Submission
Name: Shallow Cruster
Plant Family: Ancestral Fern-like seedless vascular plants. (Kelp-like)
Description: The Shallow Cruster, appropriately enough, lives in the shallows where light is plentiful. During its life cycle, the cruster extracts calcium from the surrounding water and exudes it as layers of calcium carbonate (limestone, and the principal ingredient of mollusc and crustacean shells) and thin sealants of protein. This takes the appearance of a glassy, translucent cone around the base of the plant. As an added evolution, the plant stalk has a very primitive active defence - when damaged, released chemicals trigger a sudden contraction of plant tissues, resulting in the stalk shrinking temporarily back into the cone where it is anchored. This is far from perfect, as long-nosed creatures can still eat them, or heavy creatures smash the cones and devour them.
Crusters spread when they are damaged by predators or environmental stresses and pieces of them break off. The damaged fragments find purchase elsewhere, and if conditions are right grow into new crusters.
Sometimes, where predation is heavy, one can find plateaus dotted with hundreds upon hundreds of tiny, hollow cones that once contained crusters. Eventually these are broken down by tidal action or heavy creatures. Where crusters persist for a very long time, they tend to root atop older, abandoned cones, gradually raising the shallow sea bed over hundreds and thousands of years.
Size: 3 cm cone height, 5 cm cone diameter, 5 cm full plant height when extended.
Traits: Photosynthetic, protective cone, retracts when damaged. Totipotent.
Token NPC
Name: Splot
Animal Family: Hagfish (Myxini)
Description: A rather unpleasant slime-covered creature with a long, eel-like body, eyespots, a skull and a circular array of teeth. Tend to burrow into larger fish and devour them from within.
Size: 15 cm
Traits: Slimy, simple.
Author
Topic: Dawn of Evolution III (A New Dawn) (12/10) (Read 7235 times)