How 'Alien' Should Aliens Look?

If we ever discover Alien life, what will it look like? Convergent evolution and physics can tell us a surprising amount about extraterrestrials…
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A Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...
In the original series of Star Trek, the show tries to pass off what is clearly someone’s dog with a horn taped to its head as an ‘alien lifeform.’ It’s pretty hilarious to revisit - not just to see the actors make a heroic attempt to stay in-character while carrying this thing around - but also because this unicorn dog doesn’t seem distinct enough from life on earth to make a believable alien.
But this raises an interesting question: if there is life elsewhere in the universe, just how ‘alien’ will aliens look? It’s a question many scientists and sci-fi authors have speculated on, and is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down.
So, for this entry into the archive, we’ll explore relevant phenomena in evolution and physics to determine if extraterrestrials are more likely to look like Earth animals, or something far stranger...
0:00 How ‘Alien’ Should Aliens Look?
0:57 Convergent Evolution
3:34 Evolve to Crab
4:56 Alien Convergence
8:43 Intelligent Aliens
10:52 The Question of Gravity
14:01 Beyond Mortal Comprehension
16:11 The Answer?
Sources:
A Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy - Arik Kershenbaum: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...
Crab Convergence - Laurel Hammers: www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
Searching for Extraterrestrial Life - Sarah Scoles: www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
Extreme Possibilities for Life - Michael D. Lemonick: www.nationalgeographic.com/as...
Copyright Disclaimer: Under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. All video/image content is edited under fair use rights for reasons of commentary.
I do not own the images, music, or footage used in this video. All rights and credit goes to the original owners.
♫ Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com):
Beauty Flow, Majestic Hills, Bittersweet, Floating Cities
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
#CuriousArchive #SpeculativeBiology #ConvergentEvolution

[@CuriousArchive]

Quick correction to this video: Echidnas aren't marsupials but monotremes, a unique group of mammals that lay eggs. Still an interesting example of convergent evolution!

[@alleymartinez7946]

Was about to come say this after making sure i wasnt insane and that they were in fact monotremes

[@facundobinelli6077]

Love your channel, keep doing your thing

[@rebellion795]

Look at moles. There a marsupial mole Insectivore mole Afrotherian golden mole Xenarthran pink fairy mole All look very very simular but being very far apart Also mole lizards too

[@johnathan1506]

Hey ,I would just say I love the channel. Got recommended the video of Codex Seraphinianus and have been watching ever since. I imagine you don't take recommendations ,but I would like to try anyway. The book is called Arthur Spiderwicks Guide to the Fantastical world around you, and is truly one of the most beautiful books I've ever owned. It details the speculative biology of fey and invisible people and was based on a real person's notes and studies. I have a physical copy of the book ,its not very long but its beautiful nonetheless, but I'm pretty sure there is a digital version available. Even if you won't see this I actually just wanted to recommend something and tell you to keep doing what you are doing. Thanks for all you do.

[@glennbabic5954]

Monotremes are separated from placentals by many more millions of years than marsupials.

[@Guydude777]

I would be both thrilled and disappointed if the first example of extraterrestrial life we encountered was just a dog with a horn on its head. Excellent video.

[@joshuagonzalez4183]

same

[@Strato_Casterrr9898]

And that won't stop us from turning it into our pets.

[@alexbosse8528]

Or just more damn crabs.

[@farrex0]

@@alexbosse8528 Or.... Crab people! Crab People! Crab People!

[@DrakoWulf]

@@farrex0 | That crab is a spy!

[@GhostoftheSnow271]

I think that it’s impossible to define “too alien” so long as a creature can exist in a logical way. I mean, snails have their anus placed above their heads, and starfish go through an incredibly dramatic shift in body plan from larvae to adult.

[@The_True_Mx_Pink]

Caterpillars literally dissolve their body and reform into a butterfly within the cocoon. The only thing that could shock me with alien life would have to be non-carbon based.

[@davidking7750]

@@The_True_Mx_Pink That's interesting. To see what non carbon based life would be life.

[@morewi]

@@The_True_Mx_Pink do they really

[@The_True_Mx_Pink]

@@morewi Yes.

[@jimmynoosetron6518]

Look at anything in the deep sea or even just tardigrades and we have our answer

[@SM-zz4gx]

Star Trek Next Generation actually covered why all the aliens look similar throughout the different series: it wasn't convergent evolution, it was divergent evolution. Apparently an ancient race had spread the seeds of Life across the galaxy which is why so many aliens look alike and in some cases are capable of interbreeding.

[@kevindiederich2611]

Yeah I was going to comment this also, Star Trek actually does get quite creative with some of its life forms: carbon based life, god like life, living has clouds, etc… although I wouldn’t call my self a huge Star Trek fan I find many of the concepts very interesting.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

They basically explained it as panspermia from a common ancestor. But before that TNG episode convergent evolution was the predominant explanation. With the idea that life on different planets but in similar environments will develop similar structures.

[@X3MgamePlays]

There are a lot of half Klingon half human babies around in the 25th century

[@Maliniasredmask]

good point but... honestly i still dont like the concept lol- too much of that fantasy aspect lol

[@samr.england613]

And who or what created that 'ancient race'? You've summed up why Star Trek TNG totally sucks. After all, all they do on that show is sit around and talk. Watch it again, and you'll see. That's all they do.

[@xXMrZentusXx]

For anyone interested in imagining human contact with "Alien-looking" sentient life I recommend the novel "Project Hail Mary" from Andy Weir (the guy who wrote "The Marsian"). I think it's an incredible depiction of Alien life and how to cooperate with it to achieve a common goal but also any other ambitions we might have in common with other intelligent life. Another fascinating take on Alien intelligence is the "Three body Problem"-series from Cixin Liu. It's also very interesting to see a chinese/asian take on scientific problems that you are maybe not familiar with if you are used to western fiction.

[@GretchenCooper]

I was wondering when someone was going to mention "Project Hail Mary" It's a very good book.

[@MrCmon113]

Quit Liu's series halfway through. It started really good, but the aliens became more and more contrived.

[@Road_Rash]

I'll wait for the movie...or Amazon Prime series... whichever comes first... Lol!

[@user-ou9qd9no5n]

Lem's Solaris

[@The1stDukeDroklar]

@@MrCmon113 Agreed

[@claytonharting9899]

Your humor was on point in this episode, I couldn’t stop laughing “This crab feeds on algae, this crab looks like it feeds on your nightmares” “But ask any orthopedic surgeon what they think of your spine”

[@nenmaster5218]

Random Thoughtprovoking Fun-Fact: Some More News and Second Thought are 2 KZbinrs famous for being Voices for the Worker-Class. Their videos about Work, Unions, and Capitalism, are amazing.

[@sakesaurus1706]

@@nenmaster5218 that's not a fact you're just plugging stuff stop it

[@loturzelrestaurant]

@@sakesaurus1706 It's an odd sight to see you talk-down to a stranger omline, make negative assumptions, and be fully wrong about the mentioned KZbinrs "getting much Praise" as this is indeed what we'd call a Fact.

[@sakesaurus1706]

@@loturzelrestaurant Weird, can't post a dang response

[@sakesaurus1706]

@@loturzelrestaurant you're a bot

[@Fayanora]

I read a scifi book once where one of the alien species had developed on a world that was very windy and dusty, and instead of using eyes, they had evolved the ability to navigate using natural radar. Not sonar, but radar, which worked by emitting radio waves. In fact there was a scene I found particularly memorable, where first contact went horribly awry when these aliens accidentally killed a human via too many aliens looking at the human with their radar vision, basically microwaving the poor dude alive.

[@im4ft622]

whats the book called?

[@Fayanora]

@@im4ft622 I don't remember the title or the author, sorry.

[@magnarcreed3801]

See that! Some would argue that’s too far fetched or trying to hard but that’s a viable way life could evolve under similar but different circumstances.

[@cyberium5020]

That's both horrifying and really sad at the same time did that cause some kind of war because of the miss understanding

[@Fayanora]

@@cyberium5020 I think what happened was it was pretty touch and go for a bit, but things got ironed out. This was a story where they had bigger problems. Both humans and these aliens were under threat from killer machines that liked wiping out sentient biological species. That said, it was like 20 years ago I read this book so my memory of it is not great.

