If evolution worked a certain way over millions of years, would we get dragons?
>>2024633
We basically got wingless dragons once.
Dragons wouldn't really be a successful animal. If it was, it'd probably look a lot different and less cool. It would also have to have either HUGE fucking wings or it'd be small.
>>2024633
Yes but it's just a theory. I'm looking at you komodo dragon and monitor lizard
>>2024633
If our planet had different atmosphere composition, or something, it'd also be possible for them to breathe fire.
>>2024641
wingless dragons aren't dragons, unless they are asian
>>2024633
If vertebrates had 6 limbs we could go from there.
Pterosaurs are the closest we ever got if you ignore some sketchy fossils that come from China.
>>2024723
thats why I posted pic related, I think I should have specified, would those flaps evolve into wings?
Dragons (especially wyverns) are plausible animals, but they definitely haven't existed.
>>2024728
No, because they aren't limbs, we really would have to go back to the fish stages and from there evolve creatures with 6 limbs.
You might like this video:
https://youtu.be/Gnt5wIVjFS0
>>2024763
why can't they evolve into limbs?
>>2024769
Because they are ribs. There isn't really a good way for a bunch of extended limbs to turn into a limb.
It's be like dogs evolving a scorpion tail. Theres just nothing there for it to really form from.
>>2024770
well, fish fins aren't limbs either, and they evolved into arms and legs.
>>2024773
>fins aren't limbs
You don't know what you're talking about.
>>2024775
i don't im just looking for hope
>>2024770
but can they control them voluntaryly?
whats the liklyhood of getting a chraizard or toothless or spyro?
>>2024820
I love me some spyro but thing is are those bat like wings able to carry all that fat? I think asian dragons , the faggy ones who look like serpents, are more likely under certain circumstances. And what kind of enviornment would favor breathing fire beats me
>>2024833
but spyro glides
>>2024820
Toothless would more or less work, charizard and spyro would be completely incapable of flying or even slightly gliding.
>>2024649
many dinosaurs especially ones named after dragons come from china... Yinlong, Gunalong, Zhenyuanlong... Yi
>>2024633
bats are the closest we have for wyvenrs
>>2024885
Toothless should also be incapable of flight just based on his weight alone.
>>2024916
Probably, but he has a much more sound design than most other flying dragons in media. He's just have to be more lightly built with maybe bigger wings or something.
I don't get why most things in media give dragons almost no wing membrane. It looks cool and they look retarded without it having their asses just dangle there.
>>2024633
Would you call it a dragon?
>>2024918
it looks hilarious.
>>2024921
Well yeah it's okay on them because they're supposed to be kind of cute and silly and having the butt dangle is the point. But when you have something like skyrim having dragons floating around gliding on practically skeletal wings is when it gets stupid.
>>2024918
>>2024925
I like the skyrim dragons because I'm a sucker for 'wyvern' designs but I agree they need more membrane. They had a tiny bit going down their sides but they just looked sick.
Speaking of OP's pic, the Thunderdrums were kinda like that. In the TV series Stoik got a Thunderdrum, Thornado.
>>2024921
I think this could work
>>2024973
Also this
>>2024973
Aside from it slicing down trees, yeah that would work, so would >>2024977.
Its worth mentioning a lot of the HTTYD dragons would have great difficulty flying because they didn't have still tails.
>>2024940 Might be able to fly, but not with a gigantic tail dangling from it hanging down and whipping everywhere
>>2024983
Tails on large dragons seems useless in general and just add more unneeded weight. Bats don't need them and the largest pterosaurs had basically nubs for tails.
It worked in the past.
what i want to know is, could a lizard evolve six limbs?
>>2025202
It's physically possible, just impossibly unlikely.
In the entire history of the planet no vertebrate has evolved six limbs, and even arthropods (who do fucking everything) keep their limb numbers the same.
>>2024920
Wyvern
Its not impossible for animals to evolve specialized appendages. And you have no fucking idea if those gliding lizards are heading in that direction. It could take another billion years for that to happen.
