Animals whose primary sense is TOUCH!!!

[Spacemanchuck]

So my final project in my figure sculpture class is to create a creature whose primary sense is that of touch, has 25% muscle mass, and is a land creature...
So I thought I'd ask you guys to help me out in the brain storming process. So far I have thought of, worms, moles, things with feelers... And then I thought, could I get away with a creature who used to see but is now blind and relys on touch... What do you guys think???

[Snarfevs]

could I get away with a creature who used to see but is now blind and relys on touch...

Certainly. Many such creatures with vestigial, nonfunctioning eyes exist in nature, such as the star-nosed mole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star-Nosed_Mole) and the blind tetra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_cave_fish). It is however important to note that blind creatures would probably have other hypertrophied senses in addition to touch which would deserve special attention. The star-nosed mole is probably the ideal case study as it actively hunts in its environment rather than evading (for which infrasound hypersensitivity is very useful) and is generally in constant tactile contact with soil.

That's probably going to be your main concern - 'does the creature get enough contact with its surroundings to make a hypertrophied sense of touch a plausible development?'. Or is it going to be sitting in a huge dark cave where sonar would be better suited?

[Ilaekae]

This is actually not as bad as you think if your description is correct. Many sea creatures--sharks and such --hunt by "touch" but are excluded by your assignment. That leaves any animal that is in close contact to its solid environment, either because they crawl or burrow, such as snakes, moles, a few weasles, and even some birds like the kiwi (I think). Obviously, spiders and many insects qualify if their muscle mass is high enough. An animal doesn't have to be blind to hunt by "touch. It just has to be sensitive to vibration. A quick google for "animal vibrations" or "hunting with vibration" or something similar should get you a lot of material.

[seba_boi]

Doesn't snakes apply since they mainly sense by vibrations (they have no ears, so those snake flutes are pointless, right?)...

[DavePalumbo]

I'd say the trick here is "primary" sense. Moles and such definitely have super hearing more so than super-touch. There is however a creature which I think does have super-touch, and I've done battle with it on some occasions. It's an insect, or arthropod of some kind, which occasionally goes skittering around my apartment. They're flat and oval, generally about 3-4 inches long including protrusions (I swear I once saw one trapped in my bathtub that was at least 5 inches), and have legs going all around almost like hair. On the top and in the front, they have an array of longer feelers pointing every which way. So far as I can tell, they can't see very well if at all and I've seen no evidence that they can hear me, but I think they feel vibrations and they definitely use those feelers alot. My guess is that they're some kind of dinosaur-era silverfish.

incidentally, I think my combat record with them stands 4-3

[Hyskoa]

Any creature that relies on touch to sense and has males will always go for the ass cheeks or the breasts first. Hence why the hand shapes will be round over centuries of evolution.
- Let's go a bit further, because the usual smack in the face follows and comes from the side, males have a triangular face whereas the women due to anger have a more roundish, red face.
- Because there is no sense of vision, a lot of those hits will also hit the surrounding areas which will end up with a very thin neck and misformed shoulders while the females will have very evolves shoulders and arm muscles.

- ...

[Rhynome]

Hah, genius concept, but I disagree I disagree on some points:

Dear Dr. Melancholie Farsworthington,

The hands of the male would be more concave discs with sort of feelers all around the edges. Sort of large palms with tentacle like fingers. Small individual suction cups within the palms may also evolve. No doubt the palms would still sweat profusely at the most inappropriate of times.

The hands of the female would be long strips of thick skin, with few nerve endings. There would be a shoulder joint and a wrist joint (no elbow). After the wrist it is just that long rectangular strip that is free to slap.

I agree entirely on the female head, but with three eyes to aid slapping depth perception.

The male head would be a cube, with a rippled, cushioned surface over it. This means that as the female hand comes in contact with it it would still hurt, but the surface of the skin would stretch into a flat surface and there would be cushioning underneath to absorb the shock. There would be few nerve endings. The reason males would evolve in this manner would be as only those that could put up with constant slapping through-out the years would be able to breed. The rest would just give up and go gay.

The neck of the female would be a thick mass of muscle, with the shoulder almost directly attached. Alot of upper body strength in the slappy-area. Agreed.

The male, on the other hand, would have evolved little muscle in that region, yes, but would have quite thick skin with little nerve endings. There would be no need for cushioning as slaps to that area are quite rare, but the skin would be thick because 1. Any slaps would hurt like ****, 2. with such little muscle the skin would be needed to act as a sort of 'brace' to prop up the head.

I hope you consider my revised theories of the evolutionary principles.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Rhynome Toswothington.

[Hyskoa]

Darnit to heck Toswothington,
I shall not be bound to these rules and regulations layed upon us by reality. We are CONCEPT artist.
For god sake man, USE that potential. Show those lousy burocrates that promote reality that we can do more than they can possibly dream of.

salutations,
Farsworthington.




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ps: no eyes, only touch :)

[Snarfevs]

Holy topic derailment...

[Rhynome]

Darnit, Farsworthington, quite an aggressive retort there, have we been at the sherry again?

Obviously over time the eyes would have become useless, left over from a previous era where they were needed. Not used, yet there, much like the current apendix of the human physiology.

For Blasted sake Lord Farsworthington, use the sense you were given, what what! Or I'll be forced to pitch my cricket team against yours, don'tyaknow.

(Both Melancholie's and my posts were to add fuel to the fire of Spacemanchuck's thought process... honest...)