[@richardwallis9374]

I’ve always felt that the most believable alien in a movie was the Alien Xenomorph. You can see convergent evolution happening but it’s still radically alien. Top notch predator traits as well as a believable reproduction strategy. And smart as hell but didn’t go the technology route. I mean I wasn’t happy about all this but there it is.

[@optiprimas]

If I remember correctly the recent prequel movie explained that xenomorphs were genetically engineered by an android created by humans. So rather than being convergent evolution, they were designated in humanity's image from the start. It kinda ruined the mystique of the aliens being truly alien.

[@kacperfilipek8461]

@@optiprimas fuck them prequels

[@TheFireMonkey]

I remember back when I first read Mission of Gravity and how fascinating I found the beings that lived on the very high gravity work the story is centered on.

[@MorganHJackson]

An interesting example of niches being filled by unrelated animals: in most parts of the world, the key grazing animal is a hoofed, 4 legged thing, like deer, antelope, or cattle. In Australia, its kangaroos.

[@jacobgoodstone7572]

Australia doesn't exist

[@tb_eest]

Many continents used to have their own major grazing animal that want a hoofed mammal, same goes for predators and such. But during continental interchanges many of those got replaced by the "superior" cats, dogs, and hoofed herbivores.

[@tijanamilenkovic9442]

@@tb_eest Interestingly enough, dolphins and whales started out as small hoofed four legged herbivores and evolved into marine predators that they are now

[@grayanddevpdx]

Wait, Australia is part of earth?

[@Alkis05]

Well, australia is kind of a alien continent, since it was separated from all the others so long ago, when it comes to mammals. There were no roofed mammals yet when it got separated.

[@purplehaze2358]

“From the tiny strawberry hermit crab that feeds on seaweed, to the coconut crab that looks like it feeds on your nightmares” I laughed unreasonably hard at that.

[@stankythecat6735]

Me also ! I would FREAK the F out if I ever saw a coconut crab in real life. Like running, crying , and peeing my self at the same time

[@CoolGobyFish]

yes, but none of those are carcinized)))) he was completely off. should have shown king crabs and porcelain crabs. they have completely turned into crabs, despite being completely unrelated to true crab

[@tokujinsicura2190]

Right😂😂😂

[@julietfischer5056]

@@stankythecat6735- There's a video of a coconut crab (aka 'robber crab') destroying a man's golf clubs.

[@stankythecat6735]

@@julietfischer5056 running , crying , shitting , and screaming.

[@BeverlyHighland]

A type of evolution was explained to me recently in a way that made me understand it more than I already did; Let’s use a moth as an example: A bunch of moths are born, and one moth had a weird mutation, or deformity where it had different colored specks on it, which coincidentally helped it hide better from enemies which caused it to live longer, and therefore mate more. Its’ offspring also had the same mutation, which also allowed them to live longer. So where the original moths are dying like usual, these new mutated moths are thriving, mating, and completely taking over to the point where the original look of the moths have completely died out and don’t exist anymore. I hope this helped someone as much as it helped me.

[@GretchenCooper]

hmm yes, natural selection

[@DeadlyDan]

A type of evolution? This is straight of Darwin's Origin of Species. It's not just a type it's proof of evolution and natural selection full stop.

[@bonitabruce1753]

I read a long time ago that moths in a European forest mutated darker because tree bark got darker from soot pollution.

[@rickwrites2612]

Yea thats the essential explanation of evolution

[@BeverlyHighland]

@@rickwrites2612 kind of. There’s different types.

[@brendenpeterson5684]

I think one thing that many people also take for granted when it comes to evolution is the existence of bilateral symmetry. When we imagine animals, we are most likely to think of animals with to distinct sides, from insects to mammals. Yet, several animals on hearth are radially symmetrical and can be cut down the middle in any direction and in the past some animals used to be trilaterally symmetrical (trilobozoa). I wonder if another planet would have similar animals like this instead of bilaterians like us.

[@viccolasvic9461]

Lol I literally just made a comment like this. I wonder what kind of pressures our planet had that favored bilateralism that would be nonexistent on a different planet.

[@skythedragon7897]

There's also ancient evidence of 3 fold, and even fractal body plans

[@The1stDukeDroklar]

There's a reason why those creatures are not the norm and those same reasons are going to drive life on other worlds. So while diversity of life will also be there, the same results will certainly arise. Not exact just as species on earth are not carbon copies... no pun intended lol.

[@brendenpeterson5684]

@@The1stDukeDroklar what might those reasons be? Having twofold symmetry does provide many advantages, such as greater mobility, but it isn't inevitable. We have other characteristics that aren't necessary as bilaterians (such as our suite of sensory organs). It's not inconceivable for radially symmetrical animals to evolve them on other words. Furthermore, radial symmetry returned in the echinoderms (sea stars, urchins, and cucumbers). This means that radial symmetry posseses some good advantages (otherwise it wouldn't have been selected for). I also don't know why you say that bilateral symmetry is inevitable. You might want to make a case for that. Thanks for for input btw

[@The1stDukeDroklar]

@@brendenpeterson5684 You - "We have other characteristics that aren't necessary as bilaterians (such as our suite of sensory organs)". How can you say they aren't necessary when most life forms share these same sensory suites? As for radial symmetry, it seems to be relegated to smaller creatures. I cannot think of a single radial creature larger than an octopus or jellyfish. Both of these are sea creatures who are out of the running for tech-level intelligence. Can't evolve tech in an aquatic environment. Fire is mandatory. As for a reason for bilateral symmetry, I would think that it's easier to copy two halves that are the same than it is to contain the dna code to make two different sides. Not sure what the primary driving forces are but then again, nobody knows all the forces that drive the evolution of a creature.

[@DDoubleEDouble]

Life on Earth is so incredibly diverse and that’s why I think it’s difficult for people to imagine a life form that is completely out of the box or like nothing we’ve seen here on Earth. You could come up with ALMOST any premise (habitat, shape, mobility, mating habit, colour, sound it makes etc) and there is an animal here on Earth that does that thing in one way or another (including all of the extinct ones!!). We have creatures that dissolve their own bodies to create completely new ones: butterfly. Creatures with insane/insanely different proportions: giraffe, whale, Argentinosaurs (dinosaur), giant squid, bacteria, ants. Creatures with a diverse range of defence mechanisms: electric eel, wood louse/rolly-polly (rolls its entire body into a ball), fire ants, venomous snakes, horned lizard (squirts blood from eyes), skunk, narwhal (it’s basically a dolphin unicorn hybrid lol). Notable mentions to show Earth’s biodiversity: turtles/tortoises (their shell), spiders (their 8 legs AND web creation), stick insect (looks like a literal stick), sponges, jellyfish (just look at them!), humans (their everything lol like language, culture, civilisations, technology etc also opposable thumbs) Also, Earth’s deep-sea creatures are pretty “alien” and so insanely different to anything on land! To be 100% out of the box completely, an alien would have to be non-carbon based or have the ability to bend space time or something

[@relevant3773]

Look up "At the Mountains of Madness"

[@DDoubleEDouble]

@@relevant3773 funnily enough, that’s one of my favourite HPL stories

[@geraldsnodd]

I had the same thought.

[@codynaganuma]

I’m with you on this 100%.

[@displayname2198]

What if there’s life on planets scientists believe is inhabitable 🤬

[@kreaturen]

Crustaceans aren't the only ones evolving into crabs. Humans are also becoming crablike. We have an unusually wide and flat torso compared to other mammals, we've lost our tail and our arms are already oriented the correct crablike way. I'd say we're halfway there.

[@titan_o7]

In college I decided to write a short paper on alien life and more specifically, inorganic life. That is, life that is not fundamentally based on the carbon atom and water which is what we're used to. As he briefly mentioned in the video, I wrote about silicon-based life and even ammonia-based life as well as planetary differentiations that could lead to very wild lifeforms. I also briefly mentioned that because of our innate comfort with "life as we know it," that we may be limiting ourselves in our search for life by casting a smaller net by only scouring for planets and systems similar to our own when in reality, the universe would more likely have no limitations on life. Our very definition of life could also be extremely narrow and limiting by basing everything we know with only that which we are familiar with. Anyway, I digress. it was a very basic exploratory paper into the topic of astrobiology and speculative biology, but it led me down a rabbit hole that I have since held a deep interest in. I find the topic of alien life (actual aliens, not as Hollywood and popular culture portrays them) extremely captivating and infinitely interesting. Thanks for an awesome video on the topic CA! I love your stuff! Keep it up!