>>2025266
Ayy, there were gliding lizards living 150 million years ago (look up xianglong). If they had to evolve into dragons they would already have.
Also it was already pointed out in this thread multiple times that ribs can't fucking evolve into limbs.
>>2025359
What pisses me off the most is that theres people out there who claim that evolution cant make what we are talking abut happen, honestly you dont know what the fuck youre talking about.
Because for all we know life shouldn't even exist yet it does. Just for that reason alone biology shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt. Or with such a closed minded train of thought.
>>2025379
You retard.
Whether life "Should" or "Should Not" exist is a fucking philosophical question.
What matters is if it can exist, and it obviously can because we fucking exist.
What kind of backwards fourteen year old troll ignores what a century of research has managed to do for our understanding of life as we know it.
There is no precedence for gliding structures based on rib architecture ever functioning as a wing. There is no way to even make the fucking ribs into wings without doubling the amount of ribs, moving them to a point where the surrounding musculature can support and flex the fucking things, and then somehow having the creature get to the size of a "Dragon".
You dipshit.
Just google a fucking six legged vertebrate.
That jelly-like abomination is your starting point.
Work with that invariably fucked up genetic clusterfuck that you have on your computer screen. Turn that into your fucking dragon.
You'd have more luck with a goddamn octopus than a fucking gliding lizard. You're either a some backwoods Christian mongoloid or an eight year old girl that's throwing a tantrum because her parents are telling her fairies aren't real.
>>2025392
FUCKING Retard there's nothing stopping that from happening you fucking mollusk for brains.
Have you ever read how every part of your anatomy evolved? You understand that fish fins most likely evolved from gills right?
There is absolutely nothing stopping evolution from making exactly what you described happen. IF THERE IS SELECTIVE PRESSURE THAT LIZARD CAN EVOLVE FLAPPING WINGS! THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NOTHING STOPPING THAT! If there is somehow a need for six limbs a new order of animal can arise THERE'S NOTHING STOPPING THAT. Fish evolved extra appendages to help them swim, IF A LIZARD FOR WHATEVER REASON or how unlikely it is in YOUR FUCKING BRAIN, CAN EVOLVE TO HAVE WINGS there's absolutely nothing stopping it from evolving in that direction.
The only reason WE DONT HAVE six limbs in animals living now is because whatever basal fish we evolved from did NOT Have 3 pairs of fins instead it had 2 pairs.
You should maybe pull that cock you of your mouth so that you can let some oxygen into that starved turd you call a brain.
Closed minded piece of shit, id love to see your PHD IN NON evolutionary science.
If you have any fucking proof to show me otherwise why evolution cant modify an animals anatomy to become something else then SHUT TH FUCK UP!!!
>>2025266
In another billion years fish could evolve two extra fins, become land bound, and then eventually start flying.
What is the energy effectiveness of having 6 limbs?
>>2025429
I'm no expert obviously but I'd say depends on what those extra limbs are used for. Ones used in locomotion and weight support is a lot compared to say, tiny little chest arms I see in a lot of alien designs that are just used for manipulating objects.
Either way, more limbs means more energy, more oxygen, more blood, etc is needed to support them. They'd also needed extra modifications for them to be able to function so its not as simple as just 'growing' extra limbs.
can legendary resistance come out of evolution?
Not if you're talking about having the typical 6 limbed ones. It'd be redundant as fuck for absolutely no reason. An animal doesn't need arms AND wings. If it has wings and needs to manipulate shit, it'll just use it's mouth/feet. If it has wings and needs to walk on all 4 it'll just move like a pterosaurs.
There's a reason all vertebrate life has 4 limbs. Even if life on land had started out with 6 limbs, most animals probably would have either evolved them away, or just kept the extra two as little atrophied arms for whatever.
