Cool question! If I understand correctly, you want to explain why your characters have a certain trait by evolution. As a biologist I would say that this is correct in the way that weird quirks do happen to species in a random way and if they do not interfere with their reproduction (or 'fitness') they can keep it. However, only if these quirks benefit their fitness in a positive way will it be able to become something the entier species has. (if you do not have it you will have do worse and eventually be overgrown). My first thoughts where that females prefer to mate with males with big horns (see Widowbird for example) or the horns help to gather prey/fight other males etc. If you worry about horns being an easy target they could contain thorns as well. To be honest though, I do not feel as if you would usually have to explain why your species has horns
Yeah, this. The cats have horns. No big deal. The readers aren't going to care why. You'll have bigger writing problems than this down the road, so I'd save your energy for the important things. And unless you plan to address this from an omniscient perspective (or another specie's POV) the cat-people wouldn't have occasion to explain to the reader why they have horns in the first place. That would be like a human MC explaining why they had fingers or earlobes... it wouldn't be noteworthy to them.
I find myself thinking, in a wildly un-informed way, about wide crosses--which I vaguely understand to be crosses between species that aren't really supposed to be able to crossbreed. I've really only heard of them in plants, and colchicine and chromosome doubling tends to be involved and that's where I shake my head and move on to nice normal sexual reproduction. But if we assume that a thousand years ago there was a wide cross (big assumption) that was then able to reproduce (bigger assumption), then the cats might get the horns from some quite different creature for which the horns do have some evolutionary advantage. If there's magic, that wide cross might be more reasonable. On the question of whether they'd try to breed out the horns--there are all sorts of things that humans value that are harmful. Like foot binding--obviously not genetic, but it also obviously doesn't result in a situation that is conducive to survival.
I can't think of any horned carnivores in our world. All the horned animals I can think of are herbivores. Is there a reason for this? (And if there is a reason, it might get in the way of the "wide cross" idea, as I REALLY can't imagine an herbivore and a carnivore producing viable offspring). (And, yes, this is the sort of stuff I notice and think about when I'm reading. So while I agree that there isn't likely going to be an opportunity for the topic to come up in the book itself, for at least one reader (and, as usual, I assume I'm not unique, although I may be part of a minority) it's still worthwhile to avoid unnecessary weirdness.)
Horns are good at warding off hostile creatures, but aren't anywhere near as useful for killing prey. Think of a club vs a dagger.
My other idea was that the Devonians were a creation of genetic splicing, but that's more sci-fi than fantasy. Maybe it should be safe to say that Devonians aren't cat-like creatures. Referencing the picture I posted, that doesn't look anything like a cat, correct? Maybe they're actually a type of hairy troll-creature?
Actually I read a fantasy book where a civilization achieved our level of science, including Gene slicing, by magic instead of technology.
They don't look like cats, no. They look like humans with horns and a tail. But wasn't there something about them being born from cats? Or at least looking like normal kittens? That'd be a bit awkward to explain. Extra note: There's a domestic cat breed called the Devon Rex. If you're wedded to the Devonian name, you might want to avoid the cat references, for sure.
Hmmm... Good point. If I still want them to be cats, then I'll have to get rid of the horns and simply make them look like cats. (Though I hope Bethesda doesn't sue me for it because they also have cat-people in their Elder Scrolls series. I mean, I suppose its OK so long as I don't name my cat-people 'Khajiit', have them live in an arid desert environment and make it so that the cycles of the moon determines the color of their fur.) That was...kind of why I gave Devonians horns and called them 'cat-people'. >__> That said, if I still want to keep the name and their appearance, then I should avoid any references to cats like "cub-kin" or "Kenthew lept with feline grace". Maybe this is one of those things they talk about when they say "kill your darlings". You have to make a tough decision that you may not really want to do -- case in point, making them actually look like cats and remove the horns. That way, I can still keep the name, the references to cats in general, and them being born resembling normal kittens.
I don't think you have to worry about that. Cat-folk are a part of more than Elder Scrolls. Dungeons and Dragons as well as Pathfinder are good examples. As long as you don't literally copy them, you're fine. Oh, and Guild Wars has the Charr. I'm sure there are horned [carnivore] dinosaurs. I think the Carnotaurus has little horns.
If you're wondering about evolution so much, are you going to include the influences of magic on nature? I personally believe that any creature would be able to learn to use magic, as long as it can be done by thought and no need for circles/books/wands or w/e. What if those horns enhance magical abilities? What kind of magic system do you have to begin with?
All sentient beings are born with the potential to do magic, they have to be taught how -- and it's channeled by magichlorians, which are microscopic bacteria in their bloodstream that give them magical powers by thought processes. It's basically a gift from the Grand Creator (varies between cultures.) So for Kenthew, perhaps he's not exactly 100% a cat-person. He's a fantastical being that looks like a cat/elf hybrid?
This is one of the problems I'm hiccuping against too. What I've been thinking of, the required intelligence level should be extremely high (humans are in comparison rather intelligent to most but are not most intelligent). But the problem I have here, why wouldn't any animals evolve in to this. Any animal that could use magic would straight away have extreme advantages in survival and therefor ability to produce offspring. What humans are indeed quite unique in, is their ability to see beyond what's seen. As other has mentioned before we have created works of art/(no offence but) religion/ and other unnecessary things. Buuuuuut then again, we're not unique in it. Neanthertales are presumed to have a religion as they build tomes for the dead. Elephants mourn for the dead and who knows, maybe they believe in an afterlife? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_faith In my story that's been a banishment of magic, to the point no one was able to cast it anymore, with this I could kill out all magical creatures but I have to figure out if I can make sure those magical creatures had 0 influence on ecosystems, or rather something that nature could easily recover from. So to start of with, what's your system?
Neanderthals are part of the homo genus, so given their genetic similarity to humans, it's not surprising that they had similar behaviours. Plenty of people who don't believe in an afterlife mourn the dead, so I wouldn't read much into elephant behaviour. As for why animals don't have magic, some options are: 1) It's based on intelligence. Not every animal species gets to have quantum physics programmes in the real world 2) They do. This could prove interesting, especially if small animals like ants each have significant power 3) Magic comes at a cost, in much the same way that not every animal has big muscles or a large brain in the real world. So only some animal species go the magic route 4) Some magical, hand-waving reason As for evolution: magic should affect it in exactly the same way anything else does. If it provides enough advantage for individual animals in certain environmental niches, then it should spread. Otherwise it should die out.
Hello! There are already many answers so some of them may be similar to mine. But I think I can help (I'm a biologist) =) I think there is no evolutionary problem there. Horns can be used to fight other males (if that works) but if that's an issue, there's another function they can have and that's sexual selection. Many animals have features (such as horns, feathers, colors, behaviors) that are used in male-male competion and female choice. In your case, females could pick, for example, the males with the biggests or most beautiful horns. As long as having big horns is not a problem for their survival until reprodution, natural selection will not touch them.
