Evolution attempts: Noto chord - 3 Light spots - 5 Movement - 5 Poisonous tentacles - 4 Lateral line - 4
(dice gods decides no noto chord)
After a few generations of little change, Seafloorum thornum presents multiple new abilities. A few of the more notable are its ability to detect light and electric signals. Their senses, however aren't too sharp and can only pick up on strong signals, faint ones are usually ignored. Another important upgrade is movement. Using it's lengthy tentacles, the Thornum will move around to find better places for light, and occasionally where more prey will float by, to be snagged by its now poisonous tentacles and then consumed. Their poisonous tentacles are its most recent evolutionary change, in which a fairly strong neurotoxin is delivered to anything that should brush by the tentacles. The neurotoxin is passively delivered; it is residually left on the surface of blobs passing by, and because of the blobs thin membrane, enters almost instantly. ( It is still a mystery how neurotoxin affects nerveless beings.)
Tentaclaws had previously been dominating the reef, as they were the sole predator. While Thornum does not explicitly fight back, it can and will kill Tentaclaws should chance have it. They can also be consumed, but as stated, the Thornum species is a passive aggressive fighter.
Besides our Thornum and the Tentaclaws, a more herbivorous species is appearing, evolving from our ancestors of the cannabalistic Algae. They seemed to enjoy the plantlike foods, and begun feeding on the fronds of the reef. This species is called Quadfin, the name coming from the fact that they have four fin like structures on either side of the body, 1 by the pectoral muscles on the left and right and one on the pelvic muscles on the left and right. They possess no aggressive defenses but their membranes are too thick for the Tentaclaws to pierce or the Thornum to poison. They are non-aggressive however and will happily munch on the fronds till they die. Occasionally, they will mistake the tentacles of the Thornum for fronds and eat a tentacle, which results in death of both the Thornum and the Quadfin. Such occurances are rare, however.
The introduction of the Quadfin has further thinned the number of fronds, and few remain. However, this resulted in increased room for the blobs to grow and less competition for sunlight with the Thornum. Overall the populations of the Quadfin, Tentaclaws and Thornums are increasing.
GENERATION 4:
(Seafloorum) thornum
A clear, tentacled jelly blob. They absorb food through the skin, and is dissolved in the inner body fluids. It is around 20 centimeters in height and 5 centimeters long and wide. Each tentacle absorbs light in photosynthesis, but are also laced with a decent toxin which paralyzes anything which comes in contact with it.
SOCIAL: Completely socially awkward detached.
SENSES: Can detect electrical signals in the water, but only powerful ones. Faint ones are almost always ingnored. Light can also be detected, as well as shapes, but colors and others are not noticeable yet.
REPRODUCTION: Budding. The buds detach after reaching about 3 millimeters in dimensions and then float to a short distance away before growing into their own blob. About three buds grow at a time, and the time for each bud to grow to the point of detachment is about one day.
MOVEMENT: Can move, albeit slowly, by bring one long tentacle down from its region of light and dragging itself around with it.
EATING: It absorbs cells floating through the water. It will also prey upon the corpses of dead blobs. Its tentacles can create sugars from light with photosynthesis. The toxins which the tentacles carry can potentially kill other creatures, usually does not though, exceptions are those who are weak or young. Paralyzed but living creatures fall down to the blob's main body where endocytosis then takes place.
PREDATION: Tentaclaws can consume the Thornum and live, but it weakens them greatly, and usually the poison prevents the Tentaclaws from actually consuming the blob. A Thorna will eat anything that happens to come in contact with it, should it be still enough to be enveloped.
SYMBIOSIS: No symbiotic relationships developed.
COMPETITION: Competition is lessened since cannabalism took hold, but still is strong since there are so many blobs. Also, to collect sunlight, the blobs can sometimes be overshadowed by the fronds resting on the reef.
INTELLIGENCE: No form of intelligence. At all.
ENVIRONMENT: A shallow sub-tropical sea. Layers upon layers of seafloor blobs have built massive networks of flexible reefs, but these reefs are rapidly shrinking. The fronds living on the reefs are decreased in number and are becoming rare.. 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, but now have to compete with the blobs which consume their dead relatives. Many greens surround the area between the blobs tentacles and the fronds which rest on the reefs. Most of the green results from the blobs, not the fronds, now.
Current environment: Shallow sub-tropical sea.
Nearby environments: Beach, deeper sub-tropical sea, river delta
Author
Topic: Competition II - New Life (Read 24179 times)