[@funkyskunk1]

When I imagine aliens, I imagine stuff that looks like animals from other periods in earth's history. There's some really alien-looking cambrian animals.

[@elli_senfsaat]

Back then, evolution was still "experimenting" with all sorts of bodyplans, and only those prevailing gave rise to the lineages we know today. If on other planets, similar experiments happen with overall the same starting pool, other species might survive than on earth, determining as soon as the very bases of lifeforms what there is to come.

[@Sukuna8383]

@@elli_senfsaat the most efficient and adaptive animals are the ones that survived

[@TelPhi_]

@@Sukuna8383 Sometimes it all comes down to luck Just look at non-avian dinosaurs, for example, extinguished by a gigantic space rock that came out of nowhere

[@Sukuna8383]

@@TelPhi_ you are correct. But the smaller more adaptable mammals took advantage of that opportunity and became (generally) the most influential and strongest animals around.

[@Sukuna8383]

@@TelPhi_ in the animal world the most future proof body design is small and adaptive. The thing is that nature wants to specialize and, and over specialization with a bit of luck is enough to wipe that species off the map

[@boiboi505]

I think the melodysheep series "life beyond" describes this well, aswell as being a literal piece of art

[@yigithan.kilinc]

Literally the best video series on KZbin

[@csweezey18]

Hell yeah! Another Melodysheep fan!

[@konradlorek3043]

Like all the people say that it shouldn't be free to watch cuz it's literal masterpiece

[@boiboi505]

@@konradlorek3043 agreed, but I'm certainly thankful they are.

[@dboot8886]

Much goated with the sauce

[@m.canyilmaz]

I'm always fascinated by these thoughts. And I wonder, what an alien would think if they saw trees in our planet? I always felt like plants are the most alien-like creatures for some reason.

[@StephenBrown85]

Plants are weird. You can cut bits off and they grow back, like new growth can sprout out of the stump of a tree that was chopped down. And if you take a willow branch and put it in water it will grow roots and you can plant it. Succulents can also grow a new plant from small pieces you've cut off. I think plants are really weird, you just don't normally think about it because they are everywhere! Don't even get me started on figs...

[@lukebradley5134]

mushrooms

[@2ndbrain909]

Plants are awesome. They literally have brains in the ground(roots) and grow their bodies out directly from that brain. They rely on the environment to keep said brains hydrated, to aid in mating, and to obtain energy. Plants are awesome because if you just state what they can do, you realize just how crazy and unique they are.

[@laurencsikistvan6630]

@@2ndbrain909 I think one of their most fascinating features is that they can literally create their own food source from sunlight. Only they can do that and therefore any other lifeform depends on them completely, directly or indirectly.

[@catpoke9557]

@@laurencsikistvan6630 To be fair they don't really generate food so much as convert food into a better source of energy. A plant that can't take in mass won't be able to produce glucose and will eventually die. They don't defy physics, so they need more than just energy to produce something with mass, that being glucose.

[@maud3444]

I laughed out loud over that space dog from Star Trek. Thank you SO MUCH for posting this

[@SatanenPerkele]

Dogs are NOT part of the natural evolution. Dogs are man made mutants. They aren't even real animals. 🚫

[@WingsaberE3]

The Darwin IV documentary has a couple interesting points on this, with scientists speaking on the show stating intelligent life should have at least sensory organs, manipulating appendages, and the ability to pass on information.

[@benthomason3307]

I'd argue that thy should care for their offspring as well, since that's the only way knowledge will pass from one generation to the next.

[@desperado3236]

Good point. Its something that the more intelligent and social species have in common. There are exceptions to this rule though i.e cephlapods

[@XJ7441]

I imagine some aliens looking like some A.I art or some fever dream when you don't know what your looking at

[@WingsaberE3]

@@desperado3236 Probably the biggest thing holding cephalopods back is their antisocial nature.

[@bensoncheung2801]

144p 👍

[@danrooc]

To be fair with Star Trek and its grumpy unicorn lapdog, some chapter of that TV series also showed a tiny motionless and diamond like species based on a crystaline structure. It was portrayed as the utter intelligent and most powerful lifeform the Enterprise crew ever encountered. Even Mr. Spock was vastly surpassed by those living crystals. And of course, it required only a very low budget to produce.

[@oreolaw9911]

Also don’t forget the Star Trek universe actually has a reason why a lot of alien species are very similar to each other. It is because a precursor race for billion or so years ago seeded millions of worlds with the special genetic blueprints cells which were designed to grow and evolve in a roughly certain way.

[@danrooc]

@@oreolaw9911 Yep, Star Trek may look cartoonish for some today, but it made remarkable improvements over previous ET imaginery in contemporary media. Some were ill fated, many had to fullfill budget provisions, yet some incorporated cutting edge and science based ideas.

[@yellowpowr8455]

@@danrooc It realy pains me to consider that Star Trek may be only soft sci-fi, because it handles its scientific concepts really well sometimes.

[@danrooc]

@@yellowpowr8455 Indeed!

[@ellotheearthling]

Fun fact: Plants on alien planets might have completely different colors depending on the wavelengths of their host star

[@user-mc5oh2pl7t]

Also fun fact: plants of Earth actually reflect a very big part of sunlight. This is exactly why leafs are non-black and some leafs even transparent. Here is a theory that back in days here was a much less bright sun that and most of the photosyntesizing life was somewhat dark-violet and did not produce oxygen. According to the theory of "Violet Earth", green photosyntesizing animals evolved after them, they use light of blue and red wavelength, with was relatively strongly reflected by violet organisms and in the end green life killed almost everything by producing powerful oxidizer as an oxygen. Also, bak in days Sun was weaker, but nevertheless temperature on Earth was somewhat reasonable because of a green house effect from a methane. However, tons of oxygen released by green lifeforms oxidize methane into carbon dioxide, making planet colder and killing almost everything...

[@ellotheearthling]

@user-mc5oh2pl7t I didn’t ask for the entire history of earth

[@user-mc5oh2pl7t]

@@ellotheearthling Well... You got it anyway.

[@jankrynicky]

@@user-mc5oh2pl7t Sounds like someone's LSD dream.

[@user-mc5oh2pl7t]

@@jankrynicky Mph... Why?

[@OpEditorial]

It probably has more to do with the limits of our imaginations when it comes to thinking of what "aliens" should look like, rather than what they can look like. Having an English speaking Vulcan space elf, or even better a "Time Lord" is always more relatable than something like a xenomorph, which also has humanoid attributes.

[@magnarcreed3801]

Na fam. Love me a xenomorph way more.

[@MelangeToastCrunch]

I would argue aliens are essentially a kind of “alternate history,” just with a really, really distant divergence point. So I would say it’s possible many aliens could converge to resemble creatures from Earth’s history/present. Considering what deep sea creatures look like, I’d say Earth life is itself “alien looking,” by some convention. The planets may be different, but the laws of physics remain the same.

[@imazekk752]

That's if it's a carbon based life coming from the same molecules forming the first monocellular being that arrived on earth Could be a different molecule still carbon based, could be based on silicon/iron/whatever others element we don't know can form compounds under specific other condition unkown to earth there could be also types of life that aren't biological in nature or even forms of sentience that we can't even be able to grasps It's simply statistically impossible for us to determine what other life-forms would be

[@aircraftcarrierwo-class]

Just take a look at paleontology. Some of the extreme early life, like around the Cambrian, definitely looked like it came from another planet. But it's all home-grown, near as we can tell.

[@apothecurio]

Yes like I can imagine other planets will have animals with similar body plans if the gravity is the same. Though aquatic animals would probably have similar body plans regardless.

