2nd Turn
Events
Strength Dice: 43
Temperament Dice: 3
A major earthquake has caused a series of rocks to fall into the lake from the surrounding peaks. This has caused a portion of the lakebed to be less hospitable to you filterfeeders, as there is now less flat ground for you to thread. No significant changes.
Team Chaos
Knightwing64: Evolving parasitic lifestyle via absortion tendrils: 4
Rooting Turnip
In a twist of fate, an abnormal Buffy Pea have gave birth to an entire lineage of comparably tiny peas with a small patch of tendrils that are used to root into and feed off of other faunal organisms. It starts its life as a normal looking, very small pea, but it is instead completely still, until another pea brushes upon its still not developed tendrils. These tendrils immidiately attach themselves to the victim and grow into a shape similar to the roots of a turnip, using their superior flexibility to carve their way in.
They are pretty small, a quarter of the size of their ancestors. They have two weaknesses. First is that if there are far too many of them on a single host, the host may die of starvation, usually killing the Turnips as well. Second is that the Buffy peas and Puffs still digest from every surface of their bodies, so that if Turnips attach to them, they are swiftly digested away.
Due to their new adaptations, Turnip has lost most of its bottom feeding capabilities. Most of its surface, save for the tendrils is now non-absorbant. Along with that, it's not all that rare to see Turnips that have Turnips of their own attached to them, which may create tower-like formations.
Status: LC
Description:A very small proto-animal. It is a parasite, it attaches itself to faunal hosts and feeds off of them with a set of long tendrils that grow when attached to suitable surfaces. It's tissues have the ability to rudimentarily flex. It reproduces asexually by occasionally budding.
Habitat: The warm and pebbly mountain lake floor, attached to other peas.
Team Divergent
Mercur: A coat of tendrils that increase the surface area: 5+1=capped at 5
Furry Puff
From a series lucky mutations from the outer puff population, a new species has emerged from their ranks. It's better at locomotion, feeding and movement by its specialied sets of tendrils.
At its newly defined front, there are feeding tendrils that are dragged through the silty lakebed for feeding, in a trawling fashion. From its sides, 10 pairs of long flexible tendrils drag it along randomly. And where neither of the previous tendrils are, a short coat of hair-like tendrils cover the surface of the creature, and function as gills. Only the feeding tendrils can digest anything now, since any other surface have specialised for other purposes. And since their feeding tendrils are fully specialised for feeding, the lake floor is fully on the menu again, though smaller creatures are still consumed.
Their direct ancestors, the outer puffs are outcompeted by them, yet the cental puffs do still remain. Their only problem is that they are prime targets for Turnips parasitic habits. Most Furry Puffs support at least a dozen of them around their bodies, although their sheer size prevents this from being that big of a problem.
Status: LC
Description: A rotund proto-animal around 7-8 centimeters in diameter. It aimlessly crawls on the lake floor with 10 pairs of tentacles and digests any organic debris it can catch with its innumerable, long and silky feeding tendrils. It passively respirates through its short coat of hair-like tendrils that cover its body. It reproduces asexually by occasionally budding.
Habitat: The warm and pebbly mountain lake floor.
Team Sol
TricMagic: Larger surface area: 1+1=2
Brittle Pancake
Throught time, selection pressures have caused the violet lineage to evolve to be larger and larger, but not thicker, making them much more fragile. The reason for this runaway effect is the the reproductive strategy of the pancakes as a whole. Since the pieces torn turn into more pancakes with a bit of luck, individuals that got torn more had more chances to pass on their line. So this abnormal violet pancake lineage gradually got wider and wider, until they couldn't get any wider. Their increased spawning rate allowed them to outcompete their smaller ancestors in slow succession afterwards.
There are virtually no round pancakes anymore. All of them resemble torn pieces of violet tinted stretch film. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, even though it basically destroyed what little hydrodynamics they had in the first place. They are more numerous now.
They are at the limit of what their bodyplan (or lack of it) can reach.
Status: LC
Description: A small, violet protoplant that resembles violently torn stratch film. It is the size of a palm at most, but many are smaller. It is very efficent at what in its way of life. It reproduces asexually by shedding its outer edges, which grow independantly.
Habitat: The warm waters of the mountain lake.
Team Tetramylsis
flazeo25: A system of internal vacuoles for fluid related purposes: 4
Inflatable Daisies
Inside the crowded and dark interiror of the piles, the most durable survives until the next crumbling to see the light again. So the selective pressures have pushed the pile pancakes to be more and more durable against long periods of dark. Storing more additional food inside the cells turned into doing it just in the center to avoid a piece of the supply getting torn away. This zone then specialised into a dedicated empty storge area.
