History YMMV / AfterManAZoologyOfTheFuture

* HilariousInHindsight: The broadbeak is a large predatory bird that evolved from starlings, much like [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Staraptor]] twenty years later.

* OlderThanTheyThink: While this book helped to impulse SpeculativeBiology as a whole, the very first work of Speculative Evolution is quite probably ''The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades'', a 1957 book written by German zoologist Gerolf Steiner dealing with the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinogradentia Rhinogradentia]]'', a fictitious order of mammals created by Steiner himself.

* FirstInstallmentWins: Out of Dixon's speculative evolution trilogy, ''After Man'' is still the most succesful and fondly remembered of the books. It's got the most emblematic creatures, served as the basis of ''Literature/TheFutureIsWild'', enjoys a particularly strong following in Japan and has overall become fairly iconic. ''Literature/TheNewDinosaursAnAlternativeEvolution'', while still succesful, didn't achieve the same degree of praise as this book, but it did get a Japanese manga. ''Literature/ManAfterMan'', on the other hand, isn't as liked for its drastic change in narrative and its [[UncannyValley exceedingly]][[NightmareFuel horrifying imagery]]. It still does have its fans, though.

* FirstInstallmentWins: Out of Dixon's speculative evolution trilogy, ''After Man'' is still the most succesful and fondly remembered of the books. It's got the most emblematic creatures, served as the basis of ''Literature/TheFutureIsWild'', enjoys a particularly strong following in Japan and has overall become fairly iconic. ''Literature/TheNewDinosaurs'', while still succesful, didn't achieve the same degree of praise as this book, but it did get a Japanese manga. ''Literature/ManAfterMan'', on the other hand, isn't as liked for its drastic change in narrative and its [[UncannyValley exceedingly]][[NightmareFuel horrifying imagery]]. It still does have its fans, though.

* FirstInstallmentWins: Out of Dixon's speculative evolution trilogy, ''After Man'' is still the most succesful and fondly remembered of the books. It's got the most emblematic creatures, served as the basis of ''Literature/TheFutureIsWild'', enjoys a particularly strong following in Japan and has overall become fairly iconic. ''Literature/The New Dinosaurs'', while still succesful, didn't achieve the same degree of praise as this book, but it did get a Japanese manga. ''Literature/Man after Man'', on the other hand, isn't as liked for its drastic change in narrative and its [[UncannyValley exceedingly]][[NightmareFuel horrifying imagery]]. It still does have its fans, though.

* FirstInstallmentWins: Out of Dixon's speculative evolution trilogy, ''After Man'' is still the most succesful and fondly remembered of the books. It's got the most emblematic creatures, served as the basis of ''Literature/TheFutureIsWild'', enjoys a particularly strong following in Japan and pretty much planted the seeds for a particular subgenre of science fiction that is still strongly liked to this day. ''The New Dinosaurs'', while still succesful, didn't achieve the same degree of praise as this book, but it did get a Japanese manga. ''Man after Man'', on the other hand, isn't as liked for its drastic change in narrative and its [[UncannyValley exceedingly]][[NightmareFuel horrifying imagery]]. It still does have its fans, though.

* NightmareFuel: The [[BatOutOfHell Night Stalker]] qualifies.

** The [[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110811173657/speculativeevolution/images/1/1b/Chiselhead.jpg Chiselhead]] anyone? Tempered by the fact that it's a fairly harmless herbivore.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Just like ''Franchise/TheFutureIsWild'', Japan loves it.

* ScienceMarchesOn: A lot of the science was already shaky in the 80s and thirty years of scientific advancement haven't done it any favors.

** [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotHeinous How about that puppet show they made in Japan?]]

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Just like TheFutureIsWild, Japan loves it.

** The [[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110811173657/speculativeevolution/images/1/1b/Chiselhead.jpg Chiselhead]] anyone?

* [[ArtisticLicenseBiology You Fail Biology Forever]]: WAAAY too many examples to count.

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: WAAAY too many examples to count.

** The [[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110811173657/speculativeevolution/images/1/1b/Chiselhead.jpg Chiselhead]] anyone?

* FanDumb: Many people keep saying that the Mud-Gulper is evolved from a hippopotamus, even though the book CLEARLY said that it's derived from a water-dwelling rodent, and evolved parallel to a hippopotamus.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: The [[AccidentalNightmareFuel Night]] [[BatOutOfHell Stalker]] is no doubt the most famous creature in the book.

* AccidentalNightmareFuel: The [[BatOutOfHell Night Stalker]] arguably qualifies.
** The [[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110811173657/speculativeevolution/images/1/1b/Chiselhead.jpg Chiselhead]] anyone?

** The [[MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily Chiselhead]] anyone?

* YourMileageMayVary: On how believable the creatures are. Sometimes verging on YouFailBiologyForever, though to be fair, less was known about evolution at the time than today.
** Looks like Dixon himself has disowned his idea that poorly olfacting and poorly hearing primates would not only be highly successful in the future (and develop claws in all cases even when there is no apparent reason, like in that social gibbon/orangutan thing), but go on to become the dominant ''predators'' of all things. In ''The Future Is Wild'' series, primates go extinct very early.
** Though a couple lineages of primates do actually have claws on the forelimbs (mostly tamarins), and baboons and chimps have been seen to kill and eat small antelope, flamingos, monkeys and even ''[[IAmAHumanitarian human]] [[EatsBabies babies]]''. So at least the idea wasn't a total bust.