TuxLife

[Northen Wolf]

What would slimer secondus require to reach onto beach shore? I assume more water in cells, that'd prevent it from drying to dehydration?

Dang those floating plants, blocking all the sunlight.

 

[tuxedohamm]

Water retention would be a simple way to go without getting into the dirty details of how it works.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

I was planning of having a Peregrinor or Haptor wash up on the coast, but I'm not sure which path I'd like to take with that evolutionary path. Water retention is what we used in Daft's NES.

 

[filli_noctus]

Tendrilled Passenger : filli_noctus
Evolved from: Passenger
Gene added : Parasitic tendrils
Description: Where the Passenger is a relatively harmless tag-along hitching a ride on another creature, its descendant has a more sinister ability. Once attached to a host the Tendrilled Passenger begins to grow the tendrils that give it its name. These appendages work their way into the hosts body where they extract small amounts of nutrients.
The Tendrilled Passenger remains primarily a plankton feeder but its parasitic abilities give it additional nutrients not normally found in great quantities in plankton and, when the host is not a plankton feeder, can keep the Tendrilled Passenger alive when plankton is scarce.

 

[Daftpanzer]

Great update

@filli noctus I worry you are going to kill off your transportation that way!

Introvaaus: Daftpanzer
Evolved from: Tailus Smellus
Gene Added: Pressure Resistance
Gene Removed: Swimming (x1)

Description: a few Tailus Semllus evolved to withstand the great pressures of the deep ocean, for at least part of their life-cycle. Here plankton was scarce, consisting of particles raining down from the upper ocean and bacteria blown from deep sea vents, but predation and competition were fewer. Thus Introvarus tend to live alone, drifting slowly through the darkness to conserve energy, using their primitive sensing organs to search for the chemical traces that might signal greater concentrations of food, or the trail left by a possible mate.

 

[filli_noctus]

Great update

@filli noctus I worry you are going to kill off your transportation that way!

Hence small amounts and using plankton eating as the primary method of nutrition. Assuming it doesn't kill everything it attaches to next evolution it'll change from a parasite to a symbiont.

 

[erez87]

Tailus : erez87
Evolved From: Floater
Genes (3): Plankton Eating x1, Drifting x1, Swimming x1

Tailus Bentus : erez87
Evolved from: Tailus
Gene added (You may only add 1 gene + any bonus): Electric sense x1, Plant eating x1
Gene removed (optional, you may remove up to 1 gene): Plankton eating -1
Description: As the Smellus taken over more and more of the open sea most basal Tailus populations had to escape to less comfortable niches. One was the green stretches of the sea. The Tailus Bentus is a benthic species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benthos) that lives to feed on plant life that grows on the seabed, but any plant that it find will be consumed (including more deadly ones). The Tailus Bentus usually prefers to drift around the seabed from plant to plant, using its swimming very lightly to conserve energy. When its electric senses pick up a threat the Tailus Bentus quickly swims away from any possible enemy (and no swimming one seems to exist so it's pretty good). The Tailus family seems to be doing fairly well in all niches...

ooc Tailus can now die, any new evolution will be from these guys. I can't wait to feed upon myself.

 

[Northen Wolf]

Oh crap, a plant eater. Why ocean bed, eat those floating things that block Slimer Secondus light!

I'm the only one evolving a plant on seabed (other than frozen slimer from previous turn?).

Slimer Stabilius: Northen Wolf
Evolved from: Slimer Secondus
Genes (4): Eating Dead Things x1, Photosynthesis x2, Clonal colony x1
Gene added: Holdfasts x1 Basic roots, stick roots or ribosomes ? (roots that underwater plants use to to attach themselves to soil or an object) ? Help?

Description: Slimer Secondus has been largely successful - its colonial style has allowed rapid expansion of the plant, despite of still being Dependant of drifting and often dying because of poor access to sunlight. Some Slimer Secondus versions have managed to remain in one fixed position (in areas between rocks) for quite a while and have developed rudimentary roots.

These roots allow Slimer Stabilius to grow, without fear that a stronger current or sudden wave could make it drift away from its location. however, While old plant (with strong roots) would still remain attached to ground or rock (or whatever it attached itself to), a current could still pull loose smaller (or newer) pieces - which are not so well attached as host plant.

This evolution allows Slimer Stabilius to maximize growth potential in areas where sun is not blocked by vegation above seas, whilst still rapidly expanding. This also means that Slimer Stabilius does not have to worry so much about being drifted/dragged away from sun-lit areas, and even if it's pulled loose from whatever Stabilius was stuck to, Stabilius would brake apart like Slimer Secondus and its pieces could colonize a much larger area.

Attached an image to explain Slimer Stabilius life cycle.

 

[Milarqui]

Artropodia Clanessia : Milarqui
Evolved from: Artropodia Nessia
Gene added: +1 Claws
Description: Moves along on ocean bottom eating the remains of the dead. The density of plankton in the seas where the Artropodia milarca lives raised millions of years ago, so eventually one crawler mutated and was able to start feeding on it, thus increasing the quantity and quality of the food they had access to, making their survival more likelier than the old crawlers. The absorption of all sorts of plankton has slowly given them some sort of genetical immunity to poison, and at the same time they started to produce their own poison, developing on the way a spike to deliver that poison. The poison kills its prey very fast and accelerates putrefaction, so the Artropodia Nessia can soon eat dead meat, and while he waits he can eat plankton. The association with the Peregrinor allowed the Artropodia Nessia to have to worry less about its own defense and more on the attack. Two of its legs slowly changed form, becoming a pair of claws, which became useful to capture other animals and make it easier to attack them with its poisonous spike.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Well, you could possibly use holdfasts.