[@ThePotatoSapien]

@@imazekk752 even THEN, organisms that aren’t carbon based could still hypothetically go through convergent evolution with Earth organisms, just VERY loosely

[@imazekk752]

@@ThePotatoSapien "hipotetically loosely look alike" Yes, I said it was statistically impossible for us to determine what alien life is like Obviously it could look completely like us but adding the small chance it started with what we did, it evolved with our conditions or the way we did, and that it is a t the same time as us ... sure the universe is big and it makes it possible, but it's also so big that it makes improbable to the x degree

[@cinnamonsugarcourtney6073]

I think most aliens would have some sort of way of in taking energy, an excretory system of some sort, a way of locomotion, photoreceptors of any sort, and possibly other senses like ways of sensing their surroundings (like vibrations, acidic sensing if in water, and other things)

[@nidohime6233]

And a way to reproduce, of course

[@kittysoftpaws3677]

They would literally just be other genetically diverse living things spread across the universe so there's no telling what they would look like

[@nataliebell6760]

Well, given what we know of both unicellular life and sponges... Life must be able to exchange nutrients and waste, with their surroundings; be able to uptake either oxygen or whatever else it uses; and have a method of dispersal. That's it. A method of gene exchange is nice too, but not _strictly_ necessary.

[@Yohannai]

@@nataliebell6760 Reproduction isn't necessarily gene exchange, it can be through cloning, the same as many plants do. I agree about sponges and so on, but life needs to be able to continue somehow if its individual components die. Its pretty much the first step. Everything after that is just optimizing the not-dying part, whether that be for the individual life forms or for the species in general.

[@nataliebell6760]

@@Yohannai I could have sworn I said that living beings needed _a way to disperse_ and that genetic exchange was merely _nice to have_ What I say that suggested I thought otherwise?

[@KarlBunker]

Interesting that well before "carcinisation" was a word or a concept, H.G. Wells had crab-like creatures as one of the last remaining organisms on a far-future earth in _The Time Machine._

[@memesouls8653]

My favorite depiction of “aliens” are probably the creatures from HP Lovecraft’s short stories where they are so out of this realm of existence that just looking at them could drive a human mad. I think to me that makes the most sense because I personally believe a true “alien” would be so inconceivable that we humans would take years to fully understand them.

[@SatanenPerkele]

Same, I'm happy I'm not alone.

[@karebushmarebu233]

What do you mean by, “True alien”?

[@artemis8368]

I love Lovecraft, but these concepts are unlikely to be true. This is more like stories about life from another dimension than life from another planet

[@karebushmarebu233]

I love the his writings but i think it’s massive jump to assume his depiction “makes the most sense” Especially since he does not describe aliens that would “take years to fully understand”, he describes “aliens” that we CANNOT understand no matter how much we try, as it’s literally impossible for humans to understand or even fully perceive these beings. Infact it literally already takes us “years to fully understand” any of the life forms we find here on earth! I mean there are still things we don’t fully understand about cats, never mind aliens. If by understand you mean “communicate” with, then same deal, like we know certain animals communicate but we can’t actually use the own methods of primitive communication to fully converse with them So of course all of this would apply to intelligent life, but the Main thing that might make a difference is intelligent life may also make the effort to understand us as we would them, hopefully expediting the process somewhat

[@memesouls8653]

@@artemis8368 I get that, but the concept of his creations is what intrigues me because if these aliens were real, then they would most likely be completely out of the realm of understanding for us.

[@plumdowner1941]

This is exactly why I find the different species in the Mass Effect series interesting. Granted majority are just human shaped, But the mix of mammal, reptile, and avian, analogues, even species that live in different gravity or atmospheres. And sometimes even discusses different diets where one species can eat food another can't, and the like. It's relentlessly fascinating to me with how much thought was put into the biology alone.

[@bonafide4874]

Yes! I completely agree! I remember seeing Mass Effects aliens for the first time and, despite most of them being humanoid and bipedal, they were distinct enough looking and had distinct enough biologies that they felt different to me. Like the senses, life spans, and reproduction was different in a lot of them and also HOW they communicated was different, like the monotone Elcor who had to preface their emotions vs the fast-talking Salarians.

[@vast634]

The constraint was still to have a humanoid form for NPCs, so they could be animated and move in the same way. And have roughly human size. Thats why the Krogans have their head so low. A 3 meter Krogan would not have worked.

[@eldergod4809]

I think the aliens from mass effect are a perfect example of how they should look like, even if the occasional alien looks like an eldritch horror or a strange looking one from star wars, the possibilities of one or two races if not more from one galaxy would be entirely bizzare or look totally different from the other majority of the races of the same galaxy

[@olejnik5165]

So True! Almost every species there looks like it literally could exist somewhere

[@TheBeastCH]

Something I would have hoped you mentioned is that not all stars emit the same wave length spectrum of light. Some stars have more red light, some more blue light, and so on. Depending on that, plants might not be green but blue or purple on a planet that has a sun giving off different light. It's absolutely possible that Alpha Centauri has a planet where the plants have large, pitch black leaves that can be retracted into a shell to protect them against heat and radiation.

[@ondrejvasak1054]

For some reason I expected this video to be bad or superficial, but you did a really good job on it. Touched on a lot of the concerns I have about this topic that people often ignore and raised some interesting ideas I never thought about.

[@belldrop7365]

Crows and Orcas, two very different species to humans are known to be pretty intelligent, with crows even known to also use tools. It's not hard to imagine that in very distant worlds, civilized aliens could be like fish or birds instead of humans just with animal ears.

[@TheDreamCrosser]

Astronaut scientist on another planet: NOT ANOTHER CRAB PLANET! GIVE ME SOMETHING OTHER THAN A CRAB PLANET!

[@alibekzholaman2923]

Reject godhood Become crab

[@julietfischer5056]

The Macra do not exist. There are no such things as Macra.

[@alexbosse8528]

CRAB PEOPLE CRAB PEOPLE

[@Nevyn515]

Zoidberg feels the same about mammals.

[@Nevyn515]

Zoidberg feels the same about mammals.

[@AkuTenshiiZero]

Honestly, I feel like sometimes these projects are trying too hard to be unlike Earth. But conversely, sometimes they don't try hard enough. There's a certain middle ground that I think needs to be met. I think Birrin is the best speculative alien biology project I've seen so far, because the aliens still feel like something that would exist in nature but they aren't arbitrarily made stranger for the sake of being unique. Some projects just go so far that they feel too much like a work of pure fiction.

[@cortster12]

Birrin are amazing. I especially love the baby ones in some of the images, they're so cute! Little 'safety hazards'.

[@demonic_myst4503]

I have to didagree the commonality of animals on earth is fown to most creatures are from like one of a fee ancestrys reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds are all vertibrais which come from four finn lobe fish Creatures limbs are purly down to ancestry birds eimgs used to be legs or arms Dolphins and ichy didnt move their fins to swim better its the same place every tetrapod has its limbs because animals almost never gain new limbs or move limbs in evelution the ichy didnt chose its finn potision for movment its ancestor had that possition same ancestor of every reptile every mamal every amphobian And hexapods share a common an estor Worms share a common ancestor Their is a reason we lump animals by how many legs they have because thats a most common feature amonst a evelution line only one majore case of soecies changing number of limbs is snakes and they didnt really they slowly shrink their legs their skepeton still has signs of them

[@ckl9390]

It seems like the best way to do speculative biology is to start with a different body plan than the wormlike eel that became all vertebrates and extrapolate to fit evolutionary niches and how that body plan would fit to accomplish the same task. Birrin started with a quadrilaterally segmented wormlike creature (more like a larval starfish, but with four segments instead of five) that evolved to fit earthlike niches. The result is both believable, plausible, and original.

[@magnarcreed3801]

Not really. It doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard but more so it’s thinking about how life would evolve differently since thinking of similar concepts is easy.

