A worldbuilding resource for speculative fiction writers of any kind, with a focus on fantasy fiction. Read the articles below to learn more about various zoology topics and how they can be used in creature design!
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The Square-Cube Law and Giant Fliers: Part Two
In the last post, we learned a little bit about the square-cube law and how it influences flight mechanics. To recap, the bigger animals get, the harder it is to fly because the effect of weight increases faster than the effect of lift. This makes things tricky for “giant fliers.” Airplanes can overcome the issue…
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The Square-Cube Law and Giant Fliers: Part One
Today, we’re going to start our biology lesson with a little bit of geometry. The square-cube law is one of those deceptively simple fundamentals that can be easy to miss but becomes almost obvious in hindsight. According to Wikipedia, it can be described thus: When an object undergoes a proportional increase in size, its new…
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Cousins and Clades (and Dragons): Taxonomy in Fantasy
Let’s start our journey into fantastical science by talking a little bit about the study of taxonomy, and how it fits into the world of fantasy. If you remember anything from biology class, you probably remember a few things about classic taxonomy. You know, that upside-down pyramid of species that are more and more closely…