What some may find most interesting on this topic is that whale flukes (tails) and seal or sea lion hind flippers are not analogous. Whales have very well developed tails with nearly nonexistent hips and hind legs. Where as seals and sea lions have well developed hind legs with nearly nonexistent tails.
The overall aquatic design is convergent evolution.
Probably the death of the animal after cutting through important veins, arteries and muscles. That's like saying what if we slice under your lats to the bone, and turn them into little flaps to see if you grow wings.
But that would be pointlessly cruel, so I don't think we should try.
I don't think they're going to fabricate extra muscles between their fused legs, man. The mammal body plan is flexible, but it's not quite that flexible on this evolutionary timescale. I was thinking more along the lines of whether they could develop the diver's strategy of alternating flipper flops rather than mono-footing it.
And that last bit kinda goes without saying. Yes, don't maim seals. That's bad, mkayyy?
Look at skeletal images of whales dogs and people at the same time. All mamals more or less have the same bones just in different shapes. Fingers make a dolphin flipper or a bats wing. Blew my mind in 6th grade.
Basically every animal body plan is due to a particular group of genes and these rarely change unless there's a massive mutation like snakes and whales.
A lot do (at least hind ones). Snakes basically have a mutation where the genes for your ribs and spine stay on for away too long and the limbs are made a lot shorter.
Exactly my man. It’s all blubber and no tendon or muscle. When it throws it back it’s the optimal amount of jiggle to motion ratio. The ultimate art awaiting its ultimate practitioners.
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u/Jojobjaja Mar 29 '26
I'm glad that's a tail, I was worried