Non mammal mammaries

In my story, I have an upright walking reptilian species. Was wondering how plausible it is for them to have breasts. At first I thought no, that's stupid. But then I thought a second and realized that any being that has humanoid appearance with functioning arms would need pecs. If they have pecs, shouldn't far also accumulate there?

So far I haven't portrayed a female yet. My character is just an obese male who may or may not have lizard-man boobs.

So how plausible are lizard titties, female or otherwise? Nipples are right out though.

Not remotely?

In the late 90s the Ninja turtles had a live action series on Fox Kids called the Next Mutation. It introduced a new female turtle by the name of Venus De Milo. I personally didn't mind her at the time because I was 8 or 9, but apparently most fans hated the very idea of her, for many reasons. Admittedly many of them are good reasons, however regardless of any quality of the arguments against her the one reason I hear most is because she had turtle breasts in her shell and how a turtle should not have breast, as it's not a mammal. I don't know if this helps you but it's the one thing that came to mind when reading your post.

Pectoral flab seems plausible, but—presuming physiology similar to our reptiles—I don't think that actual breasts are likely just by virtue of the upright stance. If I'm not much mistaken, humans have breasts more or less because mammals generally (is it all? I forget) have teats of one sort or another; since reptiles don't have teats, the basis for breasts isn't present.

However, I'll note that it's not theoretically impossible for breasts to develop in a non-mammal; convergent evolution sometimes throws up similar designs in dissimilar species, for example, so I could see a non-mammal developing something similar to breasts, presuming that they had cause to feed their young as mammals do.

I'm not sure why you would ever need to use this trope, frankly.

edited 9th Aug '14 4:42:24 PM by nrjxll

Washington mentioned that the character in question is obese, and thus the question of whether breasts or breast-like flabs are present might be useful for descriptive purposes.

I personally don't see the problem if the character's design is humanoid enough.

I suspect that so long as it's made clear that they are not actual mammaries but fatty "lizard moobs", you could probably get away with it.

One would presume that there'd be male and female lizard-folk in the story that don't have bulging or fatty mammary-like protruberances or it's conveyed in other ways that the character's appearance is atypical for the species.

It's possible that the character gets a hard time about his lizard moobs, especially if there are humans around "Hey, that lizard's got titties!" "Nah, they're lizard moobs" "Hey Fred, that lizardman's got bigger tits than you!" "Only lizard I've seen that could use a training bra" - that sort of thing.

I don't really see the problem with it if it's done "realistically". Assuming they have a humanoid physique chest muscles make sense as much as any other muscles. I can't see any reason they couldn't have fat deposits either.

The thing to consider is that most human males don't have significant pecs from fat or muscle, unless the individual is very muscular or fat they won't really have any visual chest.

Until they get 'round my age and start seriously considering a training bra...

Saw my round gut and noticeable moobs in the mirror the other day - thought I'd become pregnant.

edited 12th Aug '14 11:00:38 PM by Wolf1066