Question of the Day, July 21, 2010
- Thread starter The Escapist Staff
- Start date
Why not? At to some extent, it's possible that such things as unicorns and dragons did exist at some point.... and why not just cause they aren't here now doesn't mean that they did not exist in some part of the world at some point. Strange creatures are being discovered all the time. Why knows what they'll find next.
What many others have said:
Unicorns, possibly. That's not too much of a variation from the horse, with all features within the mammal family. All it would have taken was a horse with a somewhat pointy forehead, and from there a nub, from there a point, and then to a horn.
Dragons and gryphons? No way. Amongst all the other problems, those models of wings are limbs. That means they'd be six-limbed vertebrates.
The only way to get there would be a complete reconfiguration of evolution. Or, to put it another way, the only way to have them occur is if we didn't. I'm calling no go on gryphons and dragons.
Edit: My girlfriend has persuaded me to rethink my position on dragons. Something that could be recognisably called a dragon may have been able to evolve. I'm willing to believe that. It wouldn't exactly like our conceptions of dragons, if nothing else it'd have been much, much smaller. But it would be dragonlike.
Unicorns, possibly. That's not too much of a variation from the horse, with all features within the mammal family. All it would have taken was a horse with a somewhat pointy forehead, and from there a nub, from there a point, and then to a horn.
Dragons and gryphons? No way. Amongst all the other problems, those models of wings are limbs. That means they'd be six-limbed vertebrates.
The only way to get there would be a complete reconfiguration of evolution. Or, to put it another way, the only way to have them occur is if we didn't. I'm calling no go on gryphons and dragons.
Edit: My girlfriend has persuaded me to rethink my position on dragons. Something that could be recognisably called a dragon may have been able to evolve. I'm willing to believe that. It wouldn't exactly like our conceptions of dragons, if nothing else it'd have been much, much smaller. But it would be dragonlike.
Hang on, you're telling me they don't exist?
[HEADING=2]WRONG![/HEADING]
They exist. We just haven't found the planet they live on yet.
[sub]I answered yes btw[/sub]
[HEADING=2]WRONG![/HEADING]
They exist. We just haven't found the planet they live on yet.
[sub]I answered yes btw[/sub]
We already know that unicorns can physically exist. Most horn-bearing mammals, if the horn-buds are moved together, produce a single horn. The fact is, though, that this is an inefficient means of self-defense in the wild which does not lend itself to evolutionary survival.
I think, for the most part, they could have existed. I'm not sure how dragons could have evolutioned flaming breath, but horns for horses and flying giant lizards seems plausible. I have no idea where a Griffin would naturally grow - maybe in a forest with retardedly tall trees.
Unicorns already exist, they're called rhinocerus.
Even so a horse with a horn isn't too far off. It'd be more likely for it to have two, but...
Dragons and griffins? Sorry, but no. No creature exists with six appendages, i.e. four legs and two wings. It'd come out of nowhere.
Even so a horse with a horn isn't too far off. It'd be more likely for it to have two, but...
Dragons and griffins? Sorry, but no. No creature exists with six appendages, i.e. four legs and two wings. It'd come out of nowhere.
If a really long time ago, the ancient ancestor of horses had sex with the rhino's ancient ancestor, and that child did the same, and that child did the same, and that child did the same, maybe it would be possible.
If a pterodactyl had sex with a stegosaurus and figured out how to breathe fire, and had kids the same way the pterodactyl did, maybe that would be possible too.
The griffin thing, I doubt that one.
/sarcasm
If a pterodactyl had sex with a stegosaurus and figured out how to breathe fire, and had kids the same way the pterodactyl did, maybe that would be possible too.
The griffin thing, I doubt that one.
/sarcasm
Quoted for truth.Impluse_101 said:
EDIT: Editing the length of this post. I don't like getting warnings!
Really, evolution could have gone in a completely different direction based on environmental or outside factors. Life on this planet could even be based off another element (other than carbon) if our planet had been mostly another element (like silicon, for example).
Dragons
-No, they would be far to heavy to maintain flight, plus would use up too many resources in the environment to maintain a stable population.
Unicorns- Horse with a mutation that causes a bone to stick out of its head, possible.
Griffin- The DNA between birds and Mammals are too different to co exist successfully within one animal, plus the process in which it would gain both lion and bird traits makes not a squawk of sense.
-No, they would be far to heavy to maintain flight, plus would use up too many resources in the environment to maintain a stable population.
Unicorns- Horse with a mutation that causes a bone to stick out of its head, possible.
Griffin- The DNA between birds and Mammals are too different to co exist successfully within one animal, plus the process in which it would gain both lion and bird traits makes not a squawk of sense.
Truthfully i agree that this type of evolution probebly could happen. I like to believe that everything in this universe is infinitely random and anything can happen. This theory coincides with the Chaos Theory, which states that everything is predetermined through Mathamatics. Truthfully, if everything is predetermined, you would believe that it could have been predetermined randomly with Mathamatics. However I am just trying to sound smart since ive thought about this stuff for a rough 13-14 years.
