SCP Foundation

Seems a bit flat. The humans who grow shorter, have more hair and decreased metabolism may be something that just happens for them to survive in Antarctica for example.

It just suits their evolutionary needs to survive in a barren wasteland is to store up food (slower metabolism to convert food to energy over a longer period of time) more hair (for obvious reasons) and a shorter stature for some other reason.

I don't honestly understand the reason for there to be a connection between fish suddenly growing legs with humans simply adapting to their surroundings. Sure the dreams may be of note, but I doubt that would justify a full scale investigation as to the correlation and causation between the dreams and the traits.

Overall I'm a bit confused on the actual anomaly. Is it just that mother nature decided to crank up evolution to an 11? Because if so, then the humans in Antarctica should be getting much more than just some hair and slower metabolism.

develop new traits unusual for the clade the species are in. E.G. flippers in predatory cats, extremely long legs in goldfish, etc. The traits always somehow solve an evolutionary challenge within the species

I'm not sure how any of the examples "solve an evolutionary challenge". Flippers would mess with the running mechanics of a large cat, and goldfish with long legs would probably be dragged down by the extra weight, not to mention legs would likely mess with the swim bladder balance.

Well… I wasn't intending to head into that direction with mythical creatures, but now I'm tempted. Also, the adaptations could lead to exceptionally anomalous traits that Foundation has documented evolving, like say teleportation, but take a while to become very useful. (Like the first few creatures that teleport wind up in neutral-to-bad places, next generation is better, etc) appearing fully useful all at once.