Existential world-building question

[TarnishedPenny]

I got to weaving a SciFi-Fantasy world for a tale, but am stuck on a basic conceptual point. I could merely ignore it and plunge ahead, but my OC side keeps objecting.

Those familiar with Larry Niven’s ‘Ringworld’ series (and if you like SF, you should be) will remember the catlike Kzin - a ferocious, space-going species posing a serious threat to H. sapiens.

Okay, the series is a good read and, while not intending to copy Niven’s work, I was contemplating a world with the dominant species being descended from a primitive predator, maybe like velociraptor. Then I had a second thought.

Is it at all likely that a predator species would evolve into a tool-using species? My point is that our ancestors weren’t big enough or tough enough to go head-to-head with their clawed and fanged competition. We are here because they chose a different route.

Predators are generally going to be more intelligent than those they prey on (as somebody once remarked, how bright do you have to be to sneak up on a field of clover?) but is there any reason for a predator species to develop more intelligence than, say, current dogs and wolves, house-cats and lions?

Thoughts?

 

[Writer61]

Probably depends upon their prey.

Imagine that the predator ran down/exhausted its primary food source and then needed tools to get to an alternative. Such a challenge might create enough evolutionary pressure to develop new skills.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Non-primate tool users include octopuses and New Caledonian crows. I think octopuses count as predatory. The problem with 'predator' is that we mostly think of them as four-legged, charging across the savannah or the ice. They need some reason to start preferring an upright position where they can specialize their forelegs. Or in the case of octopuses, they don't need all those limbs doing the same thing.

anthrodisiac has probably done all the research.

 

[EmilyMiller]

and New Caledonian crows

It’s been documented in many corvids.

 

[ChuckWolf]

If the predator-species has an exploitable weakness (the evolved velociraptors have to hibernate) that might keep them from steamrolling over other species.

 

[Writer61]

If the predator-species has an exploitable weakness (the evolved velociraptors have to hibernate) that might keep them from steamrolling over other species.

How would that cause them to develop tool-using skills?

 

[BeechLeaf]

Many predatory dinosaurs were like early Homo in that they were bipedal, not savannah quadrupeds. The key skill development for Homo may have been projectile weapons. We think of dinosaur arms as shrinking down, unused, but they would certainly be capable of flinging a few rocks or breaking branches off trees. It could develop from there.

 

[liliput1]

It’s been documented in many corvids.

One of the very first animal intelligence documentaries featured a raven solving a puzzle involving string. Ravens can also parrot sounds, which doesn’t get talked about enough.

 

[NotWise]

I got to weaving a SciFi-Fantasy world for a tale, but am stuck on a basic conceptual point. I could merely ignore it and plunge ahead, but my OC side keeps objecting.

Those familiar with Larry Niven’s ‘Ringworld’ series (and if you like SF, you should be) will remember the catlike Kzin - a ferocious, space-going species posing a serious threat to H. sapiens.

Okay, the series is a good read and, while not intending to copy Niven’s work, I was contemplating a world with the dominant species being descended from a primitive predator, maybe like velociraptor. Then I had a second thought.

Is it at all likely that a predator species would evolve into a tool-using species? My point is that our ancestors weren’t big enough or tough enough to go head-to-head with their clawed and fanged competition. We are here because they chose a different route.

Predators are generally going to be more intelligent than those they prey on (as somebody once remarked, how bright do you have to be to sneak up on a field of clover?) but is there any reason for a predator species to develop more intelligence than, say, current dogs and wolves, house-cats and lions?

Thoughts?

Struggling a little to understand how answering the question will help you tell a story.

 

[AStrangeDesire]

You could also go in reverse. The only reason they're still here is because they evolved tool using skills.

If they hadn't, they'd have died out. Maybe they had 'cousins' that did die out because they never made that jump.

 

[EmilyMiller]

@TarnishedPenny - I think you are pushing at the limits of verisimilitude. Do you really need a scientifically robust reason for these creatures to have evolved to become what the story needs? I’d say not.

 

[Stanfield2025]

Humans are predators, so yeah that did happen.

Carnivores and omnivores are way more likely to engage in tool use than herbivores. Crocodilians have done it, corvids have done it, primates have done it, octopi have done it, etc.

It's also good to point out here that theropod intelligence is largely unknown. Troodontids are thought by some to be the most intelligent dinosaurs, but the methods of determining this are heavily disputed. We know quite a few small theropods dug nests and engaged in parental care (some dying in the process), and it's plausible some raptor species engaged in pack hunting (trackways and large fossil accumulations hint at this), but this doesn't give a ton of insight into their intelligence.

 

[liliput1]

So the current thinking on Tyranosaurs and why their arms are stubby is that bite strength was key to their arms race with brontosaurs and ceratops getting bigger and harder to kill.

If raptors had developed tool use to kill prey, then they would have perhaps been able to keep up. But what limits other tool users is manual dexterity, and in the case of water dwellers, the inability to use fire may also be a limiting factor in tool evolution.

In Brin’s Uplift War series humans give dolphins exoskeletons so they can use tools with their prosthetic arms.

 

[Stanfield2025]

Many predatory dinosaurs were like early Homo in that they were bipedal, not savannah quadrupeds. The key skill development for Homo may have been projectile weapons. We think of dinosaur arms as shrinking down, unused, but they would certainly be capable of flinging a few rocks or breaking branches off trees. It could develop from there.

