Because sometimes what you need most is baby hippos, lots of baby hippos.
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Whoa.
I read this out loud to boyfriend and he just went “ohhhhhhhhh”
That’s fucking brilliant.
An infographic about realistic travel was making the rounds, but I wasn’t sure of its source nor could I find a set of citations to back up the numbers, so I did a bit a lot of research.
The Long Riders Guild Academic Foundation has a lot of information about horses, including a whole page meant for writers. You’ll find a glossary of horse-related terms, their general behavior and dietary needs, and information about different breeds.
Speed: Horses can WALK (slowest), CANTER/LOPE, TROT, and GALLOP (fastest). (Click on link for speed ranges.) Note: very athletic, specially trained horses can GALLOP at record speeds, but all horses gallop only a short distance. Unless your aim is to portray a rider running a horse to death (going more than five miles at a full gallop would do it, less for an old, ill-fed horse), then don’t write a horse maintaining a gallop for more than two to three miles at most.
Endurance: At all gaits, your fictional horse’s speed and endurance depends on weather, road conditions, weight carried or pulled, the rider’s ability, and the age/health/athleticism of the horse. Most sites I visited suggest keeping the horse at a trot (with a few walk breaks) if the aim is to cover long distances. Here are some distances covered by very well-conditioned mounts—some of these have an average of 30mph (48.3 km/h), but in difficult terrain. If your fictional mount and rider are average or worse and traveling in harsh conditions, they will not achieve these distances without risking death or injury to the horse.
Distance: Most sites give 20-30 miles (32-48 km) per day as a good average. Long Riders suggests riding five days and resting two. If your fictional horse is pushed to a whopping 100 miles (160 km) in one day, it will need rest (as in, several days’ rest) before your rider takes it out again.
Not sure where to start with your fictional mount? Try settling on a specific breed. If your setting is a real location, be careful not to choose a non-native breed unless someone would and could have transported it there from its native home. Then decide the horse’s age and training, the weight it’s carrying or pulling, and the weather and road conditions. Once you have those factors decided, you can more easily estimate the speed the horse can maintain and the distance it will cover.
the reason why snakes don’t have arms or legs is bc they lost their sonic the hedgehog gene
this sounds like an awful shitpost but its really not the sonic the hedgehog gene is an actual gene and snakes lost this gene hundreds of millions of years ago as they evolved
im serious u can google it its a real thing
I remember hearing about this in biology class and couldn’t stop laughing
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