NESLife V

[Lord_Iggy]

And you've just given me an evil idea for next turn.

Evolution only creates improved reproductive success, it doesn't set out to be evil.

Of course, sometimes the path to greatest reproductive success involves things humans might find distasteful or 'evil'. So as long as it's productive evil, and not lulzy evil, then I'm sure that your species will experience great success.

"Passive Nutrient Feeding": Er. You know, the way my people ate before they evolved photosynthesis.
To clarify: I was going for the "accidentally eats but doesn't get much value out of" angle; something like an organism with nothing but Acid X 1 + Swimming X 1 would do. That wasn't nearly clear enough, rereading it.

Edit: Definitely wasn't going for the carnivore angle .

Before photosynthesis, the earliest cells would have to either run very slow chemosynthetic metabolisms, or feed off of a 'primordial soup' of simple organic compounds. That niche kind of disappeared a while ago, so having no dedicated energy-gathering system is a rather significant liability.

Also, if it kills things and leaves their bodies nearby, your species runs the risk of attracting generalist scavenger/grazers towards itself. Just a fair warning, otherwise, sounds good! On the other hand, you could leave the corpses of those you kill to serve as a distraction for potential predators, or to lure superpredators which may kill creatures that would otherwise graze on you.

 

[erez87]

updated my guy

 

[Quisani]

OOC: I think I know the answer to this, but nobody gets dibs on one species, right? If I want another species to arise from a species that someone has already used that is okay?

Locofrigus: Quisani
Evolved from: Locosensus
Genes added: Cold Resistance x1, Burrowingx1
Genes removed: None
Description: As Oreallie continued to compete with Locosensus, some of Locosensi found themselves migrating away from the rocky outcroppings towards the sandier areas near the shore. This new environment allowed the Locofrigus to begin burrowing to avoid Oreallie predators. In addition, Lcocfrigus has developed a glycoprotein to resist temperature fluctuations. When sudden temperatures drops kill off other organism, Locofrigus survives to scavenge the decaying remains of those who died.

 

[Circuit]

OOC: I think I know the answer to this, but nobody gets dibs on one species, right? If I want another species to arise from a species that someone has already used that is okay?

Locofrigus: Quisani (this line in BOLD please)
Evolved from: Locosensus
Genes added: Cold Resistance x1, Burrowingx1
Genes removed: None
Description: As Oreallie continued to compete with Locosensus, some of Locosensi found themselves migrating away from the rocky outcroppings towards the sandier areas near the shore. This new environment allowed the Locofrigus to begin burrowing to avoid Oreallie predators. In addition, Lcocfrigus has developed a glycoprotein to resist temperature fluctuations. When sudden temperatures drops kill off other organism, Locofrigus survives to scavenge the decaying remains of those who died.

The answer is yes. And welcome!

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Evolution is Open Source.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Concept art to illustrate the Helicus. Imagine taking a 2D spiral body plan, pushing out the center to form a cone shape, then tightening the open end until it closes, forming a prolate spheroid. Filaments extending out from the main loop of the body mesh together like velcro, allowing the Helicus to form a basket-like structure. By manipulating these filaments, the Helicus is able to alter how porous its 'basket' is- by pushing the filaments closer together, compressing its own body and then creating an opening in the basket, it is capable of engaging in simple jet propulsion. Conversely, rapid expansion while maintaining a basket with few pores allows for the creation of a powerful vacuum, an exceedingly useful tool for hunting.



The 'head' of the Hellicus, equivalent to the outermost loop of the Spirulus or Tremulus, is located on the inside surface of the right, near to the area where the sensory filaments are rooted.

 

[Daftpanzer]

Spiculids:

 

[filli_noctus]

Edited submission.

 

[Cannae]

Is it too late for me to submit my creature?

Atjja Ngarta: Cannae
Parasitic Algaeform
Evolved from: Ngarta
Genes: Cold-Tolerance x1, Cytotoxin x1
Description: The Atjja Ngarta has adapted to the colder oceans and will migrate during the warmer months to the polar areas, to take advantage of the constant sunlight. It's also when the Ngarta will reproduce and will resort to parasitism of other plants as another means for gaining nutrients. Although the Atjja Ngarta is doomed if caught in the polar reigons during the coldest months. The Atjja Ngarta also has devloped a nasty system of defense, it will produce large amounts of cytotoxins on it's body. Anything stupid enough to try to eat a Atjja Ngarta will suffer from severe necrosis, if not death. This toxin has also given the Atjja Ngarta a distinct blue-greenish color.

Story: After several months of unending darkness, the sun finally ascended into the frigid southern ocean. Life previously had seemed to scarce if it was present at all. But now, with the sun emitting it's solar rays onto the ocean surface, life began to appear. There is one event that is especially significant during the polar summer.

