The darkness of your formulative waters fades into the deep ancestral collective consciousness of your species. The goopy green waters of your new home are vivid and wild. Their brackish depths are surprisingly comfortable to your species, though as time goes on the large lagoon begins to change. Some populations explode, and you begin to wonder how this may effect the bottom levels of the food web.
Walking PolypPopulation: 102 (66+76-40)
Size: 2×2
Herbivore: 4
Diet: Plankton (50%), Bog Kelp (20%), Algae (30%)
Food Income: 660/660
Lost Individuals: 40
Predators: Trilobites, Lizards
Offspring Cost: 4
Individuals Lost: None
Traits: Coral Secretions[1], Stinging Cells [-], Serrated Tentacles Tunnel Dweller
Behaviors: Food Rot* *(Potential to be lost)
As time goes on, your species begins evolving and adapting to its new environment. The soupy sandy bottom of the bog makes it more difficult to build hard tunnels. They tended sink deeper and deeper into the gunk. As a result, complex tunnel systems are being constantly constructed and built on top of as they sink down further down away from the surface and fall into disrepair. Strange five legged creatures have taken up residence here and continue to devour your stored food. Your tunnels have spread across to areas dense in bog kelp and your species has begun using its new serrated tentacles to cut sea weed into smaller bits. This has brought them into conflict with other creatures which depend on the kelp for food. This increases predation of your species. Something large is also burrowing into your tunnels and devouring your species, but lacking advanced sensory organs, this is hard to avoid.
Snapping TrilobitePopulation: 7 (3+4)
Size: 11x6
Omnivore: 0
Diet: Kelp (50%), Blue Slugs (20%), Polyps (20%), Shrimp (10%)
Food Income: 300/300
Offspring Cost: 66
Predators: None
Individuals Lost: None
Traits: Tentacle Arms [1], Armor [-], Mandibles [-], Heat vision [1]Bottom Dweller, Imposing Stripe
Behaviors: None
Your species quickly comes to maximize on the new light all around them. The strange new world was full of light and heat and all manner of different things, and for the first time the trilobites were no longer stumbling around in the dark. As a result, they began to flourish. Food was easy to come by. Most of the environment was blurry gradients of heat, quite difficult to interpret really. However, prey did tend to be slightly warmer than objects. Plants only mildly so. Your species begins eating kelp that has more heat on it, which tends to have more meaty prey like slugs and polyps. Large heat signatures are observed in the ground, but are too large to reasonably fit in your mouth.
Nightmare ShrimpPopulation: 250 (48+240-38)
Size: 4x.5
Herbivore: 5
Diet: Kelp (40%), Plankton (30%), Blue Slugs (15%), Algae (15%)
Food Income: 480/480
Offspring Cost: 2
Predators: Lizards
Individuals Lost: 38
Traits: Poisonous [1], exoskeleton [-], Mandibles [-], Sound [1]Swimmer (slow), Bottom Dweller
Behaviors: None
The nightmare shrimp explode in population. Their skinny size seems to make them particularly quick to reproduce. The world for them suddenly comes to life in a symphony of sound. The chewing of slugs, the slow moving of kelp in the current, the scuttling of fellow shrimp, everything made sound. And while it was not at all a precise sense, it certainly made life more understandable to the shrimp. Food may be here, other shrimp are there, predators are here, so on and so fourth. Avoiding the large trilobites was certainly easy now, they make incredible amounts of noise, yet a large predator which remains quite quiet is devouring your species in droves. However, your species incredibly outstrips the speed of consumption by quick reproduction.
Scavenger HexopodPopulation: 1617 (217+1400)
Size: 2x.5
Herbivore: -1
Diet: Scavenging (40%), Algae (60%)
Food Income: 1400/2170
Offspring Cost: 1
Predators: None
Individuals Lost: 0
Traits: Disease [1], Tentacle Arms [-], Sight (BW) [1], Swimmer (slow), Bottom Dweller
Behaviors: None
Your species had a small photosensitive patches in the central head of your five limbed creatures. In this world swathed in light, those with better vision survived. With a strong dichotomy between light and dark, the hexopods have the second best vision of all creatures. Which is highly unusual, as more and more of them begin living in tunnels beneath the surface where light is almost non-existent. Here in the dark your population explodes, despite not being able to find sufficient food for all members to reproduce, your population still multiples in size! Food is getting harder to find, and while your sickly disease ridden bodies protect you for now, you feel as if hungry eyes turn towards your hordes.
Lesser SardinePopulation: 468 (88+440-60)
Size: 3x1
Herbivore: -1
Diet: Plankton (50%) Algae (50%)
Food Income: 880/880
Offspring Cost: 2 (3x.666)
Predators: None
Individuals Lost: 60
Traits: Sight [1], Increased Reproduction, Swimmer
Behaviors: Schooling
Like many species, your population increases by an incredible amount. A good deal of this is due to the unique evolution to have small weaker fry and shorter term eggs. By having more and more children your species grows at a much faster rate, and for now, finding food is not too difficult. Avoiding predators is a major hurdle. Your food is free swimming, or on the exposed surface of the substrate, this puts you at incredible risk of being consumed. One ambush predator is particularly dangerous and devours large schools of feeding shrimp.
Scavenger ScarabPopulation: 27 (18+9-0)
Size: 4x5
Omnivore: 0
Diet: Kelp (60%), Blue slugs (20%), Walking polyps (20%),
Food Income: 180/180
Offspring Cost: 20
Predators: None
Individuals Lost: 0
Traits: Exoskeleton [-], Sight [-], Mandibles [1], Bottom Dweller
Behaviors: Swarming
The scarabs change rather dramatically during this era. While many other creatures had huge population explosions, the scarabs grew at a steady rate. This was largely thanks to their sharp mandibles which allowed them to cut up food into smaller pieces for consumption. However, it was quickly discovered that this simply made the devouring of kelp all the easier, and a greater amount of the scarab's diet became kelp. Of course there were slugs which lived on and devoured the kelp as well, and they made a tasty snack. Similarly the walking polyps which now lived in this area also we're edible despite being unpleasant to consume. The large scarabs move entirely away from scavenging, and begin eating food just whole sale because they simply were big enough to do so. This caused areas of kelp to be swarmed by large groups of scarabs, which quickly ravaged their small territory and moved to another.
Smiling LizardPopulation: 104 (39+65-0)
Size: 6x1
Omnivore: 0
Diet: Shrimp (40%), Sardines (30%), Kelp crab (10%)
Food Income: 390/390
Offspring Cost: 6
Predators: None
Individuals Lost: 0
Traits: 360 Sight[1], Scales [-], Teeth [-], Swimmer (slow), Bottom Dweller[/color]
Behaviors: Burying Abush
The smiling lizards, which had such a rocky start, made a distinct comeback during this era. Their ambush behavior allowed them to easily prey on the nightmare shrimp and sardines. The smiling lizards would lay quietly in wait, then dart forward and snap its mouth closed around the target. It was quite effective, especially in areas where there was high concentration of shrimp. Having the best eyes and a 360 view of the world was a great advantage for this predator. Yet most of everything it saw was still blurry and murky in the gloom of the underwater murk. But a steady supply of bottom feeding prey and fish which just swim too close, the smiling lizard becomes an apex predator in this area.
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Topic: Evolution (Read 4265 times)