[@demonic_myst4503]

@@ckl9390 as i said thats incorect the amount limbs is somthing that we still have from when we were fish it has no biological niche to it some evelutions were niches for ancestors that arnt even mammals but evelution allways leaves several strong features from early eveolution humans still have parts that came from fishes this idia that every creature evolved uniwuely for its niche is not true and would require all species to come from difernt ancestors which would of made evelution impossible to even prove as a concept evelutio is a tree with small mutations splitting two species down difernt pathys but both keeping 90 similar biology for another million years till they evolve another mutation ot two that separates them kingdoms , phylums , clades only a small percent of mutations are for niches like we can point out one or two adaptations but a species has millions of dna sequences with millions of mutations even blood has signs of mutation mutation is random its caused when cells split its a flaw in dna when it splits it doesnt create perfect copies it can acidently alter these accidents sometimes get passed on thats evelution natural silection is that they somtimes survive longer because of mutations so some benifitual mutations pass on but many bad mutations pass on and many good mutations dont take species that kill their mate this is a disadvantage mutation that slows population growth and can lead to exstiction in the long term but it stays because you allready had kids you pass that evolution on and yes behaviors can be inherited their an entire area of psychology studying inherited phobias and instcists biut u pass the gene n then the gene kills u after the consumation this mutation while bad it even kills the species it passes on before death almost all the time so bynatural silection it must be good but its not nature isnt perfect niches neither perfect design neither is it the puddle answer natura is chaos it somtimes falls into patterns but its all mistakes and coincidences

[@wild_lee_coyote]

Looking at life on earth I am struck on how rare our upright bipedal form is. Even looking at other bipedal animals ours is pretty unique. That’s why when I think aliens it is more of the Raptor or kangaroo body type with a nice tail. Not the little green men that is so common.

[@laurencsikistvan6630]

But you also need appendages for dexterity and manipulation that a kangaroo or a raptor wouldn't evolve because you need some form of niche where grasping hands are essential. Bipedalism just allows those limbs to be freed from locomotion, which is a plus, but not the main prerequisite.

[@minutemansam1214]

@@laurencsikistvan6630 You could have centaurism, and there are tree kangaroos who need to their front limbs to grasp branches.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@laurencsikistvan6630 What about a flexible tail? Or the arms of an octopus? They don't have fingers, but they have 8 arms that can grasp things over their entire length. Imagine sticking your phone to your forearm, typing on it with two other arms, while you keep 4 for walking and another 2 to hold a drink and a book. All at the same time. But our form of bipedalism isn't the only one. Looking at dinosaurs, we get a shape that is bent forward with a big tail for balance.

[@polaris6933]

Really appreciate this, I have always been bugged by media which tries to present its aliens as something immensely otherworldly and radically different than what we know yet they end up looking very similar to Earth animals.

[@DAndyLord]

I like to imagine a collective animal achieving collective, but not individual, sapience. Something akin to an ant colony. Any individual is brainless, but the whole can solve complex problems. They might perceive our cities as individuals. Or intelligent single celled life that might perceive individuals as cities. Or lithoid life that would experience centuries as seconds. Or plasma based ecosystems on the surface of stars.

[@susancorbett8155]

I have a vague recollection of a short story where explorers from Earth encountered giant robot like structures. Naturally they blew them up, thinking they were attacking. And out poured vast numbers of ants. I think it might have been by John Wyndham (or his alter ego) - a writer who came up with a pretty devastating form of alien life-form in the triffids.

[@Alexey65536]

@@susancorbett8155 Triffids weren't alien. As far as I remember they were genetically modified plants developed in Soviet Union.

[@olejnik5165]

Like fungi or plants species that are single organism

[@KarachoBolzen]

I am very on board with the first three ideas. I think the lithoid one was explored a bit in either the neverending story or something by terry pratchett, i don't remember which one exactly. There, the protagonist climbs a mountain, but it turns out the mountain is actually a giant who is moving so slowly that the protagonist doesn't notice, and the protagonist is moving so fast to the giant that the giant doesn't notice him either. So neither of them even recognize the other as a form of life, just because their experience of time is so different. I do think it would take some serious creativity to make plasma based life work (certainly more than i have left over right now), just because a defining feature of plasma is that it's very amorphous. As in it doesn't hold any structure on an atomic scale, you can't form any cells or even have any real way of distinguishing any two parts of it, because the particles all flow very freely. So maybe the entire plasma is one life form, and the flowing particles are like brain waves? One other feature is electrons fizzing around pretty freely in there, so maybe they form the life? One "life-form" is a pattern of movement in the electrons, which maybe competes with other patterns for propagation through the plasma, and somehow displays intelligence? Probably unrealistic, but then again, we don't even know for sure if there's more than one electron in the universe, so i think "electron flow has patterns and is intelligent" still fits within the unknown. Sorry for ranting, but i thought it was an interesting thought.

[@thefrenchselkie1401]

you should read children of time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. he explores 'intelligent' ant colonies - I won't reveal more for fear of spoilers.

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

One reason for cephalization is that our nerve signals travel extremely slowly, so thinking is much faster and more efficient if the neurons are closer together. The same is true even for computers, getting data from the other side of the CPU is 10x slower than getting the result from local cache. The energy cost and latency of data transfer is the biggest bottleneck in chip design today and the best solution is packing everything together as closely as possible.

[@Brydav_Massbear]

Wait, Cephalization? That kind of sounds like cephalopod.

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

@@Brydav_Massbear You are right. Cephalization comes from Greek (kephalē "head") meaning more or less "head-ification". Cephalopoda, from Greek kephalē "head" + pod-, stem of pous "foot" (from PIE root *ped- "foot"), because their arms used to be a molluscan foot and are attached to their head, as far as I can tell.

[@astick5249]

I mean if you want to see low gravity organisms just look at insects who are so small that they have much less to worry about when it comes to supporting themselves

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

@@astick5249 I think you meant to comment on another comment? Anyway, that seems like a good way of thinking about it, but I think some things don't carry over between insects and low gravity. Like the heat retention/production, oxygen transport and inertia problems is the same for the same size of animal no matter what gravity. But the leg strength and stuff will be similar, but slightly stronger because inertia is the same. So it's really a mix, I'd say. And don't think I won't notice that you are really a stick bug, not a real stick.

[@holliegould3463]

bro i'm too high why did you make me realize that computers are our best attempt at reconstructing the human brain 😵‍💫

[@Aethuviel]

I think alien creature designers sometimes (often) go too far in making their creatures very complicated. Six or eight legs, all sorts of appendages, complicated jaw structures, multiple eyes in awkward locations, and so on. Our body plan may be just our own, but it's so incredibly simple. Two front limbs, two hind limbs, head in front with two eyes (one for each side), nostrils at the front (better to you know, avoid drowning, and also a sense organ), and simple jaws that go up and down. We (by "we", I mean tetrapods) have drawbacks and funny mistakes in our body plan, but you can't really get any more simple and versatile at the same time than the tetrapod bodyplan.

[@vast634]

There are actually computer simulation, where a computer evolves a creature that can move fast on ground and over obstacles. It looked remarkably similar to a humanoid form (bipedal legs, and an upper body that has appendages as counterweights).

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I would go so far that 4 legs will be even better for balancing over uneven terrain. But since we came from a 4 legged body and developed arms to manipulate the environment, we had to give up 2 legs.

[@Aethuviel]

@@HappyBeezerStudios I'm not talking about sapients though, but vertebrates/tetrapods overall.

[@faselblaDer3te]

Perfect video, touching upon every thought I have had on the topic, thanks! :D

[@alfianfahmi5430]

Imagine the shock if the first aliens we've ever contacted were actually featherless humanoid birds 😂🤣

[@rommdan2716]

Turians are hot tho, so I would not complain

[@tanoshiofm3852]

We get the closest things to Turian bros in reality. I won't complain.

[@omargerardolopez3294]

"Behold: Plato's man" -Diogenes of I-don't-remember-where after breaking into Plato's class in I-don't-remeber-what-year

[@KateeAngel]

Nooo, let them have feathers. Birbies are perfect as they are. If aliens were just smart birbies, that would be ideal

[@ohio_jg8522]

would they be birds if they are humanoid and have no feathers xDD

I've always thought about this. People often think of extraterrestrial life as extremely bizarre and unique looking, but if they evolved in an Earth like planet that would not be the case. But it could be on a very different planet

[@TucoBenedicto]

Well, chances are they WOULD look weird as hell in the details, but still broadly based on the same core anatomic principles, for the most part. I.e. Having two eyes is a good compromise of great efficiency (perception of depth) and "economy". Having multiple ones or just one would come with significant drawbacks.

[@SatanenPerkele]

When I think alien I think about the least earth like beings my mind can phantom. Its so typical of humans not to be able to imagine something that we aren't familiar with.

[@magnarcreed3801]

Not at all true. At any point in evolution something could go differently that vastly changes the future of every species.

[@MFLimited]

If it wasn’t earthlike planet, it would be interesting if the top primates were not the ones running the world, but the aquatic ones were

[@mariahfritsch3650]

Sharks are also developing crablike features. The most recent sharks are hammerhead. The spread eyes are optimal for them so we may see more in the future.

