I needed a creature that was adapted to a hot, dry, desert environment. Mindful of the principle of convergent evolution, I thought that the animal I came up with, a tobal, wouldn't be a lot different from Earth's camels. For example, they would have evolved broad feet, to spread their weight more effectively when walking across loose sand.
I also thought they'd have a water and fat storage system like camels. I changed them by deciding they looked like leggy equines, and the humps that store their water and fat are in their necks, and under their bellies. I think we can't ignore the knowledge we have of how evolution by natural selection works. And that means that any changes I make from 'Earth-norm' have to be justified in evolutionary terms,
I did a similar piece of tweaking in Genehunter with the Ur-Vai. I wanted talking big cats, and I had lions in mind for my base species. But the Ur-Vai have also evolved hands and arms as well as their four legs. This is not impossible. It might have started out as a random mutation that conferred evolutionary advantage, and was thus passed on to later generations.
I wanted the Ur-Vai to have hands because that made them more feasible as tech users. So what I've ended up with is a species that still hunts like lions for its food, but has radio, language, culture, and democracy. They have mates and children, allies and enemies, and they worry like we do too.
In my novel Soulsinger I created alien dolphins who communicate telepathically with the natives. The creatures bond with a native, and consent to being ridden by them. We know that dolphins have complex language and social structures, so again I didn't think this stretch was impossible.
I enjoy the challenge of creating something a little bit different. Yet I still think that creature needs to be one I can believe in. I'm writing SF not fantasy, so I need a creature that doesn't cross that boundary from realistic into something that is only feasible in a fantasy world.
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