And after more refinements and countless generations, the daisies emerged. Their central vacuole stores nutrients for when the plant inevitably ends up inside a pile, and is where the waste also goes. A set of smaller vacuoles of variable amounts encircle the main one and are the new means of mucus production. The mucus is then smear onto the tendrils.
Their name comes from the fact that since these vacuoles are completely internal, the gaseous waste stored inside the central one causes it to slowly inflate. The belly that formes resembles the center of a flower, and when looked at with the vacuoles that encircle it, it is in the shape of a flower.
By the way, the gasses that accumulate inside it inevitably explode outwards after a while, giving out a vile odor. Fortunately, nothing around can really smell it. The pieces flung regrow into more daisies with some luck. This incidental method of reproduction have even become more common than just shedding outer edges, since living as piles dont really allow that.
Status: LC
Description: A purple protoplant vaguely shaped like a frilly flower. It's the size of a nickel. It is flat for the most part, except for the storage vacuole on its center, which is usually filled with nutrient rich water and waste gasses. It is capable of secreting a sticky substance from a ring of vacuoles that, when smeared over the their tendrils, allows it to form mats on the water surface by sticking to eachother. It reproduces asexually by exploding and spraying body parts all around in a show of floral gore, which then the parts formed grow into full daisies independantly.
Habitat: The warm waters of the mountain lake. Particularly at the surface in the form of piles.
Team Pizza
Leonardo8: Becoming tubular: 5
Dirt Roll
One sniffly pea ages past was formed with an apparent defect stemming from an error in its genetic code; a small depression on its body. It carried this to its own offspring as a neutral mutation at first, but then evolution started to work its wonders on this teeny tiny hole. It was more efficent at filtering food from silt due to its enclosed space having more surface area, and generation after generation this hole grew. To accomodate, the chemical sensors and cell absorbance began to shift towards this hole, accumilating around and inside the cavity, respectively.
The end mark of this line of emergence was the cavity emerging from the other side of the body, turning the creature into a flesh tube. Along with the shifting of the digestive and sensory functions to be fitting with this development, this animal now has a defined front, with a mouth that is encircled with a yellow ring of chemoreceptive cells that allow it to smell and taste for specific food-related chemicals. Even though the tube is limp, it is far more effective than just shifting through the dirt.
It's name comes from theie tubular shape combined with them usually having dirt inside.Just like a sausage roll, they are literal dirt rolls.
Only problem is that it is incapable of using its outer surface for digestion anymore, so its only means of defense is gone. Which means a bit more than a minor inconvenience for the rolls. as there is something that hurts them more then sometimes.
Status: NT
Description: A tubular proto-animal 2 centimeters in lenght. It slides along the lake floor, digests any organic debris it can detect with its ability to detect specific chemicals in the water using its yellow lips, with digestion done in the two-ended tube shaped cavity that is lined with absorbant tissue. It reproduces asexually by occasionally budding.
Habitat: The warm and pebbly mountain lake floor.
Environmental And Ecological Report
A small part of the lake is now dotted with large boulders, specifically the shores to the north. This has no outward effect on the lake as a whole, but you may find some opportunities there if you are creative enough.
But that is not all. You see, evolution goes on. In this case, not only for you, but for your past forms as well.
The Central Puffs have evolved ways to not digest eachother by giving up on the whole filtering dirt thing. They have instead turned completely immobile. Their main bodies solidify wiith the plenty of minerals they absorb a little after their budding. The juveniles travel a bit until they find a random spot, sit and solidify. Their tendrils do not solidify and now only digest the debris in the water collumn. This less active lifestyle have allowed them grow in a wider circle around the center of the lake. Their new solid parts are covered in a thin layer of alive tissue that continues to grow outwards in layers. The older layers solidify when buried under newer layers.
The Buffy Pea is now more like a buffy vermiform now. They haven't changed alot, except for further refinements on flexing and a distinction on where is their up and down, and right and left. The move like a worm, and eat with their absorbant bellies. They are the ones that harm the Dirt rolls more than occasionally; they sliter over them and digest the soft tender fleshy of the roll as the go, usually causing death.
The things are still Ediacaran. None of you have much to show off and things are at a balanced state.
God this took longer than it should. More players are always welcome.
Author
Topic: Competive Evolution: Season 2, Turn 8 (7/20) (Looking for players) (Read 8917 times)