Megahecaspid aster. A colony of shell-forming, algae-like organisms analogous to Earth’s haptophytes or coralline algae.
Megahecaspid A colony of hecaspids — organisms with fatty or starchy interiors surrounded by many shields of calcium carbonate.
Bacterial symbiote These hecaspids use internal bacterial reservoirs to feed on sunlight, chemical, or even radiation. (Electrical feeding is theoretically possible but not yet observed.)
Nutrient trove The interior of the colony is a reservoir of high-density food storage. An appropriate nickname might be ‘sea tuber’ (not to be confused with the nickname for deep-sea metallic nodules).
Assessment: positive sign for biodiversity. Await further updates.
Databank generation alert: known scientific theory inadequate to explain specimen.
This coral dome (Coral geodesica) contains a mass of chimeric tissue: part coral, part crab limb (tentative clade name: Ostrakonselos). The mass feeds like a coral, but cannot produce enough energy to move its limbs.
Spectrogenetic analysis indicates the entire mass grew from a single cell line containing the genetic information of both a coral polyp and a large crab.
Animals of different species cannot reproduce. It is impossible for a coral polyp and a crab to combine their genetic information to produce this cell line. When genes do transfer between different species, it is often the result of retroviral infection. (The mammalian placenta relies on a genes inserted by a retrovirus hundreds of millions of years ago.)
Assessment: either the result of artificial intervention, or a striking example of viral activity transporting genes between infected species.
Recommendation: consult with your Noetic Advisor’s research function.
User-facing error: The scanned entity (“pent”) is not alive. It contains no cells, no genetic material, and no water chemistry.
Resuming generation.
Gross traits The pent is a soft, waxy body that contains a bath of sulfuric acid. Heat is provided by a lining of radioactive elements. Internal chemistry shows no sign of protein sequences, though there are complex fatty acids partitioned into compartments by fat bubbles. Internal chemical reactions are sluggish. If it were alive, it would be dying.
Geological formation? Some geological formations, such as rock varnish, may be mistaken for life. The pent could be a similar phenomenon—a self-organizing but non-living structure.
Shadow biosphere? Alternately, though more remotely, the pent may be the product of a shadow biosphere — a parallel form of life on this world which operates on a distinct chemical basis. The pent more closely resembles life forms discovered in the atmosphere of Venus than any terrestrial organism.
Titanotagmatapterya amalthea, the titanic wing-segmented cup of plenty. An enormous arthropod leviathan with a huge tearing beak and a payload of fatty deposits, which it uses to both feed and protect its eggs.
Ancient origins The brooder’s ancestors, the tagmatapterya (wing-segmented ones), evolved very early in the development of Protean arthropods. Their limbs evolved into paddles, the thorax developed a deep keel, and maxillipeds beneath the mouth transformed into eyes by homeosis. Competition from fish selected for enormous size and thick armor. It is unknown if all the tagmatapterya achieved the deepwing brooder’s enormous size, or even surpassed it.
Mysterious diet The deepwing brooder’s throat is lined with traps for plankton. Filtered water through gill openings at the rear of its thoracic keel. Yet its enormous beak is suited to cracking and tearing. It is possible that the brooder opportunistically feeds on hard prey, including the fluids of titan rockbores, the shells of giant jaws, and fatbergs drifting through the lipid-rich Protean sea.
Fertile brooding Deepwing brooders gather layers of oil beneath their outer shell. This oil is released in droplets alongside eggs, acting as a decoy for predators.The decoy eggs do provide the ocean with a tremendous bounty of concentrated nutrients.
Deepfall As a strandulate, the deepwing brooder must molt. Molted exoskeletons drop to the sea floor with a lining of lipid-rich grease, providing a feast for dwellers in the hungry abyss.
Assessment: egg broods provide a valuable food supply, if you can locate the true eggs — and survive the competition.
Enormous cephalopod predator (tentatively Tyrannoteuthis phobocoeus, tyrant squid of fearful curiosity). Feeds on hard-shelled, heavily defended prey. Solitary but highly intelligent. Likely a deep-sea creature.
Squidlike body plan The collector’s body converges with Earth squid — a long mantle and several limbs attached directly to the head. The mantle is covered in plastic armor. Unlike Earth squid, the collector has four long hunting tentacles with dextrous claws. Its eight arms are small and grouped around the beak.
Powerful thruster Two large spiracles feed a rear-facing thruster. These spiracles are separate from the four gills openings on the head, allowing the collector to separate its breath rate from its thrust speed. Two secondary hearts pump blood from the gills to the main heart.
Hard prey An enormous beak (capable of tearing through plate titanium) and four dextrous tentacles tipped with sharp bioglass claws imply that the collector specializes in prying or tearing open heavily armored prey. Possible prey fauna include the coral crab and great jaw. The need to defeat armored, active prey may have evolved a curious and aggressive psychology.
Broadcast organ This huge, many-chambered organ is a biological phased-array sonar. Multiple ‘speakers’ and ‘ears’ allow the collector to broadcast complex multi-part pulses. Dense innervation connects this organ to the toroidal brain; patterns of bioluminescence may be direct reflections of the collector’s brain activity.
W-shaped pupil In bright light the pupil creases into a W. This trait was present in Earth cephalopods, but its function was not determined before the Holocene collapse.
Abyssal gigantism Organisms from the deep sea are often very large, a phenomenon known as ‘abyssal gigantism’.
Assessment: hunters with varied and difficult diets are likely to be intelligent and inquisitive, and a predator’s curiosity may appear to prey as arbitrary torture. Any small submersible or habitat is likely to draw the collector’s interest.
A predatory soft coral that lures prey by mimicking the sun in the dark.
The brightest noon gorgon in a cave will attract the majority of the prey, creating an arms race to be as bright as possible. Noon gorgons feed much of their energy to their symbiotic light-producing lucifer rotsac.
The ancestral noon gorgon may have evolved to grow towards or around lucifer rotsacs, using them as bait. Eventually, a symbiotic partnership developed.
Expect noon gorgons to modify their spectrum in different depths and biomes.
Gorgon thalamiskos. A predatory soft coral named for its resemblance to Earth’s gorgonians.
Sponge-coral moiety Like hard corals on this world, gorgons are sponges inhabited by cnidarian polyps — tiny jellyfish like organisms which live within the sponge and direct its growth. Unlike hard corals, they do not produce a limestone structure or host photosynthetic microbes. They are pure predators.
Caged friend The cage gorgon specializes in capturing and protecting a symbiotic partner, which attracts prey for the gorgon to sting and eat. The cage gorgon larva probably adheres to a partner (such as a cherimoya rotsac) and then grows around it, eventually fastening the partner to the seafloor.
Duplex larva The free-swimming reproductive stage of the cage gorgon carries cells of a host sponge, like seeds. These seeds are genetically distinct from other sponges in the ecosystem, suggesting the cage gorgon is monogamous with only a single host sponge.
Assessment: cutting open the cage gorgon allows access to the symbiotic partner and carries no risk of inflicting pain or suffering. The cage may attract a new partner before healing, or survive while empty.
Databank autogeneration interrupted. Script hook found in allocated memory. Executing.
Unpacking archived data…
“Nahema, voice log, go. If you’re listening to this and you don’t have lead poisoning, I am very jealous. If you’re listening to this and you do have lead poisoning, I’m sorry I couldn’t figure it out in time. Mea culpa.
“This is a typical Protean coral. It works differently than Earth coral. The gross morphology is a branching tree, like some species of Earth’s extinct Acropora. We all call it coral because we know the word. But the difference matters.
“On Earth coral are basically tiny jellyfish living in stone houses. The jellyfish sting prey. They also let zooxanthellae live with them, houseguests who make food from the sun.
“On Proteus…I think what we’re seeing here is actually a sponge acting as a landlord. The sponge makes a house. It rents space to these tiny coral polyps, which sting prey and capture sunlight as energy for the sponge.
“I think the sponge used to be in charge. But eventually the coral polyps got so good at their job that the sponge stopped pumping water and just lived off rent from the coral polyps. And to keep its tenants alive, it evolved a rocky shell — like Earth’s sclerosponges.
“If I’m right, we should see other coral-sponge pairs that have worked out different deals. Each deal suited to a particular ecological niche.”
Coral geodesica. The defining feature of its shallow biome.
Coral analog Like Earthly coral, the dome is a colony of polyps, small jellyfish-like animals that secrete a limestone skeleton. This process uses dissolved carbon dioxide from the seawater: corals are therefore an important method of climate regulation, since they transform atmospheric carbon into hard limestone.
Dual feeding strategy The dome’s outer surface feeds on sunlight, using photosynthetic symbiotes known as zooxanthellae. As the dome grows, the colony clears its interior, recycling the limestone for reuse. Polyps on the inside of the dome hunt with stinging tentacles.
Mineral expulsion As the dome grows, it collects and expels mineral waste, creating nodes of quartz.
Critical ecosystem element The dome corals help regulate global climate and provide a breakwater, reducing erosion in their shallow surroundings. The domes capture nutritious sediments from sea currents. Pioneers should prioritize a survey of coral health.
Assessment: critical source of quartz. Vital to the local ecosystem.
Coral dragonscale. A hard coral that grows on hydrothermal vents, using the temperature gradient between its hot base and its cold-water lip to drive metabolic reactions.
Hard coral Dragon’s scale polyps must grow their hard coral shells in water rich with dissolved minerals—a good resource, if it doesn’t dissolve you too. Limestone cannot survive in this ventwater. Instead, the dragon’s scale polyps extend long fibers which collect metal ions. These metal whiskers are both an anchor for further mineral growth and the key to the coral’s metabolism.
