NESLife VI

Yeah, it's possible, it's just going to be physiologically expensive, so it had better have a good payoff or it won't work.
 
Organism: Molun
Ancestor: Tonu
Selective Pressure: unreliability of currents.
Mutation:The Molun has developed a number of appendages with which to direct its movement in the Ocean. This allows it to move to optimal areas.
 
Organism: Towerspore
Ancestor: Sporer
Selective pressure: Better real estate ALA Spires
Mutation: Sporers that were able to affix themselves to Spires/Towers and grow/climb up them enjoyed uninhibited lives in the "treetops", sometimes so much so (with no real predators?) 'suffocating' the Spires or Towers, haulting their expansion but living on the dead nutrient towers until they collapsed. Think early symbiotic/parasitic Coral Reefs. Bauss.

Iggy: I actually meant film, not fin. I don't know much about deep sea life so I can't find it on THE GOOGLE, but there are deep-sea worms/fish that have body-length film like wings that act sort of like centipede legs, if you know what I meant. But I am fine with the way the Jetters turned out.
 
Oops! It seems I misread it! And I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by body-length film-like wings that act like centipede legs. :p
 
Organism: Monjoga
Ancestor: Filter
Selective Pressure: Competiton
Mutation: The Monjoga has been competing for food against rival species as long as it has existed in this current state. That enviorment has allowed for the Monjoga to be a little faster than other species, yet weaker, as it traded strength for speed over several generations.
 
Organism: Monjoga
Ancestor: Filter
Selective Pressure: Competiton
Mutation: The Monjoga has been competing for food against rival species as long as it has existed in this current state. That enviorment has allowed for the Monjoga to be a little faster than other species, yet weaker, as it traded strength for speed over several generations.

I would take iggys advice. Dont just label your selective pressure as competition, explain why it would need to evolve and what exactly is pressuring the organism.
 
Organism: Sniffer
Ancestor: Spinelo
Selective Pressure: Abundance of mobile prey.
Mutation: Evolved much more sensitive olfactory receptors attuned to detect concentrations of methane which indicate some kind of prey creature. The Sniffer, acting on instinct, focuses on methane concentrations to find its mobile prey an eat it.
 
Well, the key here is knowing the predation methods. The hunting method of a basal Feaster is to find something, and then exude a digestive enzyme onto the prey's surface. The feaster then absorbs the digested goo. Acid would allow it to break through calcified structures and denature defensive proteins, although it could be potentially quite costly to produce.

Yeah, what I was thinking. Nice to know its not completely ridiculous, even if it is impractical. I was kind of trying to go in a different direction to regular Earth evolution, not sure if acid-leaking animals ever came up in the evolutionary record.
 
Organism: Luasks
Ancestor: Floater
Selective Pressure: Lack of controlled/directed mobility.
Mutation: While the Floaters were numerous and spread widely, they lacked any real mobility when confronted with predation or lack of resources. The Luasks has sacs that were not fully formed and remain open to the sea. Specialized cells around the open sacs respond to low levels of energy by contracting rapidly, nearby sac cells respond similarly. Some of the basic chemicals in digestive fluids also generate a contraction. The Luasks came from those creatures that regularly had their open sacs oriented in a single direction, allowing for directed motion.
 
Wouldn't be too late for me to join would it?
 
Organism: Popper
Ancestor: Spires
Selective Pressure: Competition between spire colonies over space and resources
Mutation: Popper colonies took advantage of the abundant source of floaters as a way to spread their spores creating new colonies. As competition for space and resources between competing spire colonies grew it became essential to get a head start in growth of a new colony. Incredibly, similar to their spire ancestors except they have developed a new reproductive strategy, spore bubbles. These bubbles are filled with gases from wastes in the spire and coated with spores to develop new colonies. As the bubbles rise to the surface the change in pressure results in the bubbles bursting ideally sending the spores towards floater colonies. The spores will infect the floater colony using the safety of its suspension in the water column. The popper spores will infest and digest the floater colony. As they do so the dying floater colony will slowly drift to the ocean floor where a new popper colony can begin.

I will try to go with the complex life-cycle route and see how it goes.
 
Organism: Grabber

Ancestor: Jetter

Selective Pressure: Competition with Spinelos and other Jetters for food

Mutation: Grabbers widened and flattened their central body segment, in order to enclose pelagic and free-floating prey. Thus equipped, Grabbers were able to both prevent its prey from escaping and also to allow more time for its digestive enzymes to slowly attack biochemical defenses of Sunshields and consume the non-crystalline portion of Indigestibles.

Over time, Grabbers that released stronger digestive enzymes in their central body segment were able to consume a wider variety of prey, allowing it to consume to more and better prey.
 
Organism: Spinelord
Ancestor: Spinelo
Selective Pressure: The mass harvesting of easy prey of both the Spinelo and Jetter organisms has caused a shortage of this nutrient. Spinelords have adapted from Spinelo's to slowly conquer and feast off of Spire and Tower structures.
Mutation: Spinelords have adapted with two key advantages. The first entails a much stronger head, jaw, and upper spine bone structure that can withstand ramming force. The second entails medium sized fins, one on each side, of the organism. These fins are attached in the upper section of the organism along its spine. They are meant to propel the Spinelord at such a force at a weak point in a Spire/Tower organism to break/snap off large sections of the 'tree.' Spinelords then use their stronger jaws to tear at and feast on the snapped off sections.

Go Spinelo's!
By the way Herobrine, this is kind of sticking several mutations into one, and as Terrance noted, knocking over Spires isn't really an effective strategy. First, Spires are much too big for an organism the Spinelord's size to knock over, and second, since you swim you can already access every bit of them without having to knock them over and share them with your crawling, non-swimming relatives. ;)

Also, developing a whole spine and powerful jaws all at once is a bit too much- I'd recommend doing one or the other. That said, I think a reasonable mutation could be the development of a primitive spine, which would work wonders for the Spinelord's swimming ability, and seems to be the closest to the kind of organism you're proposing. Shall we go with that?
 
Organism: Broader Indigestible Sunfeeder
Ancestor: Indigestible Sunfeeder
Selective pressure: Competition over turf from those other damned Sunfeeders!
Mutation: the relative (fu CD) lack of predators and fierce competition over turf has led the Broader Indigestible Sunfeeder to develop 'leaves' which it uses to capture turf from its fellow Sunfeeders!
 
Organism: Caustic Feaster
Ancestor: Feaster
Selective pressure: Complete lack of competition over crystalin parts "Inedible" Sunfeeders as a food source.
Mutation: To counteract the Inedible feeder's defenses the caustic Feaster secretes an acid within its mouth that digests the crystalin section of the sunfeeder. Their ability to digest crystalin materials and turn them into food allows to eat away at the Spires as well.
 
Patchy said:
Selective pressure: Complete lack of competition over "Inedible" Sunfeeders as a food source.

Wrong. See: CD's post above mine.
 
Eh, he only feeds on your non crystalin parts so I can munch on the rest.
 
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