Rhomopelta

## Rhomopelta albus

Latest Mutations: Heart, Shield, Lose Pigmentation

This is a cylindrical animal that lives in tunnels carved into rock by acid. It sticks to the end of the rock with a sticky pad and lives it's life there, filtering passing food with cirri. It has lost it's swim bladder as a result of it's stationary lifestyle. Breeding all at once during Late Spring helps to overcome the difficulties of not being able to approach mates. It lives between 500 to 1500m deep below the surface.

Status: Unlisted

Habitat: Deep Ocean (500 - 1500m deep)

Niche: Sessile Filter-Feeder

Diet: Any fresh meat it can get.

Size: 10cm (length - cirri to end)

Nutritional Need: 95 x 10/100 = 13.5NP

Food / Oxygen Requirement: 13.5 x 0.25 = 3.4NP per round (Needs to intake 3.4/0.6 = 5.7NP per round) / 13.5NP

Abilities: Anti-Freeze. Circulation, Small-Body. Excretion, Liquid. Excretion, Solid. Exothermic. Foul Taste. Osmoconformer (Quite High Salinity). Permeable Skin. Pressure Tolerance, High. Subzero Metabolism. Toxin.

Perception: Chemoreception 0.5.

Stats: Coordination 2. Dexterity 0.5. Digestion 0.5. (100% Meat, 65%). Filtration 2. Immunity 1. Respiration 1 (Cutaneous Respiration). Stamina 3.5. Strength 0.5. Support 0.5. Toughness 1. Tunnelling 0.5. Viscosity 1. Walk Speed 0.5.

Intelligence / Behaviour: 1. Hungry > Wait for food. 2. Food > Filter with cirri. 3. Tired > Rest. 4. Pain > Retreat into burrow. 5. Maturity and Early Spring > Reproduce.

External Features: The cylindrical body begins with a shield, then a mouth on a proboscis, surrounded by long cirri and chemoreceptors. At the other end of the body is an acid-producing gland and a holdfast.

Internal Features: Each cell contains lysozymes and piezolytes. A gland on the skin secretes a foul fluid and a neurotoxin. The body has a hemacoel in the centre of a hydrostatic skeleton and a few small blood vessels from the gills and the protonephridium. There is a heart. The blood is blue-green because it contains hemocyanin as well as an anti-freeze xylomannan fatty acid and polysaccharide. On the lower half of the body are gonads. Ganglia in the head lead into a dual dorsal nerve cord that has many nerves branching off.

Reproduction: Sexual. External Fertilisation. 1,000 eggs per spawning. Budding.

Castes/Phases: None.

Locomotion: Sessile (0NP).

External Features: Skin (5NP, +0.5 Immunity, +1 Respiration, +0.5 Stamina, +Cutaneous Respiration, +Permeable Skin). Mouth (0NP, +1 Filtration). Long Cirri (5NP, +1 Filtration, +0.5 Dexterity). Chemoreceptors (2.5NP, +0.5 Chemoreception). Acid Gland (5NP). Holdfast (5NP, +1 Viscosity). Shield (5NP, +1 Toughness).

Internal Features: Lysozymes (2.5NP, +Subzero Metabolism). Piezolytes (2.5NP, +Low Pressure Tolerance). Foul Fluid Gland (5NP, +Foul Taste). Toxin Gland (5NP, +Toxin). Hydrostatic Skeleton (10NP, +0.5 Tunnelling, +0.5 Walk Speed, +0.5 Support, +0.5 Strength). Open Circulatory System (10NP, +2 Stamina, +Small-Body Circulation). Anti-Freeze Compound (2.5NP, +Anti-Freeze). Nephridium (5NP, +Liquid Excretion). Monogastric Digestive System (10NP, +0.5 Meat Digestion, +0.5 Veg Digestion, +0.5 Immunity, +Solid Excretion). Gonads (5NP, +Sexual Reproduction, +Sexes, +External Fertilisation. Centralised Nervous System (10NP, +2 Coordination). Heart (5NP, +1 Stamina).

Temporal Range: R.273 - Present (Samadaran Stage of the Oliverian)

Distribution: Cosmopolitan

Lifespan: 4 years

Predecessor: Neoxyskulus enlavis

Classification: Oxyskulusinae (sf), Entaopsidae (f)

Discoverer: StealthStyle