Whisker-based metabolism The difference in temperature between the cold and hot end of the dragon scale induces electrical current along its whiskers, which the dragon scale polyps use to drive its metabolism.
Troilite superconductor Deposits of troilite (an iron sulfide mineral) within the dragon scale enter an unusual quantum spin state when heated above 150C.
Assessment: possible applications to research and computation.
A hard coral that frequently grows on hydrothermal vents. It uses the temperature gradient between its anchored base and its cold-water lip to drive metabolic reactions.
Gorgon aulaia. A soft, predatory coral akin to Earth’s gorgonians, especially the Venus fan.
Sponge-coral moiety Like Earth’s brown tube sponges (Agelas schmidti), soft corals on this world are a colony of coral polyps growing within a matrix of sponge tissue. In this specimen it is very difficult to distinguish the sponge’s jellylike inner tissue (or mesohyl) from the soft coenenchyme which connects the coral polyps.
Ribbons of tissue The curtain gorgon forms a long, low-lying fan of tissue which catches prey. The curtain gorgon is an obligate predator and cannot survive on sunlight, but some specimens are colonized by chemotrophic bacteria which may provide the gorgon with extra energy.
Plasticized skeleton The gorgon’s skeleton is chemically similar to PVC (polyvinyl chloride, an obsolete industrial plastic).
Assessment: indicates the presence of plankton and other small sea life.
Hyphen tallshroom. A mysterious, chitinous life form with no clear terrestrial analog.
Hyphen Hyphens are colonies of hard-shelled hecaspids: shell-making algae. (Algae on this world descended from a star-like ‘solarian’ cell, while all animal life descended from an elongated ‘polarian’ cell.) Hecaspids in the colony align their shells into a column, forming tough armored threads, or hyphae. On Earth hyphae are characteristic of fungi, but it is not clear if an analogous group exists on this world.
Tallshroom The tallshroom is a complex organism with differentiated organs, but all its structures are fundamentally threadlike — hyphenated — and constructed of tough biopolymer akin to chitin. Gill-like structures along the flanks collect oxygen and chemistry from the water, fruiting bodies disperse reproductive cells, and the central body forms a sealed ‘wellhead’.
Armored driller Tallshrooms drill their hyphae into the rock below, cracking open their own hydrothermal vents. The body captures the outflow of this vent, where bacteria convert minerals into energy. If the outflow becomes too hot or rapid, the tallshroom’s drumlike top blows open, releasing the catastrophic overflow.
Viral history Like the mammalian placenta, the tallshroom’s hyphae evolved in an explosion of retroviral inserts. These viral proteins are expressed in the tips of the drill fibers. Hyphae may have originally evolved as viral predators—inserting a symbiotic virus into armored life forms by growing on and cracking through their bodies.
Cousins Despite millions of years of evolutionary separation, the tallshroom shares elements of its body plan with the false fission drum Polymephycite tympanum, a fellow member of clade Scyllidae. It is unknown whether this represents convergent evolution, mimicry, or a viral gene transfer.
Assessment: indicator of new evolutionary pathways unique to this world.
Gorgon Kryphakous or Listening Gorgon. A soft coral with dull olive filaments. A predatory filter feeder that sways with the current like kelp. Not known to be hostile or harmful to humans, but remains under observation (see notes below).
Sound sensitive Dissecting the Listening Gorgon’s basal filaments reveals a web of vibration-sensitive cilia hidden in its soft, gelatinous core. These can detect movement through water at resolutions not seen except in the airflow sensors of clip-winged gnats on Kepler-22b - enough to pick up the swish of a tail through miles of water.
Reactive orientation At first the listening gorgon appeared inert, but its movement is simply too slow to be perceived. It has been observed to orient itself over time to specific low-frequency vibrations. It will do this even if food is less abundant in that direction.
Silent. The Gorgon kryphakous has no vibration-producing organs. It emits no detectable signals - no chemical plumes nor bioluminescence. It is essentially silent across all known communication spectra.
ASSESSMENT: Requires further analysis. One leading hypothesis suggests that the Listening Gorgon once tracked the low-frequency vibrations of a massive, slow-moving marine species - now possibly extinct, or still undetected in the deeper zones of Proteus’s oceans. If so, the open question is whether this trait evolved in response to an ecological partner… or a threat
Caught script hook in allocated memory for command >> generate-databank “Cerathecan” >> echo \memory-carve -signature=0xSEABEEF5 >> restore-databank
“Our PDAs point to organisms like the cerathecan and exclaim ‘behold: the road not taken’. On Earth, seed shrimp are tiny slime-dwellers; on Proteus they grow huge. But just as easy life in our decontaminated bases deafens us to the call of Proteus, easy analogies blind us to the truth. The map from Earth is not only wrong, so is its basic dogma. Evolution does not follow roads here.” —Anita Gottschall, The Way Away Home
Exile cerathecan, the horn-cupped exile. A mysterious carnivore and deposit feeder with no clear Earth analog except the tiny ostracod (seed shrimp).
Exile A crustacean hidden in an upright, double-valved shell, similar to an oyster or clam. The crustacean pilots the shell through a central eye and periscopic ears, and feeds with a cluster of basal tentacles. A thruster in the shell’s hinge (a region called the umbo) propels it forward.
Behavior and diet The cerathecan grazes on the seafloor, plucking detritus and prey from hiding places. To protect the cerathecan’s body from struggling prey, the interior of the shell is lined with a paralytic neurotoxin. The cerathecan’s shell muscles are themselves paralyzed by this toxin — it cannot open without secreting an antidote.
Perplexing genetics There are no genes in the cerathecan’s genome to produce a shell. Genetically, the cerathecan is simply a large shrimp. The shell tissues contain a partial genome, without organs to sustain an independent life. Further investigation required.
Assessment: cryptic origins. The inner shell can be sampled for chemistry when it opens to feed.
An enormous crab (tentatively Ostrakonskelos anaktoraphore, hard-legged palace-bearer) that hides among coral domes.
Crablike body plan Forelimbs rake and dig for food which is collected by long soft maxillipeds (food handling limbs) around the mouth. The crab must molt to grow.
Coral dome A living coral dome, cut from its holdfast and worn. It provides camouflage, protection, and perhaps a nursery for the crab’s young. Are they married to a single dome, or are domes traded as they grow?
Implicit predator Defenses and behavior imply the existence of a predator powerful and dextrous enough to shuck the crab from its dome and crack its heavy armor.
Viral activity Genome contains large repeated retroviral inserts, including nerve growth factors and shell pigments. Molecular clock suggests they were recent introductions. Cells on the crab’s back contain large segments of the coral dome polyp’s genome.
Large brains The coral crab has no spinal nerve braid. A large brain above the eyes manages senses and behavior planning, while a secondary nerve cluster controls the legs and digestive system.
Seafloor communication Coral crabs drum on the seafloor to signal to each other. Claw-clacking is likely a sign of intense excitement or agitation. Some Earth crabs seek desirable partners to pair with prior to molting, a behavior known as ‘handholding’. Finding a similar behavior on this world may be emotionally rewarding.
Signs of ecological stress Mineral deficiencies and fungal infections imply environmental stressors.
Assessment: likely fears you more than you fear it. Be cautious and respectful. At least as intelligent as a gorilla. Possibly a useful source of seabed resources.
Research proposal: determine whether the crab carries its dome to sunny or nutrient-rich areas for feeding.
Jetocaris (tentatively Tripod phrontiscaris). A three-legged social crustacean that displays parenting behavior.
Tripod body plan Due to early evolution of bilateral symmetry, no three-legged organisms exist on Earth. The jetocaris’ legs may have formed from the fusion of six earlier legs, three on each side. The small forelimbs remained independent.
Leg jets Evolving from leg-mounted gills, a valved thruster on each leg allows the jetocaris to hover and swim. Fusing the legs to double the size of each gill-thruster improves efficiency in simulations.
Feeding tongues The jetocaris deploys two long, flexible radulae (perhaps evolved from food-handling maxillipeds) to search for food. The forelimbs clean and groom the radulae. These appendages are sensitive, but capable of regeneration. This suggests the jetocaris can regrow its nerves—and something in the seabed likes to bite them.
Parenting behavior The jetocaris carries and protects juveniles of the same species, and its expressive body language suggests a dense social life. Spectrogenetic analysis indicates that some juveniles are adopted—they are not genetic offspring of the carer. Adoption has been observed in many species: though it is a mistake from a rational adaptive standpoint. It may be a sign of instinctive behavior. Or perhaps the jetocaris once lived in eusocial groups, with a single reproductive queen producing young that were tended by workers.
Assessment: mostly harmless. May provide emotional benefits.
Ostrakonskelos glossaklept, the hard-legged tongue thief. A parasitic crab or louse that dwells in the mouth, causing intense and unremitting hunger.
Crablike body plan A close relative of other Protean crabs, belonging to the infraorder Adulati. The segmented body has two cerci, nerve-rich organs which evolved from legs. The mouthparts are simple. The tongue thief relies on its host to chew food.
Parasitic hijack Tongue thieves mimic other prey species until swallowed, then use a numbing agent to paralyze the predator’s jaw long enough to anchor to the tongue. This numbing agent blocks the nerves that signal satiety (fullness) to the brain.
Semi-cooperative hunting Although they are parasites, tongue thieves’ small eyes and grasping limbs help the host latch onto food.
Reproduction Tongue thieves anchor eggs or spermatophores in the mouth of their host, where they wait for a thief of the opposite sex to arrive. Infant tongue thieves (called manca) pass through the host’s digestive tract.
