So, I learned something cool the other day. Which, to no one’s surprise, lead me down an even cooler rabbit hole of information. Facts and tidbits I’m stoked to have as I plot a pretty big (for me) series that involve extra-dimensional beings and evolution. In a war where magic and biological advantage is supreme, this is the stuff which awesome details are made of.
Convergent evolution is a known thing in the word of biological science. Two, or more, species that look and act the same but are genetically different. What I didn’t know about was the massive reclassification of huge amounts of species going on in the science world, though. I mean, lots and lots of creatures. Riley Black brought this inadvertently to my attention and spurred this post, as well as my frantic additions to plot.
It ain’t just these guys though. Everything from giraffes to sea anemone to fruit bats have been under the microscope and subjected to this kind of detailed dissection. The results are wild.
But this kind of information can fuel more than just new cool creatures to add to the roster of characters. The worldbuilding alone can get out of hand. Need a common ancestor for that weird bird plaguing the characters? Your weird bird might not be a bird at all and this could trip up the plot in fun ways with the help of convergent evolution. Your werewolves might be the descendants of those “extinct” dire wolves. Those sweet, fun pet dragons rife in your fantasy world? They could’ve come from fruit bats 200,000 years before.
See where I’m going with this?
T.A. Creech
Science in the pursuit of Fiction.