Proboscis 6+1, Lithovore 4, Rock Burrow 2, Hard Shell 1, Treads 1-2
The blobcatcher sits upon small silica mounds in the reef, digesting the surrounding coral and filtering non-organic matter out of the water and depositing waste material directly beneath itself. It gains a small amount of sustenance as a lithovore, but primarily it consumes floating cells or current-borne swimblobs by means of an extendible proboscis with a rudimentary "jaw" that allows it to catch passing blobs and pierce their surface. The innards of the prey blobs burst over the proboscis and are absorbed via active transport through the blob's membrane.
The soft, thin membrane of the blobcatcher makes it especially vulnerable to swarmblobs, a cousin of the swimblob that drifts until it attaches to a prey organism and then excretes digestive acids to kill it. The silica mounds that surround the catcher also force it to remain immobile, and since newborn blobs only rarely 'fall' off their parent blobs and drift away in the current the reproductive process naturally gives rise to large clusters of blobs around single mounds.
GENERATION 2:
Blobcatcher
A white blob of jelly that sits upon mounds of silica, usually in reefs, and remains atop the reef by increasing the size of its cone. It preys on swimblobs and surrounding seafloor blobs using an extensible proboscis. Tends to form clusters of other blobcatchers. It's about a centimetre or so wide.
REPRODUCTION: It lets out male cells in the current, and growths grow on other blobs when they land. These growths fall off and become another blob.
MOVEMENT: Completely immobile.
EATING: It catches nearby cells or blobs drifting on the current or living within range on the coral, using its proboscis.
PREDATION: Predated by current-borne swarmblobs, predates swimblobs and local seafloor blobs.
COMPETITION: Silica mounds remove blobcatchers from seafloor blob coral competition by destroying surrounding coral and raising them above the coral bed on said mounds, but competition with offspring or siblings is fierce for space atop the mound.
ENVIRONMENT: A shallow sub-tropical sea. Layers upon layers of seafloor blobs have built massive networks of reefs. Fronds grow above the rest, filtering food from the open water. They grow from their stalks so that they don't get covered by the bottom layer. Their underground sections form a complex root system that feeds off of the corpses of blobs that were buried. Poking slightly above the reed network are spires and mounds of blobcatcher cones, upon which colonies of writhing blobcatchers sit and predate floating prey.
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Topic: Adaptation - Another Evolutionary Suggestion Game (Read 17508 times)