Possible cultural function In the same way some human cultures use capsaicin in food, it is conceivable that other organisms might develop a taste for the tongue thief’s numibng agent. Personal experimentation would be ill-advised.
Assessment: expel parasite to reduce host hunger. Be alert for juveniles who may attempt to infest your mouth.
Postpanoplia epicurean, the voracious unarmored armored fish. Unpredictable and hungry, especially when under the influence of a parasite.
Sea hippo The epicurean is a true omnivore, consuming dozens of kilograms of animals, microorganisms, minerals and corals every day. Digesting this diet is expensive, fueling the epicurean’s hunger. By devouring and defecating, the epicurean spreads nutrients and fine-ground sand, making it a keystone species in its ecosystem.
Lobe-finned enormity The epicurean is a younger relative of the hammerhead, but it has lost its armored shield, allowing it to open its huge grinding jaw. Both the central pineal eye and the lateral eyes are fully developed. These changes suggest the epicurean no longer competes in tournaments for territory and mates.
Hunger The hungrier the epicurean, the more likely it is to attack a pioneer.
Parasite The epicurean often swallows parasites with its food, which take root in its mouth, blocking nerve pathways which signal fullness to the epicurean’s brain. Infested epicureans believe they are starving, and attack with ravenous hunger. Explore methods to expel the parasite, and try to avoid becoming an unsatisfying meal.
Assessment: ecologically vital but an unpredictable danger to divers. Check for and (if possible) expel mouth parasites.
Foureye (Morokotoform duplex). A predatory fish always born in pairs of identical twins. The twins pair belly-to-belly, joining their digestive and nervous systems to behave as a single organism.
Predatory individual The individual “two-eye” is convergent with Earth fish. Large, mobile pectoral fins are suited to quick maneuvers, not cruising. Squashed eyes offer better vision upward. Individuals feed on smaller forage fish and hard-shelled crustaceans.
Duplex team Two individuals pair into a complete four-eye through a pair of modified ventral fins, which have evolved into sensitive structures similar to Sol sharksuckers. (Repeating this phrase can help train vocal dexterity.) The embryonic yolk stalk grows through the forward sucker, allowing the joined pair to share nutrients. Nerve clusters in the suckers trigger each other through the skin, passing sensory data and motor commands. Separated individuals are prone to brief seizures, suggesting the nervous system is sensitive to external influence.
Dynamic pairing Four-eyes can unpair and repair at any time. When sexually mature, twins paired since infancy split up to seek out mating partners, forming new four-eyes. Mated pairs may be cross-sex (with the male fertilizing the female) or same-sex (with both individuals cooperating to locate a mate or mates).
Aggression The duplex foureye is aggressive and willing to attack even larger species. It is unclear if this is a territory-guarding strategy, a relic of some ancient group behavior, or even a form of youthful play.
Solitude Solitary two-eyes may be ill or in mourning. Avoid.
Assessment: minor danger. Be alert for unpredictable attacks.
Halfmoon (tentatively Moliform luna). Large forage fish which strains plankton from seawater and nibbles at small growth.
Prey fish Staple foodstuff for predators—has evolved several flee-and-hide behaviors. Edible, but a fabricator cook is recommended.
Separate plumbing A rigid beak protects two valves which draw in seawater for feeding. Spiracles behind the eyes feed water to internal gills for breathing.
Built for agility Body packed with neuromasts to detect water flow. Anterior fins have fenestrae (holes) to help them quickly reverse direction. May have evolved to maneuver in tight quarters or in dense schools of other halfmoons.
Peculiar nervous system Lacks reafference cancellation—can’t distinguish stimuli caused by its own motions from change in the surrounding world. Easily fascinated by bright light—may even experience itself as causing the light. Sometimes behaves as if disoriented, swimming sideways without apparent benefit.
Hammerhead (tentatively Panoplia hammerhead). An armored, herd-dwelling, territorial herbivore with a powerful ram.
Hammer head Challenges intruders on its territory, especially other hammerheads. Displays its pectoral fins and closes its enamel head shield before attacking.
Jet propulsion Spiracles behind the eyes feed into a jet channel with internal gills. The jet drives the hammerhead’s sudden rams.
Large brain Floats in a protective cyst. The central eye sees color, while two smaller motion-sensitive eyes guide ramming.
Grazing jaw The muscular vertical jaw suggests a diet of sponges, kelps, tunicates, and possibly crushed coral. The need to protect a grazing area may have evolved the hammerhead’s territoriality.
Practice behavior? Hammerheads ram coral domes. The adaptive benefit is unclear—perhaps toughening their shields.
Advise caution, especially when piloting vehicles. May have social cognition comparable to Earth’s ungulates, some of which were extremely dangerous to humans. Ramming areas (called leks) are a major source of ocean noise.
Houndgar (tentatively Teuthis courser). A squid that dazzles prey for marrowbreach ambush.
Squidlike body plan Shares a basic bauplan (body plan) with terrestrial squid — a beaked head, eight arms, a long soft body, a pair of fins. Developed fin structure suggests a different evolutionary history than Earth’s boneless squid. Two spiracles pass water for an internal gill.
Camouflage display The houndgar’s eight arms are joined by four membranes, which the houndgar displays to prey. Millions of chromatophores (biological pixels) create patterns of motion camouflage to conceal the houndgar’s approach.
Marrowbreach partnership Houndgars are ideal prey for marrowbreaches, but the two species hunt together. The houndgar flushes prey from hiding, then distracts and marks them for the marrowbreach’s poor vision by performing a display. The houndgar gets the scraps—the bigger the prey, the more the houndgar benefits.
Powerful beak The houndgar’s parrot-like beak tears tough flesh: important because everything the houndgar swallows passes through the center of its brain.
Speculative social structure Squads of houndgars must spot good prey for their marrowbreaches or become food themselves; marrowbreaches must attract good houndgar squads by yielding more of their kills. Houndgars push the marrowbreach to take ever larger prey. The negotiation of an ongoing contract between houndgars and marrowbreach is a reminder of Alterra Alms’ mantra that ‘we all need to be needed’.
Assessment: houndgar displays may signal an imminent marrowbreach attack. Possibly intelligent, perhaps trainable.
Caught script hook in allocated memory for command >> generate-databank “Pneuma” >> echo \memory-carve -signature=0xSEABEEF5 >> restore-databank
“The pneuma is one of the ecological amputees we keep finding. It evolved for a niche that no longer exists. It found new ways to get things done, but I think it’s still trying to grip that phantom hand.” - Sophie Boucher, Proteus As Patient
Pneuma pneuma, a prey fish that mimics the bladders of kelp.
Fish A relative of the halfmoon (Moliform luna). The paired pectoral, pelvic and anal fins are large but closely spaced, favoring agility over speed. The tail fin is ragged. All the fins mimic the pattern of kelp blades. The spinal nerve braid is protected by an armored stem similar to a kelp stipe. The jaw is a clamp; food is rasped by the tongue.
Kelp mimicry The pneuma has evolved to mimic the air bladders of large kelp. It is unclear whether the pneuma traveled here from a kelp forest, or if a kelp forest in the Karakorum region went extinct.
Pneuma The pneuma is named for its large swim bladder. When clamped to kelp with its beak, the pneuma’s bladder pulls it upward, helping to support the kelp and maintain the pneuma’s camouflage. Since there is no kelp in the Karakorum regions, pneuma have instead begun to swallow rocks to use as ballast.
Assessment: edible prey fish. Sign of ecological turmoil. Check for rocky ballast before consuming.
Monopter astrapakantha, the one-finned lightning thorn. A small fish that has discarded fins in favor of a living magnetohydrodynamic thruster.
Monopter Fish are a common body plan across alien worlds, but they usually evolve fins or wings for propulsion. The hover thorn has just a single fin — a tail rudder at the base of the spinal braid. Spiracles behind the double eyes draw water for an internal gill.
Doubled eye The hoverthorn’s large primary eye is duplicated by a small secondary eye which contains columns of electro-active jelly. The hoverthorn can effectively see electromagnetic fields. The second eye was created by a duplication in the hoverthorn’s HOLOX genes, which organize the thorn’s body plan. A viral gene sequence copying itself throughout the hoverthorn’s genome apparently copy-pasted the eye ‘blueprint’ several million years ago.
Hoverthorn The hoverthorn’s most incredible trait is its charge crystal, a mineralized swim bladder which fills the lower body cavity and protrudes from what was once a thruster orifice. A mineral Campbell matrix in the crystal organizes electric charge. When a portion of the crystal is charged, it polarizes and attracts surrounding seawater. Moving the charge along the crystal creates currents in the seawater — allowing the hoverthorn to generate and ride its own water currents.
Mating behavior Hoverthorns joust with their charge crystals, approaching each other tail-first. As the crystals approach, their fields interact, and the weaker or less skilled hoverthorn will lose control. Both male and female hoverfish use this to either drive away or select fit mates.
Sitaroid gemini, the twin ray that resembles a sitar. A dark-sea electropredator driven towards the surface by ecological disruption.
Sitar ray Sitar rays, named for their resemblance to Earth’s guitarfish, probably diverged from mangos less than 25 million years ago (assuming that models of evolutionary change on Proteus are correct). The flat head contains remnants of a hard shield, similar to Earth’s extinct pteraspidomorphs. The jaw has moved beneath the body and rotated. Two spiracles draw water for an internal gill.
Deepsea origins The twin sitar is adapted to lightless deep ocean. Its true eyes are buried in a layer of jelly below the skin. The remaining central eye is a hyperdeveloped parietal eye—an organ that tracks light and heat.
