Creature Lab
Change the body. Watch the ability change.
These are comparative teaching estimates—not biological predictions. Use them to expose trade-offs, generate claims, and identify what evidence is still missing.
Body controls
Sustained overland locomotion on a composite body plan.
More mass means more metabolic heat and more load through the spine.
Longer limbs lengthen stride but raise axial-control cost.
Elastic recoil lowers the metabolic cost of each stride.
Sets the ceiling on oxygen delivery to working muscle.
Higher force and speed, faster fatigue.
Evaporative and convective heat loss relative to heat production.
0 of 6 snapshot slots used.
Centaur in Temperate migration
Plausibility Index (0–100)
66
Possible—with costly compromises
The ability may clear the model's major constraints, but empirical evidence would still be required.
This index is a teaching device for comparing designs. It is not a validated scientific probability.
Performance estimates
- Sustainable pace
- 9.4 km/h
- Pace the oxygen supply can hold for hours.
- Endurance reserve
- 62 / 100
- Headroom before aerobic supply falls behind demand.
- Heat strain
- 52 / 100
- Stored heat relative to heat loss. Lower is safer.
- Axial control
- 70 / 100
- Ability of the trunk to stabilise two body plans.
Mechanism chain
- 1Ventilation of 55 L/min sets the oxygen ceiling for working muscle.
- 2Circulation must move that oxygen across 540 kg of tissue, so pace settles near 9.4 km/h.
- 3Tendon return of 65% lowers the metabolic cost per stride, protecting the endurance reserve.
- 4Metabolic heat rises faster than surface area, so cooling at 65% becomes the limiting system before muscle fatigue does.
Conceptual muscle recruitment
Illustrative only. These bars are not measured EMG and do not represent muscle force.
- Forelimbs38 / 100
- Hindlimbs58 / 100
- Axial core52 / 100