Jungle Rot

Jungle Rot

*Saltuvora Horribilis*

Protist

## Description

Jungle Rot is a species of fungus-like microscopic protist endemic to the jungle of Kuateoha, infamous for its ravenous, extremely fast-growing and highly destructive nature. Individual organisms are essentially no different from other predatory eukaryotic micro-organisms, but colonies of Jungle Rot obtain a number of developments which seemingly integrates the colony into a singular organism; a basic nervous system to communicate information across the colony begins to develop, and individual organisms begin to specialise towards specific purposes. Colonies of Jungle Rot have the appearance of wet rot or slime mould and can range in colour from dark green to brown. Once a colony has been established, it will grow extremely rapidly, spreading as fast as it can over all the organic matter it encounters and consuming it to fuel further growth.

A colony of Jungle Rot grows exponentially as it consumes more matter, and after approximately one week, specialised individuals in the colony will begin to secrete digestive acids across the surface of the colony, which the Jungle Rot itself is immune to but is highly corrosive to other organisms, reducing them to a soft and gooey mess which is much easier for the colony to consume than solid wood, tough muscle and hard bone. Once they reach this stage, colonies typically grow very quickly at an exponentially increasing rate, spreading their surface area by multiple metres each day.

There are three main methods by which a colony of Jungle Rot is stopped. The first, but most destructive, is that the colony simply crumbles under its own weight, outgrowing its food source and causing a local collapse of the ecosystem, making the colony starve and die en masse. The second is that it may be overwhelmed and consumed by another colony of Jungle Rot from a different subspecies. The third is that the colony is destroyed when it is still young, either by the intervention of intelligent folk or by being consumed by one of the few creatures which can safely eat Jungle Rot without being poisoned.

The destruction of a colony is not easy and can only be realistically performed when it is still young and small. Historically, plasma magic was highly effective at destroying colonies, but this ceased to be viable when magic disappeared and was rarely practiced anyway given the absence of mages in Kuateoha. Fire is a viable method, but the fire must be extermely hot and strong or else the moist Rot simply will not set alight. Modern Rot removers make use of flamethrowers to destroy colonies they find. Salt can also be used to destroy colonies, though copious amounts of it are required. Jungle Rot needs to stay wet to remain alive, and drawing out the water with large amounts of salt will dehydrate and kill the colony.

## As Food

Jungle Rot is not eaten due to it being poisonous to almost every known lifeform. Its appearance and smell are also greatly unappealing, meaning no sane creature will attempt to eat it.

## Conservation

Colonies of Jungle Rot are generally destroyed wherever they are found and they are considered a severe nuisance. Although some biologists warn of the impact upon the ecosystem that driving Jungle Rot to extinction would have, the policy of destroying Jungle Rot colonies is very unlikely to result in the total extinction of this persistent organism and so it remains both legal and encouraged.