Twin strategy Like the foureye, the sitar ray is always born in pairs. When mature, the twins split up to pair with mates. Unlike the foureye, the sitar ray has no specialized organ to share food or nerve impulses. The twins clasp mouthparts to exchange food. Communication is electric, similar to Earth’s knifefish.
Electroactive feeding Channels and ampullae along the sitar ray’s body and fins contain electroplaques, modified muscles which generate electric current to stun prey. When separated, twin sitars stay connected by strands of conductive mucus. The longer this connection, the more powerful the dipole of their hunting shock.
Shocking behavior Monitor sitar rays for play behavior involving metal debris or constructs.
Assessment: a serious threat to divers and to electrically powered vehicles and bases.
Panopliateuthis velos, the armored squid dart. A swarm predator that attacks by ramming and penetrating its prey. Capable of Caught script hook in allocated memory for command >> generate-databank “Bullethead” >> echo \memory-carve -signature=0xSEABEEF5 >> restore-databank
“I saw their eyes first. Bright yellow eyes, down the inside of the lava tube. I killed the motors and the floods, signaled Iso and Mel to grab the handholds, and held my breath. For a minute I thought we’d ride clean through. Then the current pulled the Tadpole into an outcrop and at the sound they all just—went off.
Like bottle rockets. Back and forth, up and down, everywhere. One of them lodged in the port hull just aft of the canopy and I saw, very clearly, that it was a squid, completely plated in armor. They hit you tail first, hard enough to punch into titanium. Incredible. Do you think they run on compressed air? Or do they burn something?
The hull alarm went off — I tried to blink the floods to confuse them — but Mel and Iso’s blackboxes were already crying. The noise seemed to attract them. Apparently they like to get stuck in wounded prey and wait until you bleed to death, then go to work on your carcass. So by the time I got back to Habitat there wasn’t much left of Iso and Mel for Iso and Mel to recycle.“
Mango kestros, the dart-throwing shark. Territorial predator capable of launching uranium-tipped tusks at up to twenty meters per second.
Erupted jaw Dominated by six upper jaw tusk sockets. The lower jaw has receded into the throat for rasping and crushing. Muscles behind each tusk crank ligaments around hard anchors, storing mechanical energy like a crossbow.
Teeth battery Tusks are reloaded from mature spares deeper in the skull. Needlers constantly form new tusks by ‘sneezing’ ground mineral paste and quick-setting enzyme into dental sacs. Each tusk is tipped with a self-sharpening uranium oxide cap.
Body structure The equally spaced dorsal, pectoral and pelvic fins give the needler excellent stability and aim control. A large caudal fin drives the needler on the sprint. Like its relative the marrowbreach, it has no thruster. Four ‘whiskers’ detect water currents to help aim.
Behavior Needlers are social, nesting and sometimes hunting in family groups. They may be pack predators — cooperating to bring down larger organisms. Their need for constant mineral intake makes them fiercely territorial.
Evolutionary history The needler shares a close relationship with the nibbler mango, which has a similar battery of constantly regenerating teeth. The needler may have evolved its tusks to penetrate hard shells—first firing into prey already clamped in its jaw, then launching the tusks as harpoons.
Assessment: dangerous, territorial predator. Avoid or distract even when operating submersibles.
“Most of the biosphere is void. A wet desert five thousand meters deep. Life at the surface has its time in the sun and then it dies. The dead snow down to the bottom to feed strange life.
“But in that void is also form. Empty space actual, soaring black and silent. Silent in an ocean full of voices. The unsound after the bitten end of a scream.
“They are complete. A compact with teeth: one shiver, many sharks. Males ride their mother until they leave to ride the wife. The riders reap the small prey. Mother-wife takes the main. It needs a cold, cruel will to make hunger patient. But in the desert of the water they are always hungry and always patient.
“On Earth there was a place called Point Nemo, the furthest from all land. There was nothing in it. So they dropped dead satellites there.
“Perhaps, at Proteus’ Nemo, the ocean learned to eat what it was given. Perhaps there is a hunger in them for prey from the stars.”
Skythopterygion atropos, the scythe-finned fate-ender. The male of a sexually dimorphic leviathan predator species which dwells in open water and attacks in packs (or shivers).
Death’s head The ancestors of the shiver leviathan diverged from other Protean fish early. The armor-plated skull and long, highly developed limbs (resembling wings and claws) are defining traits of the clade. The closest living relative may be the foureye. The body plan is optimized for slow cruises through deep water interrupted by sudden, rapid attacks. An armored skull suggests that prey fight back.
Sexual dimorphism Male shiver leviathans are smaller and more agile than the large female. They also lack the female’s distinctive tail organs, which may be a form of long-range ‘towed array’ sonar. Males depend on females for guidance and nourishment during long cruises in the open ocean.
Shiver attack Packs of males cooperate with a single female in hunts. Attacks are aggressive and comprehensive — and not limited to prey. Females will drive off or destroy any large challenger they encounter, while males engage smaller consorts or companions.
Partible paternity Spectrogenetic testing suggests that multiple males fertilize a female’s brood. Females may compete to attract the most successful consorts to their shiver.
Your closest relative? On Earth, land tetrapods (including humans) descended from the lobe-finned fish. The shiver leviathan’s complex wings are loosely similar to these ancestors’ fins. In a sense, the shiver leviathan is the most humanlike organism so far discovered on Proteus.
Assessment: sophisticated, dangerous predator that will attack even large submarines. Avoid.
Anthobrachia necrolei. A clonal stalk of large jellies, similar to Earth’s stauromedusae. Each jelly remains moored to the stalk, rather than maturing into a free-swimming medusa.
Enormous size and hunger Rather than feeding on prey, the necrolei gathers dead matter from the seawater. The size and height of the stalk are directly related to the rate of death and decay up-current.
Acid-yielding metabolism The necrolei has adapted to low-oxygen seawater. It ferments much of the matter it collects in a central ‘basket’ stomach, a process which requires no oxygen and yields strong acids. The necrolei concentrates these acids around its eggs as a defense.
Assessment: large numbers of necrolei in this region indicate a bloom, a population explosion caused by a flood of nutrients. This is a poor sign for the health of the ecosystem and perhaps for the state of the global climate.
Produces egg clusters that can be processed into strong acid.
Hycean hycean, a remarkable flying predator named for planets that mix a hydrogen sky and a water ocean.
Gasbag flyer Though descended from the same squidlike ancestor as the houndgar and other Protean teuthis, the hycean’s mantle is full of buoyant hydrogen. The ancestral hycean probably stored ammonia for buoyancy, like many Earth squid. The hycean uses bacterial symbiotes to convert this ammonia into carbon nitride, which, when exposed to sunlight, splits seawater into oxygen and hydrogen lifting gas.
Predatory fisher Free of most predators, the hycean drifts above the sea surface and snags prey with its arms. The larger a hycean’s gasbag, the more food it can afford to lift and digest. Large prey can be suffocated by holding them clear of the water until their gills dry out. The sails provide steerage in the wind, and can be flapped for emergency power.
Flammability risk Any spark may ignite the hycean’s gas bag, with disastrous results. Hyceans are acutely sensitive to electromagnetic activity, and may be forced to shelter in the water during thunderstorms.
Philosophical musings The buena vista hypothesis (proposed by Malcolm McIver) argues that advanced cognition could only evolve when Earth fish began to raise their eyes above water, allowing them to see far enough to require long-range behavioral planning. If this hypothesis is credited, then the hycean — as one of the only discovered Protean species that lives outside water — may be unusually intelligent.
Recommendation: avoid areas beneath hyceans. Monitor for signs of high-level behavior, such as ‘fertilizing’ certain areas of the ocean with defecated waste.
Jelly ring (tentatively Thermodont sufganiyah, heat eating jelly donut). Not a jelly, but full of jelly. Feeds on the heat and chemical flux of hydrothermal vents.
Pyrosome A colony of tiny clone animals called zooids. Unlike solitary tunicates (like the lucifer rotsac), these zooid tunicates work together to build a larger structure.
Ring The jelly ring settles around hydrothermal vents like a wheel on an axle. When a vent dies, the jelly can migrate to a new vent by swimming.
Mucus baskets Flowerlike structures around the ring are mucus-lined pumps for water and hydrothermal vent flux. The pumps can be reversed to serve as swimming thrusters. They also serve as exchange sites for organisms feeding on the ring’s interior jelly.
Inner jelly The inner toroid circulates hot, mineral-rich water pulled in by the mucus baskets. Specialized zooids digest feedwater (using symbiotic bacteria) into a latex-like sap. This jelly coagulates on contact with water, plugging holes in the ring. It is rich with complex chemistry, including sugars, starches, oils and gums.
Bioluminescence The zooids in the jelly ring communicate with light, rather than nerve cells. The ring is strongly bioluminescent and will react to stimuli.
Jellyfall Earthly jellies and pyrosomes die and fall to the sea floor, fertilizing the deeps with nutrients. Strangely, there are signs that living jelly rings travel to deep sites and expel their jelly—giving up their calories for no apparent benefit. Natural selection cannot produce behaviors which hurt the individual to help the ecosystem. (Alterra ecology experts consider theories of multi-level selection obfuscatory and counterproductive.) This may be a farming behavior, or a donation to unknown relatives on the seafloor.
Assessment: may be a source of complex chemistry and even edible fats or sugars if tapped. Likely flammable in air.
A simple animal, closely related to corals, characterized by a symmetrical body and trailing arms. Usually grows in a stalked form (called the polyp) before detaching into a free-swimming form called the medusa. Some jellies remain stalked their whole lives.
