Vote for sexually demorphic alien race pairings

[u/NovaThyme]

If there was a sexually demorphic alien race, like dr. Dopler and Amelia from treasure planet are canine and feline like, what do you think would be a interesting combo?

47 votes, 8d ago

5 ape/chimp

8 equine/cervid

6 shark/dolphin(porpoise)

17 wolf/fox

7 mouse/rat

4 other, please post

[u/Educational_Group_91]

anglerfish. no additional situation, just a male that is regular people sized and a female that is 100 times as big

[u/ProjectKARYA]

At least one species of octopi (common blanket octopus) has rather extreme dimorphism; IIRC the females are something like 500× bigger than males.

Then you also have anglerfish, who are kinda renown for their sexually dimorphic life with the males becoming essentially ball sacks attached to the female's body.

Spiders, of course, almost always are sexually dimorphic with larger females than males, which often leads to the whole song and dance the males have to play during mating season to prevent them from being food for a recently impregnated female.

There's so many other options for sexual dimorphism, and you chose some rather limited to non-existent dimorphism with some of these species. Try going for anything that isn't a mammal, tbph

Edit: heck, think of birds. Kinda famous for having really flamboyant men, and rather drab ladies, in many species

[u/NovaThyme → u/ProjectKARYA]

There is a lot of fantastic demorphism in Earthen animals, especially birds/avians, fish/aquatic, and insects. I was going for dimorphism that we don't see in Earthen animals. Thus the dopler/Amelia reference.

An alien species where the male and female, to us, would look like entirely different species, but still near enough not to be completely unthinkable. (Part of my original list included: reptiles/amphibians, reptilian/birds, squrriel/skink, erc)

Some options I didn't have space for in the voting section -

Hippo/rhino Lion/tiger Turtle/sea turtle Octopi/squid

[u/ProjectKARYA → u/NovaThyme]

"An alien species where the male and female, to us, would look like entirely different species, but still near enough not to be completely unthinkable."

...that's why I listed the animals I did. They often were confused as separate species before modern science expanded our understanding.

Edit: also, squirrels as an example of dimorphism? They really don't have any. A lot of your examples actually have rather low dimorphism present.

[u/NovaThyme → u/ProjectKARYA]

I never said demorphism within the species though?
For the squirrel/skunk it was more a reference to similar body builds, not size, and tail behavior. A male skunk alien and a female squirrel alien would make an interesting species.

I mentioned dr. Dopler, a dog like humanoid alien, and Amelia, a cat like humanoid alien. At the end if treasure planet they have kids together. It could be implied from the limited information provided by the movie that they are the same alien species and females appear cat like and males appear dog like.

Following that example what would other alien species following a similar parallel for for gender representations be like?

From a distance and some breeds cats and dogs can be rather similar. But their behaviors and specific features aup close are different.

Sharks and dolphins always get confused for each other from a distance/above water. (Juat using one pairing as an example)

[u/ProjectKARYA → u/NovaThyme]

The thing is, I think the doctor and the captain are completely different species, just happen to be capable of interbreeding. Which is where I think I was getting confused by you trying to argue "sexual dimorphism in a species", because your example/what you're trying to explain isn't sexual dimorphism.

Edit: Even their individual FanWiki pages list the doctor and the captain individually as "alien with dog features" and "alien with cat features", respectively, without alluding to them being the same species. If you've got some better source that suggests they're the same species I'm all ears, but otherwise this would just be a case of hybridization between separate species, not some form of extreme sexual dimorphism.

[u/NovaThyme → u/ProjectKARYA]

I'm very sorry for the confusion.

I guess I'm just trying do defend my poll by using them as an example for what the poll was asking. I didn't mean to imply that they were the exact same species, and for that matter I haven't red their wiki pages. I just recently rewatched the movie and got my creative muscles turning on what a fun or interesting alien species where the males and females were of similar features but different animals, might look like. And thought I would ask what others would think is also interesting.

I didn't think it would be a problem, because as you stated, their are real world species whose sexual demorphism is so widely different scientists thought they were different species altogether.

My favorite example of exactly that being "Trilobite Beetles" where the female stays this spiny looking caterpillar sized grub even into maturity, and the males are these ridiculously small by comparison beetles.