Update 3: Specialisation
And so it came to be that the oceans were teaming with life, microscopic cells were growing and evolving and some were even becoming visible to the naked eye. However the most obvious life form currently in existence spent most of its time out of the life blood that is water.
Searchus fahrabuv was just this. Having evolved from the oddly boyant
Searchus attdusc it is now recognisable as large grapefruit sized spheres father than its smaller golfball sized predecessors. However not just its size increased, in order for the organisms to stay afloat the already complex gas exchange mechanisms into the central gas chamber were tightened and perfected, and to help this further, the ratio between the surface area and actual cell weight with the volume of gas contained within has increased. The combined effect of all this is that
Searchus fahrabuv really lives up to its name; it really does search the skies far above the harsh earth and life giving waters. In an apparent fluke in evolutionary progression the outer cells of the organism have evolved special membrane adaptations involving a unique lipid composition which better retains water within the cells, and also prevents the helium and hydrogen from escaping the central chamber.
Searchus fahrabuv exhibits a cyclical behaviour of floating through the atmosphere, slowly losing moisture, and, as they do so, some gasses leak out causing the organism to descend to sealevel. Occasionally they will blow onto dry land where they will roll along the dry ground until they either: encounter to a puddle or lake; or they roll along the hot ground and dehydrate further leaving dry husks. If they reach water in time, they re-hydrate and strengthen the gas exchange pumps once more to float back into the atmosphere, but not before absorbing the much needed minerals in the rich water, but they also quickly undergo reproduction through budding which always requires the presence of water. One of the most unique evolutions in this new species that sets it apart from the others however is its marginal resistance to ultra violet radiation from the sun. Using a bizzar pigment derived from chlorophyll the organisms is able to absorb and disperse UV light and heat as energy or even use it to manufacture more food. However chlorophyll and Violetene (@ Immaculate, feel free to make up another word for this pigment) cannot be present at the same time, thus
Searchus fahrabuv exhibits cycles where chlorophyll is dominant over Violetene and appears a vivid green, this is known as the photosynthetic phase. In comparison when violetene is dominant it appeas as a reflective bronze colour and this is known as the dormant phase where minimal food is manufactured from the harnessed UV light to sustain it. Having an existence primarily in the earths lower atmosphere
Searchus fahrabuv are constantly exposed to UV light which, in other organisms would degrade the cell membranes and cause them to burst, but more dangerously, in
S. fahrabuv the increased heat and pressure inside the organisms regardless of their cyclical dormant phases may cause the stored hydrogen to heat up and eventually explode. On hot clear days it is not uncommon to see occasional fireworks from exploding
Searchus fahrabuv
One other problem that the species is beginning to encounter is, as it ascends higher the temperature drops rapidly and occasionally when the weather changes suddenly
Searchus fahrabuv can often be snap frozen and get trapped in snow clouds to be snowed down on mountain tops.
(wow i cant believe how long that bit on
Searchus fahrabuv was... you can see how immaculate won the creativity award again cant ya
)
However, for some species the sky is as far away from them as the sun or stars. All of the rest of the new evolutions have remained completely waterbound, dependent on water for everything. One such example is the multicellular
Trodophi Siccus-Militis. Having evolved from the
Trodophi Toraduro it still slightly resembles its ancestor. However noticeable changes abound. The most obvious of these is its single large sucker powered mouth, having now completely lost the secondary or tertiary mouths it has specialised this one further by evolving simple ‘teeth’ composed of excreted silicone based minerals which form hard protrusions embedded in the reinforced cell membrane of the mouth-cells. One other apparent physical evolution is the developments of cilia on the surface of its core body. These cilia are used primarily to regulate body temperature, to trap warmer water near the body. However they also serve a secondary function in the sensing of its surroundings.
Like its predecessor,
Trodophi Siccus-Militis also has a light sensitive ‘eye spot’, a collection of tiny cells with specialised light reactive chemicals which send signals to a central gut ‘nervous system’ which functions to regulate the organisms processes ranging from recognising the direction of light, sensing prey cause by vibrations picked up on the cilia covering its core body, the synchronised beating of its three flagella, and the movement of its mouth to trap prey in the silicone teeth. Prey trapped in this manner is progressively ‘chewed’ by the movement of the teeth. Processed food then enters a simple digestive system where nutrients are absorbed and the waste is expelled back out of the mouth. The central cell is also responsible for the orchestration of the complicated clumsy form of reproduction which this organism goes through.
Due to
Trodophi Siccus-Militis’ new found basic temperature control, it has expanded its range of influence into deeper cooler waters and has begun to ‘invade’ the extremely territorial
Gelu Militis domain.
Gelu Militis’ ancestoral cell
Celluacea Militis had already begun to evolve into an aggressive photosynthetic ‘animal’, specialising in weaponry made of hardened Cellulose formed into spines which protruded from the cell membrane in order to compete with each other. However with the introduction of a new species into
Gelu Militis’ territory further evolutionary change was triggered. The already extremely aggressive organisms now became completely hostile and through selective pressures put on by the
Trodophi Siccus-Militis only those
Gelu Militis with the strongest and most Cellulose spines survived the invasion. This effectively made the ‘weapons’ more dangerous for the invaders. However, although extremely aggressive,
Gelu Militis is incredibly slow, still using only the pathetic cilia of its distant ancestor
Cellulacea Chlorophyta. because of this the
Trodophi Siccus-Militis’ is easily able to out swim its aggressors if it decides it is not worth the effort of attacking back, though the strong silicone teeth could destroy a few
Gelu Militis in one bite, it is not very effective against large hordes of the aggressive cells.
