How can a creature like this possibly evolve?

Not Thrive
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So uh how can this creature possibly evolve as it can shapeshift (OP’s words not mine) my guess was chromatophores and mimicry, because idk how a vertebrate can even change shape without painfully hurting itself in the process (unless you’re a fish or amphibian of which you have a larval stage). Maybe zooids? But what lineage would it come from? Btw here’s the link to the person who made this picture’s account: [www.deviantart.com/sampledragon](https://www.deviantart.come/sampledragon)

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Here’s the link again www.deviantart.com/sampledragon because I screwed up

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Please don’t double post, try editing the original post instead! :grin:

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I’ve moved this to #not-thrive as dragons have been talked about before and I highly doubt that this time someone can actually come up with the scientific principles and how it can evolve step by step for it to work.

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I mean maybe not exactly dragons (as in not reptiles), but given a world inhabited by hexapods (or maybe evolving dragons from Draco lizards) imo they could totally work

Edit: This particular example of dragon however seems rather topheavy, and it most definitely cannot fly. As for shape-shifting, it would really depend on what it shape shifts into. Anything? Probably something like zooids and a lot of magic. A few specific things could probably be done using just advanced mimicry

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The OP of the OC said that it has up to almost 500,000 forms

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Then probably a mountain sized dose of magic lol

To a certain extent, you can logic out things that would otherwise seem magical. But shapeshifting to over 500,000 different organisms? There isn’t any way to turn that realistic, not really. I guess maybe if all 500,000 were color variants of the same dragon or smthn, but other than that there would have to be a lot of hand waving involved to make something even remotely sensible while still trying to make it realistic in the slightest

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We can create him, we have the technology

1 Like
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i’d say it’s probably something like being able to disassemble itself apart from its nervous system into a slurry of pluripotent stem cells and using hormones/pheremones to determine what it turns into if it can’t use magic

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Since you have mentioned magic and how it seems rather topheavy perhaps it uses magic to fly also or perhaps inflated itself by methane and burping it out in the form of fire, thus lowering it’s height also.

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Don’t mention inflation…
vietnam war flashbacks
I wish there was a :face_vomiting: reaction.