[@Wired_User]

I love to explore aliens that are as different as possible but in fundamental ways, like that project where a common ancestor had their esophagus and mouth separate, and all life from then on had two tubes because of that early design difference. Or Marvel’s Klyntar, asexual symbiotic organisms that were created as a bioweapon but rebelled. They had very little understanding of anything, but thanks to their sapience and symbiotic nature they often pick and choose what bits of other cultures they like and build off of that. It’s very interesting to see how such a mutable creature views our knowledge and culture, especially basic philosophies we take for granted, like “individual identity”.

[@marxtheenigma873]

I tend to draw a mixture of high alien and low alien. I'm trying to branch out more with body plans, but with such a vast universe, there's bound to be ones that look a lot like the animals here. On one hand I drew a serpentine with mouths on the hands, multiple elephant trunk like breathing appendages on its back, and a stabby face spike. And then there's also just blue six limbed otter (whose males and females occupy different environmental niches).

[@brianroberts783]

I think niche partitioning within one species is such an underused concept, and actually occurs more often than people think. Similar to your example, here on Earth mosquitoes have separate niches for males and females. The females are sanguivores that feed on large mammals, while the males are pollinators that feed on nectar. Another fun one is niche partitioning between life stages. This is most obvious animals that go through some kind of metamorphosis which can cause significant changes in body plans, diet, and even environment (aquatic vs. terrestrial). However, it can happen in other animals as well. Paleontologists have noticed, for example, that areas known to be within the range of T. rex seem to lack medium-size predators. That, combined with some interesting shifts in proportions of juvenile vs. adult T. rex, suggests that these animals went through a period of time as juveniles where they functioned as medium-sized predators who would chase down their prey, possibly as a pack. As they matured, however, they would develop proportionally shorter legs and stronger jaws, indicating that they were no longer a speed-based predator, but instead relied on their strength to take down proportionally much larger prey.

[@jbear3478]

Ive been wondering how animals might strangely adapt to their environment, it's fun, I bet yours are cool

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

I'm a firm believer that the vast majority of aliens will probably generally look like something that has lived on earth at one point or another, but there has to be some body plans we missed. The less earth-like their habitat, the less accurate this prediction will be, but I think it'll still generally hold true, just because physics are the same everywhere.

[@xBINARYGODx]

great post, also - love your current username

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

@@xBINARYGODx Thank you, GPT-3 or Lamda in disguise

[@rommdan2716]

I can't wait to find alien dinosaurs

[@TheLastGameekaner]

I meann… physics are not fully the same, imagine a super big or smaller planet, you would need to bring up way more or less force to counter gravity, but i also have no idea on how this turn out.

[@rommdan2716]

@@TheLastGameekaner Asuming planets with different gravity can develop life to begin with

[@thirdplanet4471]

Don't know if you've done it yet but I'd love to see your take on the biology of lovecraftian and eldritch abominations

[@Maliniasredmask]

OMG OMG OMG OMG FINALLLY SOMEONE POINTS IT OUT!!! YESSSSSS

[@manueldavid7369]

thought of this so long, glad to have found your nice and short conclusion to it. made my day!

[@wormius51]

I think it's possible we will find organisems with a general humanoid body plan. Not because they are intelegent, but because they evolved predetory behavior. Like a mantis, front legs specialize in hunting.

[@toxicg3100]

My legs specialize in hunting too. Mosquitoes most of the time, sometimes I catch a spider.

[@Ditidos]

I think the humanoid bodyplan is unlikely because it needs to evolve from something tailess and with four limbs. Otherwise you end up with either a theropod/avian like creature or a centauroid.

[@toxicg3100]

@touma fr if i have nothing else in the fridge. it's nutrients after all!

[@DarthBiomech]

@@Ditidos aim higher, humanlike body shape is more or less unlikely unless your species brachiated across trees in their past. Our upper body structure is quite distinct from everything else because of that (shoulders).

[@Ditidos]

@@DarthBiomech That's a good point. However, penguins are also humanoid and they also need upper body strenght (their upper body is very diferent, though but more due to hydrodinamics).

[@risel56]

As someone with only a base-level understanding of Star Trek, the first thing that comes to mind for me in terms of "alien" aliens in that series are the tribbles. Little featureless balls of fuzz analogous to rabbits that reproduce like aphids.

[@brianroberts783]

There was also several silicon-based species in the original series of Star Trek that didn't resemble anything here on Earth.

[@crunchled]

Amazing video with such an uplifting message, thank you for posting this

[@Hajo87-tz7hz]

I think the video game Mass Effect has a lot of unique and interesting Alien races, never seen anywhere else. Floating Jellyfish species, Tentacleheaded female only species, then huge elefant like species that talk in clumsy sentences to express their emotions which they usually convey among each other through pheromones, they really put a lot of thought in it. Douglas Adams also thought up quite weird Aliens. At the end of the day one can only speculate and then any guess is as good as possible.

[@Swooper86]

Regarding biochemistry, there is another axis you didn't mention: life that uses ammonia instead of water as a solvent. I don't know much about the science behind it, but it's used in the Elite universe, where thargoids are such a lifeform. In Elite: Dangerous you can find a lot of planets with seas of ammonia.

[@BlufyreAudio]

Avalis, a modded race for the game Starbound, use ammonia as their primary solvent too. There’s an entire wiki describing exactly how their biology works. It’s super detailed and well thought out.

[@kinanradaideh5479]

why would we assume silicon based life would actually look rocky or metallic? we're carbon based, but we don't look like carbon or diamonds.

[@tanoshiofm3852]

In a book I read, the silicon based aliens don't look like rock or are robots, actually they look like grey and blue skinned humanoids with white hair and there are also several flesh animals. I don't mind by the way.

[@drill_fiend1097]

What if the lifeforms use both carbon and silicate based chemistry? Then how do we make a distinction? There are organisms on Earth that incorporated arsenic instead of phosphorus, but still largely carbon-based.

[@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051]

;

[@toasters10101]

@@tanoshiofm3852 so they look like the Tau?

[@tanoshiofm3852]

@@toasters10101They look nothing like the Tau. These aliens can be called the Icy Folk (their name in Spanish is Los Gélidos, or at least the names the human gave to them). The author describes those aliens as looking very similar to the humans, and them having "blue-grey skin, long white hair, golden or orange eyes, and a sharp and triangular nose". Their skin tones varies between blue and grey and if I remember correctly, they don't have visible ears, which makes sense, since their environment is cold. They are also attractive by human standards.

[@malcolmthorne9779]

Basically, as long as a lifeform is capable of object manipulation that would allow for tool making and use, a lot of shapes and forms become viable. If you ask me, I'd say that if orcas could manipulate objects they'd probably be forming primitive societies as we speak. They'd be the chimps of the seas. They're ridiculously intelligent. Octopi would probably be too if they weren't as "asocial" of a creature as they are.

[@gabrielfaria8656]

One of the best videos on the subject, congrats

[@Schmidtcreations]

Sick! This is perfect. As a concept artist myself this is very useful. I'll probably rewatch this video 23 more times. Thanks for making this video!

[@psycholamborghini4828]

I feel like the halo series did a really good job with how aliens would look. And so did Subnautica with many of the creatures being based off some real ones

[@amog8202]

Honestly halo does it pretty damn well given they're mostly humanoids. Some reptilian, avian, grunts are crustaceans, the san'shyuum have some ancient alien shit going on so I'll ignore it, and the lekgolo are on a different level. Oh uh, almost forgot about the engineers

[@dillonzehnder9313]

I sort of agree except for the brutes which are just monkey. They're also mostly bipedal with 2 arms and I think if I were to come up with a multi-species religious military cult I'd have some more variation. Like maybe a quadruped enemy that is really fast and always trying to flank you, or a 4-armed enemy that dual wields heavy weapons. Or maybe an invertebrate enemy who's whole thing is that they can squeeze through tiny gaps to sneak by you and strangle you from behind. This is no hate to Halo btw, I love those games and am currently trying to beat them all on legendary.

