Evolution attempts
Neurotoxin(improv) 3
Primitive lungs 6
Draggers 5
Tentacle stingers(nontoxic) 2
The Arrowhook has experienced few changes over the past generation, but those changes are significant, and it has been renamed to Endonium crawler. Crawlers have 3 sets of lungs, one set in each trisymmetric region of its body. These lungs are very strong and allow the Crawlers to be out the water for any length of time, air indeterminate. However, due to their gelatinous composition, they will dry out and die if out of the water for more than three days. Their scales help them to retain water, but they will dry out eventually. To move around on land, Crawlers have developed a special set of tentacles, again, 1 set per region, that are very muscular and mobile, and are used to drag itself on land. It is, however, slow on land, hence crawlers, and make them easy targets for aboveground predators, of course, because of their toxicity and their reproduction method, they are somewhat safe. Their method of reproduction works on land, but the budlets need to be near some water when they burst out, or they will dry out within a day and a half. Alternatively, they can live off the fluids of the host, lasting for a small time longer. This gives them time to find water, but not long.
The shoals are still functional on land, but are referred to as shoals in the water, and packs on the land. Usually a group of Crawlers that develop into a pack will spend more time on land than in the water, excluding necessary visits, and Crawlers in a shoal will remain in water for most of their life, but visit the land occasionally.
Some new flora and fauna have been experienced on the land. A few plants include Exomeso, a short shrub measuring a meter in height, but its branches stretch out for over three meters, and its branches are thick, half a meter in diameter in some of the outer branches, and a meter thick closer to the trunk. The trunk itself is around one and a half meters in diameter, giving the plant's total diameter somewhere close to five meters. Their root systems are very deep, and as such they absorb massive amounts of water, and their leaves store them, an opened leaf will burst water out. Completely opposite to the Exomeso, the Ectomesa is a very tall, tree like plant, around six meters tall, and are coniferous. It's branches spread out over a small distance, only one meter, and these branches are very thin, only around ten centimeters in diameter, allowing them to be easily broken. Their needles are very effecient photosynthesizers but thin, and sharp, and their root systems are deep, but hardly as effective as the Exomeso. The Ectomesa and the Exomeso have developed a symbiotic relationship in which a situation where one of each should develop close to each other, their root systems will bond and over time they will form a special type of branch that will connect their trunks. The tall Ectomesa will provide the ground hugging Exomeso with the energy from its photosynthesis, and the Exomeso provides the Ectomesa with gathered water. The Ectomesa can and often will bond with several Exomesos, and Exomesos can bond with several Ectomesas. This results in dense forests of bonded trees and shrubs. If either tree or shrub should be severed from all its connections, it will die the vast majority of the time.
The fauna in the region range from large aerial predators to small burrowing prey. The largest predator is the Falconeye, it has very powerful vision, large size, and sharp claws and teeth. It can see up to a kilometer away laterally or two kilometer vertically with decent precision. Its wingspan is around a meter, and when resting it is about a meter tall. It has a beak, filled with razor teeth about five centimeters long each, and possesses two pairs of regular appendages, one for grasping, the other for walking. On both, it has seven digits, each with a claw around six centimeters long and capable of tearing through flesh with ease, and even tearing loose scales from a Crawler. Its skin, however is very fleshy and easily penetrated, and we can reproduce using them. They possess the capability to kill a Crawler, but usually ignore us because of our toxicity and ability to fire projectiles at them. They prefer the other, burrowing animal. In stark contrast the Moledigger is only around ten centimeters long and five wide. It lives in families numbering in the hundreds in vast underground caves that they dig. They can only dig through dirt, but they can crush stone to gravel with their powerful front paws. Strong as these paws are, they are usually useless in combat unless it gets a very convenient grip, and can very easily crush bones, or even Crawler scales. Their caves can stretch up to a kilometer underground, and they have a social structure similar to ants. There is a monarch Moledigger, soldier Molediggers, and worker Molediggers. There are more castes beyond those three, but those are the only important ones, as the others contain so few Molediggers and are never seen. Unlike the ant society, Molediggers do reproduce with a mate, the population is not controlled by the queen directly. She will however release pheromones when the population gets too high and these pheromones will reduce libido in Molediggers to virtually nothing. When the population lowers, she will stop secreting this pheromone and their libido will rise again. The Queen Moledigger is three times as large as a standard Moledigger. In very large families, there will be multiple queens, but any family numbering under five hundred will generally have only one. The queen is virtually defenseless and doesn't move much, but will command all of the Molediggers using a very basic speech communication, mostly pherimonic communication. Soldier Molediggers are the only creature of the species worth fearing, as they have not only their powerful paws, but are twice the size of a normal Moledigger and have venom coated claws on each paw, very small but capable of penetrating flesh and delivering their toxins. The toxin is hemotoxic, and is very potent. Worker Molediggers are one third the size of the queen, and are the most common, numbering at 50% of all Moledigger populations. Their paws are very large in contrast to their body and are used only for digging and crushing stone, and occasionally for hauling things around, like corpses for reproduction.