 

[Abaddon]

Its almost like people don't read my posts

Anyhoo.. where needs branching?

Kato Skavoun : SouthernKing
Evolved From: Miner
Genes (3): Mineral Eating x1, Digging x1, Pressure Resistance x1
Description: Able to dig downwards, this creature has evolved to better tap into the sea floor's mineral resources for energy.

Evolves into!

Tidal Skavoun : Abaddon
Evolved From: Kato Skavoun
Genes (4): Mineral Eating x1, Digging x1, Water Retention x 1, Dead Things Eating x1
Added: Water Retention x 1, Dead Things Eating x1
Subtracted: Pressure Resistance x1
Description: Ditching the depths*, the Tidal Skavoun is making the tentative steps out of the water. Able to dig downwards,it lives in burrows along the tide mark. Safe from predators, it can now consume any dead prey it comes across as well as supplement its diet by tapping into the sea floor's mineral resources for.


*and the genes for it to create a more efficient organism.

 

[Northen Wolf]

Its almost like people don't read my posts

Anyhoo.. where needs branching?

You could try to get rid of some floating plants (which take up wayyyy to much light) for me, could you not?

@Iggy, holdfast it is then

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Indagator: Lord_Iggy
Evolved from: Peregrinor
Gene added (You may only add 1 gene + any bonus): Cold Resistance
Gene removed (optional, you may remove up to 1 gene): None
Description: The Indagator's most notable difference from the closely-related Peregrinor is a high degree of responsiveness to the outside environment. When confronted with cold temperatures, the cells of the Indagator will reconfigure themselves to maintain their permeability and proper functions, allowing these floating photosynthesizers to not only survive comfortably in very cold environments, but also adapt between both warm and cold environments as they are carried about by the prevailing ocean currents. The Indagator is morphologically quite similar to the Peregrinor, the main differences being more thickly-walled floatation bubbles and the tendency for photosynthetic tissue to grow out in long protrusions to the sides, giving the Indagator a slightly more 'star-shaped' outline.

On a side note, I strongly approve of branching- I hate looking at evolutionary trees that show one species evolving into the next evolving to the next and so on with no other branching relatives. Evolution does not work like that- the goal of each evolution we make should be to create a successful species from a current species in one step, not to make a bunch of intermediate species on the way to a long-term goal.

 

[Terrance888]

Milarqui... why would it attack when it didn't have Flesh Eating? Like the Clawer, it just used it's claws for defense because it will take too long to wait for putrefication.

Not sure about how your poison will affect that balance though...

@ Iggy; yeah, I shouldn't have started the Apex Predator race... as soon as I get a good enough nich to ensure some survival, I'm free!

That's why I liked the old Plant Eaters in Daft's NES, they last. Damn, Lung Scraper lasted 2 extinction vents!

 

[Abaddon]

As long as they arn't killed off, I will continue to branch off older species.. we need herbivores/detritovores at all levels.

 

[Eltain]

Kato Toxicanum : Eltain
Evolved from: Kato Scavoun
Gene added: Toxic x1
Gene Removed: None
Description: The Kato Scavoun began absorbing merely by accident a sort of mineral which, after its basic digestive processes, became a toxicant in the Kato Toxicanum's body to any creature that were to try to eat it. This cut highly back on the predation of Kato Toxicanum, or at least killed or severely wounded anything that tried to eat it.

 

[Daftpanzer]

On a side note, I strongly approve of branching- I hate looking at evolutionary trees that show one species evolving into the next evolving to the next and so on with no other branching relatives. Evolution does not work like that- the goal of each evolution we make should be to create a successful species from a current species in one step, not to make a bunch of intermediate species on the way to a long-term goal.

You're right Iggy, and Abby. I've given up on being the progenitor of anything now. I will make it my mission to branch anything that seems to be heading for straight-line evolution

@Tuxedohamm, I completely changed my evolution above. If by any chance you already started working on it, I can put the original one back.

 

[tuxedohamm]

I've not started anything yet, but thanks for the heads up.

 

[SouthernKing]

Okay, third try. Ahem.

Blah blah blah Tree of Life blah blah.

As far as I can see, unless i failed epically the Sea Drifter is missing. Not trying to annoy you or anything, just pointing it out.

 

[North King]

Oratros: North King
Evolved from: Orophulas
Genes (4): Plant Eating x1, Plankton Eating x1, Swiming x1, Cold Resistance x1
Description: In relatively friendly cold waters, the Orophulas family found little competition of any form, and diversified. Some creatures soon began to poke at the green things that lay around (and increasingly, floated around) them, and found them quite tasty; the first cold-water plant-eating swimmers were thus born (though they did retain some vestigial organs for processing plankton, plants were their primary source of nutrition).

Spoiler this came from :

Orophulas: Daftpanzer
Evolved from: Oronger
Genes (4): Plankton Eating x2, Swiming x1, Cold Resistance x1
Description: Under stong predation pressure, some Oronger have mutated to survive cold waters. Here they can spawn in relative peace. Indeed they have returned to a more sessile state of being - when enough plankton can be found in shallow waters, even the larvae ground themselves on the seabed. Individuals will still venture into warmer waters when faced with starvation.