It depends on the theropod. Large theropods (with a few exceptions) toward the end of the Mesozoic were especially prone to having heads larger and more useful than their arms. Smaller theropods like the maniraptorans, they consistently kept arms that didn't shrink.

 

[EmilyMiller]

So the current thinking on Tyranosaurs and why their arms are stubby is that bite strength was key to their arms race with brontosaurs and ceratops getting bigger and harder to kill.

If raptors had developed tool use to kill prey, then they would have perhaps been able to keep up. But what limits other tool users is manual dexterity, and in the case of water dwellers, the inability to use fire may also be a limiting factor in tool evolution.

In Brin’s Uplift War series humans give dolphins exoskeletons so they can use tools with their prosthetic arms.

I read the actual article - it seemed a bit hand-wavy to me. Pun intended!

 

[BeechLeaf]

In support of New Caledonian crows, by the by, a number of animals have been known to pick up natural objects and use them as tools: a stick, a leaf, a rock. Humans and New Caledonian crows specifically make tools, carefully cutting them out and trimming. I can't think of anyone else reported as doing that.

 

[AlinaX]

If the prey is intelligent, the predator must be too. I’m sure Star Trek played with this idea a few times.

 

[ChuckWolf]

How would that cause them to develop tool-using skills?

NM, I think I misunderstood what you were asking.

 

[yowser]

Many predatory dinosaurs were like early Homo in that they were bipedal, not savannah quadrupeds. The key skill development for Homo may have been projectile weapons. We think of dinosaur arms as shrinking down, unused, but they would certainly be capable of flinging a few rocks or breaking branches off trees. It could develop from there.

I heard a physical anthropologist at a lecture once talk at length about how different the scapula in the homo genus is from all the other apes. It is quite triangular and a major drawback is that it doesn't give the same ability to brachiate that exists for monkeys and apes.

The change didn't emerge until after the descent from trees to savanna, and he speculated that its structure allowed for improved throwing (which apes do, but compared to humans, poorly and inaccurately.) Throwing something at an adversary (and keeping them at a distance) surely was a handy adaptation and increased survival chances.

He didn't speculate on tool creation, but I bet the scapula shape also was improved for tool-making, chipping rocks for axes etc.

Penny, whatever you do, make sure the scapula gets in there somehow.

 

[Stanfield2025]

I heard a physical anthropologist at a lecture once talk at length about how different the scapula in the homo genus is from all the other apes. It is quite triangular and a major drawback is that it doesn't give the same ability to brachiate that exists for monkeys and apes.

The change didn't emerge until after the descent from trees to savanna, and he speculated that its structure allowed for improved throwing (which apes do, but compared to humans, poorly and inaccurately.) Throwing something at an adversary (and keeping them at a distance) surely was a handy adaptation and increased survival chances.

He didn't speculate on tool creation, but I bet the scapula shape also was improved for tool-making, chipping rocks for axes etc.

Penny, whatever you do, make sure the scapula gets in there somehow.

Sounds about right. And theropods, in contrast, infamously have limited range of motion in their hands/arms.

 

[TheLobster]

Tool usage isn’t as important as the social aspects.

Felines evolving civilization are not as believable, because cats are solitary hunters; but velociraptors (and, well, humans) are pack hunters that rely on cooperation with each other to take down large prey. From there, it is conceivable they could (have) eventually develop(ed) more complicated social structures over repeated hunts.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yes, definitely, as long as the environment imposes selective pressure on the species to evolve that way.

Human beings evolved big brains, opposable thumbs, upright carriage, and a loss of body hair so we could run around the hot plains of Africa hunting game. Our chimp cousins went into the trees and evolved differently.

Think of an environment and a selective pressure that it would generate. Then you can imagine how a species would adapt to that environment.

The easiest way to imagine this is if the species are geographically isolated. It would be difficult for an intelligent species to evolve in an environment where another intelligent species already existed, because the existing species would see it as competition and kill it off before it could become intelligent.

 

[Stanfield2025]

Tool usage isn’t as important as the social aspects.

Felines evolving civilization are not as believable, because cats are solitary hunters; but velociraptors (and, well, humans) are pack hunters that rely on cooperation with each other to take down large prey. From there, it is conceivable they could (have) eventually develop(ed) more complicated social structures over repeated hunts.

Yeah. The social aspects matter. And not all predator packs are equally "social", if that makes any sense. Crocodiles and humboldt squid also cooperatively hunt. But they don't have a social structure like mammalian packs. Humboldt squid are cannibalistic half the time, turning on each other once the hunt is done. And some paleontologists think theropod packs functioned similarly.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Social aspects: cats and dogs are fairly closely related, and wolves are highly social. So it would only require a small change in something mumble mumble for a cat-like predator to become socially cooperative. We are, after all, speculating about evolutionary changes from the past we know of to a future that is different. A few plausible changes are acceptable, even if we don't have examples in real evolutionary history.

 

[Stanfield2025]

Social aspects: cats and dogs are fairly closely related, and wolves are highly social. So it would only require a small change in something mumble mumble for a cat-like predator to become socially cooperative. We are, after all, speculating about evolutionary changes from the past we know of to a future that is different. A few plausible changes are acceptable, even if we don't have examples in real evolutionary history.

Yeah. Lions are already social, so it's totally plausible indeed. I do wonder what pushed cats and dogs in that direction, though. Maybe it had something to do with their prey roaming in herds, but that's me guessing.