Mixotrophs—most are predatory, but some obtain nutrients from photosynthesis or symbiotic photosynthesizers.
Nerve net—jellies predate the evolution of a nerve cord in the tunics.
Complex—some jellies on this world have achieved a size and complexity unknown on Earth. Evolutionary origins unknown.
Surge jelly (tentatively Staurobrachia capacitor). Large, complex jelly that hunts with electric shocks.
Single animal Unlike colonial organisms such as the Portuguese man’o’war, the surge jelly is a single animal with specialized tissues—far more specialized and complex than Earth jellies. Proposed class name: staurobrachia (pole arms).
Complex internal structure Outer bell ringed with sense organs called rhopalia. A nerve net coordinates the bell’s motions to swim and seek prey. The visible inner structure is the gut.
Feeding structure The jelly retains its stalk — a remnant of its growth in a stack of clones. The stalk draws in nutrients for the gut.
Charged fins Two rigid fins contain wirelike electrocytes, likely a development of ancestral tentacles. These organs build voltage to stun or kill prey. Measured power ranges from 400 to 1000 volts at 1 ampere: enough to kill a human.
Peculiar passengers Traces of radioactivity, high-temperature waxes and sulfuric acid imply contact with a hydrothermal vent. Composition of the jelly’s tissues suggest origins in the deep ocean.
Former domestics? Jellies in close proximity communicate through their electric fields. Whether jellies have individual names or a grammatical language is purely speculative, but some patterns may be trained or learned—even passed down through generations of jellies.
Assessment: minor danger in close contact. Fascinating research prospect from a distance.
Anthobrachia hebesoros, the young stack of flower arms. Reproductive stage of a flower-like jelly.
Polyp Despite its resemblance to a kelp, the jelly lei prefers to hang underneath surfaces—where it cannot photosynthesize. It is the rooted polyp phase of a jellyfish’s life cycle. The chain of ‘flowers’ growing beneath the polyp are larval jellyfish, called ephyra. The stalk itself is called a scyphistome.
Ephyral traits The budding larvae have broad, flat petals which will eventually merge into the adult jelly’s bell. These petals already host photosynthetic symbiotes—it is possible the adult jelly will seek light sources to grow, akin to the terrestrial upside-down jelly. Note the purple color produced by photosynthetic retinal, the same molecule your eyes use to detect light.
Heat stress The jelly lei’s growth cycle has been accelerated by heat stress. The stalked parent may release its larvae early to allow them to swim clear of hot, oxygen-depleted water.
Dactylbrachia gigas, the behemoth finger-legged jelly. A massive specimen with no Earthly analog.
Jellylike body plan Even the largest terrestrial jellies are anatomically simple, with a gelatinous bell, a central stomach, and tentacles. By contrast, the BFJ (an acronym for Behemoth Finger-Legged Jelly) has complex organs and a sophisticated nervous system.
Gas bladders Most of the BFJ’s volume is occupied by gas bladders, controlled by a net of distributed nerves that automatically regulate buoyancy. Sedentary BFJs resting on the seafloor flood their gas bladders with seawater.
Multiple eyespot The BFJ’s eyes are differentiated into small, sharp-focus eyes and large wide-field arrays. They focus exclusively upward. Fine muscles in the rhopalia (eye clusters) can adjust the eye to focus through different classes of seawater and even air — suggesting the BFJ spends time at the surface of the sea.
Muscular arms Unlike the trailing tentacles of most jellies, the BFJ’s arms are muscular hydrostats like squid arms. Covered in finely developed sensory hairs, they do not seem to be used for predation. Instead, they seek out chemical resources in the seafloor. Methane-sensing organs are particularly dense at the tips of the arms.
Exhaustion The index BFJ scanned by the user seems to be feeding on sunlight while awaiting an unknown future state in its life cycle.
Assessment: possibly the sea-bound state of an airborne organism.
Tentatively Polymephycite tympanum. Not animal, plant, or fungus, but a fourth category of complex life analogous to Earth protists.
Central structure The central stipe is a biopolymer akin to chitin or keratin held upright by a beard of air-filled sacs (pneumatocysts).
Dual feeding strategy Photosynthesis is the primary nutrient source, but cave-dwelling drums subsist on dissolved nutrients.
Reactor glow Adults develop a large bioluminescent swelling called a sprangia. Its blue light precisely mimics the Cherenkov radiation of a nuclear fission reactor immersed in seawater.
Assessment: further investigation required. Await further updates.
Wort wort. One of the first kelplike organisms encountered on this world (provisional designation: kaulos). Like kelps, it is a large algae, not a plant. Rather than photosynthesis. the wort wort generates energy through fermentation.
Living fermenter Fermentation is metabolism without oxygen. Though slow, it produces energy-rich alcohols. The wort wort’s bulbs (or worts) contain wort (a sugary fluid) which is fermented by symbiotic bacteria into alcohol. The wort wort collects biomatter too tough for other digest to decay as mash for its wort.
Animal genetics The biochemical processes used by the wort wort are derived from fish muscle cells. This is difficult to explain, given that the two branches of life must have diverged billions of years ago.
Dark sign The wort wort thrives in low-oxygen oceans. Whether deoxygenation occurred in the past or is only now beginning requires further analysis.
Assessment: slowly contributes energy to the ecosystem by recycling dead matter. Possibly a sign of a past or future mass extinction.
Dangerous selachian predator. (Selachian means sharklike.)
Bone-cutting jaws Adapted to shear through tough, plasticized flesh. Edged in iron and salt tesserae. Bites deliver thousands of newtons of force in sixty milliseconds. Beware of pre-attack behaviors such as circling or test bumping.
Small eyes Optic nerves connected directly to the jaw muscles—probably for bite timing. May be distracted by bright lights.
Sophisticated non-visual senses Body lined with neuromasts and gel-filled ampulae to detect motion and electric fields. Sensitive hearing. Aware of prey before they are aware of it.
Streamlined body Large caudal fin and muscular peduncle allow for sudden lunges. Squalene-rich liver provides buoyancy control. There is no thruster; the marrowbreach swims like a conventional fish.
Assessment: apex predator. Avoid or distract. Investigate long-term possibility of mutual association through cleaning/feeding, but remember that this is a wild animal.
This is a large predatory organism (tentative name ‘Marrowbreach’’).
This specimen’s digestive tract contains two major anomalies:
Human foodstuffs in bulk
Digestive enzymes (such as pepsin and gastric lipase) required to digest the human diet.
Origin unknown. Indigenous life cannot produce these enzymes and cannot express human proteins due to major biochemical incompatibilities (c/f Theory tab in your PDA).
If this organism has the ability to digest human foodstuffs, it may also be able to digest human tissue.
Nibbler mango (tentatively Mango tructa). A pesky omnivore adapted to scrape-feed. It will happily snap at fish, sponges, kelps, and human limbs.
Tooth-rich jaws Enormous jaw crests (the upper rhinotheca and lower gnathoteca) crush rocks and dead coral before swallowing. Made of calcium apatite, surfaced in tough vinyl, and loaded with batteries of spare teeth. New teeth push up through the core of old teeth, splitting them open. Likely painful.
Appreciable threat Not a dedicated carnivore, but territorial and always hungry. Must maintain powerful jaw muscles and a massive digestive tract on a diet of slime, algae, and trash. Always looking for more to eat.
Problematic digestion Grinds its food in an internal gizzard, creating a concrete-like paste. Frequently constipated as a result.
Not an apex predator May fear larger predators; startled by bright light or loud sound.
Key ecological role Probably a critical recycler in reef ecosystems, breaking down hard debris into free nutrients. Droppings may be metal-rich.
Social organism Nibblers may live in family groups, or form small cohorts to defend against larger predators.
Assessment: may be dangerous in groups. Distract with flares and avoid pending any developments re: useful behavior or droppings.
Great jaw (tentatively Megamya sudacna, great clam that bites you). An enormous omnivorous clam with a a dangerous defensive/feeding strategy.
Clam Like Earthly bivalves, the great jaw’s body consists of two minerals shells connected by powerful adductor muscles. The clam’s main body, including its digestive organs, heart, and gills, rests inside the shells.
Mantle The mantle (the same body part that forms the outer skin of a squid) secretes a matrix of bioplastics on which the hard calcium carbonate shell grows. The enormous size of the adult great jaw’s shell may take decades or centuries to achieve. The interior of the mantle is lined with motion-sensitive eyes.
Closure reflex When the tendons of the adductor muscles are disturbed, the shells close, trapping prey inside. The jaw then secrets domoic acid neurotoxin. Projected symptoms: nerve damage, short term memory loss, death.
Mixed feeding strategy The great jaw’s interior is lined with tiny coral polyps, which feed on sunlight with photosynthetic bacteria. The majority of the great jaw’s food probably comes from photosynthesis.
Lithium pearls The great jaw bioaccumulates lithium during its growth. Nodules are expelled by the clam’s body to prevent nerve interference. Recommend retrieval.
Youth The scanned index specimen is relatively young. No upper size limit can be established.
Assessment: critical source of lithium, but dangerous to dive. Avoid touching tendons. Ensure you have an up to date body scan.
Water slug (tentatively Seaslug hydroclast). A biological enigma that converts seawater into drinkable fresh water.
Microbial fuel cell Removing salt from seawater is energy-intensive. Nonetheless, the water slug does it, perhaps as a byproduct of an internal microbial reactor that feeds on waste in seawater.
Fresh water reserve A hydrophobic plastic bulb that protects the slug from rapid dehydration by saltwater.
