Remember that _any_ random mutation might happen anywhere at anytime, and maybe it won't. If it does, the mutation will only be continued if it contributes to the organism's survival in that particular environment.
So, there might be scary monsters on another planet at some time, but they won't actually be ours.
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Adam D say: If you could find a planet with a similar history of conditions to earth, then creatures with similar traits may evolve there because they face similar evolutionary pressures. The conditions for planets around TRAPPIST 1 are not anything like those around our sun.
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D g say: An example of convergent evolution is the similar nature of the flight/wings of insects, birds, pterosaurs, and bats.
All four serve the same function and are similar in structure, but each evolved independently.
that is what convergent evolution is ... it does not mean there are the same crreatures on different planets
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quantumclaustrophobe say: Well....that's not the idea of convergent evolution, but it's a possibility....
So... let's say dinosaurs arose on Earth, and similar creatures also arose on one of the Trappist planets... As we know, Earth got clobbered by an asteroid, and the resulting 'impact winter' killed off the dinosaurs, allowing the small mammals a chance to become dominant.
Meanwhile, on Trappist d, for example - the dinosaurs are roaming like always... Over time, they evolve into walking on two legs, and intelligence starts to dawn. Their heads get bigger, while their bodies get smaller. They develop language, culture, just like the dominant mammals did on Earth.
Convergent evolution is more about approaching the same solution from different directions - perhaps an intelligent creature will develop a large head, supported on an up-right body, propelled by two legs, with two arms to manipulate tools - and, whether they evolved from lower mammals, into apes, and finally Man, or whether they came from large lizards, that gained intelligence as timed moved on doesn't matter - both tracts of evolution are converging on the same solution to propagate their species...
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jehen say: Sort of. What we see in earth species are similar adaptations driven in widely divergent species. One example is that dolphins, marine mammals, have many similar properties to sharks, a fish, in their body plan, but are not at all close on the evolutionary tree of life. Or birds, insects and bats - all adapted to flight but flight developed independently. So one would expect that another planet similar to ours, supporting life with similar chemistry (e.g. DNA with occasional imperfect replication) that there would be flora and fauna that looked like some of those on earth. But they would no more be dinosaurs than bats are birds.
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Morningfox say: Yes, they *could* -- but the odds against it are astronomical. You need practically the same conditions, over very large areas, for billions of years. And even then, getting something that looks like a dinosaur is about 1 chance in a million.
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