The study of the evolutionary pathways and forces that have shaped life on other worlds, under environmental conditions utterly different from Earth's. This field theorizes about how natural selection might work in a high-gravity ocean world, under a perpetual twilight, or in a volatile, tectonically supercharged environment. It asks how sensory systems, locomotion, and intelligence might develop when the fundamental rules of the game—gravity, chemistry, energy sources—are changed.
Example: Theorizing about the Alien Evolution of the "sky-whales" of a gas giant: they might evolve hydrogen-filled bladders for buoyancy, filter-feeding on atmospheric microbes, and develop complex sonar for navigation in the perpetual clouds. It's using the logic of Darwinian evolution, but with a completely alien starting deck of environmental cards.
by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 3, 2026
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