Plankton farm The slug’s water bulb hosts a highly productive plankton species, turning light into food. Fresh water may be necessary for the plankton’s chemistry, or it may be a prison—a way to keep the plankton from leaving.
Vampiric aura The water slug’s developed beak has a sharp cutting surface. Possible evolutionary history as a parasite or commensal, tapping a host’s blood and filtering out toxins.
Assessment: only nearby source of drinkable water. Advise fabricator cook before drinking. In case of kidney problems, consider allowing the water slug to feed on your blood.
Tentatively Pyloraptor mimic. A predatory animal disguised as a leafy kelp. Discharges electrical shock when disturbed.
Cephalopod-like body Resembles an octopus or squid planted mantle-down in the seabed, with its arms spread to mimic kelp. Pouches of symbiotic bacteria between the arms allow it to photosynthesize. A beak at the center of its arms is plugged with mucus.
Electrical hunting The four arms contain electrocytes, organs which build up an electrical charge. When disturbed by prey, the electrocysts discharge, causing paralysis or death. It is unclear if the prey are directly eaten, or if they decompose in a garden around the mimic pylon. (Organisms which feed on external decay are known as saprotrophs.)
Implies kelp The pylon’s cryptic aggressive mimicry of leafy kelp implies that kelp must exist on this world. Most species in Earths’ oceans eat to survive, with primary production (the conversion of sunlight into biomass) carried out by plankton and algae. Leafy kelp were a late evolutionary development.
Cave mouth strategy Mimic pylons tend to cluster around sea cave entrances, perhaps to feed on organisms entering or leaving the caves. Alternately (and speculatively) they may have been planted there by another species to control access.
Assessment: avoid contact to prevent injury. May mark cave mouths.
Raion carbonica. A colony of worms living inside a shared membrane, probably a sponge. Uses weak acid to digest prey.
Raion An organism defined as a sponge occupied by a colony of cloned predatory worms. This sponge is chambered, akin to Earth’s extinct sphinctozoans; the chambers grow around a central pump.
Pressurized acid The raion’s worms secrete weak acid as a digestive factor and defense mechanism. This acid is held under pressure by a plug in the raion’s central pump. To avoid unwanted acid release, cut away the chambers before disturbing the central pump.
Volcanic origin? The acid raion may have originally evolved near a cold seep or a volcanic caldera. Acid-friendly biochemistry gave it a useful defense mechanism and feeding strategy to colonize other waters.
Medical gel The raion’s central pump is partially plugged by a mass of worm residue; this keeps the pressure in the chambers high. This residue contains useful clotting factors and broad-spectrum antibiotics. Recommend collection.
Problematic genetics Spectrogenetic analysis indicates the host sponge and the resident worms contain partial copies of each others’ genomes. This is a biological impossibility on Earth, and suggests that genetic inheritance functions differently on this world.
Assessment: useful source of weak acid for batteries. Central plug contains medically relevant gel. Cut away chambers before removing central plug.
Consult with your Noetic Advisor system to research optimum search areas.
Donut of worms (tentatively Raion donut) without visible worms.
Normal state Just as terrestrial corals contain photosynthetic partners called zooxanthella, the donut contains a population of predatory worms.
Disturbed state Just as terrestrial corals sometimes expel their partners when under stress, this donut raion has discharged or killed its population of worms. (Alternatively, they have left in search of a better host.) This may be a reproductive strategy, a defensive reaction to the worms turning on and feeding upon the sponge, or a response to environmental stress.
Assessment: unclear how long the donut can survive without its primary food supply. Terrestrial corals survive only days to weeks after bleaching.
An organism (tentatively Raion donut) that resembles an Earthly anemone or ceriantherian, but is actually a sponge occupied by a colony of predatory worms.
Raion An organism defined as a sponge occupied by a colony of cloned predatory worms.
Hunting strategy The worms live in the sponge’s jelly (called the mesohyl), protruding from its anus (the osculum) to sting passing prey with sticky cells and draw them into the sponge.
Puzzling genetics Spectrogenetic analysis indicates the host sponge and the resident worms contain partial copies of each others’ genomes. This is a biological impossibility on Earth, and suggests that genetic inheritance functions differently on this world.
Assessment: minor sting hazard — do not insert fingers. Important scientific discovery.
Databank generation alert: known scientific theory inadequate to explain specimen. Interpretation and improvisation may lead to error.
Sponge-worm hybrid Like the raions, this is a sponge occupied by worms. The sponge pumps seawater, while the worms feed on meioafauna in the current. In this ‘spraion’ the two organisms have become genetically entwined: each can give birth to the other. This defies conventional evolutionary theory, which uses reproductive barriers to define species.
Alternating generations Some of the sponge’s germ cells undergo a transformation into worm embryos. This transformation involves the activation and expression of stored genetic material from the worm genome. Adult worms leave the sponge, swim to a new anchor site, and die. Their bodies provide food to a newborn flagon sponge.
Possible explanations The simplest explanation is that these are two alternating generations of the same organism — like the polyp and medusa stages of the jellyfish life cycle. But spectrogenetic analysis suggest the flagon sponge and its resident worms evolved tens of millions of years apart. Exactly how the reproductive cells of one organism can yield an adult of another species is unknown.
Assessment: advise further investigation. May yield insight into genetic adaptations specific to this world. Await further updates.
Gorgon mastix, the whip gorgon. A soft coral similar to the earthly gorgonians — it lacks the hard limestone shell of a true reefbuilding coral.
Earthly namesake Named for the extinct Leptogorgia virulata, Earth’s sea whip. Like the sea whip it is a predator, and it must defend its soft body from parasites and predation.
Spine defenses Unlike the terrestrial sea whip, which developed a chemical arsenal to repel unwanted contact, the whip gorgon colony has developed specialized ‘soldier’ polyps which migrate to the surface and develop a brittle spine. When disturbed, this spine snaps off, releasing the soldier’s payload of toxins. It is impossible to project the effects of this sting on colonists, but mechanical similarities to the infamous Australian gympie-gympie plant suggest negative outcomes ranging from chronic agony to total sleep deprivation lasting weeks to years.
Carnivorous diet ‘Civilian’ polyps in the whip gorgon use their stings to kill and digest microscopic prey. They lack the brittle spine and powerful toxins of the soldier polyp.
ASSESSMENT: Avoid contact. Consider pruning back with hand tools.
Raion calix. A puzzling combination of worm colony (the raion) and slime mold.
Feeding strategy Feeds on drifting matter, though the worms also sting and kill meiofauna (small sea life between 45 nm and 1 mm in size).
Glassy central structure The central structure is a glasy spicule similar to those found in Earth’s glass sponges. The worms live in this structure, creating a raion — a sponge inhabited by worms.
“Tripe bowl” The ‘tripe bowl’ around the base is a single enormous cell, similar to Earth’s syncytial slime molds. The structure resembles the lining of a cow’s stomach, although this Voronoi pattern is common to self-organizing structures in many exobiologies. Its function is unclear. In terrestrial analogs, syncytial structures can be found in both healthy tissues like muscles and in tissues infected by certain viruses. Optogenetic analysis cannot determine the tripe bowl’s genetic ancestry.
Assessment: biological enigma. Await further updates.
Rotsac cherimoya. A tunicate-like animal which collects alcohol from decaying matter to produce a creamy, flavorful mucus.
Cherimoya Named for its resemblance to the terrestrial cherimoya fruit (or custard apple). It can be eaten whole or sucked on through a straw; the exterior tunic is soft but the heart, nervous system, and other organs should be spat out. The rotsac contains mercury sulfide, which will eventually accumulate to dangerous levels in the human body.
Peculiar metabolism As a rough inverse of the lucifer rotsac, the cherimoya rotsac converts alcohols to sugars rather than decomposing sugars to alcohols. The cherimoya achieves this with a chemical pathway that does not occur on Earth. Aqueous cinnabar provides a source of mercury to oxidize alcohols into simple sugars. The cherimoya has no other behaviors: it simply stores sugars as it grows into a taut, full adult.
Symbiotic partner Because of its plentiful stored sugars, the cherimoya is a common symbiotic partner for organisms like the cage gorgon.
Enteric reproduction The cherimoya rotsac is gonochoric — either male or female. However, it does not release eggs or sperm into the seawater. Instead, its reproductive cells are eaten by organisms feeding on the cherimoya. They seek out other cherimoya rotsacs’ gametes in the digestive tract of the host. The fertilized embryos are then expelled by the host organism, providing them with nutritious waste to bootstrap their growth.
Assessment: edible. Your digestive tract may briefly become pregnant.
Tentatively Rotsac lucifer, the light-bringing rotsac. A tunicate-like animal which ferments decomposing biomatter inside its body.
Hidden body The rotsac’s larval swimming body transforms into a spherical adult form. Because fermentation does not require oxygen, the rotsac actually stops breathing as it matures.
Swollen with hydrocarbons The rotsac contains isoprene, useful for fabricating rubber and lubricant. High diacetyl levels give the rotsac a strong caramel funk.
Bioluminescence Glow may attract animals (especially sun-seeking microorganisms) to defecate or die on the rotsac. Bioluminescence seems to play an important role in this world’s ecology. Regular experiments with light reactions are advised.
Symbiote Often found glued to the cradle shootroot, an unrelated species of starfish-like bottom-dweller that provides the rotsac with an anchor while it grows.
Assessment: useful source of organic polymers for rubber and oil.
Consult your Noetic Advisor to research optimal search areas.
Electric geordie (tentatively Salpapod geordiwangi). A relative or morph of the common geordie. Attracted to electrical current.
