Zombolution

After fifty years of apocalypse, there were no more people to eat. Whats a zombie to do; starve to death? Surprisingly, this isn't the case. Every population of zombies on all seven continents adapted to fill new niches.

Closer to the poles we find that in the absence of humanity's industry, climate change has ground to a halt. Thus the zombies in the formerly isolated, sub zero research posts were the first to adapt out of necessity.

There they must endure brutal temperatures that rarely rise above water's freezing point. By switching over to a mainly pescatarian diet, they absorb the fish's unique ability to produce natural antifreeze.

Both competition with the former apex predators such as polar bears and cold have driven arctic and sub-arctic to be thirty percent more bulky than their southerly counterparts.

Indeed as with other creatures, zombies have demonstrated the same temperature dependent size variations. Towards the latitudes where tropics and desert environments typically form, zombies of a thinner, shorter variety are typical.

In addition, zombies in arid climates have adapted to deal with the stresses of their lives. Desert dwelling zombies are exclusively nocturnal and can go for weeks without gaining hydration from prey. They burrow down below the dunes in the daytime to avoid overheating and desiccation. In the absence of humans these mid latitude zombies prey base has shifted to include lizards, amphibians as well as other members of the tetrapod lineage.

There are consequences to this shift. As more animals become zombies themselves, we are seeing more non human zombies emerge.

Indeed it is predicted that as more of the planet's biomass is converted to undead entities, the supply of prey will run out. Then causing the original zombie population to need to diversify or cease functioning. Two possible ways to avoid this is becoming omnivorous and eventually herbivorous. Or Alternatively, given enough time, we may see zombie populations become chemotropic, radio-trophic or photosynthetic through symbiosis. By this point they will not be the zombies as they existed fifty years ago.

It is up to the machines and space farers how the situation and classifications of these zombie species will be dealt with.

This has been an update provided by Vortana, Terran Enterprises' AI analyst.