Moledigger reproduction is extremely complicated, and it is assumed their reproduction is why they have a soldier caste. When two Molediggers mate, they produce a larva, only one. The larva contains 2/3 of the genes it needs. In essence, each Moledigger has
three parents. The third parent however, does not come from the family of Molediggers. The soldiers frequently raid nearby Moledigger nests and will make off with food, supplies, and mostly bodies of Molediggers, gender indiscriminate. The larva will burrow into the corpse, go to the reproductive organ and take its final set of genes from the third Moledigger. Because of this, biodiversity among the species is very high, and they tend to mutate very frequently. Evolution is very rapid among the species. Molediggers are assumed to have a very high intelligence based on their possession of basic speech, and their ability to practically wage war against nearby nests. While they aren't sapient, it is assumed they are more intelligent than the Crawlers. Molediggers can be used for Crawler reproduction, but Molediggers store the corpses of their own family's bodies in a special underground cavern, likened to a burial ground but given their reproduction methods, it is assumed that it is not. Once a corpse bursts open with Crawler budlets, any Molediggers which find foreign creatures will release pheromones, and the soldiers will come, providing the nests with food. Even if a budlet should survive, there is no water, and they will rapidly outgrow the tiny room and die from a number of causes.
Deep inside the waters from whence we came, the population is stabilising, due to a decline in food and creatures for reproduction. No new creatures have entered our habitat.
GENERATION 12:
(Endonium) crawler
A large, clear, tentacled, finned and trilaterally symmetric scaled blob. Their skin is extremely tough and they have 4 pairs of fins. They absorb food through the skin, and is dissolved in the inner body fluids. It is around 15 centimeters in height, 20 centimeters long and 10 centimeters wide. They have a number of tentacles from 20 to thirty, and each tentacle absorbs light in photosynthesis, but are also laced with a powerful toxin which paralyzes most things that come in contact with it. Each tentacle is close to 15 centimeters long. The fins are streamlined and encounter almost 0 water resistance. It has 3 sets of lungs, and a number of special tentacles used for dragging itself around on land.
SOCIAL: Has a shoaling social structure. There are 7 adult Crawlers in a single shoal, but up to as many as 50 or so budlets in a shoal. Each shoal is very emotionally bonded and will protect each other to the death if possible, and death of an Crawler leaves the others very depressed for weeks. They will take a territory area together and live in it until they die, as the hunt together and live together. A dead Crawler will not be replaced and all shoals eventually collapse, leaving room for other shoals to rise. A shoal which spends more time on land than in the water is referred to as a pack.
SENSES: Can detect electric impulses in the water of most degrees, but faint ones are usually still missed. Their eyes can tell most shapes, but small shapes or creatures are generally ignored. Because of their trisymmetry, they can see almost everywhere except for directly behind them. Can also project electric impulses at a range of around 500 meters. Their lateral line is useless on land, but they can still see fine.
REPRODUCTION: Projectile embryotic injection. Around a hundred sex cells are delivered any time a fired tentacle pierces a target. These cells invade the tissues and deliver their DNA. After a gestation period of around a week, the embryos reach around five centimeters in all dimensions and cause the host to burst. Only 20-40 will survive to adulthood, however.
MOVEMENT: Is currently the fastest known creature in the environment. Its streamlined fins allow it to propel itself extremely quickly, estimated 25-50 km/h. On land, they are very slow, moving at around 4km/h. They are very slow compared to the other land creatures.
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 via the stomach sac then takes place.
PREDATION: The Crawlers are unpredated.
COMPETITION: They are competed by the Falconeye, but only on land. In the water, they are uncompeted.
SYMBIOSIS: They have reverse parasitised the Vincul, while not fully symbiotized, symbiosis between the species is made easier because of this.
INTELLIGENCE: Powerful intelligence. Has great problem solving skills and logic, and an excellent memory. Also possesses the ability to emit electrical signals through its lateral lines at a frequency that is only interpretable by other Crawlers (as of right now). This gives them a coordinating factor. They cannot communicate this way on land.
TOXINS: Neurotoxin(60%)- Vincul (75%) Falconeye (100%) Moledigger (100%)
CASTES: Solet caste- A stationary, photosynthetic caste which produces food for the Arrowhooks to consume.
POPULATIONS: Shallow waters- Vincul(20%), Crawler (60%), Solet (12%), Crinis (negligible, estimated .01-.4%), Quadfin (negligible/nonexistent)
Beach- Crawler (2%) Moledigger (60%) Falconeye (8%)
ENVIRONMENT: A shallow sub-tropical sea. Semi-stable reefs exist here, with a very rare frond interspersed between the reef ridges. Much of the reef is dark, overshadowed by the growing populations above. The ground is rarely found with a Vincul nest lying upon it, with their burrow nearby. The environment is at around
92% of its biomass capacity.
A sandy beach. The beach extends for kilometers before fading to the horizon. After about one hundred meters the beach gives way to a cliff, and above that very thick forests grow. Occasionally, a loud screech can be heard, or the squeal of a small creature. Small passes exist from the beach up to the cliffs. Environment is around 70% biomass capacity.
Current environment: Shallow sub-tropical sea, Beach(indirectly*).
Nearby environments: Deeper sub-tropical sea, river delta, forest
(What I mean by indirectly is that you don't really LIVE there, but you are there frequently enough to consider it a habitat. You officially have a population established there once you have some decent numbers there, or have some way of nesting there. Sorry for the wait guys, hopefully the massive post made up for it
)
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Topic: Competition II - New Life (Read 24264 times)