Electrotropism Electric geordies seek out live current. They can tolerate surprising amperages, making them dangerous to remove by hand or tool. Short circuits can endanger both the geordie and the electrical system.
Gel-filled stomachs The electric geordie’s four diverticular pouches are flooded with a hydrogel similar to the receptive mucus in ampullae of Lorenzi—an organ used to detect electrical fields. The geordie may use this gel to search for hidden prey and tasty bacterial fibers. Artificial electrical currents could present a superstimulus—an irresistible lure.
Electrical metabolism It is implausible, but not impossible, that the geordie has evolved to metabolise electrical current. All organic metabolism is ultimately a process of electron transport, and direct electrotrophy has been observed on storm worlds and in vacuum life.
Assessment: a serious pest on electrical and communication systems. Lures may be required to manage infestation.
Geordie (tentatively Salpapod geordie). A jet-propelled omnivore evolved from an organism resembling a bony octopus.
Rasping jaw The geordie’s hard mouthparts can brush algae off rocks, crush small crustaceans, pull plugs out of coral and cut wads of kelp.
Four fins Perhaps evolved from bony legs, they steer the geordie and host its four stomach pouches.
Diverticular stomachs Each fin-leg holds a digestive pouch with bacteria specialized to portions of the geordie’s diverse diet. Swimming motion helps stir and digest food.
Central jet The central channel is lined with stinging cells, which kill small seaborne fauna. Do not insert fingers. Muscular pulses propel the geordie by jet action.
Donut-shaped ‘spinal’ braid The geordie’s nerve braid is wrapped around the jet channel like a donut. Toroidal brain structures may have interesting downstream consequences in larger organisms.
Assessment: edible, though heavily loaded with metals and waxes. Advise thorough fabricator cook.
Quadrate (tentatively Salpapod tetragnatha). A carnivorous relative or morph of the common geordie.
Geordie similarities Shares the geordie’s body plan, but trades the geordie’s rasping jaw for four piercing teeth.
Carnivorous diet The quadrate burrows into living flesh to feed on blood and serous fluid. It is difficult to remove without injuring the host. Consider applying light or heat to trick the quadrate into voluntarily detaching.
Vampiric enzyme Anticoagulant prevents the prey’s blood from clotting—similar to the draculin enzyme expressed by Earth’s iconic vampire bats. This enzyme is identical to one found in the water slug. Perhaps transferred by a retrovirus.
Quadrate overcount The quadrate burden on local life is high, suggesting the depopulation or extinction of species that once regulated quadrate populations. Alternately, geordies may be starving and morphing into quadrates to seek new food supplies.
Assessment: may cause serious or even fatal dehydration if it remains attached. Remove by safest available method. Consider cleaning quadrates off organisms you encounter to check for social responses.
Although technically alive, gateway spires are constructs more akin to termite mounds.
Impeller ring The oldest part of each gateway spire is the impeller ring. This ring contains a loop of conductive, metallic bacterial fibers surrounded by layers of polymer similar to polyaniline. When exposed to electrical current, the bacterial wires create Lorentz force, pushing water through the ring (and pushing the ring in the opposite direction).
Tracheal petiole The stalk (or petiole) supporting the impeller ring resembles a human trachea. Each disc is a colony of soft coral polyps joined by a tough, flexible tissue (the coenenchyme). The hard outer surface is a layer of living diatoms — silica shells covered in tacky mucus.
Constructor species Gateway spires are assembled by a species of social krill, Krill krikophore or the ringbearer krill. Though too small to see unaided, these krill build the entire gateway spire: first laying hoops of bacterial wire, then secreting polymer insulator and gathering polyps of coral and samples of diatom to build the support stalk. The behavior of the ringbearer krill resembles Earth’s carpenter wasp.
Ecological niche The gateway spire is a biological tollbooth, drawing in water rich with plankton, krill, and other marine meiofauna. The ringbearer krill feed on these prey and nutrients. Related colonies of ringbearer krill will attempt to align their gateway spires into continuous highways.
Power source? The gateway spire’s source of electrical current is not immediately apparent.
Although technically alive, gateway spires are constructs more akin to termite mounds.
Impeller ring The oldest part of each gateway spire is the impeller ring. This ring contains a loop of conductive, metallic bacterial fibers surrounded by layers of polymer similar to polyaniline. When exposed to electrical current, the bacterial wires create Lorentz force, pushing water through the ring (and pushing the ring in the opposite direction).
Tracheal petiole The stalk (or petiole) supporting the impeller ring resembles a human trachea. Each disc is a colony of soft coral polyps joined by a tough, flexible tissue (the coenenchyme). The hard outer surface is a layer of living diatoms — silica shells covered in tacky mucus.
Constructor species Gateway spires are assembled by a species of social krill, Krill krikophore or the ringbearer krill. Though too small to see unaided, these krill build the entire gateway spire: first laying hoops of bacterial wire, then secreting polymer insulator and gathering polyps of coral and samples of diatom to build the support stalk. The behavior of the ringbearer krill resembles Earth’s carpenter wasp.
Ecological niche The gateway spire is a biological tollbooth, drawing in water rich with plankton, krill, and other marine meiofauna. The ringbearer krill feed on these prey and nutrients. Related colonies of ringbearer krill will attempt to align their gateway spires into continuous highways.
Power source? The gateway spire’s source of electrical current is not immediately apparent.
This enormous colony organism (Lithodont titanicae) resembles a spinal cord protected by a thick crablike shell. It extends beyond scanner range in both directions, growing through fractures in the seabed rock.
Hollow interior: The interior of the bore contains at least two large flooded channels—one strikingly radioactive. The ancestral form may be a pyrosome (a sea squirt).
Poor health: Most of the zooids in the bore are dead, leaving only a mineral skeleton and a hydrocarbon-polymer shell. The interior channels have clogged.
Unknown metabolism: The bore has no apparent food supply. It may have derived chemical energy from minerals, but if so, its bacterial symbiotes have fled. It is starving.
Viral activity: The surviving tissue is infected with large RNA virus similar to Earthly giant sea viruses. The bore’s anatomy includes receptor sites that encourage viral infection and reproduction. Further analysis required.
Sporal duck, sponge-coral moiety named for the color of a duck.
Reefbuilding In the teal sporal, the sponge component of the moiety has fully hardened, leaving it unable to breathe or feed. Nutrients are supplied entirely by coral polyp photosynthesis. The large hollow spaces created by the trapped sponges are feeding grounds and debris collectors for coral polyps that cannot see sunlight.
Evolutionary insight The teal sporal provides insight into how the partnership between predatory, optionally photosynthetic corals and filter-feeding sponges might evolve. The most probable scenario (given current information) is that the coral polyps were originally parasites or commensals, living in the sponges’ jelly and feeding off microorganisms. Over time, sponges either hardened — providing shelter for polyps which could provide them with food and air — or ejected their coral guests and remained soft.
Twin species Remarkably, the sponge cells and coral polyp in the teal sporal moiety are genetically identical to those in the similar pebbled sporal. The distinction between pebbled and teal sporal may not be genetic at all, but the result of an ongoing negotiation between the environment and the two species in the moiety.
Assessment: interesting data point. No immediate applications.
Symphon amphora. A sponge adapted to colonize — and create — air pockets.
Amphora-shaped structure Like all sponges, the amphora requires constant flow through its pores to survive, but it pumps air rather than water. Contraction and expansion forces moist air through the sponge’s pores. Absorbent surfaces harvest water and carbon dioxide from the air. Waxy coating helps prevent water loss.
Radiolytic metabolism The soft blue glow of the sponge is bioluminescence fueled by radioactive minerals in the sponge’s vanes (the structures growing from the anchoring rhizoid). This radiation splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. The gases gather in the cave ceilings the amphora prefers to colonize, creating pockets of knallgass (unmixed hydrogen and oxygen). Though breathable, this air is highly flammable and an explosion risk. The sponge’s symbiotic bacteria feed on the hydrogen and oxygen, producing energy and water. The sponge uses this energy to fix carbon from the air and grow, as an Earth plant would.
Assessment: a remarkable step. The amphora sponge may evolve an entire lineage of dry-land sponges, colonizing niches filled by plants and fungi on Earth.
Indicates the presence of an air pocket. Swim up to breathe. Do not ignite flares or discharge electrical devices in the pocket.
Symphon apokalupsis. An unassuming button-shaped sponge that may be an omen of mass extinction.
Simplicity Among the earliest animal forms on Earth, sponges are a group of cells that live between two membranes and work together to pump water. Sponges on this world are similarly elegant.
Tolerance Due to this simplicity, sponges tolerate low oxygen and high temperatures better than many other organisms. They also benefit from elevated death rates, which floods the water with decaying matter.
Role in mass extinction Biospheres dominated by sponges may be an indicator of a recent or ongoing mass extinction. After Earth’s first major die-off during the Ordovician period, some 85% of species went extinct, leaving a world ruled by sponges. The popular existential terror franchise “Life Is Only Pulse” is set in a fictionalized version of this time period.
Assessment: possibly a warning sign of planetwide ecological collapse. Possibly not.
Symphon macaron. A sponge that has developed a disc of flagellated feeding cells. Named for the dessert sandwich cookie (not available in current fabricator settings).
Hardened plates Instead of a sponge’s normal inner and outer layers, the macaron develops two hard plates of pinacoderm. These anchor the feeding disc to a holdfast.
Feeding disc The sponge’s mesohyl (internal jelly) has specialized into feeding disc, with tentacled cells that pull particles from the surrounding seawater. This leaves the delicate jelly vulnerable to predators and parasites.