In the waters where life first began however the first evolutionary branching in animals occurred when
Trodophi Amplio, a new species derived from
Trodophi Toraduro and sister species to
Trodophi Siccus-Militis however where one developed into a more predatory and aware organism, the other evolved into a faster organism, in both movement and reproduction, and more complex.
Trodophi Amplio Has become the largest animal present in this age, being multicellular it is now easily visible to the naked eye and is approximately the size of this ‘J’ when fully grown. Such increase in multicelluarity and cell specialisation was afforded by the development of a more advanced digestive tract. Like its sister species
Trodophi Siccus-Militis,
Trodophi Amplio has lost the secondary and tertiary mouths and now has only one siphon mouth which filter feeds on
Cellulacea gelu and
Searcus lowess. The mouth leads to a short complete digestive tract with an exit, so digested waste no longer needs to be expelled from the mouth and instead is released from an anus just below the Flagella. This digestive tract is specialised in the breakdown of chlorophyll and of plant cells and so the species feeds primarily on these, however it can still sustain itself on animal cells when the need arises. The most increadible innovation in this species however is the development of primary ‘live born young’. All cells have now lost any ability to reproduce asexually, and 2 individuals must exchange sex cells via taking specially adapted flagella tips into the mouth, where sex cells fertilise eggs stored in a separate compartment to the stomach. Here the eggs grow and hatch in safety, with the live young being microscopic and numbering at a couple of hundred. Once born however the parents abandon the young to the wilds where some grow to adult hood, but most die. However of those individuals that do survive a stronger gene set is present as only the ‘fit’ genes allow an individual to survive and pass on these genes to the next generation.
There is however a parallel evolution occurring with true multicellularity. This is occurring in the amoeba branch of the tree of life, and specifically the new species
Amoeba Aggregatus Complex . This species is even more complex than its ancestor in one key form: it is not a single individual, but a group, or colony, of individuals. On their own, members of an
Amoeba Aggregatus Complex colony are very ineffective and usually die within a couple of days of separation. This is due to the unique specialisation of each individual cell within the colony. For instance one might have developed more advanced pseudopods, but it might lack any form or reproduction. Another cell might be able to reproduce profusely via budding, but it might be completely unable to sense its surroundings. Another might be able to ‘see’ light with light sensitive patches on its cell membrane known as ‘eye spots’ even though they are no-where near the complexity of a ‘true’ eye, nd they might be able to process information much more rapidly than other cells, however it may be completely immobile. One unique specialised cell is. As a whole however a colony of
Amoeba Aggregatus Complex is a formidable creature with a voracious appetite to feed every member of the colony. They are all coordinated by several ‘node’ cells, these are those cells with remarkable information processing abilities and light sensitivity and are often at the centre or top of a colony. The largest and most dominant node cell controls all the lesser node cells with chemical signals and effectively acts as a ‘brain’ for the organism. If a colony gets too big to sustain itself, or is in danger of death it breaks apart with some node cells and a few of each other kind of cell break away to create a new separate colony. Reproducing cells bud to create new individuals with the basic genes of every possible cell specialisation, and depending on the climatic conditions an irreversible trigger is set which tells the new cells to grow into a particular specialisation while switching off the un-needed genes. One oddity that has not been mentioned as of yet is the evolution of the first projectile weapon, using digestive enzymes and contractile vacuoles, these ‘killing cells’ can spit jets of digestive enzyme a few millimetres away (bear in mind the scale of these cells, a few millimetres is about the same as a human spitting a kilometre away) this digestive enzyme does not attack
Amoeba Aggregatus Complex cell membranes but if it coems in contact with any other species cell membrane it breaks it down rapidly and then the colony moves in to consume the wreckage
Cellulacea Funghoid is very similar to its ancestor C. Protoid in many ways, however an exceptional difference is that it has the ability to absorb decauing organic matter directly though its cell membrane without the need of pseudopods of a mouth. It is no wonder that such an organism would soon evolve, with the explosion of new life the sea floor was rapidly becoming crouded with dead organisms which decayed slowly without organic aid. Due to this increadibly rich, effectively endless food source, and the lack of competition with it,
Cellulacea Funghoid populations have exploded and are now the most numerous organism in existence, dispite its small size and harmless nature.
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Extinctions:
NONE
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Rewards:
The Realism award goes to: None awarded this time.
The Creativity award goes to: Immaculate for his
Searchus fahrabuv . because of the cool use of UV protection. I was not expecting this and so it is nice too see such creativity.
The Success award goes to: Arian for his
Cellulacea Funghoid due to the huge amount of dead crap that has been building up the detrivores are going nuts and populations are booming.
None of these award winners get a special prize because everyone can build 2 new species this turn (this turn only) as a happy new years/ xmas/ sorrythisupdatetooksolong present
just stating an observation
i had a heap of fun doing the pictures and now that ive figured out an easy way of doing them i hope to do so for every update to follow. the hardest part is writing it all up. thats where everyones descriptions come in handy, the more you write the easyer it is for me 
