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XNinjaRed β The Mermaid Problem
Published: 2010-02-26 17:17:26 +0000 UTC; Views: 44687; Favourites: 158; Downloads: 354
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Description
Of course, they're fantasy creatures, so you're not supposed to look at it logically, but just try and you'll see the anatomical problems just by thinking about it!Ami is a character by .
Mermaid Ami concept and Cho character by aka Me.
Request more mystical creatures for me to criticize if you know some.
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Comments: 101
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I'm guessing it was disney did for the Little Mermaid to make sure kids didn't see her nipples. XD So it might've caught on cuz of that. Every other picture I've seen of mermaids,they're topless.
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I imagine they have genitals like whales do. I think they mate and give birth like whales do. I'd classify them as mammals.
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for me mermaids scaly humanoids with tails fish eyes human teeth and hair
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i just figure the lower half is dolphin which solves most of the problems
I mean sure they're normally depicted as fish but have you seen the way people used to draw dolphins?! (from traveler's tales www.strangescience.net/pics/stβ¦ Β by 5th hand description fc02.deviantart.net/fs16/f/200β¦
or if you were lucky bestiary.ca/beastimage/img415.β¦
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Didn't a Season 2 episode of Futurama address the reproduction issue? It was really funny, and the episode in question is "The Deep South." Apparently merpeople reproduce like fish.
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Answer to #3,breasts are heavy and flop around a lot. So the same reason as humans. Also cultural/ceremonial/fashion reasons...again,just like why human women do.
Answer to 2#, The dead clams aren't using their shells,are they? Some cultures will eat their deceased so they'll always have a little bit of Uncle Donny inside them (only the Uncle Donny part is a joke,the rest is true).Sometimes they'll do it to humiliate the enemy but sometimes it's considered an honor so the person lives on in a sense.
Another perspective,we have the concept of inheritance/alternatives to burials on land,right? Maybe the clams are donating their non-longer occupied bodies to their friends? Humans have all sorts of varying cultures and traditions,why wouldn't merfolk?Β
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I always assumed that mermaids and mermen have genitals, but they're hidden under the fin and they just bring them out when needed
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Maybe their genitals are retractable? Β Like a cat can velvet their claws?
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Ah one more think,merpeople have no human face but beautiful face alien like and they are naked they don't wear bra!
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Mermaids and mermen are mammals,they are evolved from humans, they have the tail of sea mammals.See the body found of animal planet.
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That was a hoax; there's even a disclaimer at the end of the documentaryΒ
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Fish sex is insertion free! Females lay eggs and males crop dust them with sperm. I suppose that's how mermaids reproduce.
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Ami: Why did I turn into a mermaid anyway?
Cho: Fanservice?
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1) it's possible they could lay eggs after mammalian copulation (look at the platypus). I'm still leaning more towards live birth, though. Dolphins have been doing it for longer than humans have been a species.
2) Clam shells persist after clams die.
3) If they're intelligent enough to use tools, the females might have bras in order to prevent massive sagging...and retain a slimmer profile to swim better. (Again, if they have breasts, that's leaning towards a mammalian base.)
4) Uh...they wouldn't.
5) I'm guessing trial and error, myself.
6) Evolution is a combination of two factors...random mutation and selection pressure. (bear with me on this.) Random mutation arises in every population. Not all of these mutations work. Those that do, however, have a better chance to succeed. That said...if merfolk are mammalian, it'd be beneficial against trauma to the chest.
7) They make sense because over time they would have adapted their population to the oceanic environment (not by choice unless they have some seriously advanced bioengineering techniques, but by the fact that traits that work tend to survive in the population). The fish tail, though, would likely be fishy on the outside.
8) I'm leaning towards mammal, based on the arrangement of body parts and the fact that mostly their tails are aligned horizontally...that's a mammalian trait. Also, there are certain birth defects where the babies develop a "tail" rather than legs. However, these defects also occur with other defects which are severely deforming and incompatible with life. If merfolk evolved, the genetic expression would preclude the non-viable traits. (Look up "sirenomelia.")
9) Not sure about the fish thing, but if the are...I'd say convergent evolution. Breasts aren't made to create milk, but rather to attract mates.
10) Certain dermatological conditions occur in humans to produce scaly skin. Mostly these are associated with disease symptoms, but again, they might have a different genetic expression.
11) There are a few locations...behind the ears would be an embryological solution, but the more likely location would probably be at the base of the lungs...the lung exchange surfaces drain both upward for gas and downward for fluid, so "drowning" still passes a fluid over the exchange surface.
12) If they did breathe like dolphins, they probably engineered their cities to have air pockets which refresh themselves via mechanical ventilation or engineered plant life (turn over the CO2 for O2).
13) Pelvic region. Again, look at dolphins.
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I once dreamt of a merman having sex with a human woman, and she was absolutely horrified at his dolphin-like penis XD
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And the fact that he was a MERMAN didn't faze her in the least?
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It was a month after they met!
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Hmm... my humble opinions...
