How Plausible are the "Flish" in the "The Future Is Wild"

[Lren Zvsm]

Way back in 2003, the Discovery Channel aired a speculative documentary called "The Future Is Wild." It portrayed some possible results of future biological evolution, first at 5 million years hence, then 100 million years hence, then 200 million years hence. https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=The_Future_is_Wild Overall, an outstanding set of CGI effects for its time.

No, they didn't cover every species on the planet, and they certainly didn't present their imaginary future species as inevitable evolutionary outcomes. The idea was to illustrate evolutionary principles using the simplification possible with small sets of imaginary species.

I admire this documentary as an impressive feat of scientifically informed imagination and technical excellence. But some of those imaginary species didn't seem plausible to me, and one of those was the Flish, a class of creatures evolved from boney fishes that could not only breathe air, but achieve powered flight one hundred million years from now. One of the Flish is pictured at this link: https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=The_Future_is_Wild#Part_2:_100_million_years_-_Hothouse_World

This brings us to my question, namely 'How plausible are the "Flish" from the speculative documentary "The Future Is Wild"?

I would welcome expository replies that might correct my ignorance of what 100 million years could do to a species. But if you don't have time for that, feel free to use the following rating scale.

1. Probable. Flish could not only evolve, but overrun the Earth.
2. Plausible. We could see flish evolving in the hypothetical scenario presented in the film.
3. Desperate. Well if you allow for this one alleged gray area in physics, we guess you could make flish work.
4. Impossible. We do not know what perverse impulse drove us to read Lren's ridiculous question. It should be obvious that the very idea that "flish" could evolve naturally is as ignorant as a toenail clipping! Flish couldn't evolve! They couldn't happen!

 

[DrStupid]

 

[Jarvis323]

I think they are plausible. I mean, just 540 million years ago life wasn't even close to all that it is today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion

Ocean creatures are already trying to fly. We already have flying birds and flying mamals; a lot can happen in 100 million years.




I'm more unsure about the Mega Squid and the Squibbons.

 

[member 656954]

You'd need to work through the evolutionary pressure for flish to develop beyond the niche that flying fish already occupy to decide on the likelihood of them developing, but it's plausible, at least. Almost two dozen scientific experts worked on The Future is Wild so it's not as if it was dreamed up without the input of domain expertise.