Plant Person, Planimal, Plant Aliens and Speculative Biology

We have here a sequel of sorts to my thread on dragons. This time focused more on botanical hybrids. I make this thread to help brainstorm ideas on what the biology of someone who is as much flora as they are fauna would be like. Be they humanoids such as the alraune and drayd, Planimals like the barometz, Starfishes or anywhere in between.

I also make this topic with the general idea of dryads (trees) alraunes (flowers) and barometz (goats mixed with trees and flowers) in mind, so those will make for good starting points.

Frilled neck leazards.

But their "beards" being huge leaves shifting colors with the season and serving as solar parasols to draw energy during the day, but fold up during the night to conserve and feed off energy. Also using their tails as roots to gather nourishment from the soaked soil when it's raining by burying it.

Can bite. Self-defense.

Worse than it sounds since they can get to the size of horses if they live long enough.

Edited by Trainbarrel on Aug 20th 2023 at 11:00:56 AM

Personally, how I tend to justify "planimals" is that they're actually animals with a symbiotic relationship with plants that grow on or in them.

You could probably also do it with differing life stages. A mobile "animal" stage with only vestigial plant-like traits and a sessile "plant" stage with vestigial animal-like traits.

I mean real life sponges aren't that far from such an idea (and were my inspiration).

If I recall correctly, the video-game I Was a Teenage Exocolonist takes pretty much this approach for at least one of its species.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Aug 21st 2023 at 4:22:33 PM

The distinction between plant and animal may also be much more vague on planets with different ecosystems. A planet where every season takes year might develop migrating plantlife.

Okay I also raised the topic elsewhere on the web and found out potential aspects including

• the possibility that photosynthesis might still cover all their energy needs (esp in bringer elements) even as mobile species
• the possibility that they might need an internal water storage like cacti
• that plants do not excrete waste products
• and that a society of plant people might be very social and cooperative.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Aug 21st 2023 at 11:38:28 AM

Surely if they're mobile they can... simply move to a water-source...?

If I recall correctly, they do—it's just that the substance that is a waste product to them is a resource to us. (Specifically, Oxygen: it's actually rather bad for plants—but very useful for animals.)

How do they reason that, if I may ask? I'm not seeing the connection, myself.

for the water thing. I think it might be more the mobility meaning they aren't rooted to the ground and such up the subterranean water there all the time. (also possible adaptation to dry arid conditions like deserts where ground water might not be so accessible or abundant)

For the last question I'll have to ask about that later. As for the oxygen thing, I'm having my relevant species not be as harmed by that due to their Half-Human Hybrid natures (they still breathe carbon and exhale oxygen, but they are less likely to die from a lack of the former)

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Aug 21st 2023 at 12:31:42 PM

To the former, okay, that's a fair point: while they could move to water, they would still presumably want to store water for those times when they are not at water-holes.

Regarding oxygen, that's fair—but the original statement, to which I was responding, was that "that plants do not excrete waste products"; as noted, that statement is I believe inaccurate.

this may be possible but it would be a species with a very slow metabolism. There just isn't that much energy in photosynthesis. Animals work in part because they consume vast quantities of plants.

Which in all fairness could work, and might make for an interestingly "alien" species.

I could see it be used to supplement the animal's energy needs but not outright replace the need for food. It could be used to grant them extra energy or even grow to greater sizes, both due to the extra nutrients but also increased oxygen which could be released from the plant directly into the animal's blood and tissue. Depending on the climate, the animal could perhaps take periods of hibernation with the plants exposed to store energy for when they wake up.

There's no real benefit to photosynthesis if you're also going to eat normal food. If you took a cow and gave it photosynthesis, the energy saved would be less than a percent.

Hmm... photosynthesizing algae acting as mitochondria?

Same here. The "planimal" would still need to eat in order to have spare energy for things like growth, hunting, etc., but for simply sustaining metabolic functions without active movement, sunbathing on top of a rock like a small reptile will suffice.

Of course, it will eventually have to come back down to drink, if we assume its metabolism still uses water like full plants do.

Real Life photosynthesis is quite energy-inefficient, but it doesn't have to be. Even with 40% efficiency you would be cutting it fine though for a human body - essentially, it'd only work in a desert like the Sahara and only for basal metabolism.

I was thinking 21% oxygen, 64% nitrogen, and 15% CO 2 at roughly earthlike pressures. The CO 2 balances out the distance from the star to make the planet warm enough to inhabit.