Congregentur Carnis

## Harvester

**Congregentur Carnis** (Latin for; ***Gather the Flesh***), more commonly known as the **Harvester,** is the 5th member of the Carnis family and the 4th product of the crawl (and the only one that doesn't detach from it as a node). It is also the 2nd hostile species of the Carnis family. The Harvester is found in sparse areas of the northern hemisphere, typically in woodland forests.

### Physical characteristics

The harvester is a bulbous plant-like Carnis specimen that has tendrils shallow into the ground and surrounding the center bulb. The bulb measures about 3 meters in height and 2 in diameter and the tendrils can extend up to 150 meters in diameter. The Harvester has a darker red colour compared to other species in the Carnis family.

#### Types of tendrils

The Harvester is equipped with two different types of tendrils:

* The first type of tendril is bulky and flat, they lie the closest to the surface and are equipped with spines that resemble the shape of a bear trap. These spines have veins that pump into them two types of venom, one to each side, one side injects a neurotoxin that attacks the nervous system, causing sudden paralysis. The other side can inject an anticoagulant, that prevents blood cells from clotting.
* The second type of tendril shares similar anatomy to the small branches from The Crawl, as they are equipped with organelle that can be used to absorb nutrients, these tendrils can sense blood from prey and move towards it in order to absorb it.

### Life cycle

Harvesters are created when a node from the Crawl instead of detaching from the mother branch begins to grow larger and growing its own tendrils, the energy The Harvester uses to extend its tendrils is directly provided by the mother branch.

The harvester can be neutralised by simply killing the exposed main bulb, incapacitating the tendrils.

### Behaviours

The Harvester displays many intelligent behaviours unseen with other plants.

* When the Harvester drags a target into the ground, it will always leave the remains to be absorbed into nutrients for the soil as to boost plant growth, this can attract other organisms
* The Harvester is incredibly energy efficient, often assessing possible targets to figure out whether going in for the attack is worth it. This is shown through the types of animals the harvester consumes, it will always go after large animals and leave smaller animals alone. This is because the energy required to attack smaller targets (such as hares, some types of birds) is not equal or greater than the energy gained. This allows for smaller animals to thrive around the Harvesters radius while also attracting larger organisms toward it.

#### Attack behaviours

When a prey (usually large animal such as a wolf, a bear, or the occasional human) approaches the range of the Harvester, the Harvester will eject its neurotoxin tendrils into the prey, making them unable to escape because of the paralysis and making them eventually bleed out because of the anticoagulant and the violent thrashing of the tendrils.

After the prey bleeds out the second type of tendril absorbs the blood and then wrap around the body of the victim, shuffling it downwards, until eventually pulling it underground, the prey's flesh will begin to melt off and get digested underground, until there's nothing but scraps left. Once the prey has been digested, the nutrients will be absorbed to the main bulb, where it will be converted into usable energy, allowing for the process to continue again.

[content warning] SPECIES ANOMALY REPORT goes into a more gruesome audio description of a Harvester attack.