[@catpoke9557]

@@dillonzehnder9313 Rain World has creatures that are basically just monkey but it works really well. They have antlers on their face which helps set them apart from monkeys, and they don't seem to have typical mammal mouthparts. It looks like they've got chelicerae on there. But then everything else about their body is basically just a monkey that skipped leg day. They look so cute lol

[@graycatsaderow]

​@@catpoke9557they are called scavengers btw

[@Fatbaddie24]

@@dillonzehnder9313With given probability of a massive maybe even infinite universe/multiverse you’d suspect somewhere out there that any form of intelligent aliens from the Halo universe exists somewhere out there.

[@kushclarkkent6669]

This is a burning question I've had since I got interested in space again a few years ago. Glad I found this! Subbed! OMFG!" The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy" is the book I've been needing! Bought it so fast lmao.

[@brianfileman]

In sci-fi YV and films where’s actors are used, there is obviously a limit. I thought Doctor Who did a good job with the Hath in the episode The Doctor’s Daughter. When it’s just make, it falls down when different coloured skin meets a red tongue and the throat. The ‘prawns’ in District 9 were vaguely humanoid in that there had a head, two stems and two legs. But brilliantly imagined nonetheless. The various alien species described in Rama valine’s 2-4 are perhaps the most inventive. Would love to see that brought to the screen. CGI is now at a state to name it believable on screen.

[@geardog24]

In my opinion an alien or non-human character should actually look like an alien or non-human. Putting antenna, pointy ears, or painted skin on a person doesn't make them a mysterious being or strange life form, it makes them look like they got a cheap costume from the local dollar store. And I know special effects and costumes are expensive, but that shouldn't stop you from being creative and spicing your designs up. And if you really think about it, if you think all it takes to make someone look like a mysterious creature is few bits of plastic ear parts did you really want an alien at all?

[@joshuagonzalez4183]

same

[@laurencsikistvan6630]

I think it depends on the purpose of the story.

[@entropyhater]

​@@laurencsikistvan6630 sometimes you need an alien that's incredibly strange and interesting and sometimes you need a blue space lady for the main character to shag

[@willowtree5267]

Yes, but for a TV show, you can't do a realistic blob-shark for every episode, hence the glued horns. 😐

[@Road_Rash]

Nothing that says aliens have to be radical departures from what we already see right here at home... I'm sure there are some radically different ones, but it's just as likely that they won't be radically different as well...

[@dionettaeon]

Two of my favorite alien documentaries are _Alien_ _Planet_ and _Extraterrestrial_ ; you've already covered Wayne Barlow's masterpiece. _Extraterrestrial_ is a 2-part documentary that covers two theoretical, life-supporting planets: Aurelia and Blue Moon. Aurelia is a planet that orbits a red dwarf and doesn't rotate. Half of it is a perpetually dark frozen wasteland and the pole of the other half is a perpetual storm zone, leaving a goldilocks ring between them that supports life in never-ending daylight. The trees are actually animals that crawl along their "roots", which are eaten by six-limbed, burrowing, salamander-like creatures, which are themselves preyed upon by what look like featherless hell-emus. Blue Moon is a large moon that orbits a gas giant and has a much thicker atmosphere, which has allowed for truly giant organisms to take to the air. Vegetation grows immensely tall, some supported by a whole intertwining network of stilts, and large ray-like creatures are able to tether themselves to them and remain suspended in the air. The peaceful herbivores are giant, flying whale-like creatures that feed on floating analogues to phytoplankton, and the apex predators are what I'd consider insectoid dragons the size of eagles that operate as a hive.

[@catpoke9557]

Something interesting to consider is that on a planet with no light, it is possible organisms might evolve bioluminescence for one reason or another, which eventually would most likely lead to the evolution of eyes. It would be an interesting planet, as the sight of everything around would be dependent on the will of the organisms in your vicinity, similar to how Earth life depends on plants to keep the food chain going. This would also lead to a lot of optical illusion-based defense mechanisms, I'd imagine. Things would take advantage of the fact the light around them is generated by life, oftentimes food. Predators would probably sometimes evolve to become lit up and thus fit with the environment, while others would evolve to lack any bioluminescence, forfeiting the ability to see when outside densely populated areas, but gaining the ability to hide in shadows. There could be entire colonies of organisms that shut out the lights when a predator is detected, and chase out any organisms that don't follow this method, leaving the predator in the dark and unable to hunt efficiently. Heck, some primitive photosynthesis-like processes might even happen in areas with abundant enough, and glowy enough, lifeforms. Maybe it could be symbiotic, even. ...maybe I should just write a spec evo project about a bioluminescent planet, because I clearly think about this a lot.

[@cameronmelville2251]

Well done, great video!

[@cadror26]

In some abduct & contact cases, the experiencers say they were told that we are only based on them. I haven't been through any of that, but i still think it's a crime against mathematics that space-capable species don't have any other body shape.

[@Yohannai]

The last part of your comment made me think about a fantasy sci-fi novel I read where a species of humanoid winged aliens never went for the stars because they weren't physically capable of it without breaking limbs and injuring themselves, instead opting for a kind of wormhole technology. It wasn't very strong worldbuilding, but its an interesting topic to think about.

[@Jasmin-lg3gf]

I think nature has already tried out a lot on earth. So if we ever find extraterrestrial life, it will remind us of life here in one way or another. This assumes, of course, that we are talking about terrestrial life. But we don't even know if other life is even possible. With silicon, you have so many problems that make a carbon-based analogue of life virtually impossible. Hardly any double bonds, a polarity reversal with hydrogen and too strong bonds with oxygen would require completely different environmental conditions than on Earth. And life like on earth only seems to be possible under our very special conditions. A surprisingly calm yellow sun, a medium-sized planet in the habitable zone with neither too much nor too little atmosphere, a rotation that creates a strong magnetic field and arguably so much more. Even chemistry seems to have so many unknown components that we have not yet managed to create life from elements.

[@allthelittleworms]

and on top of that many of the universal features life on earth has may as well be circumstantial. if you played back the tapes from the beginning you'd end up at completely different conclusions. the existence of dna and cells is circumstantial, e.g. mitochondria became widespread by total accident and without mitochondria life would function pretty differently, probably looking entirely different. it's pretty safe to say alien life is unimaginable, but if we're going to try to imagine it I suggest not taking too much inspiration from life on earth. otherwise we might as well just be making the future is wild fanart. I really disagree with the line that alien life would resemble life on earth, I think it's really shortsighted

[@AlphaWolfShade]

@@allthelittleworms I mean, I suppose that would depend on how similar we consider resemblance to mean. Intelligent terrestrial life will very likely have manipulators that vaguely resemble hands with either an endoskeleton or exoskeleton to act as the support structure. We know they have to have some form of communication, either through sight, sound and/or scent in which they can identify each other - which already resembles plenty of things on Earth. Body designs that aren't practical seem to die out when confronted with predation. I wouldn't hold my breath that we encounter something that has no similarities to anything we observe on Earth.

[@barneseffect]

On Earth-like planets, we'd look roughly the same with minor differences. However, if gravity or atmosphere were even slightly different, our general structure may change very drastically. So in theory, there's no real way to tell with our narrow perspective of only a single planet.

[@rgbreeding]

Great video and rather insightful. It might be a good idea to revisit this topic, given the current popular interest. But that's up to you.

[@probablyaxenomorph5375]

The part about coconut crabs feeding on nightmares and the way you delivered it caught me so off-guard that I had to pause the video and laugh for a good 5 minutes 😂 Well done as always, CA!

[@elli_senfsaat]

Omygosh I was thinking "CA is going to upload smth today for sure" just 10min ago :D Thanks so much, I really need this!

[@samueldenning6578]

Really enjoyed this video. Maybe you should make your own Spec-Bio project, Mr. Curious Archive. I think it would be pretty interesting. Since you've seen so many other projects, I'm sure you could create something really cool. Perhaps you could give it a try?

[@jackiemoffitt6780]

These concepts about silicon or methane based life are really intriguing when cross referenced with the philosophy of mind stance called panpsychism (belief that all matter contains some degree of mind or consciousness). Just as we don't know about what forms extraterrestrial life may take, we may not know about the potential for consciousness in a river, gemstone or mountain.

[@purplehaze2358]

Star Trek also used a very slightly modified Godzilla costume to represent an alien lifeform once.

[@CATel_]

Which episode, I'm dying to see this

[@bazpearce9993]

@@CATel_ Arena i think. I'd say the OP is sugesting the Gorn commander.

