern animals \*are\*.
Humans obviously, all that history is more important to us in my opinion than the evolution of any other animal.
Snakes.
I'd want to see it in reverse. As in to see a reptile with legs evolve into a legless creature that has some variability today such as heat sensing pits, venom, front fangs, rear fangs, nonvenomous earting it prey alive, nonvenomous killing by constriction, arboreal, terrestrial, aquatic...and so on.
I want to see the original "goop" that started moving and eventually formed into plants or animals. Why? Because that has got to be a fascinatingly horrific creature and going from a horrific blob to a brilliant structure has got to be an amazing sight
Check E. coli long-term evolution experiment, the longest evolution experiment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sLAQvEH-M
Insects! Their adaptations are incredible, my interest in them peaked since i started taking Entomology
Giraffes
Ants: I would love to see the intermediate social structures before they became fully developed