If one were to look the oceans from above, there would appear to be a huge solid blue-greenish mass just moving to the polar regions. This mass had coloration that heavily contrasted with the rest of the ocean surface. So what is this mass exactly?

At much closer look, this mass wasn't one huge organism but made up of countless numbers of eel-like creatures swimming together. These creatures on average are only 4 inches long and seemed rather primitive. It's the texture that would really expose the true identity of these creatures.

These creatures aren't animals but instead they are plants called the Atjja Ngarta. They come in massive numbers to soak up all of the sunlight present during the polar summers.

 

[Daftpanzer]

application crash: just lost two hours work on the graphics :/

Its a good thing I took that screenie above. I can salvage the Helicus.

Yes, still time to post evolutions.

 

[Tambien]

Hey, what do you use for making your creatures?

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Your pic is awesome Daft, it really captures what I was aiming for! Sorry to hear about the crash- don't let it discourage you!

 

[Thlayli]

I am so happy to see the growth of my Filiophytic family. :3

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Just noticed a slight error, in that the Helicus is descended from the Spirulus, not the Tremulus.

 

[Daftpanzer]

Hey, what do you use for making your creatures?

Never been much of a photoshop fan, so I use Corel Photo-Paint these days, I find it handles lots of floating bits easier than Photoshop. The pictures are easy to do, I can just copy/click/drag the different sprites around (once I've drawn them!).

Just noticed a slight error, in that the Helicus is descended from the Spirulus, not the Tremulus.

Ahh, thanks! I totally misread. It all makes more sense now.

BTW, thermal sense underwater - won't you just accurately detect the temperature of the surrounding water? And I think our creatures aren't emitting much heat right now...

 

[Daftpanzer]

People's species descriptions are giving me a headache Probably best for us all to avoid talking about technical specific things, unless we are biologists like Iggy / Erez.

About plants:

Anyone feel free to correct me, but I don't think sea algae need roots / worry about nutrients / minerals, as they should already be swimming in the nutrients they need. I think roots evolved so that algae could get those nutrients/minerals on land. @Algeroth.

Sure, land plants then adapted to make better use of resources found on land (someone mentioned iron): does that mean all sea algae is suffering a deficiency of those things, or are they just better using what they find in the ocean instead?

Also, @peeps evolving land plants: by the standards of NESLife 3, you just need Water Retention x3 at most, then we started getting into desert-adapted plants. The main limiting factor after this turn is going to be Roots (this is where I think you need them!).

 

[erez87]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization
They do actually. And people think of adding it for them... Not necessarily a good idea

Not just iron btw. I think Nitrogen too. These are called limiting factors, everything alive has them.

But single celled algae, the largest biomass of plants in the oceans, seem to manage.

Only thing you should think of adding is the composite of plankton, especially zooplankton (which should probably be all our larvae!)



Oh, and please, I'm not a Biologist until I actually finish the first degree

 

[Lord_Iggy]

BTW, thermal sense underwater - won't you just accurately detect the temperature of the surrounding water? And I think our creatures aren't emitting much heat right now...

Yes, it allows for the formation of a general temperature gradient map. This is useful because the Helicus will be able to identify areas that are very likely to possess higher densities of certain species (following the heat means you're following the sun which entails following the photosynthesizers, and the best food will be in photosythetically rich areas), then synergistically make use of its chemosensation to smell/taste potential prey items in promising areas.

Thermal sense wouldn't be proper 'heat vision' until you made use of it in air, so for now it's no more than a highly-developed ability to detect temperature (I'm not sure if you consider weak thermosensation to be a fundamental skill of all life in this game) and engage in thermotaxis for predatory purposes.

 

[Algeroth]

About plants:

Anyone feel free to correct me, but I don't think sea algae need roots / worry about nutrients / minerals, as they should already be swimming in the nutrients they need. I think roots evolved so that algae could get those nutrients/minerals on land. @Algeroth.

Sure, land plants then adapted to make better use of resources found on land (someone mentioned iron): does that mean all sea algae is suffering a deficiency of those things, or are they just better using what they find in the ocean instead?

Sea algae is limited by many of these elements. Iron is the most notable, but I believe that zinc and magnesium are also important. Yes the evolution of roots in seaplnts is kinda redundant (and strange from the perspective of Earth evolution) but not completely pointless resources in oceans have high turnover rate and it will take them long time to reach the "soil". But land is a prize full of usable elements, ripe for first generations of plants to devour its riches.

BTW, could you give me few hours, i'll will reword my posted evolution to be more readable and give better impression what I have in mind?

 

[TerrisH]

Dang, ther is going to be very little etible plants in the colder waters. Both cold adapted ones are toxic.