Suppose you were to perform an autopsy for a centaur. The creature has, in a sense, two torsos. Where would you expect each of its internal organs to be, or would you expect redundancy?
The bulk of the bowel would have to be in the horse portion... As for the stomach..... dunno.
A horse has a much more robust cario-pulmonary system than we do, so most of that would likely have to remain intact, as well. But I could definately see various benefits for redundancy.
From geographical requirements, the urinary and reproductive systems would necessarily have to be on the horse, too.
Most of the other organs (liver, spleen, gall, pancreas) would probably depend on the spread of the GI.
I firured heart ang lungs stay in the human torso, as a long windpipe would be a problem. The digestive and exocrine systems aren't so critical with respect to time, so I figured the bulk of it would be in the horse half.
Redundancy? I don't know of abny critter that has more than one heart. If it did have multiple hearts, I would guess that the hearts would have to be synchronized.
I would expect a bit of both, actually. There would have to be two hearts, for example, in order to be able to amply supply the brain with properly oxygenated blood. I would expect a longer esophagus leading to the multiple stomachs in the equine torso, which would lead to the rest of the digestive tract being in that area as well... including speen, liver, and other such organs. This leaves quite a lot of space in the hominid torso for modified body parts such as lungs. It wouldn't be efficient to have extra lungs back in the horsey part, so a great deal of the space left by the absence of digestive bits would have larger, or even more likely, extra lungs, and a stronger muscular system that would result in better breath control, better ability to make use of each breath, and some functions which we can't immediately forsee. I would also expect more ribs in the human part, as sort of a cage for the lung system I just described, though with the extra lungs, having one or more punctured isn't as immediately deadly as it would be to us
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I've wondered if there is any advantage to having two ways to breath: ribs and diaphragm. Clearly there must as all warm-blooded high-oxygen-using mammals have it.
The ribs are really intriguing my mind now. Since our centaur wouldn't need the horse half the breathe, the ribs on the horse half won't need joints or muscles like normal mammals.
From an evolutionary standpoint, it is important that the critters so critter die off, even if they are already superior beings. Without a new generation, evolution stops. And if the old generation doesn't move along, there won't be enough resources to share for the new generation, so either the new group doesn't get born, or will starve out the old. I shudder to think what would happen to our fair planet if humans only taxes were inevitable.
Actually, why not have an equine heart, located in the human-ish torso? And the first chamber of a four-chamber stomach system in the humanish part too? I would expect one set of organs, spread between the two halves in an arrangement that makes sense to the space allotted, and therefore is not quite the same as that in a horse nor human.
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The bulk of the bowel would have to be in the horse portion... As for the stomach..... dunno.
A horse has a much more robust cario-pulmonary system than we do, so most of that would likely have to remain intact, as well. But I could definately see various benefits for redundancy.
From geographical requirements, the urinary and reproductive systems would necessarily have to be on the horse, too.
Most of the other organs (liver, spleen, gall, pancreas) would probably depend on the spread of the GI.
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I firured heart ang lungs stay in the human torso, as a long windpipe would be a problem. The digestive and exocrine systems aren't so critical with respect to time, so I figured the bulk of it would be in the horse half.
Redundancy? I don't know of abny critter that has more than one heart. If it did have multiple hearts, I would guess that the hearts would have to be synchronized.
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A curious thought. A centaur being merely a horse with arms next to its human-esque head. It could simplify creating it in a lab a lot.
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I've wondered if there is any advantage to having two ways to breath: ribs and diaphragm. Clearly there must as all warm-blooded high-oxygen-using mammals have it.
The ribs are really intriguing my mind now. Since our centaur wouldn't need the horse half the breathe, the ribs on the horse half won't need joints or muscles like normal mammals.
From an evolutionary standpoint, it is important that the critters so critter die off, even if they are already superior beings. Without a new generation, evolution stops. And if the old generation doesn't move along, there won't be enough resources to share for the new generation, so either the new group doesn't get born, or will starve out the old. I shudder to think what would happen to our fair planet if humans only taxes were inevitable.
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literally. woah.
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I would expect one set of organs, spread between the two halves in an arrangement that makes sense to the space allotted, and therefore is not quite the same as that in a horse nor human.
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Too bad there are no six-limbed warm-blooded critters to compare this with.
Clothing a centaur sure would be different.
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