Something like a wyvern is doable though. animals with gliding ribs don't really have a good basis for evolving flight, since they can't flap their ribs and use that as a reason to evolve bigger membranes/muscles/etc. If they were gliding using their arms or legs I could definitely see them evolving flight though.
Something like flying lemurs, or hell, even flying fish would have a better shot at it.
Would this be able to fly?
>>2025024
Dougal Dixon at it again.
>not a single fucker posted the real dragon
If their lineage got bigger, they might as well be.
>>2025896
it wouldn't even glide.
I doubt it would even be able to move it's wings down to begin with.
>>2025411
you are retarded, you have no idea how many changes would have to evolve all whilst giving the animal a selective advantage over other organisms, the odds of a given line of animals even lasting long enough to begin to evolve a pseudo limb from ribs, never mind survive long enough to see it fully evolve, is slim to none.
>>2025411
>i think evolution is magic: the post
>>2027247
Uses magic, since it's dnd. No really, that's how dragons work in that universe.
It's fucking magic. Why have style over function when magic nets you both?
But yeah, no magic=no giant flying lizards.
Pterodactyls were pretty close to wyverns though.
>>2027288
it has about 40 appendages in it's wings.
centipedes have ganglia in every segment of their body, they act as tiny brains, that's how they're able to walk.
this dragon doesn't have that, it wouldn't even be able to function in general.
Would you consider dinosaurs dragons, cause that feels like the closest we can get to dragons.
No.
The way they're depicted in movies and video games they'd be way too heavy to fly, just like it's impossible for Pegasus to exist. In order to fly using wings the animal has be light and usually with hollow bones.
>>2027910
>In order to fly using wings the animal has be light and usually with hollow bones.
teratorns no longer exist apparently.
>>2025411
Yeah a lizard could evolve wings, in it's existing limbs.
Mostly because evolution doesn't do retarded things liek growing entire extra limbs for no reason.
It's be like a wolf having evolutionary pressure to get stronger jaws, and expecting it to grow gigantic strong jaws on the end of it's tail when it could, y'know, just have it's existing mouth gain strength super simply.
>>2027911
>thinking 15kg is as heavy as tons
>>2027929
>teratorns
>15kg
try 80+
>>2027911
Yes but a good portion of that mass goes into the size of it's wings to pick up on the strong wing currents where it lives. They are heavy, but they are also lazy flyers.
>>2027953
the heaviest ones are extinct.
their wings weren't exactly big for their weight.
>>2027918
>ilek growing extra limbs for no reason.
>>2028052
Those aren't limbs silly.
Still find it hard to believe that theres still people here who dont believe a random assortment of bones can evolve to something else.
>>2027438
I wasn't saying it was not possible you fucking mong. I was saying that its so infeasible it almost certainly wont happen
>>2027439
Tetrapods (assuming that thing is one) have brains far, far more advanced then centipedes.
>>2028396
>random assortment of bones
Those bones were hands from the fucking beginning, they haven't changed much.
Ribs are fucking sticks attached to a spine, they CAN'T FUCKING FLAP YOU NIGGER.
>>2028396
>Autopods, roll out!
>>2027936
Try Google
>>2028716
Sigh... deep breath...
>>2028890
Don't do it, you might end up with a cock up your nose
>>2028897
Stop projecting your fantasies sir.
>>2028890
that's not the same as a new fucking limb
>>2029032
Still being retarded i see. Honestly its hopeless to have any sort of intelligent dialogue with the dick breathing troglodytes in this place.
>>2029062
Quit talking like a pretentious asshole, I can hear you stroking your beard contemplatively from over here.
evolution is amazing in all ways, but JAWS EVOLVED FROM GILLS WHOA
>>2029073
Honestly i take that as a compliment. Specially since i am totally not that kind of stereotype.
>strokes imaginary beard.
>>2028052
>>2028890
Do you not know what a limb is? Are you an alien or something? Jesus.