Hostage exchange The feeding disc hosts the larvae of sponge-eating organisms in its pores. By providing a shelter and habitat for their young, the macaron may buy itself a degree of safety and defense. (These larvae are themselves tempting prey for many species.)
Unusual protein expression Many of the cells in the feeding disc express proteins also found in the hosted larvae. This may be a recognition signal to attract the desired species.
ASSESSMENT: Inedible despite name. Await further updates.
Sporal psephos. A moiety (two paired species) of a sponge and a coral. Possibly a single chimeric organism.
Reefbuilding Reefbuilding on this world seems to be carried out by a range of sponge-coral pairings. In hard corals, the sponge has lost its ability to feed independently and provides a hard shell for the corals. In this organism, the relationship is reversed: the coral polyps grow a hard surface shell, while the sponges continue to pump water. Because the hard shell blocks the sponges’ pores, they work in pairs, with one inhaling through its osculum and one exhaling.
Dome coral association Frequently found on the surface of the larger dome coral, blocking patches of its surface from receiving sunlight. This may be an opportunistic/parasitic relationship.
Confusing genetics Both coral polyps and sponge cells seem to carry the full genome of both organisms, blurring the definition of a species. It is unknown how a single organism can contain genomes for two biologically distinct species; the two cannot reproduce sexually to combine their genes.
Databank autogeneration interrupted. Script hook found in allocated memory. Executing.
Unpacking archived data.
“Nahema, voice log, go. Earth’s last great man joked that the Creator must love stars and beetles, because It made so many of them. Two hundred years later we’ve found a lot of alien life. And guess what? Not many beetles. Sorry, Jack. But look—your Creator’s still playing favorites. Wherever It works, it seems to get started with a sponge.”
Databank generation interrupted. Outputting last good draft (terse):
Sponge. Simplest animal. Amoebic cells work together to pump water—in through pores, out through hole (osculum) at top. Feeds on suspended nutrients. Reproduces sexually or by asexual fragmentation.
Presence of spongelike life: ambiguous survival sign. Suggests loosely Earthlike biosphere (not radically hostile). However, large size suggests many available nutrients—either due to a productive ecosystem or a mass dieoff.
Most religious and ethical systems permit harm to sponges.
Shootroot cabbage. A robust bottom-dwelling organism anatomically similar to a plastic starfish, or to an opened variety of Earth’s extinct blastoids.
Animal anatomy The cabbage shootroot’s upwards-facing mouth is surrounded by outstretched arms. These arms are hard, tightly grouped, partly calcified, and covered in a tough biopolymer characteristic of other shootroots (tentative name: polyproteovinyl). These arms produce the cabbage-leaf texture that gives the shootroot its name.
Seabed burrowing A second set of arms uses ribbons of the same tough biopolymer to dig into the seabed, stirring up sediment and expanding cracks in rock. This is a difficult and metabolically expensive process, but it is a niche with little competition.
Symbiote kiss The cabbage shootroot does not use its mouth to eat, or its hard leaflike arms to feed. These surfaces seem to be reserved for a symbiotic partner. The cabbage shootroot uses its mouth to transfer nutrients gathered by its roots to the symbiote, and to receive a trickle of food or chemistry in exchange.
Circular nerve cord Like all shootroots, the cabbage shootroot is notable for its expression of a circular nerve cord.
Assessment: do not sit. You may receive nutrients.
A basket-shaped organism (tentatively shootroot cunabulum) with no clear Earthly analog. Anatomically similar to a plastic starfish, or to an opened variety of Earth’s extinct blastoids.
Animal anatomy The flattened, fibrous ‘leaves’ are the arms of an animal loaded with photosynthetic symbiotes. The central structure houses a digestive system and a hard, sticky cradle (the cunabulum). A second ring of arms grows into the seabed, seeking crevices in the rock.
Preferred symbiote The cradle is an exchange site with a symbiotic partner (such as the lucifer rotsac). Spectrogenetic analysis suggests the cradle shootroot is younger than the rotsac. It may have originally parasitized free-floating lucifer rotsacs, before evolving a niche as an anchor: providing a refuge and minerals to the rotsac in exchange for a share of the rotsac’s fermented food.
Plastic fibers Although it lacks the true cell walls of Earth plants, the cradle shootroot strengthens its tissues with bioplastic fibers. Too tough to cut by hand, they could be severed by a cutting tool.
Assessment: tough fibers could be used to synthesize fabric, possibly food.
Salp pendulous. A sticky, suspension-feeding predator that captures organisms from the current.
Salp-like biology Like Earth’s salps, this is a colony of zooids — tiny, cloned animals (in this case tunicates) — that form a long, tube-like pump. The salp draws in water to filter for plankton.
Hard holdfast The holdfast that anchors the feeding string is secreted by the same zooids that make up the rest of the organism. Spectrogenetic analysis detects proteins similar to those expressed by reefbuilding sponges and corals.
Bloom response Terrestrial salps can reproduce very quickly, allowing them to grow with—and devour—sudden blooms of algae. If the algae bloom is too dense, the salps may clog.
Assessment: may be a useful indicator of ecological stress. Await further updates.
Hecaton tunic. Named for the hundred-handed hecatoncheires of Greek myth. A complex of animals undergoing competitive sex differentiation.
Anatomy Each pore on the surface of the hecaton is the mouth of a tunic, a complex filter-feeding animal. The colony’s branching structure allows each tunicate acces to the water so it can breathe and eat. Each tunic grows a flexible, semi-hard polyvinyl shell which merges with the neighbors’ tunics, defending the entire colony.
Growth patterns Analysis suggests the colony begins as a single stem of identical tunicates cloned from an embryo. More successful tunicates become large and sexually mature, starting new arms of the colony and developing their own eggs. Less successful tunicates are driven to the ends of the arms, where they shrink and develop a teal bioluminescence.
Viral reproduction The less successful tunicates do not release sperm. Instead, they are heavily infected by a strain of large RNA virus in the seawater. The majority of the tunic’s genome consists of copies of this virus insert by retroviral action. How the hecaton tunic fertilizes eggs is therefore unclear—it seems to lack sperm cells.
Assessment: reproductive enigma. Await further updates.
Tunic aeolian. A bizarre animal that splits seawater into hydrogen (on which it feeds) and oxygen (which it releases).
Tunic Like Earthly tunicates, this is a complex animal with a heart, nerve chord, and a flexible exterior shell (the tunic).
Radiolytic metabolism At the heart of the oxygen tunic is a nugget of radioactive metal such as uranium, radium, or thorium. Radiation from this nugget splits water into hydrogen and oxygen through radiolysis. The oxygen tunic retains the hydrogen to feed an internal colony of sulfur-reducing bacteria, and releases the excess oxygen.
Blue glow Cherenkov radiation from the core excites radioluminescent pigments in the tunic, producing a distinctive blue glow. This may be a warning to would-be predators that the oxygen tunic releases poisonous quantities of oxygen.
Implications for life on this world The oxygen tunic’s metabolism suggests that this world has an energetic geology and a biosphere adapted to use radiation as a food source. It also has interesting implications for life without sunlight. On Earth, even deep-sea vents depend on oxygen produced by photosynthesis. No such dependency exists here.
Assessment: emergency oxygen source for divers. Beware that repeated use could lead to radon buildup, with serious health risks including cancer.
Seaslug kleptopharos, the stolen beacon slug. A free-swimming, luminescent relative of the waterslug with chimeric traits from another species entirely.
Microbial photocell The flash slug is powered by the same type of microbial fuel cell present in the waterslug. The slug inhales plankton as it swims, which it digests with photodecomposition and feeds to luminescent bacteria that live in coils of glassy fiber deep in its mantle. These fibers generate and direct bioluminescence, and may in fact be biological lasers.
Light control The flash slug uses its light to attract food and mates. When threatened, the slug charges up a flash of blinding coherent light to drive off attackers. Spectrogenetic analysis suggests this defense mechanism evolved from a system of internal gene regulation: its original function, millions of years ago, was to activate and deactivate genes inside the slug’s body with coded light signals.
Raylike body plan The flash slug swims with ray-like wings that grow from its foot. CORRECTION: The first draft of this output incorrectly attributed these wings to genetic sequences transferred from a Protean ray. In fact, the wings are a development of the slug’s mantle, like Earth’s Spanish dancer. The shared sequences with Protean rays may be related to item 4 below.
Enigmatic viral traffic Millihertz variations in the slug’s flash patterns appear to be correlated with Proteavirus activity inside the slug’s tissues. The flash signals what the virus is doing — but also triggers changes in viral activity in other slugs (and, perhaps, other species that see the flash). It is possible that the flash slug’s light displays give the Proteavirus a high-speed data channel.
Assessment: may provide a useful deterrent against predators if gripped. Close eyes to avoid damage.
Ventworm cryocthonian, the vent worm that brings cold from below.
Vent worm The fridge worm’s body plan is familiar from terrestrial analogs — a tubular body with a protruding gill. The body hosts a colony of symbiotic bacteria in a chamber called the trophosome (“feeding body”). These bacteria help the worm survive extreme environments.
Cold water emitter The cryocthonian lives in colonies along geothermal gradients—from hot to cold. It exploits the flow of energy and minerals through the rock to feed. Colonies pumps deep, cold brine (usually at 4 degrees C) to the worms exposed to hot water, helping regulate their temperature.
Sulfur-based metabolism The symbiotic bacteria in the fridge worm feed on sulfur and other dissolved minerals. The fridge worm uses cold deep-sea brine to trigger chemical reactions which help collect minerals from the hot vent water.
Assessment: Produces pockets of cold water. May attract life that cannot tolerate the surrounding heat.