[@konradlorek3043]

I don't know how he does it that every video is very pleasant to watch

[@KarlBunker]

Excellent video, very well researched, thought out and presented. I wish I had more time to go through your back catalog, but for now I'm subscribing.

[@osvaldo3753]

@everyone

[@pierrerajau8088]

Merci beaucoup ! C'est très intéressant ! j'ai le projet d'écrire un livre qui se passerait sur une autre planète, et je me demandais si les créatures assez ressemblantes à celles de la Terre étaient scientifiquement correctes. Merci de m'avoir éclairé à ce sujet et continue tes vidéos ! French people are with u !!

[@sohrabroozbahani4700]

For the purpose of writing tho, the objective is usually the story telling, so if more generally human relevant alien form creates the universe that allows your objective to be achieved then, the principle of less is more always holds... then if you plan to create something that is more of an adventure into the unimagined, well, go wild and stride far, the boundaries are where you decide them to be...

[@shawverno.1130]

I LOVE videos like this! The different factors of evolution are so much fun to speculate about

[@GroovingPict]

There's also the fact that, while life itself emerged very quickly on our planet (relatively speaking), complex life took a very very long time to emerge. Meaning the step from simple life to complex life is a very substantial obstacle, and one that not necessarily all planets with life will be able to overcome. And unlike a lot of other evolutionary traits and events, this, as far as we've been able to tell, happened only once. Imagine something so extremely advantageous and beneficial, and yet it has happened only once in earth's 4 billion year long evolutionary history with no other convergent evolutionary events like it. Such an event is so extremely unlikely that the chance of it happening might as well be zero. So even if we find a planet where life has existed for many times longer than here on earth, it will still be vastly more likely to contain only simple lifes, akin to bacteria here on earth

[@DreamersOfReality]

Our sample size of life in the universe is ONE, my dude. We have no idea how rare complex life is.

[@vanillagorilla8696]

I wonder if something like "No Man's Sky" could be modded to do this. Take all of the examples of convergent evolution, and tie them to their respective or multitude of environments and hone a procedural generation engine to simulate this. Now, in Trek Lore, that would generate aliens for Class M/Earth Like planets. Class M can go into Mars like territory being close to a desert. Then you also have to take into account another aspect of this, Trek Lore has ancient aliens too, which is why they were able to gene sequence their creators from Klingon, Cardassian, and Romulan, as well as Human DNA, in order to assemble a holographic message. But you could use that to augment Trek Lore quite a bit.

[@mothmilk4041]

Amazing content, I love it! I sometimes just listen to it as if it was a podcast! Keep up the good work!

[@TheRealityWarper08]

It's kinda scary to me that technically, we share a similar body plan to crabs...

[@edgargaebolg9307]

Carcinized humans will be a thing in the future, I call it

[@vast634]

A slouch on the sofa looking at a mobile phone has roughly a crab like form already.

[@maxgilbert18]

Crab people.... Crab people.... Crab people....

[@ferret3423]

You should play Stellaris one day. Would be more of a socially oriented episode, but it would be fun to see the stories you come up with for the various species.

[@potaterjim]

Another point about the inefficient human spine, is that something doesn't necessarily have to be the absolute best design to succeed. We became the dominant lifeform on the planet, even though our lungs take in air from the same tube we eat and drink out of, and we only grow one extra set of teeth So it's entirely possible for an intelligent alien lifeform to appear inefficient or incompatible.

[@axolotl5477]

Absolutely amazing as always!

[@commandershepardmessiah3345]

I was recently re-watching James Cameron's Avatar and it's a movie I love for personal reasons but I then watched Trey the explainers video on the biology of Pandora and makes it interesting how well designed the life on Pandora is of course being done by the same author of Darwin IV. But I specifically was curious if sapien aliens like the Navi exist and how the Navi have nostrils while every other lifeform breathes through chambers on there shoulders. And the Navi are near human but distinct enough. He didn't mention how the Navi's hair is the only hair on their body bit also is connected to their brains and spinal cords and is the explanation for why everything on pandora cam have these neural links with each other. Mass Effect has some interesting sapien alien designs.

[@isaacbruner65]

All the lifeforms on Pandora are fantastic except for the Na'vi, which are essentially taller and bluer humans, but it's understandable that they had to make them look human for cinematic purposes. If they were looked like giant mantises, they would have been hard to root for.

[@commandershepardmessiah3345]

@@isaacbruner65 they are humanoid superficially human like but I disagree with most of what you say i do not see them as tall people. I think the Navi are well designed somewhat believable for a human like convergence species. Especially compared to other sci-fi I love like Star Wars were certain species are just humans with vibrant skin tones. Though there's an in universe explanation of that.

[@goldh2o543]

Even the plants are fascinating. The woman who was the lead designer for the plants in Avatar spoke at my school once, and it was really amazing how much work goes into speculative biology. It also gave me new appreciation for the complexity of plants.

[@tablescissors67]

All your videos are excellent.

[@MixxyMC]

basic aliens like worms will probably be earth like but more complex ones will look much different

[@nomarketing]

You make, probably, the most original content on KZbin. Have yet to find a speculative/astrobiology channel such as your own. Your voice, enunciations, and vocabulary is also extremely notable and recognizable!! Thanks for the quality content you put out!

[@uau3]

Try Bibliaridon-Alien Biospheres. You'll love it

[@SatanenPerkele]

Yet he included video clips of dogs in the video... Dogs are NOT part of the natural evolution. Dogs are man made mutants. They aren't even real animals. 🚫

[@CodenameMood]

Another amazing video as usual, Curious Archive. Thank you for all the effort you put in, much love!

[@OUTSIDER40]

Thank you for making this video it was interesting 👍

[@talenrothwell3407]

I just had a fun of idea of what if there's an alien race out in the universe that is completely identical to humans. So identical that a scientist couldn't tell the difference. Oh and I know this would almost definitely never happen in any likelihood I like that idea in the context of a Sci fi story As in where we as humans discover many intelligent Alien species that look nothing like us, but then one day a human delegation is sent to meet a new alien race and... it's literally just humans with a different name. Idk, I find the idea funny

[@N1originalgazza]

"....And on most planet, it'll likely always be more important to know where you are going than where you have been..."😆 I found this sentence so funny as well as true!

[@Charlie-fy5fy]

It would be hilarious if the first alien form we find, was the horned dog

[@IanZainea1990]

I would guess that intellect life would need three things that humans have: 1) limbs for carrying that are not used in locomotion, 2) the ability to communicate while carrying, 3) the ability to move around while carrying

[@b800294]

I like really out there alien designs but I am willing to give a large amount of leeway in how alien Xenos in SF are particularly if they are in live action properties or multimedia properties that could do live action in the future for practical considerations. It is a HUUUGE ask to have an expensive SFX shot for literally every appearance of an alien or requiring 12+ hours of makeup for cast members; that consideration puts a large pressure on creatives to reduce the amount of non-humans are on screen. I am willing to deal with rubber forehead aliens with some skin paint if it means having more aliens in my SF properties.

[@janus9148]

Imagine multiple Earths, all perfectly identical. The sun, the moon, the tilt and all the neighboring planets are the same. How different would the lives on those Earths are? Maybe Earth 1 is red, Earth 2 has no life, etc.. It's just fun to think about.

[@thefatbob3710]

kinda scares me what if we find something extremely dangerous something akin to the Forunners, flood, or necrons

[@mr.nobody4529]

@@thefatbob3710 or worse.............................doomslayers hell creatures or the swarm

[@thefatbob3710]

@@mr.nobody4529 even worse: Xeelee they are very powerful

[@jessegauthier6985]

@@mr.nobody4529 An ellipsis has 3 dots ...

[@troycoley765]

This is a awesome and informative video, thank you keep up the awesome work. 🤩👍

[@unvergebeneid]

I think a lot really comes down to how much randomness was involved in which of the body plans that evolved during the Cambrian explosion subsequently went extinct vs those that survived and formed the basis of all life we see today.

[@volk551]

The thing about Spock is that in the star trek universe. There was a proto civilization that basically seeded life in the Galaxy that would ultimately lead to several if not every sapient species developing that looks human like prime. Example being humans, Vulcan's, Romulan's, Klingons, & cardassian.