Everyone knows the draco lizards exist, no one is saying they don't work. The point is an animal isn't going to evolve a 6th limb. Those are literally just evidence against what you're saying because guess what? They use modified ribs to glide instead of a third pair of limbs.
>>2029032
if at some point it develops fine articulation for whatever reason it may as well be.
>>2029085
Yeah no ones said they are limbs. Its a fucking wing. Its a fixed wing yes. Its not a limb turned into a wing like birds and bats, its a whole new structure that only does one thing.
>>2029108
>no one said they are limbs
>post was a guy posting that in response to "not going to evolve a 6th limb"
No one is saying an animal can't have 4 legs and weird body structures like extended ribs or gliding membranes etc, etc. The point is nothing on our planet is going to develop a body plan like a dragon where it is 6 complete full on limbs.
>>2029077
And ear bones evolved from jaw bones... I don't have any idea how those would be useful in intermediary species, no idea how they didn't simply vanish... anyone has articles on this kind of stuff?
>>2029108
It doesn't matter, a cold blooded animal will never evolve flight either way.
>>2029265
>anyone has articles on this kind of stuff?
not really but I did a thesis on it. Also the book, "Your Inner Fish" goes into it quite a bit.
the bits served various purposes. The best studied one is perhaps the stapes or columella. variously served purposes in supporting the internal carotid artery, hearing, and jaw support depending on the animal.
in mammals there probably weren't any intermediate steps. The bones were recruited into the ear because that's the purpose they served from the very beginning- to transmit vibration from the jaw to the ear.
>>2029271
Fuck, I actually have that book, but I forget I have it...I'm not a very strict reader :^) I've read it a bit, but I should get onto finishing it.
>that's the purpose they served from the very beginning- to transmit vibration from the jaw to the ear.
that makes more sense, it's not as the bones were suddenly used in a unrelated function
>>2029277
>that makes more sense
yeah, they kept right on doing what they were doing, they just drifted away from the jaw and into an earhole. The jaw is useful for hearing underwater, but not so much in the air. So the bones involved apparently just migrated to where they'd do the most good.
we still use the jaw and bones of the face to hear some though. Primarily through the Eustachian tubes or (in other animals), the guttural pouch.
>>2029108
Does it have to turn into a proper wing? If they could get some vertical movement, wouldn't that suffice?
>>2029867
Its already a wing. If they were to develop further into active lift generating wings there's absolutely no template that we could follow to speculate how that would look like.
And like some people love to point out it may never happen, but i rather leave that open ended cause when it comes to evolution we really don't know shit about what can happen.
>>2029903
>we really don't know shit about what can happen.
somebody hasn't read his Gould or Dawkins
it's not an accident that the same bauplans keep evolving over and over while new ones fail.
>>2029904
All land dueling vertebrates inherited their body plan from one animal that came out of the water.
Thats been changed and modified into every land living vertebrate that has ever existed, lets not forget the ones that wen back into the sea.
>>2029267
Insects are pretty good at it.
>>2029952
>thinks insects are animals
>/sci/
we don't need you pointy-headed intellectuals ruining our fun!
>>2029952
Dont try to show the people in this thread anything other than the shallow vision they have about shit. Honestly times better spent on culling their whole family tree.
>>2029952
Yes, but insects work entirely differently than extant reptiles, who are all -mostly- heat powered.
Actually can anyone explain why fish and stuff are active in icewater while reptiles almost universally get sluggish and unable to function in the cold?
>>2029984
>can anyone explain
fish are adapted to cold while reptiles are adapted to heat. That's all.
Heat makes reptile metabolisms more efficient and more active, but the trade off is they can't move when they're cold.
Cold-adapted fish do fine in cold water but die if it gets warm. Each group is just adapted to different temps.
>>2029988
So besides letting us know that you have a massive superiority complex, probably cause you do have a small dick. You're also revealing to us the fantasies of a repressed faggot who wants to commit incest by sucking your daddy's dick?
Anon really, just keep it to yourself.
>>2029267
it can if it evolves warm blood first.