1. They are often portrayed with bellybuttons, a sure sign of live birthing. Many sharks and certain fish like mollies give live birth.
2. We humans eat pigs and keep dogs as pets. Perhaps merfolk are species-biased too...
3. Cultural dress. We humans also wear ornamentation that is purely for cosmetic value, like piercings. I'd imagine shell bras would serve a similar purpose among merfolk.
4. Most definitely not.
5. Mix 'n match.
6. Rendered null by answer in 4.
7. I can't answer this. They don't make sense at all xD
8. Mammals or fish? Both.
9. Discus fish secrete a milky substance from their flanks for their young to feed on. The glands that facilitate this "milk" could over time be concentrated around the chest area into the likeness of mammalian mammary glands.
10. Pangolins have scales, and they're mammals.
10. Their "hair" is really very long, very fine gill filaments. (Pinched this concept from Tony DiTerlizzi)
11. Rendered null by answer in 10.
12. This is a most interesting concept for me, one that I've pondered for years. I would imagine that merfolk have a cloaca, like fish do - a single opening for waste and reproduction. The cloaca, keeping in with fish anatomy, would be located on the underside of the body - on the "front" of the mer-person's fish half. In mermaids, the cloaca would lead to the uterine organ and ovaries. Mermen would not possess a penis - during copulation, a merman would simply press his cloaca to the female's and release sperm into it. This form of internal fertilization is used by live-bearing fish like mollies. OR, mermen would have a pair of claspers, the way male sharks do.
Hope this makes sense!
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Correction: About the internal fertilization, it appears that male mollies have a heavily modified anal fin which serves as a sperm channel during mating. Potentially, this could make for a further distinguishing feature between mermen and mermaids - the presence of said modified fin on the hunks.
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Or they would possess a penis...much like dolphins. Notice the tails are usually represented parallel to a coronal plane (horizontal when swimming level).
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Definitely plausible. Makes more sense, then, too, because then they'd be full mammal.
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Ummm.... They're mermaids, right? Mythological beings, right? Think dragons. Do they make sense? No? Then don't complain about mermaids.
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Yes, but dragons make relatively more sense in comparison.
Also, nitpicking is fun.
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Dragons make sense. Ever read Dragonriders of Pern?
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It usually depends on how dragons are depicted in the work, and how much science is put into it. I'd have to say they make the most sense in the Dragonology books.
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Well I beg to differ. In the Pern books they are actual creatures...they are in fact genetically bred off of indigenous species on a colony world. Almost everything about them is described. McCaffrey wanted to write a Sci-Fi story. The science is in there, it works...I even roughed out a working process for converting P2H4 to PH3 (phosphine) in the "fire stomach."
BUT...that is SF. As far as fantasy goes, my scope is limited, and I have seen novelists run the gamut from feasible to "WTF?!".
I'm a big fan of Carl Sagan's ideas on exobiology, where the idea is to figure out "how does it work," rather than simply "does it work at all."
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Re-faving cause I moved accounts ages ago and I found this again
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Allow me to answer these questions:
1. They go into human form to give live birth, if possible
2. They don't normally wear shells
3. They don't.
4. Nope.avi
5. AGain, they don't.
6. Question is irrelevant, since they are not born with them.
7. Pretty tough trying to bring evolution into this.....Evolution can be a troll at times, remember.
8. Mammals
9. Remember, they are female, so it makes sense for the human half to have breasts
10. They don't normally have scales.
11. They don't have gills........And yet they are able to breathe both underwater and on the surface....I call magic.
12. There isn't always an underwater empire xP
13. The tail can recede to reveal their ass and vag
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Alternate answer regarding gills and sleeping underwater. Ever see Waterworld? Mermaids just spend more time underwater than the main character there does.
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The logic of mermaids is now on my list of things not to think about too long.
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i always figured that the fish part started a little lower than is normally depicted...
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Clams aren't fish. Why would being friends with fish have anything to do with clam bras?
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Personally, I believe that merfolk genitals are concealed by a layer of retractable scales but that's just me and my weirdness
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I'm sure they have reproductive organs, they're just incompatible with ours. [link]
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I think that the answer is probably something that once you learn you probably wish you never knew.
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Phoebe: Their navals are their reproductive organs. LOL
Gerald: Have you been reading "Boobs Ahoy" again?
Phoebe: No....Yes...Maybe?
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In order...
*It's up to the writers
*The same reason humans wear fur
*Censorship
*Depends on the writer
*They've been around for a while, so they probably have their own units
*It doesn't; it's a censorship thing
*...I got nothing
*Bitch, it's magic. They aint gotta explain SHIT!
*Mammals, on account of their mammaries
*Again, magic creatures don't particularly care
*Why do platypi have bills?
*They don't have gills; they have water lungs
*There are a thousand ways an architect could figure that out (but I'm not an architect)
*Well that's the million dollar question, isn't it?
Also, dhampyrs. How the fuck can you be half human, half UNDEAD CORPSE?!?!
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Another good question would be how they dispose of waste matter. I guess they have cloacae or something like that?
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